 Good morning, everyone. Last night, I received a letter from Chief Brandon Del Pozo offering his immediate resignation from the Burlington Police Department. With great sadness, I have accepted his decision. While I believe that Chief Del Pozo has been truly an outstanding chief, and while it was clear to me that despite his mistakes, he continued to have considerable support within the city council, the police department, the police commission, and the community. It was also clear that if you continue to serve the days ahead, it would be very challenging for him, his family, the department of the city. I pointed Brandon Del Pozo to be our chief four years ago in the wake of terrible police incidents in Ferguson, Baltimore, and elsewhere. From the moment that I first read his application, I believed him to be exactly the right person to lead the police in this progressive city in a very challenging moment in American law enforcement. And he was. Chief Del Pozo's time in Burlington should be understood and remembered as a period of remarkable progress and innovation. His letter of resignation summarized some of what we got done on his watch. And here I'm quoting from his letter. We are able to fight the opioid crisis as well or better than any other city in the nation, reducing overdose deaths by half in 2018, and sustaining that into 2019. Our methods have become a national model for saving lives. We closed the gap in racial disparities on our roadways in many ways and came to acutely understand the reasons for others. Our innovations in the use of force and de-escalation were literally the nation's pilot, and they will endure. End quote. The department achieved all this and more while never losing focus on reducing crime and upholding justice. Again, from his letter. We lowered violent crime, making the city as safe as ever. Our detectives solved countless difficult cases from hate crimes to sex assaults, giving justice and hope to our city's victims. End quote. Chief Del Pozo was an excellent communicator with the public, and he understood the very substantial pressures and risks faced by the women and men who wear police uniform and serve as guardians of this community. It was an honor and a privilege to serve with Chief Del Pozo, and we wish him well in all his future endeavors. I will miss him greatly, and I believe Burlington will as well. We're fortunate, however, to have an excellent police department that is much stronger than any one person. I've asked Deputy Chief Jan Wright to serve once again as acting chief, and she's agreed to do so. I'm thankful for that. I will have more to share about the appointment of a permanent chief in the days to come. I'm committed to doing everything I can to help the acting chief and ultimately the new chief to move past this unfortunate chapter, and to continue doing the excellent public safety work we expect from the Burlington Police Department. Finally, I want to say to the men and women of the Burlington Police Department, thank you for your brave and steady service. I will do everything I can to support you through this challenging time and important transition. As soon as we're done here, we will post Chief Del Pozo's resignation letter online and you can get copies of it from Olivia. The chief has made it clear that he intends this letter to be his final word on the events that have happened and that he does not intend to respond to further media inquiries at this time. I would ask everyone's understanding that this is a very challenging time for the chief and his family and that you consider respect in those wishes. With that, I'd be happy to answer some questions. Mayor, why wasn't the city council or the police commission informed back in July when Chief Del Pozo took his leave perhaps? It seems like that could have at least gotten ahead of a lot of us. Yeah, thanks for the question, Ryan. As I hope my statement on Friday and statements to Seven Days made clear upon my learning, the chief self-reported to me back on July 28th, what happened. And immediately upon going to work the next morning, took a series of decisive actions, launched an investigation. That investigation led by the city attorney who's here and I'm gonna let her speak to you a little bit about our thinking in a moment, but led by the city attorney and our HR director very quickly found that based on the determination of two medical professionals that the chief's actions had been impacted by a medical condition, by a mental health condition. From that point on, we made the decision to treat the chief like we would any other city employee, which is to say that we attempted to protect his medical privacy. That's an important value that we hold in this community and that we hold as the city policy. I know it's a value that is often unsatisfying to the media and to the public because it protects employee privacy at the expense of transparency. This incident was different than the many other times where we have medical privacy issues within the city when we have personnel issues because I was clear with the chief and I was clear with my entire team that because of the chief's actions and because of the chief's position, there was a limit to that privacy and that I would not be able to protect that privacy when asked directly about the tweets in question. We are, the recent days have unfolded as they have because seven days last week for the first time asked me directly about those tweets and I gave the full accounting that's now before you. Is that the only reason why you even mentioned it, even why we're sitting here right now? The way we chose to handle it, Liam, was again to treat the chief as we would really any other employee that we believed and had medical verification was suffering from a medical disorder, a mental health disorder that had impacted his actions and that meant that, yes, we were intended to continue to not answer questions that were about the medical leave and his health. So you never would have- But I was clear from the beginning, I gave Courtney last week the same answer I would have given at any point in this process had I been asked about the tweets in particular. So I think this would be a good point. I'd like to bring, I'm gonna stay here and answer as many questions there are, but I would like, because I think we're quickly at trying to understand my reasoning and the advice that I was getting and I'd like to actually ask the city attorney to, I will come back here to be clear. But what was your reasoning for lying to the people, to the public? I reject categorically the idea that that characterization might be. Okay, misrepresentation, Fib, whatever. I reject that completely and that's not a fair character. Your own notice says- That's not a fair character. His badge, his gun, his cell phone. When somebody goes out and is having a baby, do you take their gun badge and everything? You took more than a typical family leave. You know. Can you clarify when it's- Could he answer his question first? Can he answer that first question and then you can go back. I'm not sure what the answer was, what the question was and that might, I think- I'll add to that a miscalculation of the way I handled it. If you're asking for the timing of events, you know, the timing that I'm clear on Courtney is the chief came to see me at about 5 p.m. on Sunday the 28th of July. I thought about what he had said to me throughout that evening and went in the next morning and immediately, first order of business convened a meeting with the city attorney and with our HR director and we launched an investigation. My recollection is that we determined at that initial meeting that the chief needed to be immediately put on leave and I believe he was done so that morning. Certainly that day and that we asked him to turn in the equipment that I've listed at that time. When did it become an FMLA? So, somewhere between that meeting and when the announcement was made that he was on FMLA, I would have to go back and check the precise records on exactly where that was. I think the point is maybe the point that you're driving at is from that moment on, there was an open investigation and we do not, as a practice, take decisive final steps with respect to discipline or other steps until the investigation is complete. I actually think this is maybe a good point for the city attorney to talk about the framework that we use that she advised me on with respect to communications to the council, to the commission. Eileen. Thank you. In relation to what the mayor has just said, the mayor is in charge of, he appoints department heads, he is in charge of the personnel in the city and we treated this as we would treat any other personnel matter within the city and that is that the individual was immediately placed on administrative leave, that's why his gun and badge, et cetera, were taken because he was placed immediately on administrative leave while we looked into to understand the extent of what had occurred. The next phase was that fairly soon thereafter and I don't know the exact date when he went on FMLA, we received medical information indicating that the incident was connected to a medical condition. Once we get that information, then we wait to see what does the medical information tell us over time as to whether or when the individual is fit to return to work and that was the process that we went through and during that period of time it would not be usual for us to involve volunteer commissions or the city council in a personnel matter. For the community in which the person he harassed was also a worker in that same setting and the online harassment is a form of bullying and very concerning to a number of members of our community. Was there any thought by city leadership at all to repair the damage to that individual who was probably very intimidated by being harassed online by the chief of police and didn't have the knowledge that the chief of police had had his gun removed which might have actually relieved some of his concern for his own safety? I'm unclear whether your question is addressing some new incident or the one in question here. I'll say this. We have received a number of complaints over time and in recent days about the chief's conduct and have had investigations on certainly everything that has been raised in recent days have not confirmed that any of these other concerns that have been raised were accurate. Before we let Dylene sit back down, I sense there were maybe some more questions about what she laid out there with respect to how our charter works, how our city policies work, how the relationship between the mayor's office with respect to employee issues works with city council members and with the commission. So if there are more questions on that area before, we've got, I think this is a good time to ask them while I mean this up here. Certainly, it does appear that there was a period where the chief was on administrative leave but it had not yet become a family situation. So, Mayor, you were indicating that this was handled in accordance with past practices but we have, hasn't the city in fact released in the past instances where officers were on administrative leave? If the administrative leave had continued for some period of time, there probably would have been a decision but fairly quickly we were aware that there was either, that there was some medical involvement or the possibility of medical involvement. As soon as we know that, we have to start looking at medical privacy issues and that's what occurred here. But the portion when he was on administrative leave should have been a public record? Again, if I correct me from wrong here, but there was an open investigation and I do not believe it would be customary for the city to release information about individuals, about their disciplinary action until we've completed the investigation. These investigations frequently take unexpected twists and turns. One of the principles of these investigations is that you suspend judgment until you have all the information. And I'm glad we did it that way because when we had all the information, we knew that his actions were implicated by what two doctors felt at least was a medical condition or a mental health condition. And I think that principle of waiting until the information is fully known before taking action is one that I think is a good practice for city officials to follow. So could you answer the question though? There was a period of time when he was on administrative leave, you took his badge, you took his gun, you took his cell phone, you told him take it off social media. That wasn't a family leave thing. So there was a period when you would put them on administrative leave, which other times police officers rank and file get put on administrative leave and you say they're on administrative leave. So what makes the chief so special in this case? During that one, whatever it was, six hours, 24 hours, whatever. I understand your question. It was a brief period. It was a period, I think I would have to go back and review all the past. I'm not sure I accept your suggestion that we have treated other officials differently. I certainly don't think we would release information about any officer and the mistakes they had made until we fully understood the situation and understood all the relevant facts. I don't think that is the city's practice. So when you have a shooting and you put them on administrative leave, you give that out? It's certainly, well, okay. I think there's a fair point here, Mike. I think this is a fair point. When there are times where the city doesn't have the luxury of completing the investigation before there needs to be some kind of public response. And you were right that in those situations, when it is clear that the actions, because of the events that are widely known, when it is clear that there is an issue that has to do with a certain officer and that we need to make clear to the public that we are doing something, that is a time when we use administrative leave to sort of pause things and we let people know about that until we figure it out. This was not one of those situations. What do you have to say to the people of Burlington saying that you took his gun, you took his badge, you knew he lied? So moving forward, for you, what do you have to say to the people of Burlington? Sure, I think, well, we may need you to answer that. Listen, I think the people of Burlington have put me in this office three times because they know that the mayor's office is a challenging job where often the mayor's job is to balance different competing interests and to take thoughtful actions. Every step of the way here, I was informed by the professionals advising me. I was informed by the law. I was informed by a desire to do right by part of the city team, by a member of the city team. And I took actions that were informed by compassion. Certainly, I'm aware others may have a different opinion about how I should have handled this challenging situation and this set of facts. I've gotten a lot of feedback from people of Burlington that they appreciate the deliberate approach that I took to this and the reasons I did what I did. I mean, you don't think that the city council or the police commission, even an executive, should have had some inkling about what was going on considering the chief's job, public safety, that's a big, I understand that, you know, there's a protocol for a normal route of the city employee, but he's in a position that's particularly important. At least we've had no ideas of what's going on. Again, as the city attorney has stated, it is one of the few areas of city action where it is really the responsibility of the mayor to handle personnel decisions as the mayor sees fit. And there certainly are situations where a notice to those other bodies would be appropriate. We did not feel at any point in this process that we reached that point until recent days. Mayor, in the initial comments from you and from the chief, acknowledging that this had happened, and so there seemed to be the idea that he was sorry and intended to continue in his role. What changed? Well, Matt, I, as I think I've communicated a number of ways. I was very troubled by what the chief did that last July, but ultimately decided in September to reinstate him and to give him a second chance. And I decided to give him a second chance for a number of reasons that I've laid out. I thought the fact that he had self-reported the actions was significant. I thought the fact that he had, that the time of the infraction, if you will, and the amount of time that these tweets had been public was less than an hour, was brief, was an issue. The fact clearly that we had medical professionals saying his actions were impacted by his medical condition, the fact he had taken steps to address that medical condition. The broader context of the chief service, which again, I think has otherwise been extraordinary, and the general principle that I try to guide myself with, which when employees come forward to admit mistakes, if it's possible, and it isn't always possible for a variety of reasons, but when possible, I think the right thing to do is give people a second chance. And I did say to Courtney last week that I stood by that decision in September and it was always very clear to me that there was a good chance that this reckoning was coming because of the limits of, because I would answer directly the questions that Courtney asked me was we made the decision to give the chief a second chance understanding there was likely at some point that there was gonna be full scrutiny and evaluation of his actions. And I stand by that decision. I think it was the right decision to give him the second chance. And my sense in recent days over the weekend is that many, many people in this community were more than happy to give him that second chance. Thought that was the right thing and would have supported him going forward. However, it was also clear, and this wasn't clear last Thursday, it was also clear that that was not a universal feeling and that the days ahead were gonna be challenging. There were gonna be calls for his resignation. There was gonna be ongoing questioning of his conduct and he ultimately decided that he didn't wanna go through that. That he didn't wanna put his family through that. He didn't wanna put this department through that and he didn't wanna put the city through that. And that's what changed between now and last Thursday as the chief reached that conclusion. Last evening and while, again, very sad, accepted that conclusion. So you didn't ask, did you ask for his resignation? I did not ask for his resignation. We had, again, a long conversation where I made it clear to him basically what I just said that I believed he had considerable support and there was a way forward but it would be a very painful route forward. It would be one that she would face ongoing scrutiny and questioning. And I wanna be clear, so you would not have come out and said anything about this incident unless someone asked you about it and then you wouldn't have lied about it but you weren't gonna just come up and come clean about this anyway. Liam, you know, I'm being as clear about this as I can. The decision we made was that what we owed the chief like we owe other city employees is that we were going to attempt to protect his medical privacy, particularly given that this was a mental health condition, particularly given the stigma that attaches to mental health especially in the public safety realm. We... I'm cognizant of all that. I think there was a new point, let me just finish your question and I'll give you another question. The, although I may have less, just lost the thread there. There are ways to talk about these things and to come to an agreement about medical privacy and issues that directly affect the public. I mean, the mayor, the chief lied to a reporter about doing this and he's in a position of power heckling a critic and these are all things that as the chief of the police force in the largest city in the state, there should be some accounting for that. Yeah, listen, if I was aware of the misstatement to Courtney and the fact that that was out there on corrected weight on me, ultimately we decided that there was no way to correct that or otherwise raise the issue without immediately bringing us into this realm of protected information that we were attempting to protect the chief from. That's the way we made the decision and that's why we are where we are now. I'm curious if you listened to the audio of the interview with him. I'm curious if that changed your view of the situation at all because I think you just said that he made a misstatement when I first spoke with him in July, but it was really more than a dozen times that he denied his involvement with it. I'm curious if that changed your view of things at all. I did listen to the tape recording and I was surprised by it the way it went, the way in which he handled that went beyond my understanding of it, as well as the understanding of other people who had been involved in the investigation. So he wasn't honest with you when he told you about the conversation with Courtney? When you said it wasn't your understanding. Yeah, I think it's fair to say that he soft-pedaled. He what? I think he understated the grade to which the way that conversation went. So you lie. What benefits is the chief still entitled to? Is his relationship over with the city or is he still getting health benefits or is his paycheck still coming? You wanna speak to that? He has, well, the mayor has just received his resignation yesterday. Like any other city employee that people have accrued. This is a resignation. He has some accrued benefits that he'll be entitled to. I don't know the extent of those. We haven't looked into that yet. So there will be a period of time that he's entitled to benefits. It would be the same as any other city employee who resigned. But had he been fired, he would not be entitled to any benefits? No, there isn't really a, trying to think if there's any distinction between firing and resignation as far as that goes and nothing's coming to mind. The city doesn't have a penalty clauses that say if you're fired, you lose benefits or anything like that in our policies. He's gonna give anything additional, any going away severance package or anything like that to not that he's gonna be able to land a job right away, other than. We're gonna pan what he's owed for his employment agreement with us as the city attorney just said, and that's what we'll be paying him. Mr. Mayor, this question's for you and for Deputy Chief Murad. I'm just curious, have you ever seen major behavior like this before from Chief Del Poso? Impulsive, anything of that sort in this time in Burlington? I guess, I'll say this, the, we were of course aware of the very serious accident that the Chief had in the summer of 2018. And we were aware that there was very serious injuries to his head. I think all of us were watching him after that and hoping he would be the same person that he had been previously. And I think I found from the first day after the accident when I visited the hospital, that when I interacted with him, I found him to be the same person and to, I did not witness anything that I would characterize as impulsiveness or behavior that would anything like what happened on the Fourth of July last year. Whether, I can't speak for others. I don't know, Deputy Chief, do you wanna add anything? No, I did not. You took the stance of deciding to reveal to the public about this when the media asked you a question about it. Is that a policy that stands to take on other issues in the past? Is there anything else going on now that the same kind of part of it that you know, on media? Yeah, fair question, Aiden. And no, this was an exceptional situation. I would hope, listen, I ran for office on a platform of public trust on a pro transparency platform. We have always tried to conduct our business conscious of that commitment and some in the room have even complimented this administration in relative to some of our peers on the degree to which we go to really try to make good on that principle of transparency and be as fulsome as possible in our responses to public reference requests and it's very accessible to the media. I hope we've lived up to that in a lot of ways. This was an exceptional situation and I can't think of another situation really comparable to it in any way. That's just a fair question. What's the status of the investigation into the associated claims that the chief may have abused his role as a board member of the hard center to attempt to get it discritified? You want to speak to that, Aiden? Yes, we have not announced this in any way so I'm telling you for the first time but my office has looked into that and we found that the allegation was that we were aware of was that the chief contacted the CEO of the Howard Center and complained about Charles Winkleman and we found that that was not true, that somebody else did contact it and made that complaint. Who was that person? And that person was Sonny Prevetto. He is a consultant with the Burlington Police Department and he was concerned about things that Mr. Winkleman said about him on Mr. Winkleman's blog. The Burlington Police Department faces a number of pending lawsuits and the chief is potentially, I would imagine, a witness in some ways. Is the fact that he's admitted to being less than honest a concern in terms of how is this a quick going to create legal problems for the city in these suits? I think there may well have been attempts to use this incident against the city in future lawsuits, that he continued on, that is one of the things I think may have, could possibly have, one of the things that the chief and I both identified is why the road ahead, if he attempted to stay on, would be challenging. Mayor, did you say that we've already been, have things brought forward, has this already been threatened with it? That's not what I said. I said that we anticipated that exactly that concern could well surface in the days ahead that would be, that was one of the things the chief and I talked about last night in understanding that the road ahead, if he stayed on, may well be very challenging. Are there any other decisions that the chief made between the time that he came back from leave after his crash and now that were reviewed or are currently under review? Beth, I'm not sure I understand your question. Can you say that again? Are there any decisions that the chief made between the time that he came back from leave when he was in a bicycle crash and now other than the Twitter thing that have been reviewed or are currently under review? I don't think I can think of anything, but so certainly not some kind of like formal investigation. If there's something more specific behind what you're asking. I'm just wondering if there were any concerns about the other decisions that he made during this time when he was infected by mental illness? No, I don't think anything that would rise to that level that we were considering reviewing the decision over the term or going in a different direction. What about the case of the hospital that is handling of that? I mean, that certainly was botched. He covered up the fact that one of the Boroncom police officers put a guy in the hospital and he proudly said, we'll never put out a press release when we put people in the hospital. How about that one? I'm not familiar with the quote you're saying. I listen, I think we've been through an extensive conference call with me on that. I can't speak to exactly that quote, Mike. What I can say is I think there has been extensive review of both the chief and my actions during that incident. I'm not sure today is the day to relitigate that. I continue to be confident that everything that the chief and I did was at the, again, in consultation at the advice of the city attorney and I think was appropriate. We followed the appropriate chain of command for the concerns that we had. I don't put that incident in this category. Do you have any regrets about the way I handle, I've handled this incident with the chief. You know, I thought a lot about that, and I'd say at this point I think it was a very challenging set of decisions that I've had to make throughout this. I'll leave it to others to second-guess and critique. Where they think I could have done better. I guess I do just hope is that process plays out that the people of Burlington know that, again, the principles that I was trying to stick to through this process involved following the law, following the city practice, following this notion that our city employees deserve some level of privacy protection when health matters come up and desire to be compassionate and a desire to not too quickly conclude that this man who had performed outstanding public service in a variety of capacities for a long period of time not wanting to too quickly come to conclusion that he cannot continue to serve the people of Burlington. I, it's been a very hard, hard issue for me from the day it started, but I hope people will see that I acted with integrity and did the best I could through a challenging time. Do you think Charles Wilkerman had a right to know five months ago who was coming after him? He certainly expressed that he was trying to. On behalf of the city, because I don't think it's been said yet, on behalf of the city, I do apologize to Charles Wilkerman for what happened. I don't think there was any way for him to get that apology and to raise with him in the same way that I did not see there being a way to correct the record without immediately going into this area of information that we were trying to protect the chief from by the same token. I don't think there was a way to address that with Charles until now. Personally, are you just gonna let the media tell him that there's an apology out there? I've visited with Charles a number of times in the past. Those conversations have not always been productive. If he wanted to meet again, I'd be happy to know with him. Jay, for however long you serve as acting chief, how will you work to rebuild some trust with the community that this department serves? Well, I can tell you that there's a number of initiatives that Chief Del Pozo started in this agency and they work and will continue with those initiatives. I will work as best as I can with my employees here to try and build trust again. That's an issue that we need to work out within our walls and we'll do the very best that we can to work with members of the public. What are some of those initiatives you said that Chief Del Pozo was behind that you see us working? The mayor mentioned a number of those things and that was with community stat, with sub-stat, with our ERV, and our emergency response vehicle, and the initiatives that we've taken with training and having officers available for that. The list goes on and on and I can tell you that Chief Del Pozo has made us all think in different ways than we ever had before and I'm appreciative of him for that. Is there any collision between Mr. Roberto and Mr. Del Pozo? We did not find any. Mr. Mayor, do you have a bogus Twitter account or have you ever had one to silence your critics and or have you ever had one on your behalf by some of your staff? No. Have we thought about having one? I mean, listen, I think it's sort of a joking question but I think there's a, I've never seriously thought about having one but I do think there is a serious conversation to be had here as the state's attorney has suggested about how we treat each other online. Some of the things that are said about public officials are very cruel and it's, I certainly understand the impulse to want to hit back in some way when you're attacked. I have never done that in the way that you're asking and I hope this incident makes clear that that is not what we expect from city officials but I do think that the issue of how we treat each other or how we stay civil is an important one and to that point I must say I was really quite surprised by the tweet that the progressive party put out earlier today after I told them, I told them last night that the chief was resigning they still felt they'll need to pile on this morning and call for his resignation. I think that was particularly cruel and I hope they'll consider withdrawing that and acknowledging that that was uncalled for. We have a draft social media policy that is essentially the policy of the city. It's going through city council review and public employee review. It is something that has been pointed out has been in evolution for a long time. This is a period, this is something that we've all been trying to figure out what's the best way, what is the right way for city employees to communicate on social media in their private life and their public life. It's an area that's involved quite considerably in the time, the years that I've been in this office. We do have a draft policy that we're functioning under currently and my hope is that that's finalized shortly. The question for acting chief Wright. Is the message now business as usual from Burlington Police? I'm sorry, what was your question? Is the message now business as usual from Burlington Police? Moving forward. Well, we still have to do our jobs and we still have to be out there every single day and through all this, our police officers have done that every single day with great success. So yes, we'll continue to do that. Curious if either the deputy chiefs knew about the Twitter account? I do not remember exactly when the deputy chiefs were brought in from the bottom. When did they learn each of you? John? I don't recall the exact date. Roughly. I don't recall the exact date. That's not the question. Roughly. I didn't ask for an exact date. Did you learn last July, August, September, October? Take a month. We learned in July when the investigation was happening. That he had misrepresented or lied to the court. In our excuse me to the Courtney. I knew that he had lied to Courtney. That was part of the reasoning for him to go to the mayor. Okay. Thank you all for being here this morning. Quickly, you mentioned the next steps. I mean, when are you gonna be talking more about that plump permit? Liam, you know, this has been a really fluid situation and again, it wasn't until last night that it was clear to me this is that we were gonna be looking for a new chief today. So I have not figured out exactly what the process from here looks like as soon as obviously that will now become a front of mind, front burner issue. And I'll give you updates on that as soon as I have a plan. And aside from the social media policy, are there any other citywide policies that you're calling like changes to your reforms based on this incident right now? Including disclosure? Yeah, yeah. No, I think. Right, right. I was looking at that for these situations, exactly. I've had conversations in recent days. I see Michelle Ash here, who's the chair of our police commission. She and I have had some preliminary conversations that I think we should all use what happened here as an opportunity to review the way we conduct our business. It may be that we should write down some new guidelines or protocols for how the mayor interacts with commissions or the council in situate comparable future situations. I'm open to that possibility that we could all benefit from some additional guidance and that I wouldn't have to just figure it out like I did here in some comparable future situation. I think I would say I will guard the responsibilities and the authority of this office in such a review. I think it's very important that the mayor have the clear responsibility of managing department heads. I don't think it's something that can be beyond the ways that we do easily shared. I think it's quite appropriate that we reappoint our department heads on an annual basis. I think beyond that supervision direction is really hard to give as a committee. I don't think we should move towards that, but it's certainly possible that I'm open to conversations with my colleagues that maybe we should look at some additional steps and situations like this. Have you thought of any self discipline for yourself in the mishandling of it? Mike, again, I'm at peace with the decisions I made. I think I made, took every step conscious of the competing interests before us. I took every step trying to do what was best for the city, for the department, for a member of my team. I hope the public sees that I acted with integrity and making some challenging choices. I don't, at this point, have, see what I would have, or should have done differently going back to last July. I'm sure that's a point that will be debated by others. I will remain open minded. I hope in our conversation today, I've shed some more light on why I did what I did. And I hope people see in that decision-making consistent with the reason why they put me in this office three times. Thank you all. And I say again to the people of Burlington, to this department, that I'm committed to offering all the support and help I can as the Burlington Police Department goes through this transition. Thank you all.