 Um, I'm calling this meeting to order. Uh, looks like we have a quorum and all commissioners present minus commissioner garrison. And that was on to additions and modifications to the agenda. Um, I have two to make the first one. Being, um, agenda item. Where is it 5.1 policy updates? Um, originally I was actually, I meant to have an on here, but I can actually want to roll that into commission goals for upcoming year because that stuff, it all ties together. Um, so that is my that's my first modification and that is to move 5.01 into 5.03 upcoming goals. Do I have a second. All right. Third Stephanie's voice first. Any questions or comments about this? All right, all in favor of rolling 5.01 and a 5.03 please raise your hand to say hi. Hi. And Jack is, uh, Is that a yay or a nay for that? Yay. And apologies. I'm, I'm working on a new laptop and I don't have my videos sorted out and I do apologize. Quite all right. No worries. Thank you for the update. All right. That passes unanimously. Okay. My second modification. Sorry. Do you have a question? No, no, go ahead. Um, and my second modification. Oh, go ahead. My second modification I wanted to make to the agenda under commission actions under 2.02 is the election of chairs. Um, I, it is my hope to move that into our next meeting, um, tabling that for our next meeting and I sent on the email to all the commissioners a little while ago, and I just want to say this publicly that my reason for this is that while we only do need a quorum to vote on this is because I have a binding. I, I do feel strongly that in terms of leadership for the commission, I do. I would like all of us to be here and make that makes that choice, what we're all in all together. Um, and had this meeting at court last week, we all would have been here so I wouldn't have been an issue but Kevin is unable to be here with us tonight and I would. I would like you would like I would like him present. Um, I would like us all present to make that decision. And so that is my rationale behind tabling the other that the chair so next week. Sorry to our next meeting which is on the 23rd of August. I second seconded by Stephanie I heard the voice first. Any questions or comments. Hi Susie. I have a commenters would say that in the event that someone is absent next time. I think we should still vote. Because this could go on, you know, for some time. I think so I think it's good to, you know, sort of push it up one month. But we could have if someone missing the next month and I think if that happens then we have to get a proxy or something so we can get started in a new new season. I don't hear that. Any, any other questions or comments with regard to this. All right. All those in favor of tabling the election of the chairs to our next scheduled meeting which is on the 23rd of August. Please raise your hand or say I. Hi. Hi. I'm sorry, I missed it. Did you raise your hand or say hi. Hi. Thank you for that passing unanimously. And that is it for my additional modifications to the agenda. Anybody else has anything they want to add or modify. I just wanted to do a quick official. Welcome to our newest police commissioner, Jackie. Thank you. I second that welcome Jack. Thank you all. And again, apologies. I don't have the video on them. I'm trying to fix it as we move along. So thank you for your patience. And thank you for the welcome. Absolutely. All right, then, then I motion to now and I'm sorry Shannon. Sorry, I apologize. CSL waging if is there any possibility that she we can move her up she maybe after the chiefs report. She also she she was available earlier than expected and I just didn't know if that's something she can do we can move her back up in the agenda or not. I have no, I've no objections to that. Anybody have any objections to that. All right, then, then I motion to have CSL wagerling present on after the chiefs report to have a second. I'll get Susie's hand first. Sorry, I'll get you on these days. Seconded by Susie. Any questions or comments. I'm not seeing or hearing any all in favor of hearing CSL wagerling presentation after the chiefs report raise your hand or say hi. Hi. Hi. That passes unanimously. And the last motion, I moved to a job of the now amended agenda grab a second. Second. Seconded by Mila. Any questions or comments. Not here at steering all in favor. We're going to say hi. Hi. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. That passes unanimously. And moving on to agenda item 2.01. New commission clerk introduction was that. The floor is yours. Thank you all. We are very excited for me to introduce Mohammed. As your new commission clerk. He was, you know, right there for it was very accommodating. And so I'm really happy that him and I are getting a chance to sit down and to show him the ropes. You know, it will take some patience and some learning. And I've let Mohammed know I'm here for him, whatever he needs. Do you want to say anything? Well, everyone. Welcome, Mohammed. Very happy to have you a part of us. Thank you so much. Thank you. And if you survive last week, then you'll be good to go. Awesome. But yeah, just anything else you want to say. Now's your chance. Where you're at, like in the city, what you, where you're at here in the city. So, so I was just hired in this. In July. My position is commission and licensing assistant. I do have with the licensing and have my job with the commission. So I, I'm looking forward to just meet with, with you and see what. Expectations from me and. I think we're meeting tomorrow. So that's the commission. Yeah, she's a ball one. Yeah. Awesome. Well, we look forward to working with you again. You know, you better all these next several months. Welcome aboard. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome. And moving on to the next mission actions, which is approval of the minutes. And I did see an email. And I did see an email. And I did see that people might have, might have had some trouble accessing the minutes on board docs. I know there was a little snafu. I didn't, I didn't have that problem. But if. But if people were able to see the minutes, unfortunately tables again, I'd be happy to copy the minutes that I did see posted in four of them to you. Just so we can have them on board. Cause I don't know why this is happening. I don't know if I could speak on that for a moment because I had. Copy during the email that I had sent to Shannon earlier, and we kind of had this issue last month where we could see some, but we couldn't see the others. So on the board docs, so we actually have a log in. Yep. And we log in. They were there. But they weren't on the public side. So I actually almost never, ever, ever logged in. And the only reason I logged in was because Shannon said, Hey, they're there. And I was like, huh, where could she be looking where she's seeing the link? So I went and I logged in. And then later in the day, three of them popped up on the public side. So you could click on them and they had the link to view the minutes. But the fourth one wasn't there. And then, so there seems to be some kind of delay. I don't know if the fourth one was there or if, if Shannon, you'd reach out to board docs and maybe they were pushing things through. I'm not exactly sure how all that works. It's not an issue that we've ever had before. I think last month was kind of the first time it was, it was funky. And then it, it just wasn't, so I don't know, like, once it's put in board docs where we log in, what the process is or how it disseminates through the system to get on the board docs that the public has access to without a login. So I, we just mentioned that. Thank you. Yeah. So yeah, not quite sure how to move on with this. Seeing how we had access to some of them with the public didn't, I don't know if you can technically vote on that. If not. So what, sorry, chair Dimash, I did have a colleague that doesn't have access to board docs and they can see them. So I don't, I don't necessarily, and they don't have a login. So I don't necessarily know it sounds like this is a super big glitch. I hadn't reached out to board docs today. I had before and maybe that's why those ones from the previous meeting showed and then not now June is apparently not showing. I, you know, it's up to the commission how they want to move forward, but I will be sending a help ticket to board docs to see what is going on. And when did your colleague take a look? Was she looking today? Yes, right after I'd received your email commissioner grant. Okay. I don't, I, I don't know. I mean, I, I've never had these issues before. So I just don't know. And they weren't there. And then they were there later, like when, later in my work day, when I took another quick look. Yeah. And so, and I see on, on, I took a snapshot. I can see Junes. And I don't know, you know, if anybody else on the commission is having this issue either. I can see Junes on my side. Commissioner grants still can't see Junes on her side. Right. Didn't, I haven't looked since I sent you the last email. So let me look now. Okay. It's the internet gremlins. Yes. I guess my question then is, were you able to see the three older ones? I think it was like. Yes, I, I have reviewed the three older ones. I'd be 420, 426 and 524 and 524. And I can now see the 28th. Okay. Okay. I just suggest that we discuss this offline. The glitches offline. If everybody can see the minutes that we have to approve. I just suggest we move forward and, and work on solving the glitches later on. I was going to say, I guess the question is, is did everybody else have a chance to read them? Who maybe didn't have a. An issue looking at them. Yeah. I would add to that. I used two computers. Mac and then my work PC. I was going to propose that we vote on 424, 26, 524 and we can table six, 28 minutes. For, for an estimation action for review minutes. That's not amenable to people. Okay. Sorry. Can we talk about May 24th separately? Yes, I wanted to propose that as well. All right. So are we okay to vote on a special meeting from 420 and the regular meeting for 424. 426. Yes. 42426, my apologies. 420 and 426. All right. I propose we. Approve the minutes from the, from a special meeting on 420, 2022 and for. And now the regular meeting from 426, 2022. Got a second. Seconded by Milo. All the favor raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Aye. And I guess technically for you, Jack, I would abstain from this vote or to say abstentia. This is because you weren't present. For those meetings. Yeah, I abstained. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. So I have. Five. Yay is one extension. And with regards to the minutes from 524, I guess I'll give the floor to staffing for those. I'd like to just ask for one correction. And that is under the 6.01 data report presentation by John Larson. I'm sorry. If you scroll down to. Where it says commissioner Saguino also stated, she would like to see a three year moving average that, that, that sent it, not that sentence, but that line. And it's the latter part that should be corrected. And that she would also like to see census data used. In addition to the driving population. Oh, so sorry. Yeah. That was incorrect. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And it should say, and she would like to see census data used. Along with act crash data. That's it. And so with that amendment, I guess we could vote on that as the amended minutes, I think. Okay. I had an issue and I have a question. So I see some. Additional. Details. Regarding some of my concerns with regards to. How race was referenced. With. Gunfire incidents. And I guess I'm still not satisfied with what's there. So what I'm wondering is the following. That's added to the minutes amending the minutes. Like, so if we are to approve these minutes now, would I be able to do that? Or would I have to submit the statement? And then we vote on the minutes next time. I'm not sure how that would work. So correct. Okay. Was the statement. Did you make the statement at the meeting? Or is it a statement in response to something that was said at the meeting? Well, I said a lot. At the meeting. I was just very concerned about. The language with reference to the black community. Especially feeling like the black community is being thrown under the bus. With such a broad statement. And I'm not sure what that would mean. I'm not sure what that would mean in regards to the gunfire incident. So I feel that what was discussed is not. Really adequately reflected in the meeting. The minutes because it is such a serious issue. Okay. Okay. Yeah. If I can do a statement, just giving more detail. But if we vote on the minutes now, can that statement be added later? Okay. Okay. Thank you. I think I saw Sharon's hand raised first followed by Stephanie. I just quickly wanted to say that. We probably have to wait till next month because I was. Only here for the beginning of this meeting. So it seems to me, I should abstain from. Voting on this. And that means we don't have a forum. So I apologize. But I wasn't there for the whole meeting. And I think in particular the conversation. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I'm not sure what you're talking about right now. One thing I want to ask you. Chair. Good. Would you like us to use the raise hand feature. When we. I'm fine with either or my. I guess it's just a jumping in. I can get a little confused with. I'd prefer the race. But I mean, obviously, if you need to get your point in. Okay. So with regard to this question on the table. It is the video that should give the detail. I, it's, I don't think it's appropriate to write a new statement that wasn't reflected in, in the meeting itself. So I think that we would want to ask. If you don't mind Shannon. I don't know how this would happen, but I think it needs to be amended based on the video of our meeting. And I don't think this is time sensitive. So I don't think it matters and that we should. Delay approving these minutes. Until those changes have been made and do it at the next meeting, which is three weeks from now. How do you feel as are people okay with that? I'm fine with that. Because that was what I was going to do was I was going to be pulling from what was set at the meeting. So I think we need to have a follow up. I think we need to have a follow up. Okay. I know you're ready to give in the gravity of the conversation. Thank you. Awesome. All right. Sounds good. So I guess. I guess you have what Stephanie wanted further for the. For clarity on her amendment to the minutes. And. Then I believe Milo will get. We'll forward to you. Based on, based on the video part of that, that meeting. based on that part, you should get that to you. And then we'll vote on the minutes for 524 and next, 524 and 628, next meeting. Sure. Mohamed and I can go back and review. So after the last meeting, just for some clarification, I did go back and make sure, and what was noted in the minutes is what was said, and then it was Commissioner Grant stated that you would follow, like you would make another comment and I followed through and I didn't hear it, but Mohamed and I can go back through as well. And so that would be perfect. Sounds good. Thank you. All right. All right. That closes out commission actions, moving on to agenda items 3.01, which is the public forum. At this point, if they're all first up, can anybody reach out to you with a request to speak for an email tonight? Actually, we tasked Mohamed with that this meeting and did anybody send an email to speak at public forums? No, no, no, there's no, no one's in the meeting. All right. And with that, for people that are tuning in and the public on Zoom, if you have any questions or concerns or comments, please raise your hand in your little chat box thing and we will acknowledge you and let you speak. I am not seeing any hands raised. So with that, I will conclude public forum of the commission. Moving on to agenda item 4.01 is the chief support. And with that, I give the floor to the chief mayor. I'm sorry, chief, you are muted. Sorry about that. Thank you. Sorry about that. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I have, with your permission, I'd like to share a presentation with you. I gave a draft of this. It's largely the same as the draft that I sent to you and the co-chair and the vice chair yesterday. And I will, there've been one or two tiny sort of stylistic amendments to it. Nothing of substance I believe since I sent it to you, but with your permission, I will share my screen. Please do. So this is the chief's presentation for August 3rd of 2022. Some of the data was collected in anticipation of our previous meeting, the previously scheduled meeting that is last week. I updated some slides and not others and I'll explain which ones as I go along. This is our headcount and it is updated as of August 1st. And so this, I wouldn't have been able to present exactly this slide if it had we met on the scheduled meeting because I wouldn't have had the data for the first, although I knew what it was going to be. The good news is that this will be different in a short period of time. We are onboarding new employees for the current, the coming police academy class. We just had a recruit graduate from the previous police academy class that ended this past month. That recruit is now in field training, no longer a recruit, is now a probationary employee in field training. We are onboarding three additional employees who will be attending the police academy that begins in August. They will be full employees as of Monday, I believe. I think Shannon put an event in my calendar to meet with them on Monday morning. I've obviously met with them already. One of them is a current CSO. And so he's already familiar with the department and I think is really ready to make that transition into the officer role. We're very excited about that and we can actually perhaps see this begin to climb, although unfortunately I know of at least two additional departures that will occur in the short term. One of them, a retirement who is already not with us. He's already burning through time that he accrued over the course of his career, but he will be off of our books in early September. Another individual also probably off our books in early September. And then another, if not in September, then certainly by October. In the meantime, I'm hopeful that we may be able to bring in some lateral employees and I'll show you why a little bit later. As I said before, I always include the priority response plan. These reports go up on the webpage. Each of them is there. And if somebody chooses to just look at the most recent, I want certain data to be there for them, no matter which one they're picking up if it's their first time visiting our data page and looking through our transparency portal. So this is an important grounding piece for anyone who's seeing these reports for the first time. That is not you. You have all seen these many, many times. Here is our incident volume. And this is as of July 31st, August 1st, I did update this page and it gives you a sense of where we are. We are up this year for overall incident volume. We are approaching 2020. I believe that we probably will pass 2020 before the end of the year, but that remains to be seen. If we don't pass it, we'll certainly hover very close to it. We're still nowhere near previous years, but we are over last year. The number of stacked has remained relatively consistent, which frankly surprises me. I thought that we would be in a higher percentage of stacked. What is happening with the stacked calls is they are being stacked for much longer periods of time at this point. So although the ratio of stacked to unstacked hasn't changed dramatically, the time period in which we stack a call is greatly expanded. In fact, many of these don't get a real response at all. They basically kind of dissolve before anybody's able to respond. And we touch base later with the person, but after the incident has ended. This is another way of presenting the information about total incident volume. You can see the black line, which is this year's activity. Again, I did not update. So although this page was updated through 731, this only goes through 724. That line is approaching as you see 2020. I do believe that it will probably merge with 2020 and possibly cross over 2020 sometime by the end of the year, definitely based on the rate at which it's expanded. We've seen a real uptick, a noticeable uptick there from June 1st through the end of July. Will that sustain? If it doesn't sustain, then it won't cross 2020. If it sustains, it will cross 2020 and begin to approach 2019. I'm sorry about that. Priority one incidents. This is a picture of priority one incidents. As you can see, priority one incidents have significantly diverged from the most serious previous year, which is 2017. And they are, they're a good deal higher than 2017 at this point and show signs of there too. Although it's not as steep as the uptick that we've seen in overall incidents, the uptick in priority one is significant from, well, not significant, but it's noticeable from, I don't want to use a statistical term. It's noticeable visually from June 1st through June, through July 1st through August 1st. These are the selected categories that we track on a regular basis, the same data plot. Please note that I sent a draft of this document to you. This is this too, by the way, is only through 724. The priority one chart that I showed, this is through 724. This is also through 724. There were just a lot of categories for me to run between, to update every single one of these for the sake of the six days that were missing between 724 and today. So I frankly didn't do it. But I have to run each of these by hand. I have not yet figured out how to make an automated plot for them. So I do each category by hand. Please note that I sent a draft of the 724 document to you. I had accidentally changed the burglary numbers for 2021, but not for 2022. So this is a little different if you refer to that one. I would delete it if it's still in your file. This is, these are however, double checked. Again, this is Valcor data. This is the responses that we go to, the incidents that get called into us and the way in which they are mostly defined by dispatch and the caller, but then in some cases updated by the officer, there may be a difference between this data and offense data or Niber's data. This is a different way of looking at that. What I did here was I took the five-year average from 2017 through 2021, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21, took the five-year average of each of those and compared it to the year-to-date figures for 2022. So all of those are five-year or year-to-date. And we see pretty strikingly where these are compared to those averages. There are, if I go back to this previous, there are certainly years that are worse than the year we're in. For example, in, with regard to simple assault, there are higher numbers, but as simple assault happens to be down with regard to, let's see, burglary. There, 2017 was worse than 2020 with regard to burglary. But when we look at where burglary is with regard to this five-year average, it's significant and these differences are significant. They are indicative of a real change that is certainly being noticed by the public and by officers. The other challenge here is also what I'll show on a coming slide, the number of officers available to address these calls for service. We are down to 21, 21 officers on patrol. And that is, again, I think going to change more over the next month. We're gonna lose additional officers. I'm incredibly happy to have three new officers going to the police academy. I'm incredibly happy to have an officer out of field training, but that officer is not a solo officer, doesn't count in that 21 number. Those three officers who are going to the police academy will not be with us until very late December and they too will not be solo until well into the spring. And if we hire laterals, those two will not be able to make it through our field training program for several weeks, more than a month, two months to two and a half months. And they too will, even if we get bites in the near term, which I hope we do, are the likely onboarding and hiring process or reverse that the likely hiring and then onboarding process and then training process means that they will not be effective resources for us in a solo patrol capacity until probably the end of the year or possibly the beginning of next year. So this is where we are for the time being and if anything, it will worsen before we get to the end of the year. So a rebuilding strategy because that is the next piece. The mayor and the city council worked tremendously hard to come together on a budget and received unanimous approval from the city council on a budget. Then, and that was back in June. In July, just last week, the city council approved a contract for the Burlington Police Department. That too came after a lot of work by the mayor, by members of the city council, particularly council president Paul, by others as well advocating for this. Those two tools are incredibly important to us with regard to this rebuilding strategy. Our strategy is predicated on these things on retention and recruiting, both of which are facilitated primarily by that contract. And then marketing, which is facilitated significantly by the budget. These are the details for that contract. We have a significant starting pay. It is $71,000. It is depending on experience, an experienced officer coming in as a lateral could come in higher than that. I believe the city allows somebody to come in up to step seven of the 15 steps. I don't know exactly what that is off the top of my head but I will get that data for our future advertising efforts. Top pay, when this contract matures in three years will be $100,000 for an officer with 15 years or more on the Burlington Police Department. And we still have the $15,000 hiring bonus that was granted by the city council in autumn of last year. So that brings with it a number of things that I think are really distinctive about this agency and important about this agency. We do have a five-year vest, although I hope we don't lose people after a mere five years. We have shift differential. We have full medical benefits. Our retirement comes after 20 years and it's a 50% salary. After 25, it is 75% salary. This 15-step pay scale for non-supervisory employees goes from $71,000 to $100,000. And for supervisors, it is higher than that. Our supervisors are compensated according to a system called the PUPS, which stands for Police Uniformed Pay Scale. It essentially says that the bottom pay sergeant makes 6% more than the top pay police officer and the bottom pay lieutenant makes 6% more than the top pay sergeant. There are four steps for sergeant and four steps for lieutenant. And then deputy chiefs are compensated at 8% above the top pay lieutenant. And there are, well, that is the way the PUPS used to work. Chief Del Poso pulled the deputy chiefs out. We are working on addressing that. But nevertheless, that is the basic structure, about 8% for the deputy chiefs above the top pay lieutenant. This is a fairly compensated job at this point. I think a very well compensated job at this point. And I think we are in a position right now to be better compensated than most other agencies in the state. There are different ways to measure compensation and different agencies will talk about different things. Vermont state police take home cars, for example, and build in certain amounts of overtime that include travel time because they are on duty the second they turn on the key to that cruiser. So there are different ways of factoring these things, but in so far as salary, we are now, if not the best compensated, we're certainly at the very top of compensation for the state. I think we probably are the best compensation for actual numbers. We are, we have what remains, I think one of the best schedules in the state. 10 hour workdays, four days on, three days off. Because we do what's called a swap, every other month, officers have the weekend off for those three day off periods. So they're actually out on the weekend. We are, thanks to this body, we do permit beards. We have always permitted tattoos. That too differentiates us from many other agencies in the state. Our tattoos do come with caveats. We, as you know, because you did review the directive by which we spelled this out, we reserve the right to review tattoos, of course. We do not want tattoos that indicate certain kinds of behavior or affiliations amongst our officers. But tattoos, we do not require that they be covered, many other agencies do. We also are an agency that allows for non-citizens to become police officers, as long as they are permanent residents or green card holders. That too is a difference for many other agencies. We have gotten employees in the past because of that somewhat unique aspect. We have a number of specialty assignments still. We don't have nearly as many as we used to. I'm hopeful that as we rebuild, we will be able to re-engage some of those specialty positions. And that would include, for example, our community affairs officer, our school resource officer. The loss of those school resource officers has been detrimental with regard to some of the ongoing criminal activity that we've seen around the city. Because that was a key component of how we related to certain parts of the community and forged strong relationships. But we don't have those right now. We do, however, still have detectives, narcotics, a canine officer, a domestic violence prevention officer. We have airport officers. We have an emergency response unit. That is not a specialty assignment where the officer is assigned only to that, but it is a specialty role. Many other police departments do not have that. It allows for additional tactical training. It allows for officers to expand their repertoire. I say with great confidence that the response that we've seen in other localities, primarily in Valde, Texas, is not one that would ever happen in this city or in this police department. We've had long conversations internally about that. And the position of the officers is one of assuring that that would never ever occur here. We do equip all of our officers with rifles. We have purchased new rifles for the police department. We have shields and helmets available for any kind of high risk crisis. And that is something that this agency has that a lot do not. But the key component of that ERU, the emergency response unit, is not the use of those tools. It is the de-escalation that comes with it. It is the ability to use the ERV, the emergency response vehicle, to respond to incidents in a way to decelerate them, that de-escalate them, that control the pace and the scene in a way that allows us to resolve it safely for everyone. The person involved, the officers, any people who are either witnesses or subjects or God forbid hostages, it is something that that is the key to the use of that tool and that team. There are a number of other benefits, I think to this job, and they include the ability to work with resources that a lot of police departments don't have. And that includes our community service officers. As I said, one of them is transitioning to officer now. I anticipate that's going to be something we'll see more of. And just as importantly, our CAPE team and the CSLs who work there, being able to work hand in hand with them as well as resources that are outside the police department at the Howard Center is something that is unique to this police department in Vermont and is something that the officers themselves find a lot of merit and value in. So this goes to the third component of that rebuilding plan we talked about, the idea of marketing. And we do have some budget thanks to that very well done budget accepted by the and unanimously accepted by the city council. These are the plans we have for the use of that budget. These are in the works right now. Important to this is the hiring of both a public information officer slash community engagement coordinator and the hiring of a recruitment coordinator. Obviously a huge part of any rebuilding is going to be the CNA report and the incredible number of recommendations it has the work that has already gone into it with the BPOA, the BPD, the police commission and the city council's public safety committee as well as private stakeholders including members of the church great marketplace and others. We're very eager to begin tackling this according to the timetables that are established by the committee and recognize that many of these will be done in collaboration with the police commission. Some I think will be done by the police commission itself and this is a long-term complicated effort. It's a very, very multi-part process. It's got a long timetable in front of it. It's got a lot of moving parts. We're going to be doing it at a time where our resources are lower than they have ever been. And I think that this is a significant task in front of us but it's very important for the rebuilding that we envision. This is probably in many ways the roadmap and blueprint for that rebuilding. And that is what I have. I will stop sharing unless there are slides that people would like to go back to. Awesome, thank you, chief. I'll take question from the chief. I miss you, Stephanie's hand up please. Start with you, Stephanie. Thank you, chief. It would be helpful if you could go back to the first slide. Oh, sorry, I'm in error. Where you list the number of officers? It would be helpful to have some data presented to us that also includes the number of CSLs and CSOs. So we have a full picture of resources available to the department. There are seven CSOs and there are three CSLs. Yep, and I'm just suggesting that it would be nice to see that incorporated into the data that you present. Also with regard to the table with five year averages, if we look at that. So I appreciate you doing this, but I'm gonna suggest that actually the including 20 and 21 is not a good idea because of COVID. It depends on how we wanna use these data. But if we wanna sort of assess long-term trends, 20 and 21 are really aberrations because of COVID. And I think that therefore 2017 to 2019 average compared to 2022, I'm just gonna make that request as a commissioner that you may wanna show this, but also include when you make comparisons with previous years of be helpful to see non-COVID years in the excluded from the comparisons. Those are my two comments, thank you. And I see Milo's hand raised, Milo Fortress. Thank you. I just wanted to second the request to include information about the CSOs and CSLs in the monthly chiefs report. I would also like to see the number of incidents that they have gone out on. I think that is important to know in terms of the effectiveness and how they are being incorporated into the overall public safety system that we are working on improving in Burlington. And I just, we've kind of talked about wanting to see this information before. And I just think it's really important to view with regards to that, to have a real accounting of the boots on the ground. Thank you. I'm gonna make a complete sentences and make it, you know. Oh, I'm sorry. I think that your audio's on. I'm sorry, did, was, do I need to repeat anything or chief, did you understand what I was? Yes, I understood it. Thank you. And I guess this is jump on Milo's thing. Yeah, I think it would be excellent to have CSL data. It's like, yeah, to see what they are responding to. I think that give, as I said in the community, a nice picture of how effective they are being in the field. That would be great. Anybody else? I think I see Milo, is your hand raised again or something separate? It is raised again. Okay. Then Milo followed by Shereen, followed by Susan. Thank you. I was wondering, Chief Murad, what is going to be the search process for the, the person who'll do the public information and engagement position? We'll certainly be working with HR on that. Okay, but only HR. Initially, I think that that's how we hire, promulgate a job description and then the salary package, figure out where that gets advertised. That's through HR. We will do some of it through our own channels as well, particularly since we're hopeful to find somebody who has some degree of familiarity with police and the unique role they have in a community and the way they engage with the community. But the hiring process will be something that I think HR will be significantly involved in. Okay. And then I guess my concern is, since we don't know when we're gonna have this person and part of trying to improve the environment, for lack of a better word, that officers are working under because we're going back to the fact that officers have been very, very clear about what they feel the community feelings are towards them. Yet we haven't had the engagement necessary to work on that. And I feel like there still could be things done, there still could be conversations had to move in a more positive direction, not only just the language that we're using, but just more positive things. And I have to think more on it, but I'll talk about it later with our goals as a commission. Thank you. I believe next is Shireen followed by Susie. Thank you, Chair. Chief, can you speak to the perceived increase? Well, your data shows there's an increase in stolen vehicles, but I'm just seeing, and obviously it's been in the media, concerns about bicycle thefts, low pads, cars, can you speak to that? Because that is what I am seeing a great deal of in terms of public and community concern right now. Sure, so we don't distinguish or differentiate bike thefts from other thefts. Bike thefts would be primarily rolled into the larceny of all types. Again, on this page, it talks about larceny as tracked by Valkor is larceny from a building, larceny from a voter vehicle, larceny from a person and larceny other. That doesn't distinguish between grand larceny and larceny, which is determined by the amount that is stolen. It is aggregated larceny, all larceny calls. And we see where those are bikes would be wrapped up into those. Mo pads mostly would probably be wrapped into vehicles. It's a little hard to tell where they come, but the vehicle number, you can really see it on this page. The change is astronomical. It's a huge change. A significant portion of it is coming from, unfortunately, user behavior. People leave keys in cars. People leave cars idling. People leave cars open. I'm reluctant to focus on that because frankly, the person at fault for any car theft is the person who steals the car. And we as a society are far too lenient on people who undertake criminal activities. Those are the folks who are causing these problems. And when a person's car is stolen, it's not because you left your keys in the car, it's because somebody chose to steal your car. Nevertheless, there are things that we can be doing. We're talking about having some additional resources on public information. We've done that before. We have shared tips and ideas into the media and in press release form. We are seeing instances also with regard to vehicle theft where it has nothing to do with the user. It is a purse that is stolen from a restaurant. And then somebody goes through the parking garage, clicking that key fob to try to find the car. It is people who have been burgled and had keys taken from inside their secured homes and then used in vehicles. And that has nothing to do with the victim and has everything to do with the perpetrator. It's a mixed bag on that. We're seeing a lot of it. And we're also, of course, challenged with the fact that Vermont doesn't have a true vehicle theft law. It's got something called operating without an owner's consent. And it's a different kind of standard than many other states have. Thank you, Chief. All right, Susie followed by Stephanie. So I have three things. First is going back to the early part of your presentation and just noting the fact that I think many people have given up calling the police if it's not like an immediate emergency. So I'm not sure that we're capturing all that's actually happening. Second point, I live on Well Street and this Monday for the fourth time, several of my neighbors had their tires slashed. And now people are thinking about moving. And where people are worrying about whether their insurance is gonna go up because this is now the fourth time in this neighborhood there's been problems. So I just wanna put that on the radar. And I was told by an officer, a detective, a female detective a while back, that they thought they got the right person. But then this happened twice after. And I'm wondering if that person was released from jail what the story was. That's the second thing. And the third thing is I'm just wondering if you could update us regarding your interactions with the Center for Policing Equity and help us to understand where you are with that and where we're going together with that. Thank you. So with regard to the first, I agree. I don't think people are calling all the time. I think that we are losing calls. I think this total incident volume probably is already higher than 2021, excuse me, than 2020. And that we're just not hearing from people. The detective you worked with is currently assigned to our homicide investigation and the ability to deploy detectives or officers on the road to the kinds of calls you're describing is essentially zero. For gunfire incidents alone, we've had one every other week this year. And those each require a level of investigation that is the same almost irrespective of whether somebody is struck or not. They require witness interviews, they require canvases for video, they require subpoenas. If there are certain kinds of evidence collected, they are intensive investigations, each and every one of them. And we're doing one every other week, which is far and away more than we've ever had to do. That's on top of the uptick in burglary and the uptick in other kinds of crimes. With regard to the road, I believe we had three officers on the road today. And so three officers on patrol, the idea of putting one in a specific area is very difficult. And normally when we have four, we do use our CCA, our city center area, and then have a patrol north and a patrol south. When we have fewer than four, we simply cover the whole city and or cover north south. Most of the time it needs cover the whole city. And that is a level of roving that is challenging. With regard to the, I did receive an email from the Center for Policing Equity. I had discussions about the center with both the mayor and the chief of staff over this week. We are contemplating the concept of working on training with them. I believe this agency is tremendously overburdened with regard to the roadmap we have in front of us with the CNA report. I believe the idea of having an agency come in and do another assessment when we have not even begun to really dig into the assessment that we got is a very poor use of resources. So when I go back to the second point for a moment and say that I understand everything you said and the number of police we have and also the difficulty in doing everything that needs to be done. So I wasn't looking for sort of that kind of a picture. I just want you to know people are now gonna be moving. I hate that. I hate that. But it's not just here. It's other places I'm hearing too. People have information, misinformation about downtown things. People are very aware of the gunfire incidents. So I'm hoping that we're successful in lateral moves and lateral hires since the other process takes so long. So I just wanna close that discussion out. Before you do, commissioner, what I'd like to say is, if you feel there's misinformation about, for example, downtown conditions or the gunfire, I'm happy to try to clarify that right now if you have specifics about that. Because a lot of what we talk about here, sometimes we get a lot of sort of subjective feelings about how things are going and not the opportunity to objectively dispel what the conditions are or not. Yeah, I'm just reporting back to you what I've been hearing in the community. Most people are not that specific, but they do read the newspaper. They do read sort of Vermont Digger, et cetera, et cetera. So, and it's also stuff that is on Facebook. So just to be aware, I personally feel that it would help us to have the center for policing equity be a part of our process. It doesn't have to be humongous part of the process, but I think it'll help us moving along. And I think it's the perfect time to do it as you're rebuilding. This is a key moment to sort of have a little extra help here and there. And I also understand your point. Thank you. Thank you. I disagree. It's okay. We'll disagree many times over the course of our relationships here, but we'll also agree many times too. Awesome, thank you for that. I believe it's Stephanie followed by Mila. I'm sorry, Stephanie, you need it. I want to follow up on the center for policing equity issue. The CNA report explicitly, two of their recommendations are to dig into the causes of racial disparities. The uptick in the incident issue in Burlington is very serious, but it doesn't mean that we should ignore what are racial disparities in the community and try to better understand what portion of those are justified and what portion aren't. So again, as you've noted, Chief Murat, there's a lot of work to do with the CNA report and that is part of the report to dig in. And we have identified an organization that can work with us to fulfill those CNA recommendations. So I believe that we as a commissioner are going to continue to push for this and just want to articulate that and be clear that this is part of the CNA recommendations is to do this. The other thing I wanted to ask, Chief, is the increase in stolen vehicles looks pretty extraordinary to me. Do you have a sense that this is a ring of people that are engaged in this? Do you have a sense of what's behind this rise? No, I don't believe that it's organized in the way that the word ring sort of indicates. I do believe that we have a number of people who are recidivists and do this again and again. Officers on the street will tell you that. People who have been routinely found in stolen vehicles and possession of stolen vehicles, around stolen vehicles, prosecution of them is difficult and we are trying to work on that. I think a big part of the dip in burglaries that we saw in 2018, 2019 had to do with putting away certain hardcore recidivists. Burglary is a crime that is committed by a very small portion of the criminal world and that small number is disproportionately responsible for a large number of burglaries. We were able to have a lot of those folks put into either under supervision or incarcerated and that is what drove the decrease in 2018, 2019. And then a lot of those people were released owing to the pandemic or maybe the time that the conviction had brought with it was served and we saw an increase. I don't, you know, vehicle theft, I'm not trying to conflate those two things with regard to the actors. I don't know that there is automatically a sort of a crossover between people who burgle and steal cars, I think there are some, but people who steal cars are able to do it without a lot of consequence right now. And that has to do in part with the court backup. The courts are still in an emergency phase owing to the pandemic. Thank you. All right, I believe it's Milo followed by Susie if your hand is raised for a question, another one. It is raised for another one. Okay, sweet Denom, Milo followed by Susie. Thank you. I just will say that I agree with everything. Commissioner Saguino just said we have issues of racial bias in this department. If we're going to be rebuilding, this has to be part of rebuilding. Otherwise we're just going to be in the same place. So we cannot continue to have officers express their feelings about their relationship with the community and literally do nothing about it. Like we have to be real why some people feel the way they do and there's reasons for that. And I think if you do a disservice when you're not being honest about that. I also concerned about, I've never been one to really think that people didn't call police when they had a problem any more than that previously existed because there has always been people at the drop of a needle will call the police and there's always been people who will never call the police unless there's a dead body found in their living room. So there's always been some of that. I've never felt a particular increase in that until the last, I would say two to three months. Now part of it is some of the responses that people are getting when they call for help. And we have previously talked about how when people are being told, for example, that because Sarah George isn't going to prosecute a case they're not going to bother looking into something. We have talked about that several times before. You have advised that that is not something officers should be saying that they should be making a determination as to what happened and if a case can be made and if a case can be made, then it should be sent. And it seems the last two months these type of complaints at least of people coming to me and what I see posted to online on Reddit, on Facebook, on Twitter, et cetera is that people from wide varieties of background are getting these responses. And it's almost like the department is interfering with this election on purpose. And I just find it kind of egregious. I also, to your point about the court system is back still on COVID, COVID calls going through August that affects the number of cases that can get through the court system. She has said in her public debates that she is pushing more stuff toward alternative methods because she can't get the number of cases through. And so to hear that there are officers who's, I'm just really concerned. I'm just really concerned about that type of rhetoric because that continues to damage the relationship and the feeling of trust that the community has toward our officers when they make comments to people who call for help. And now they're getting into the point where these are people who always previously supported the department and now their feelings are changing. So I guess that's why I really continue to harp on the fact that language is important. And when we start to talk about things of picking and choosing cases, that doesn't make people feel good. And when you already have different words in the city feeling a lot of inequity it makes things worse, right? And it's like you're trying to punish people and I just need you to think about this I need your leadership to think about this I need the mayor to think about this and I need the officers to think about this think about the long-term effects of behaving this way. It's very quick and easy to do damage and very hard to repair it. Thank you very much. There was so much there that I'm not quite sure where to begin. There was a lot said there. First of all, the notion that there are officers in the department who have bias. If I saw that, I would immediately take action about that. You have seen incidents, you have seen every single use of force with regard to reporting on it and also with regard to the ability to view them when you've asked. I'm hesitant to talk about sort of general ideas about there is this or there is that. And part of that is that I don't think that when we talk about we all need to do better or something. Those who suffer the brunt of the world's problems do not share an equal burden with those who cause them. And day in and day out, I believe that my officers bear the brunt of our society's problems. I think they take them on. I think that there are obviously people who experience them in a lived way every single day and I am not comparing what my officers do to that but they experience them and encounter them every day and they do not cause them, they inherit them. So here in Burlington at least, they do not share an equal burden with those who cause the problems, be they systems or entities or on a case by case basis individual people and their behavior. Now I think that the profession as a whole, both currently and definitely historically does own the burden of many problems that are and own a disproportionate role as the author of many of those problems but we don't see that here in Burlington on an incident level data and this body, the commission has not identified that either in the majority of incidents that we see and that we look through. And so that's one issue when you say that there are biased officers in the department, I think that that is a troubling thing to say particularly when it's not accompanied by something more specific. I think that we've seen surveys, I think that we've seen incident level data, I think that we have seen surveys that were commissioned by the, you know, the police, excuse me, by the city council and worked on with the city council and with the police commission that have said that there are not the kinds of problems that are being sort of hinted at. And with regard to the things that are being said by officers, I have routinely told officers how they are to approach incidents, what they are to say about incidents and that we tackle the incident in front of us based on the incident in front of us, based on the behavior of the subject, based on the totality of the circumstance and not based on what we think may or may not happen down the road. I think that to claim that officers are interfering with an election is a very problematic thing to say. I think we have a, I know that we have a rule that prohibits that, I have articulated that rule internally with regard to what the BPOA says, they are a union, they have free speech and they can say what they want to say. I do not have control over that union nor would I want one. With regard to what officers say, I do have control and we have rules that govern it. And I am very clear about what we should or should not be saying with one another. And I just want to jump in and I hope these next two questions that come after this are succinct because we do need to move this meeting along and we've spent a lot of time here with that said. I just have to ask commissioner Grant to hold on. We really have spent enough time on this and we have to move on. I don't think that's fair. And as co-chair, as co-chair, I am going to insist that we move on. I do want to say one thing. I really insist on saying one thing because I do disagree with a lot of what he just said but I do insist on saying one thing. He keeps saying how we reviewed the incidents as if we have agreed that things that we have seen and all the incidents are justified and that is not the case. And I need that said for the record. Thank you. Suzy. I first want to say I appreciate the candor that's happening because I think it's very important. Second thing I want to say is on another subject which is going back to the automobile thefts which I also noted was extraordinary in comparison to past periods of time. And I'm wondering is there a website? Does the police department have a website or a Facebook page that lists cars that have been stolen? The reason I'm asking is just we had a car in our street that sat there for maybe eight or nine days and we didn't know it was nobody that we knew. No one came in or out of the car and what I would like to have done if there was some place to do it was to just say this license plate number is sitting right here and sitting here for a week or two. So that's all I want to say. Succinctly, Stephanie. Sure. So we don't have a way of doing that online and I would be reluctant to publish license plate information that could lead to somebody else online. What we would do is that report if that were made to dispatch we absolutely would send somebody to it maybe not immediately but somebody to check on it and dispatch itself would run that license plate and determine whether or not it was stolen. But we're not gonna put something like that in a public place where anybody can see a sort of listing of whose vehicle or which vehicles have been stolen. So my response to that is it might be very helpful to put out some kind of a notice to the community about what the procedure is so that we might be able to then sort of collectively with some anonymity handle some of the issues in the neighborhoods. Thank you. I mean, the process is 911 commissioner. It's a matter of calling 911 and saying there's a suspicious vehicle it's been parked there for quite some time and here's the license plate and that would engender a check that would determine whether or not it was stolen. So I'm gonna come back one more time and say that's a great plan but publicize it since there's so many vehicles being stolen I think it would really help the community even in your posts that you put in I think it's the North end news or something, whatever just so people around the city know I would hesitate to call 911 for a car sitting on the street personally. However, now that you've said that I would do that because I know what the follow up steps would be but the average character doesn't know that. So for what it's worth in America. Great. Thank you everybody and the chief support and the debate that ensued moving on to the amended agenda is cultural humility training from CSL and away to it. So I appreciate them promoted to the panel and with that, I give you the floor and thank you very much for being here with us take a time out of your day to be very much appreciated. Sorry, was that was that to me? I was reconnecting as a I was reconnecting and I missed half of that. So No problem. I was just saying thank you very much for taking time out of your day for being here with us. You very much appreciate it and the floor is yours. Okay, great. Okay, so thanks everyone for incorporating me into the agenda. I really appreciate it. I'm gonna share my screen shortly and I'm not great to be honest with keeping track of people are physically raising their hands. So I'm not sure how you operate in this meeting in terms of like calling on people but you might feel free to interrupt me basically. No problem. Sorry, I'll jump in right quickly. Suzy, is your hand raised for a question? I didn't know my hand was raised at all. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. Great. And then before I get started, I'll give a little background on myself. So my name is Anna Wagling. I'm one of the new community support liaisons at the Burlington Police Department. For the past five years have worked at the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants in Colchester. And before that I did my AmeriCorps year at a refugee resettlement program in New Hampshire and intern there before that. So in total I have about eight years of experience in working with the refugee populations in Manchester, New Hampshire and then here in the Burlington area. And I currently still work at USCRI as a case aid. So it's more per diem work now but I'm still involved in the organization. And then some more background. When I was in college, I studied Arabic. So I like technically know how to read and write Arabic. I lived in Jordan with a host family and I've been currently attempting to teach myself Swahili. So I'm chugging along with that language but I just wanted to give a little background on myself before I get started. And then this presentation is something that I made after I started here. A lot of it is observations from working in the field for the past eight years from other interpreter trainings that my colleagues at USCRI have given to local service agencies and then research that I've done on my own because I really like learning. So I'm constantly trying to keep up with what's going on and how to best support the communities and what's going on internationally as well. Okay, sorry, long introduction. All right. Okay. Okay, can everyone see my screen? Yeah. Yep. Okay, great. Okay. All right. Okay, so working with interpreters. And so this is also, this is the training that I've been given giving two officers during roll call. And so I've been going in at odd hours of the day and night to present this and then I'm also going to do a recording of it and we're gonna have it available online for officers who have missed the different trainings to access online. So these are things to consider when working with especially an in-person interpreter. So matching genders, this is not, again, this is not like a blanket statement for all cultures or all people who represent different cultures who are living in the Burlington area. But for some folks, especially if it's more sensitive, it's more sensitive information, reading the body language and seeing maybe we need to request that a female interpreter be here as opposed to a male interpreter with a female talking about some really sensitive subjects and vice versa. Short sentences, it's key. You really wanna think of the interpreter as a conduit for your conversation. So they're really just there to be that last puzzle piece so you're able to have that interaction with that person. So hi, my name's Anna. I work at the police department and I'm a social worker there. Pause. And that way you're getting the most accurate representation of what you're saying because that's the whole point of having an interpreter there. Avoiding idioms, metaphors, colloquialisms that we use in our everyday speech. If an interpreter has been doing the job for a long time, usually they'll have something already interpreted in their head of how to reword that but trying not to use the vague terms is really helpful as well. So you wanna be as direct as possible because that can also be really confusing for the interpreter. Speak in the first person. So it's not, you're not saying, can you tell her that I'm here to help? That's not what you should be doing. You should be having a direct conversation with that person. And again, that interpreter is that connector so you can have that conversation but talking to the interpreter directly to then interpret is not, is generally not seen as appropriate with the standards. And then also a side note, this is more for I guess resettlement world or interpretation world but generally speaking, interpretation is oral. So if you're speaking to someone, that's interpretation. If it's written out, it's generally referred to as translation but I've seen that not be correctly used in many settings. All right, also things to keep in mind especially with in-person interpreters. Their sole job is to be interpreting and they can be the best interpreter as possible if they're not doing things like driving clients or also acting as their case manager. So when I was preparing this presentation, I actually spoke with the interpretation and translation coordinator at USCRI right before she left and she basically explained it like, so we had a full-time interpreter at USCRI and he worked as an interpreter for the UN and he was the pastor and he was a teacher in his community and he was also an elder in his community and it's really overwhelming to wear that many hats and you can be the best interpreter if that's all you're doing because that relieves a lot of the burden of all the things that are constantly on your shoulders as any of those titles. So it's really important that if someone is interpreting that is the only thing that they're doing. Understanding systems versus how the community understands them. And again, as another reminder, this is not like a blanket statement that every single person and every community represented is thinking this way. It's just things to keep in mind as you're interacting. So it's understanding. So I always use this example where when I was a reach-up case manager I would try to talk about the benefit system or family services, so DCF involvement and immediately there would be this reaction of, oh my God, you're gonna take my children, my community member told me this and so you might have to explain actually this is how this process works. So sometimes you can do that by just checking to make sure, do you want me to explain this? Do you want me to have some call you and explain this process? I wanna make sure that we understand each other and I wanna make sure that you feel comfortable. Effort in the introduction. I will always promote this as someone who likes to learn languages. So I have learned as a white American born person that making that effort to either just say, hi, so assalamu alaikum for Arabic speakers and for the Somali community. Namaste for the Nepali-speaking community. Jambo for the Swahili-speaking community. Mangalaba for the Burmese-speaking community. I've noticed immediately shoulders go, shoulders lower, people smile when you make a little bit of effort to get on their level and say, like I'm making this effort. I want to make that connection with you. And then try to avoid side conversation. So again, if the interpreter is there, you should just be talking with that person. If you need to talk with someone else, let the person know because you don't wanna confuse the interpreter as well. They wanna know what they should be interpreting. And so just try to avoid that if you can because that's also not really fair to the person who's not knowing what you're saying. Okay, this, I also talked with my former coworker about and there's different perceptions of how to position yourself, whether the person who is receiving the interpretation might think like if the interpreter is standing with you, oh, you're on the same side or if they're standing with the person receiving the interpretation that they're friends and it's a different type of relationship. So generally what I've seen and how I've tried to work with interpreters in my direct service work is try to have the interpreter more in the middle and that way there's that easy flow of conversation and where someone's not craning their neck to look at other people as they're talking. Okay, working with phone interpreters. This is huge and something that I realized, especially working with ReachUp where I would work a lot more with phone interpreters as opposed to an in-person interpreter, the dialect is huge. So for an example, Tanzania and Swahili versus Congolese Swahili, there's different vernacular. If you're using, if someone was in a camp in Burundi they might have more French or Tanzania, there's gonna be some French but more English, maybe some more Arabic words thrown in there. And so I've seen this happen where clients I'm speaking with and I have an interpreter and the client is sitting there saying, I have no idea what they're saying or they keep saying yes, but there's a question mark or they have to keep asking the interpreter to clarify what's going on. That can be an indicator to you that maybe they're not understanding each other and I need to make sure that the client knows they're right, so the next point. So what I always do when I start off a conversation is I make sure that the person I'm talking to understands what their rights are. You're already in a different position of power as either being someone who represents the police department or you're the case manager or whatever it is. So making sure that they know if this person is not speaking the dialect that you speak, if you're having trouble understanding please let me know. It is very okay to get another interpreter and that way it put that power back with them knowing that they can advocate for themselves and say, I gotta get another interpreter. And when I've done that in my role as a reach up case manager that has worked where I've had clients say, no, that's a different dialect, like we need another one which is nice to see. And I hope that other people do it but that's just something to keep in mind. And then again, clarifying versus chatting but that goes for the interpreter and the client. So if the interpreter and the client are having a back and forth then that means that you don't know what's being said and the interpreter should say something like client didn't understand what I'm saying, I'm gonna say it a different way. And if they keep going back and forth then it is also your right as being part of that conversation to stop them nicely but say, what is being said, can you please make sure to just interpret what I'm saying? Okay, so we use this a lot in refugee resettlement. I'm sure Commissioner Comerford has seen this a bunch as well. The iceberg concept of culture, I'm not gonna go into the whole thing but it's just again, something to keep in mind. So when you respond to a call whether you're a social worker or a victim advocate, a police officer, case manager, whoever, it's important to think of this iceberg concept of culture which I really like as imagery. So what we see on the surface level, right? It's the clothes we wear, the food that we eat, the language we speak, the celebrations that we participate in but when you're working with someone who was either born in a different country or is raised in a multicultural household, there's so many more deeper level topics that we just don't talk about. Same thing with American culture or Vermont culture, things that we don't really think about but are just part of how we operate. And if you're in another culture then that can be confusing and that's where it's important to take a step back and remember, take some perspective and remember why they might be reacting the way they are and then either addressing it or making sure that you're noticing that and then moving on. And then of course a trauma-informed approach especially with working with the refugee and former refugee communities. However, people either label themselves or not but if they have that refugee background just remembering the roots of trauma and if you're a police officer responding to a call looking at every culture represented at least to the folks who come through resettlement. Pretty much everyone in a government level position, police level position were used as the oppressor in like the results of why they're now in the US as a result of resettlement. So keeping that in mind and taking that caution and again thinking back to, I'm sorry, trying with the introduction and really trying to show that respect and try to gain a little bit of that trust because there's already gonna be that guard up when someone looks at your uniform that's just gonna happen. So it's what can we do to try to build that trust and then thinking about why is someone reacting this way still even if they've been here for five years, 10 years, 20 years thinking about why, like if they went through a refugee resettlement, thinking about what the trauma is that they potentially faced or that they have now because of someone in a uniform and then PTSD causing triggers so that fight or flight type of response if a police officer is responding to a call and then cultural considerations. So again, when you're addressing a call just thinking about what someone went through before they came to the US, they came to Vermont. So most of the refugees who have been resettled in Vermont were in camps worldwide. Refugees are mostly in cities but specifically in Vermont, it's camp. So there's a whole life of like living with scarcity and really tight-knit communities and relying on one another wholeheartedly instead of more of the authority in that picture and you can't just come to the Vermont and say, okay, I'm done, I'm good now. I'm just gonna follow all these systems. It takes a really long time to adjust. Some adjust really quickly, others it takes longer and it's important to be patient. Okay, quickly through your backgrounds because I wanna make sure that I wanna make sure that I'm not taking up too much time. But basically what I try to do in especially this training but if I do any other type of training when I did like volunteer work back in refugee resettlement is make sure that people understand what folks have gone through in a little bit of the culture that's represented here. So Bhutan slash Nepal, we say that because it was basically the ethnic Nepalese living in the south of Bhutan peacefully living there until the government decided to basically gentrify the country. And so the ethnic Nepalese were eventually forced out and into refugee camps in Nepal. And so that's something to consider again thinking about what someone or their parents went through in order to come to this country. And then something that's not talked about is the caste system. I even like I have a really good friend who's Nepali and she was hesitant to talk to me about it. Not for this presentation, it was a while back. So that's again, something to think about that still can come into play here. And it's not again, not a blanket statement for everyone but something to think about Burma also known as Myanmar a military junta ruled for decades and the country was in complete isolation. I know Burma has been in the news a little bit but something to think about is that there are basically like two major groups here. So there's the Burmese and then people who speak Korean and my other really good friend who is Burmese when I asked him, what would you like? What do you think that the police really should know? He said, there's three major religions in the Burmese community here and basically don't talk about it at all. So like if for some reason religion comes up like don't even address it because there's a lot of contention there. Okay, DRC civil war for decades, extreme violence in the Cuba region which is East Congo close to the border with Rwanda and Burundi and that's where most of our Swahili speaking Congolese refugee folks are coming from from that region. Some folks are coming from Burundi from Tanzania, from Uganda, from South Africa. So there's camps pretty much everywhere with Congolese folks living in them. Introduction would be Jumbo, Habadi is how are you? And then teacher preacher doctor. So my Burundian coworker who is pretty much a leader in the Congolese community as well was saying how the three people who Congolese people listen to the most is their teacher, their preacher and their doctor. So you might be their case manager and telling them something but they might not believe it until one of those three people talks about it. Again, not a blanket statement. Iraq, we've seen what's been going on just basically in the news, American invasion in 2003 and general political unrest. And then Somalia, civil war for many decades, rebel fighting constantly. The biggest thing to keep in mind with the Somali population is that there are two major ethnic groups here. So there's like the general Somali population and then the Somali Bantu. The Somali Bantu speak Maimai which is spelled as you can see on the screen two ways and that's because it's an oral language, it's not a written language. And there's a lot of tension at least with like some of the older folks in the community, maybe not as much with the younger folks but basically the Somali Bantu like the historical aspect is that they were brought up as slaves from Tanzania to Somalia in the 1800s. And so there's just kind of that right cultural layer, cultural iceberg. So it's that lower level of there's just tension between those two groups. But again, not entirely. New neighbors we have coming from Afghanistan. Again, we've been seeing what's going on with Afghanistan in the news. The biggest thing to note right now with Afghanistan is that they are not technically refugees. They are technically part of the Afghan parole assistance program. So they have humanitarian parole here for two years and then they can apply for that but they're all welcome to apply for asylum. So that's what's happening right now. USCRI was able to hire a lawyer who's been helping out with those applications and it's really slow but she's working through it which is really great. And the Afghan population here is going through the it's going through that tough part of being a new population represented in an area. So many of the Afghans who came over to the US ended up in the Albany area because they were already a refugee site for Afghanistan. But here in Burlington we're a new Afghan site. So there's a lot of adjustments. Languages spoken are Pashto and Dari which is also known as Farsi. And then lastly, Ukraine. So what's happening with Ukraine in terms of resettlement and potential of Ukrainians coming to the Burlington area is it's essentially a sponsorship program. So Ukraine is also able to, they also have humanitarian parole and I believe are able to apply for asylum but they don't have access to reception and placement grant which is how most refugees access their welcome money which is pretty, a pretty small amount. But so basically families have to come forward and say that they'd like to sponsor a Ukrainian person or Ukrainian family and then they can, then we urge them to reach out to us so we can get them connected with different supports but they technically don't qualify for reception and placement assistance. And sorry, I think I'm speaking too fast. And then quickly, Resettlement 101. I don't go into this in great detail. It basically is just showcasing that refugees are the most vetted immigrants coming to the US. The average wait time to be resettled is about 25 years. If you research it, it'll say 17 but every single person I've talked to in my eight years of doing this, they've waited at least 20 years to be resettled. And it's a very rigorous process and I actually need to amend down here. It's not just USCRI anymore. Now we have ECDC which is located in Brattleboro, Vermont. And then this is just talking about post-arrival services and then Resettlement 101 on the top is talking about what folks have to go through in order to qualify to come to the US. They are literally the one in a million. The chance of being resettled to a third country is less than 1%. So it's pretty crazy but that's the system that we're working with right now. Okay, so in conclusion, right? Remember to talk to the person as if it's just you. It's you and them. You have someone who's assisting you with that communication but you are having the conversation with that person. Another thing to consider, people can be here for many years and still need reminders of how systems work. I know, I don't know how many systems work now and I'm always asking questions. Don't make assumptions. So don't make assumptions about, well, I heard about this culture or that because like I said throughout this presentation, this is not like a blanket statement for all cultures or for those specific cultures it's just things to be considered. And then introductions go a really long way. Happy to talk more about those introductions and then it's okay to get it wrong, be open to feedback. The more that you show that you're open and that you're respecting someone's culture, you want to be helpful and you feel that it's important that you're making this connection, the more trust that you're gonna build with that community member. Okay, question. Sorry, that was a lot and I speak fast. So I'm sorry if that was a little rushed. Oh, no, thank you so much for that. Yeah, the floor is open for any questions or comments. Let me have her, as soon as I see your hand raised as far as this. I just want to say you did a very nice job. You covered a lot of material and gives a really good overview. So well done. Thank you, yeah. And I try to announce it at every roll call, but like, and I work at USCRI too. So if you have any questions or need any input or you want me to get connected to a family, I'm happy to do so. And I do get a lot of officers who will respond to a call if I'm not working, if it's in the middle of the night, but they'll email me and say, hey, I spoke with this family, they're a Nepali speaking family. They said that they're really interested in getting connected to supports. And we know that you're the person to reach out to. So that has been really helpful as well. Also, Milo, I see your hand raised, floor is yours. Thank you, and thank you for the presentation. It's really great to know that this type of work is being done. I was wondering if you could provide your contact information I would be interested in talking to you about a segment of the new American community, just basically about some lack of outreach that I'm concerned about. And I'm wondering if maybe you could help or provide some information and it's related to some of the gun incidents that we've been seeing. Thank you. For sure, yep. I can definitely do that. Thanks. Susie, you're hand reaching on the question. I have to think of one really quickly because I left my hand up for the second time. I guess, Mike, I have a question. Now, since you work at USAID, is this stuff that all the CSOs kind of go through or just kind of use specific based on your background over there or just this kind of information and training is available to other CSOs or CSOs? Yep. So the organization that I also work at is USCRI, Vermont. USAID is international. So I haven't presented it to Cape yet. I've been really focusing on getting it out to the officers during roll call, but that is on my list to do. I'd love to do it with literally everyone who works here or anyone who's interested. So my plan is to do it with Cape and we also, our department is really close physically as well. So like Mary's right there, Bridget is literally on the other side of this partition. So we're all talking to one another all the time. And so that information has all come out and they've heard me practice this presentation as well. But yeah, there's a lot of that. I usually am the go-to person just because of my background, but that is on the agenda to get it out to all staff. Good to hear. Any further questions while we have CSO Anna here with us? Oh, I have one quick question. Sorry. So in terms of getting my contact information out, Stephanie, can you provide that? Cause we've emailed back and forth or should I, is that okay? I'll take care of that. Thank you. Oh, great. Go ahead. Bridget, get your social work degree. Well, I think I finally decided I'm going to get my masters, but my degree is international affairs and political science with a minor in Middle Eastern studies, very long-winded, but that's next on my list as well. Okay. Thanks to note. That's new. Yeah. Thank you very much for being here with us. I really appreciate it. So I'm pretty sure we asked it as well too. I know the public will take a lot of information with this as well. Again, thank you so much. Good luck on your degree and good luck out on the streets. Thanks, Anna. All right. All right. Moves us on to agenda item 5.02, which is a discussion on the police commission's annual reports. And I know, I think we circulated out, just kind of like people to keep us in the back of their heads for this came up here today. And I think I'll give the floor to Stephanie and this one because Stephanie and Shereen are the wordsmiths of this group. Okay. Shereen, feel free to jump in. So you've seen last year's report. What I'm looking for is your suggestions about items that should be included in this report. And right now here's what I have, a summary of complaints that includes the acting chief's disposition of the complaints and the commission's recommendation, whether they coincide or not. We want to include in their discussion of the CNA work that was done. And we want to do a discussion of the policy revision work that we've been working on. And we also want to include all of our motions and I should say our motions and resolutions that those that are relevant, there may be some that don't fit, but by and large we should include those. So that's what I have so far. And I'm open, I'd ask Shereen if she, if I missed anything. Did you want to include our monthly summary of what we presented just like we had Anna present? Do we want to provide that? I think I sent that in an email in the draft that I pulled out all of those presentations. So we have a summary of that. Absolutely, I just added that to the list. Great. I wonder if we want to lay out some issues we're pondering as a commission. I think that's absolutely appropriate. So that would follow, fall under, it wouldn't fall under our annual goals, but just sort of our reflections. Yeah, our reflection section. And do you have anything in mind in particular? Well, racial disparities comes up right away from me. And sort of thinking about how do we continue to hold these issues? Let me maybe I'll step back a bit and say, how does this commission really take in the pulse of the whole community? Recognizing that you can't totally constitute a whole community, this disparate opinions within each sector of each community, smaller community, within the larger community. But how do we, I'm thinking that we might want to hold some hearings in this coming year. So I'd like to ask that, thank you for that. It's great. And just ask that you hold onto that for goals for next year. I'll make a note of it here, but I think that goes under that heading and appreciate the point about reflections. When we do that section, we'll draft what we draft and we'll circulate it to everybody. So if things come to mind in terms of the reflections, don't worry, there'll be another opportunity for input. Okay. I'm sorry, that was community outreach that you were referring to. Community conversations. Community conversations. Okay. As we reimagine public safety. Okay. If you don't mind, I'm just going to do what I do with these things, which is I'm going to go around the room. Jabu, can I ask you, is there anything else you think we should add to this report? No, I think the things you initially brought up and followed by Shereen, I think pretty much encompasses, I think a pretty healthy report and I think covers a lot of the basis, the parameters that we're able to operate under. And I also do like Susie's mention of kind of like reflections. Yeah, reflections moving forward. Great. Just seeing here, I'm just going around my screen so there's no particular order here, but next I have Jack, Shereen, and then Milo. Jack, do you have anything to add? I realize this is new for you so I don't want to put you on the spot, but if you do have any suggestions. But we will anyway. Not off the top of my head. Thank you. Okay, great. Shereen, anything else? I guess I'm giving you a second shot. Okay. I think everything I had is in that draft that I thought in addition to, I like the idea of more detail on the complaints to give it. I think that's important. So I like that. Nothing to add from that. Great. Milo? Did we have commendations? We, yes, we, and that's a good point. And we do summarize those along with complaints. So I'll just add that to the list. So do you mind if I speak to that? The only issue I had is I think the only way we're going to be able to include that is if we watch the commendations section of each meeting. Because I didn't see any, go ahead, Shannon. Sorry to cut you off, Ms. Schnerhardt. We went through last, last year, I think we included kind of a summary and I have kept track on my end for this, for this, for this one. So it will be similar to what it was before, similar to approximately how many have been received and a couple pulled that we're able to use in the actual report, not anonymous stuff or whatever, or that want to remain anonymous. We won't share that, obviously, but I've kind of kept track of that. Thanks, Shannon, because I went through to find that. And so you're far more on the fall than I am. So thank you. Thanks to co-chair Seguina there. We went through that last year. So. Thank you, Shannon. You're welcome. Suze, Commissioner Comerford. The other thing I'm thinking about is it's kind of stuck in my brain from tonight. The police department is our police department as a whole. And I think that's an important sentiment to carry forward in the report. It's often referred to as my police department or my officers. And that's true. But I also think it's our police department as a community. And so I just want to just raise that somehow in the tone of how the thing comes across. OK, great. Thank you. That then concludes that. And I will list these items for Shannon and Mohammed unless you got them. Do you need me to repeat any of this? And actually, don't worry about it, Shannon. I will email you this list. OK. You can see us, but we've been taking notes over here like crazy. So OK. Would it be helpful for me to email you the list? Sure. OK. I think that concludes that agenda item. Is there any other questions or comments? Not seeing or hearing any. If that moves on to item 5.03, commission goals for the upcoming year. So posted on this agenda item, it was the notes from the ad hoc CNA committee that Milo and I were part of. Basically, that's like a major spreadsheet of all the recommendations that were listed in the CNA report and included responses from the chief, the union, a couple of city counselors, myself, Milo, a couple of committee members. And then you would also see that in one of those little columns was the committee's answer to how to implement that goal. And then I circulate to you which ones of the matrix pertain to policy, pertain to developer directives, which that is our purview for updating and reviewing. So I guess what I like to have happen here is kind of I guess we all kind of come together, list a few things that we like to have happen. We'll take notes of it all and kind of aggregate them as to what's I guess highest priority and what's for lack of better words, the quickest things to implement. And I'm missing anything on that. Stephanie, do you want to drop in for the sense that I missed in there? So I think we want to do this in a logical way, which is to go around the room and ask each person what they want to identify for goals. And then once we have that, we're going to come back and ask for your priorities. So you can list whatever you'd like. But it may be that we have a list that's too long for one year. So we'll have to go back and do a second round. So again, I'm going to go around the room. And I'm going to take notes to Shannon and Mohamed just to make sure we're all set here. And let me start with Susie, Commissioner Cumberford. My first thing is sort of a deepening of our administrative structures and a review of them with the idea of transitions coming up in the coming year. So that we, and also we've moved around in terms, several people have moved around in terms of their responsibilities and a revisit of the different position descriptions with much more detail. So that would be easy for someone else to step into, much easier than it has been in the past. You're referring to commission position descriptions? Yes. OK. And my second goal is to open up different community conversations about policing. And a side note to that is thinking of some kind of a tagline for Burlington Police Commission cooperating or collaborating in reimagining community safety or something like that, so that that in itself is showing a transition, which is something we've been working at for a while in terms of helping the larger community understand more about what we're, well, things, so to speak. And I'm not sort of married to that phrase, that tagline, but something that indicates movement in the direction we want to be going. Next, I'm just going to go in reverse order this time. Milo, Commissioner Grant, you're muted. Sorry. My screen has a little funky. So of course, the CNA, I think a top priority is to review the policies and directives that were listed in it. I'd like to. Sorry. And I think we need specificity here. And I'm trying to get there. So with what Jabu had listed, the directors that were put on our responsibility to review, we are behind in the schedule that was set forth. So I would like to see that be a higher priority. Pushing the Department of Racial Disparities that they continue to say does not exist. Kenny has made it very clear that if he wins the election, pretextual stops will return. They will return to Burlington. And if we don't have confidence that continued training is being done, we're going to be in a bad way. Community engagement, I really would think it'd be beneficial for us to somehow make sure that at least one of us is taking time to go to the MPA meetings. I think we really need to get ourselves out there. I think we need to be working on getting up the views of our meetings and engaging with people directly. And I think we should also troubleshoot ways for the department to do community engagement at this time. In light of everything else that's going on, I'm really kind of demoralized about that. But you all know that. I guess I'll leave it there for now. I think I had some other things. I'm trying to find my notes. I'm sorry, but you can move on to the next person. Thank you. OK, Commissioner Hart. Yeah, in terms of something additional to what's been said, I would say that one of my big goals is really developing the complaint response process. So that is easy for someone to take on from year to year. So that's the only thing I would add to what's already been said. Thank you. Commissioner Gubush. I agree with lots of that I've heard here so far. I think my priority is updating the out-of-date department directors that are listed in the CNA report. Some of the directors that were mentioned in there are ones that we were looking at with regards to past complaints. So the fact that things that we were looking at were identified at CNA report kind of makes I'm sorry, my gosh, the English language is not great today. Sorry. I guess I'll please, when I saw that CNA report, I'd identify some of the things that we were looking at. And I would love to see some of these things done. Some of the department updates will definitely take a long time to do, but some of them are much, much easier and quicker to update and implement. So I would really hope that we could knock out, I'd say, dare I say, at half of the directors I think are listed in the CNA report, be updated if not all of them, but at least half of them. If you tackle half of them, I'd be very, very pleased with that. Thank you. Commissioner Keith? Yeah, I just I had sent some thoughts and email to the rest of the commissioners. I think we can look at that just to quickly to summarize. I was encouraged to hear the chief, the acting chief state that the CNA report really is sort of a roadmap for rebuilding. And I think that's that's important thing to take on board. It is a very in-depth report. It can be overwhelming at times trying to work through it. So I try to focus on more maybe subject matter as opposed to just going through an entire list of policies or directors. And so looking at the report and what I felt ran through many of the different sections of the report is use of force. We know there was a statute introduced in Vermont that the ACLU has allowed it as being the most progressive in the US. Vermont state use of force policies became effective in October of last year. But I have no indication to which any of those have been updated in Burlington. And I know the CNA report really had difficult time trying to verify if any use of force training has I think currently the police are looking at four hours, I think annually. But that wasn't the CNA report had a hard time documenting it. So just to summarize my comments, looking at I think the continuum of recommendations from policies, directives to training to where use of force touches on other things like interaction with persons with disabilities. I think looking at that a little bit holistically and focusing on those aspects of the report, its recommendations. So I would focus on use of force. I would echo with Commissioner Hart said, I think having a systemic way of collecting, processing, and reporting on complaints, I think that is essential. If the commission is going to do outreach to the community, I think part of that is encouraging community members to vocalize. I think there are indications on social media that there is some real concerns. But I think what we heard in the discussion today, when it's kind of left at the level of feelings and subjectivity, it's hard to get traction on what to be done. Where I think if there are complaints and we can begin to document those with data, I think that's really important. But we need to have a system in place and a system that can be managed. So there were some recommendations in the CNA report and look forward to discussing that further. And lastly, I do feel that the CPE is a really important partnering opportunity. I would liken it to what the commission is doing with NACL, where we're learning from peers who are doing citizen oversight. I think what CPE offers is an opportunity for law enforcement to learn from other law enforcement agencies. And I think the CPE offers that opportunity to partner. And I do feel it's not adding a layer on CNA report. I don't think, I think what the CPE can do is provide opportunities to actually implement CNA recommendations. So I didn't, I think rather than adding to the burden, I think it can actually reduce it. Thank you. Thank you. That was excellent. And I'm going to add a few things myself. I think it's useful for us to identify in our notes that for the public, the policies that are mentioned in the CNA report. And so for the sake of Mohamed and Shannon, I'm going to say this a little bit slowly. DD1, 11, 13, 14, 40, and 43 are the directives that we would like to work on. And I think that Commissioner Gamash's point that if we do have, that would be good. I think we should have some reasonable expectations there. I'm adding to the list the press release policy. This is something we've discussed. And I won't say that it's a high priority, but to add it to the list. In addition to this, as you all recall from incident earlier this year, and a recommendation from the city attorney was that the commission could, in fact, develop a policy to require a citation rather than an arrest under certain conditions, when there's no threat, and so on and so forth. So I think that's a policy that we want to pursue. So it's a new policy, if you will. So we might just combine those two, the press release policy and the citation policy as new policy development. And I've added Commissioner Keefe's recommendation. I'm going to suggest I have the list in front of me. I don't know that there's an easy way to, I guess I could share it with you. I can share my screen. So this is what I have as goals. And I combined going to NPA meetings with community conversations. I think there's a general issue with regard to community engagement that those both fall under. The other issue that we have talked about is, as part of community engagement, is developing a social media presence so that we can share information or reports or meetings and so forth, whether it's on Facebook or Twitter and so forth. So actually, I would say that all goes together as number one here. CNA recommendations, racial disparities, the complaint response process, new policy development, and use of force. Let me ask, this list is shorter than I thought, which is not a bad thing. And so what I'd like to ask is if anybody believes that we should develop a priorities here beyond should we identify which are our priorities or should we go with these as our goals? Stephanie, before you go on, you missed the first one I said, which was deepening or strengthening our administrative systems. Ignore my typos, they're legion. But I'll correct that later. Thank you. Yeah. Commissioner Grant. Just along side of social media presence, but also like the website, I don't know if we can have our own link within the city. So we'll work on that. That sounds great. And we wanted to do that, yeah. And actually, a quick side question for Shannon, is it possible to get the picture changed? Do you mind if we stick to what we're doing? I think that's a question you could answer later. But I want to just focus on here our priorities. Yeah, just throwing that out for Shannon to look into for us. I appreciate it. I also, I'm sorry, I'm so tired right now. I'm losing my train of thought. Let me come back to it. Sorry. So I'm not going to go around this. I'm sorry. Kind of within the reviewing the complaint structure is adding additional ways people can file complaints and different languages. Thank you. Thanks. So getting, so again, does anybody have a desire for us to prioritize these issues that we've identified, these goals? Yes, this C&A directives should definitely be at the top followed by racial disparities thing. I won't call on everybody too used to being a professor and I called the call on people. But please raise your hand if you have any desire to further prioritize. Commissioner Gamash? I was just echoing what Milo said. I think we should prioritize the directives for no other reason than like that's tangible. It's used in the field every single day. And yes, and some of those directives haven't been updated in over 10 years. So some of them are long past due. OK. What I've done is I'm going to just suggest that the one that is maybe the lowest priority is number seven. Use of force. Let me say this for those who are not familiar with this is that the state developed its use of force policy that all agencies are required to adopt. And I've asked the question of the city attorney as to whether Burlington can in fact adopt additional language. If not, the use of force policy is essentially determined at the state level. So I'm going to just leave that at the bottom of the list if you don't mind, Commissioner Keefe, until we get clarification on that. So if that's the case, one through six would be our top goals for this coming year. And with regard to number one, certainly we could do as much work as possible, but with an expectation that we have completed at least half of these directives. Just to add one other thing, there are numerous items in the CNA report that requires collaboration between the police department and the police commission. And those things are not listed here. But I think we can assume that under the CNA recommendations of policy revision, we would also construe that as meaning to work with the police department on some of the recommended policy revisions that they've been asked to do. Any further discussion of this? I think I see Susie's hand raised or not raised anymore. I was actually going to just reflect on inductive versus deductive kinds of inquiries or processes. I'm a social worker, so we always think about bottom up. So for me, the first thing would be being in the community in various parts of the community and having open kinds of discussions. I'm not pushing my point of view. I'm just noticing the difference. That's all. OK, great. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. I think that closes up that item, Chair Gouache. Yeah, any further questions or comments with regards to our upcoming goals for you? Not seeing or hearing any. Stephanie, you're welcome to unshare your screen if you'd like. Thank you. I actually have one more thing to say about it. And that is sort of to work collaboratively with the chief specifically around racial disparities and in smaller groups. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Right. Moving on to agenda item 7.01, Use of Force Incident Report. All right. So Use of Force Report was posted on the board docs when the meeting was announced. I hope everyone was able to review it. And if there was any incidents that stuck out, please make note of it. Please mention it now. And I'll send that to one of the deputy chiefs. Not seeing or hearing any right now. As always, if you review, sorry. DC Labarge, I have a question with regard to a couple of things in the report. I don't have it in front of me right now, but there is a place in which it referred to a body fold. Can you describe what that is? Can you hear me? Yes. Loud and clear. Yes. Hello, everybody. Reference of body fold. It's a technique that would be used either by one officer or two officer, depending on the technique. But it's basically as it sounds, where you would engage the individual from the side, almost kind of like I'm going to describe this in kind of simple terms, but almost kind of a bear hug around the waist where you're able to kind of fold the individual. The ultimate goal is to, if you're going to take the person down, either one or two officer response to try to minimize any sort of secondary injuries, because obviously use of force can result in injuries. And so different techniques, as things develop, different techniques, we try to use to minimize that, although that's not always a guarantee. It might be something where as we go in the future, if we do use of force trainings and different people you want to attend or something, you might be able to get more, a better explanation with a more hands-on view of different techniques that we teach for something maybe in the future. DC Labarge, would that be possible to do a presentation to the commission? I think that would be helpful on the kind of trainings and so forth. I think just about anything we can try to do within reason, we would obviously have to discuss, pick time, set up, and then kind of look at a very basic, almost like a pre-basic breakdown of certain techniques and different things that we use, kind of a ground level explanation of different things. But I think that's something we could probably do in the future. Well, we'll work with you so that it works in your schedule, that you have enough time to do it. We'll be in conversation with you about that. Thank you so much. I had a question about number six also. And this is the arrest for the misdemeanor domestic assault. I was curious about the last part of the officer write-up. It says an officer, it said, based on officer observations of arrestee, the arrestee's mental status, the Burlington Fire Department was called, and he was taking to UVM Medical Center, ER for an evaluation, and later released into BPD custody. What does that mean? Does it mean that the evaluation was that there was not a mental health issue, and therefore, what does it mean that he was in BPD custody? So I'll speak very generally. I obviously don't do this portion of the use of force. It's Chief Labreck. But that, in my interpretation as I read that, he said number six, correct? So we obviously have a duty to care. And so if we're interacting with an individual and they could be experiencing several different things. If they believe that that individual is displaying something where they need medical attention, we literally, the default is not a doctor. You call for BFD, you get medical evaluation. If BFD determines that they need to be transported, they get transported. If in fact that person, the arrestee is in custody because they were, it sounds like they're in our custody. We would go up to the hospital and depending on what those dynamics look like, whether we have to stay with that individual or that individual's behavior results in them being restrained. When they do get released from the hospital and are cleared from a physician, we would still maintain custody, bring the person back and then process accordingly. However, if that's released on a citation, if that's a lodging, we would process and finish out that judicial process for that individual. Great, that's very helpful. Thank you. Any other further questions or comments for DC Labarge while we have them here with the rest of these for support? We do not. I'm sorry, I'd like to see a couple of these, but is it best to email next week because I can't watch them in the upcoming week due to my schedule? I would just say that all commissioners, if you want to identify them, that all commissioners can get them and DC Labarge, we could renew the axon access if person hasn't been able to review it in three days. Is that correct? So you have to bear with me as I transition in this role. I know that is one of many things that DC Sullivan was doing in reference axon. I'll work with DC Labarge and our axon people here to figure that out. See, it's my understanding that you all have access or had access and then it would be shared kind of on an incident by incident basis, but I could be wrong, but I'll look into that to get a little bit more familiar. And if you shoot myself or Chief Labarge an email, we will work to coordinate that process to keep it the way it was before. So Commissioner Grant, would you identify which videos you'd like so that we can note them? Yeah. I wanted number one. So the incident number is next to the number or would you prefer I read out the incident number? No, just the number in the use of force report. So number one? Yes, number one, number three, and actually just those two at this time, there is a third one, but 13, 13, thank you. And DC Labarge, I believe how our axon accounts work. So we all have axon accounts. We can't see everything, we can only see what gets put into our accounts. I'm not sure how that works on your end, but it lasts in the States after three days and then it's removed. This person, background information on their axon accounts. Okay, perfect. I'll work on getting caught up to speed on that and work on getting access and learning that process. Awesome, thank you so much. Shreena, see your hand raised. Thank you. I just wanted to highlight for Commissioner Keith that what you just said, Jabu, which is it's three days, that it's available to us on this axon account. So we have to get a separate account for that. And also mine are going to spam. If there's any way we can get an email telling us when these are uploaded, just a separate email, then I'll know to go into my spam and look because otherwise I just completely missed these. So I hate to put that added burden on and I'll try to fix it the next time I get one to mark it as something that doesn't go to spam. So thank you. Okay, I will pass these notes on and we'll try to get that taken care of. Awesome, thank you. Much appreciate it, D.C. LaBarge. Any other further questions or comments on these force report? I am not seeing or hearing any. D.C. LaBarge, thank you for being available for us. Moving on to agenda item 8.01, which is commendations that have been received for the month of June, 2022. And with that, I give the floor to Mohamed and Shannon. Excellent. So actually have one here to share with you. It is one for one of our records clerks, which is a division that tends to sometimes get overlooked in their massive amount of duties that they have in our department. And this woman writes that one of our clerks possessed excellent customer service. Attention to detail, a lot of patients and that she made the entire process of dealing with the records department very seamless. She also notes by way of our entire record staffs. She notes our gems and I use that because that's her words and that she is very grateful that every time that she calls that they work their hardest to assist her and show her how to sometimes retrieve data herself on the website. So that is accommodation this month for our records clerks. Thank you for that. Yay team. All right, I appreciate it. Thank you for that. You're welcome. Moving on to agenda item 9.01, commissioner updates or comments. And this is the time of the meeting where any commissioners can pose a greater question, make a comment or an update to us so the public got large that wasn't necessarily covered or more was an agenda item. So with that, the floor is open. And I'm not seeing or hearing any Milo. Milo, I see your hand raised now. Thank you. In case you haven't seen commissioners of the BPOA post I'm going to email it to the link to it for all of you to review. I'm referring to acting chief Murad's comments earlier. I don't see how we separate officers from their union's post. I personally just don't. I also have an email from someone in the public that I'd like to forward to you and it's in reference to the language so that you can see the type of the public the type of things that I'm hearing in my community. I, as you all know, have been very upset. Even more so, I've been exasperated. I feel that I have really done my best to work within the system, quote unquote. But we're really entering a new phase here. I am more sensitive to a lot of this stuff. I am in Ward three. I have lived in wards two and three for most of my almost 40 years here in Burlington. So I'm driving by every day, biking, walking where these things are happening and I'm having these conversations in my community. So this is something that is really, really hitting me because I'm feeling what my community members are feeling. We are seeing, I mean it's spreading out to other parts of the city, no question but we are really some of the more serious stuff and the level of disrespect which has been talked about multiple times, multiple times. It's not at a point where it can be tolerated anymore. Thank you. Thank you for that Milo. Any other further questions or updates or comments? Susie, is that a hand? It's all you needed. So my question is, is there a way for it's a public meeting for us to know who's in the audience? Yeah, quick participants, attendees and then I show the one who's here. Uh-huh. Susie, I think folks could be watching on YouTube and that would not reflect but I could be mistaken about that. Correct. If anyone's watching via town meeting TV, I've, because they broadcast to their network on what's on YouTube and I don't know who's watching via that but this does show who's here or present by Zoom. Except that there's three, there's eight people on the, oh, I see attendees. Okay. Thank you. Now I've got it. Clear up a big mystery. Milo, I see your hand raised. Is that another comment or? Thank you. No, no, I forgot to lower. Thank you. Oh, good. Oh, good. All right, I'm not here. Seeing or hearing any other further additional commissioner comments or updates. So move us to agenda item 10.01, which is a next meeting agenda items, election of chairs. What else do we have? Sorry, I won't put my foot in my mouth. I'll let Stephanie speak. Sorry, you muted. I think it would be good to get updates on the policy work that commissioner Hart and Comerford are working on and that several of us are working on with regard to complaints. I mostly think it's important for us to keep on track. And so having to report is a good incentive to do so. Happy with that. All to update, structure of chairs. Stephanie. It's always hard at these meetings to think about the next meeting. Commissioner Gommas and I talked about and commissioner Hart talked about us developing the agenda a full week in advance. So that would mean, I don't know, August 16th, we would be reaching out to you to see if anything else has come up that you would like to see on the agenda. Dare I say, maybe even before that because I feel like usually we're putting the agenda together on the 16th and we always have this problem. So maybe we'll reach back in, I know it's a short turnaround between this between the meeting and next meeting, but I guess we'll reach back out next week either Wednesday or Thursday to kind of re-job this one so we can get the agenda, I guess hopefully finalized by the 17th, ideally. Does that work? Does that sound good? And as soon as I see your hand raised. I think it's really important for us to continue to sort of the 30 minute education sections that we do because I think many people have access to that. So I'd like to see us do something every single time we have a meeting. I don't have anything on the top of my brain right now about that, but that also means that if we decide to do that as a group, we have to do that earlier so they can schedule. Absolutely. I think that's a task that a commissioner can take on that is that a commissioner would step up and say that they would handle determining what those educational components would be solicit impact, input from the commissioners, organize, connecting with the person that we invite and so forth. So I don't think that, I think the chairs have enough to do. And so if a commissioner would take that on that would be great. We can resolve that later, but. Sure. Is that your hand raised? I'm wondering if maybe next month one of the things we do is we have this, well, it's this month, right? It's this month. This month, yeah. One of the things that we do is we take the list of identified goals and talk about how we're going to get them done in terms of who and that would be one of them, right? Is just having folks indicate what interests them and taking on. I like it. So who will take the lead on various policy revisions? Great. Goal roadmap. Is that a good place holder for that? And like I just said, also. Oh, I have an item. So sorry. We will hear from our attorney, Anthony Earpino on the implications of the new BPOA contract for the work that we do. So he will be reviewing that. And he indicated that's a discussion for public session rather than executive session. So we can put that on the list if he's available for that meeting. Awesome. That's four things right there. Seems pretty healthy. But with that being said, anything else pops up with anybody else? I'll be reaching out next Wednesday, Thursday to see if there's anything else that people want to address or talk or at least put it in the queue. Thank you. All right. And next is the anticipated executive session which there will be an executive session. And with that via provision one VSA 313A4, I make a motion to enter executive session to discuss possible dismay issues with regards to officers. Do I have a second? Seconded by Shereen. Yeah, I got you. All in favor, raise your hand. Sorry, any discussion over the motion? I thought we had decided that we weren't going to go past eight o'clock. If we had executive sessions could be on another night. Did I miss that? We kind of changed the last couple of months because Kevin's job, Kevin got a new job and he's only available on those nights that we have the meeting, due to his overnight work. And so it's just... Okay, okay. Yeah. Sorry, apologies on that. So, sorry. Any further discussion on the motion on the floor? I'm not here seeing or hearing any. All in favor of entering executive session, raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. To everybody in the public, thank you for joining with us and being here with us today. Our next meeting will be on the, I believe it's the 23rd of August, that will be our remote meeting. And then hopefully after that, we will move to a hybrid setting. So, if you wanna join via Zoom, you can, if you'd like to be the person, you can. But yes, so thank you for joining in. For everybody here on the commission, you believe you should have a Zoom link for executive session in your email box and let's reconvene in five minutes. Well, so that makes it 846, so that will be used to bathroom but not. Everybody in the public, thank you very much for being here with us. Have a good night and everybody else. I'll see you in about five minutes.