 We're gonna go because we're gonna go. Good evening. Welcome to the March, 2021 meeting of the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel. Let us begin with introductions. I will go around my screen and if you would at that moment unmute yourself and introduce yourself, that would be lovely. Jeff Jones, let's start with you. Jeff Jones, I guess he'd say pointy at large. Thank you, Chris Loris. Roger Christopher Loris, I am here in two capacities. One as the representative for crime research group for Karen Gannett and Robin Joy and I'm also a member of the Criminal Justice Council. Thank you, Judge Grierson. Good evening, everybody. Brian Grierson, Chief Superior Judge. Good to see everyone. Yes, thank you, Loretta Saki. Hi, Loretta Saki from the Council of State Government Justice Summit, thank you. Thank you, Pepper. Hi, James Pepper from the Department of State's Attorney and Sheriff's. Thank you, Tyler Allen. Good evening, everybody. Tyler Allen from Department of Children and Families. Great, Jen Furpo. Hey, everybody, Jen Furpo, the designee for the Vermont Police Academy. Great, Monica Weber. Hi, everyone, I'm Monica Weber. I'm the designee for the Department of Corrections. Thank you, Elizabeth Morris. Hi, all, I am Elizabeth Morris, the Juvenile Justice Coordinator for DCN. Jessica Brown. Hi, everyone, my name is Jessica Brown. My pronouns are she and her and I am an Attorney General's Office appointee to this panel and I'm also the managing attorney for the Public Defender Office for Chittenden County. Thank you, Julie Scribner. Hi, I'm Julie Scribner. I'm the captain with the Vermont State Police Co-Director of Fair and Impartial Policing and Community Affairs on behalf of Commissioner Sherling. Great, thank you. David Scherer. David Scherer, Assistant Attorney General and designee for the Attorney General's Office. Thank you. Julio. Hi, I'm Julio Thompson, the Director of the Civil Rights Unit and the Attorney General's Office. I'm not on the ARDAP, I'm just here as an observer. Great, thanks. Oh, look, Falco, hello. Hello, hi, everyone, Falco Sherling, Advocacy Director for the ACLU of Vermont and I am also not on the ARDAP but I'm here as an observer as well. Great, thanks. Rebecca Turner. Hi, everyone, Rebecca Turner, panel member from the Office of the Defender General. Thank you. Representative Lalonde. Yes, hello, Eitan, Martin Lalonde, Representative, I'm on the Judiciary Committee and I'm observing, thank you. Great, thanks. I don't know what to do when it says plus two. There are two other people out there, apparently. If I have not called your name because God forbid this should be a user-friendly platform, please feel free to just introduce yourself now. I know there are at least two of you. Hi, can you hear me? I can, oh, look there, hi. Hello, the Susana Davis Racial Equity Director for the state. I normally attend these meetings in that capacity but tonight I'm joining you as the Chair of the Racial Equity Task Force. Thank you for having us and I'm sorry if I came in unmuted at the beginning and interrupted people's introduction. Thanks. Anyone else that I have not, that I cannot access? Mercedes Sabila, hi. I have issues with teams and I'm Associate Professor of Pediatrics at UVM College of Medicine and I serve as a community member in the Racial Equity Task Force. Thank you for having me. Welcome. Anyone else who I'm unceremoniously not introducing. Okay, I am sorry about that and allow me to welcome all of you who are from the Racial Equity Task Force. Thank you for coming. Look forward to talking with you. Sorry about the inelegant introductions but that's technology for you. Oh, right. I'm Eitan Nassred Longo, I'm Chair of the panel. Moving on, I'd like to switch a few things around because I somehow got all screwed up when I wrote the agenda. I'd like to do the announcements. Does anyone have any? I have one but I'd like everybody to go first. Any announcements? No? Okay. What I wanted to point out, you have learned and certainly by this point in time that there's always a difficulty with notifying people or I have a difficulty. Let me personalize it. I have a difficulty with notifying you all when I have to testify somewhere. It's my problem and Sheila has solved the problem. Text messages. I don't know why this seemed impossible but I don't think sometimes and I forget about cell phones and she recommends that people who want to be notified about testimony send me, well, I mean, I think this is what we should do is send me your name, your phone number in an email. I will make a whole group on my phone and then I can just send out a text message when I am gonna be testifying. And I think that that was a really great solution. She does that herself with the root and she puts me in a group that all the time and I didn't make the connection because I just didn't. So anyway, again, I'm sorry that this has been a problem up until now but thanks to Sheila for coming up with a really easy and obvious solution to the problem. So that's my one announcement is that we can do that from here on out when I testify. Any questions, comments, anything, please chime in. Okay, approval of the minutes discussion. Anybody got anything to say about that? The minutes. Everybody loves them? We'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Wonderful. Thank you. Anyone seconding that? This is Jessica, I'll second. Great, all in favor. Aye. Aye. All opposed. All abstaining. The minutes are accepted. Thank you. And thank you again, Olivia. For taking our minutes for us. Also, I have gotten a request. Could people please also remember to mute themselves if they're not speaking? I think I really would love to get... We would... Yeah, that mute thing, it's a marvelous tool. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let's move into the body of the meeting, the discussions. I want to switch the first two items so that the racial equity task force people can leave early if they so desire, if they don't want to be here through the rest of our deliberations. So we have, as you know, then the inquiry from the racial equity task force concerning collaboration on criminal justice reform and law enforcement. And for this, I'd like to turn the meeting over to Executive Director Davis. So, Suzanna, it is the floor is yours. Right, thank you. So a number of you who were on, I think last month's call might remember the brief rundown that I gave you, but I'll kind of lift that back up again. The racial equity task force, as you know, was established by executive order in the summer of 2020 and the governor asked us to look at three specific items. One was about fair representation, getting more people of color into public office at all levels of state government, including boards and commissions. The next one was systems of support that exist in Vermont for communities of color in general. And the third was free speech, speech, et cetera. We delivered two reports that covered those three topics, but the first one is the one I wanna focus on, that systems of support for communities of color in Vermont. And one of the biggest systems that exist with, you know, and the one with which people of color interact often most negatively is the justice system in all of its stages. And the task force made a very thoughtful but difficult decision not to tackle policing in that report because we felt that given the runway that we had and the deadlines that had been established, we wanted to be able to do that topic justice and give it the consideration that it needed. And we didn't think that coupling it with all the other systems of support, et cetera in one report would give us enough time or thoughtfulness to do that. So we tabled the policing discussion that we did have a lot of feelings about criminal justice in general. So after we completed the deliverables in the executive order, we turned our attention back to the items that we had set aside and this was one of them. We knew that the RDAP existed and was extremely prolific putting out reports and recommendations and having press conferences and testifying less than right. And you all have been very busy in this space. And I think one of the things that we can all agree on is that nobody wants to do double work and nobody wants to be, you know, zagging when we should be digging. So we thought it best to communicate with the RDAP so that we could let you all know what our early thinking was on criminal justice issues, whether there were topics that you had explored, had not explored that we could tackle and let you know what our thinking was as we begin to turn our attention to this topic. And I have Mercedes and I think Stefan is also on. So please feel free to jump in to correct or add. So that's kind of where we are. I'm grateful to you all for hosting us at this meeting so that we could maybe talk a little bit about if there's an opportunity for collaboration between the two groups, what that could look like, or if you just have general thoughts about how we can or should approach some of these topics. Just as a quick, quick rundown, some of the items that we had been considering early in our thinking include things like police in schools, SROs, and just generally about law enforcement contact with students, use of force, body-borne cameras, and that slate of issues which we deliberately didn't touch because at the time DPS and ACLU and the other partners had been floating around a couple of 10-point plans and we didn't wanna have to jump in there unnecessarily. Things like testing and vaccinations for incarcerated people and also out of state incarceration. So as you can see, we're kind of touching on multiple phases of the justice system, incarceration, policing, et cetera. So those are some of the issues that we started identifying early on and I want to make sure that I invite Mercedes and Stefan to add to that if I missed anything, but that's kind of where we are. You're good. Thank you, Mr. Everson. Go ahead. Somebody was about to speak, sorry. No? I just said, I think that it was gonna cover everything. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I was saying the exact same thing at the exact same time. Thank you, Stefan, and hello. Okay. So, from, do you have a report, Susanna, that you all are doing on criminal justice that you have as a deliverable that you would like some collaboration on these topics to inform? So we haven't, I don't think we've necessarily settled on drafting a report, but we had thought and we needed to get them down or at least talk them through. So we haven't necessarily identified a deliverable or a timetable for that. I think what we really wanted to do was establish a firm desire and a set of parameters for whether and how we have this conversation as a group. So as of now, there's not necessarily a specific report planned, but I don't know, maybe, I don't mean to speak too much for the group without deeper conversation, but I imagine that whatever deliberations we have will probably result in something on paper. And I guess, I'm sorry, I should have mentioned one more thing. We're considered advisory to the governor and so most of our recommendations are oriented towards what that office can do. Some of them call for legislation, but for the most part, we try to make them as actionable as possible to the entity to whom they're to be delivered. Okay, thank you. Discussion from the rest of the panel. Everyone's very quiet. So Zana, this is Rebecca, I'll chime in first. Thanks for being here, the members of your group. It's great to hear what your work and the overlap and I certainly personally agree. I don't want to zag when we could zig together. What I do think would be helpful for me because I just heard you and say the things that you guys were working on that could potentially overlap, but it would be helpful to see that in writing more or maybe we can discuss it here more if you're ready to share. But I got one, I mean, I'm not quite sure what you are, you have seen our report, I'm sure in November, 2019, not the most recent one where we made all these suggestions, has your group considered that report in terms of whether there's any identified overlap and interest? We haven't dived deep into it, mainly because we were trying to pump out all of these recommendations specified by governor and we had decided to table the topic generally, but the RDAF reports have definitely served as kind of a starting point in general for where I think the state is now. So for example, a lot of the stuff that came out of just the reinvestment and out of this group are moving through the legislature. And so it's with that context that we consider is there anything else that needs to be added or changed? So I guess the short answer is not yet, but we're getting there. And I suppose that's a real part of the reason that we are here as a way of exploring, are there stones that you all didn't, that you all either didn't have time or resources or anything like that to overturn that perhaps we could help look at or something like that? I would think, I have now officially forgotten our report from 2019, I don't know how that's possible given how many times I presented it, but I do have officially forgotten it. And I'm wondering, given that we were thinking of amplifying that entire body of work going forward, whether any of this fit into that report and that we should start pulling out on that. Rebecca, you're nodding. I'm nodding and also trying to buy some time because I agree, I think that would be a natural place where if we could find some overlapping areas that we don't can get there quickly, Susanna. The other point, which maybe it's a correlation of what you're saying, but it's a bit of the opposite, which is we want to be efficient, we also don't want to be in conflict, right? And I wanted to highlight, because I haven't had a chance to, I haven't just talked about this with this panel, but some of the bills that have been introduced this session, I've been testifying and representative along those, he sees a lot of me these days on behalf of the Office of Defender General, some of the bills. One of those bills why it's relevant to bring up here and specifically in the context of conflict potentially is, and this is where I was buying time, the bill related to amending the hate crime statute, which is a sentencing enhancement. And during my testimony opposing that bill, I shared some of the history that our panel has had the early days history and I don't know if this was before your time or after, but the ones who have been on this panel from the very beginning will recall that this discussion did come up, that it is not included in our 2019 report. And the point I made was that wasn't a coincidence, right? That it was something that we discussed. So that is just the one example. And Susanna, I should share with everyone you also testified there as well. And you can share what you'd like as to your testimony or not on it, but that is an instance where not only do I hope we can find common areas so that we're efficient, but that we're not in conflict on what is sort of the highest priorities, the most important places where we think that real reform can be made. And so therefore beyond sort of the same front so that the legislature who has just such finite resources as do we, but they themselves, I haven't ever appreciated it as much as I have being up close for this committee, this session, how much they are doing and working. But to me, that's a point where we can be very helpful to them, right? Where we can identify, yes, that may be an interest to some, but is that a priority for our debt? Is that a priority for this task, for your task force? And if so, why? And what is it that we're really shooting like, what are the common underlying fundamental principles that's driving our work, our particular proposals for? So I think there is a theme there that has developed. Great. Thank you. Sheila. Hey everybody, Sheila Linton, Community and Large Root Social Justice Center. She, her pronouns. Thank you, Aton. Thank you, Sazana, for being here. And thank you, Rebecca, for your comments. I, what I'm thinking about, I have the similar questions and needs as what Aton and Rebecca requested sort of more of the body to look at our work as well as for us as a group to look at that work and see if where we need to twist things out more. I think in making that body of work that we did, there were numerous things that we wanted to expand on that were not exactly our focus of this group. And I think like we just, I, what I'm sort of hearing, I don't want to put words in other people's mouths, but I think like we just haven't gotten together as a panel to be like, okay, what are those things that we couldn't really focus on because it wasn't the priority to get the report out to the legislature. And what are those extending things from that report that we really feel as though maybe this group might have better jurisdiction in, might have more capacity, might have more resources, whatever it might be, or might be just collaborative with us in making some of those things happen. Some of those things for me, I can't speak for the panel, I'll speak for myself as a member on the panel, but also in the conversation in which we had and other people feel free to chime in and either correct me or give your own opinion of these things. But something that I'm really interested in is going upstream. And I think that's a lot of what the panel had talked about as when we started really tweezing things out, we started getting into the nitty-gritty of what's not downstream, but what's really upstream. So specifically talking about, for me, like mandated reporters and things where, where do things start and why are things happening and when are they happening? So we talked about things like mandated reporters. We talked about things like resource officers or police in schools. We talked about the DCF office and juvenile justice. And so for me as a panel member, I would like this body to support on those three initiatives. I would like to be finding out more about mandated reporters and training and data and understanding specifically how explicit and implicit bias is happening and what's happening around all the different types of mandated reporters. I would really like to support not only here locally in the Brattleboro era but statewide with the ethnic coalition and supporting the resource officers out of schools. And I think that would be really great if we could come together on that because we are not only part of that statewide with many different entities that are BIPOC led working on that body of work, but it's like a whole statewide thing but very localized at the same time. And I think, again, it's that upstream work that we're talking about when we talk about transformative justice or restorative justice we keep on coming back to like, well, where does this start? Starts in school, starts in that mandated reporter that maybe it's not in school, starts at DCF when they're getting their children taken away or being questioned without an adult or whatever the situations are. And then the last, I know that there's a bill I think it's still H.265 which is for the Office of Child Advocate, I believe. And I am really a huge proponent of that and Families United here in Brattleboro which is a part of the route and others as well as, of course, Voices for Vermont's Children and many others are working on this from around the state and have provided testimony on it. And I would really, really like us to continue to focus on oversight and accountability for the DCS system. It's not only really important for obvious reasons that we're talking about the adult criminal jewel system but it's also really important to address the upstream issues that we're talking about. And that would be absolutely my focus in my opinion for this panel. Anyone else? My sense is that what we ought to do is look at those, the issues that Susanna has just put out and look at what we've done in the 2019 report and look at the overlap and start from that point. That seems like the best way to proceed to me. I would love other feedback. That's 8-time going off the cuff. I say that because that was sort of the direction we're moving in. If you look at our agenda for the evening, we haven't yet gotten the discussion of readings from Julio and Rebecca Turner concerning civilian oversight models from law enforcement. That was the beginning of that effort to go back to the report from 2019 and begin sort of deepening it, making it a closer look. I would suggest that the issues that Susanna and the Racial Equity Task Force bring out, police in schools, the use of force issues, traffic stops, certainly, I mean, that all sort of fits in. I think if I'm remembering correctly with our report from 2019, not so much the testing and vaccinations, obviously, for incarcerated people. But the issue of out-of-state incarceration is not too much of a stretch from where we were to discuss. We were also very clear that there would be disagreement on this level, that we were gonna get to reports that included a lot of dissent, probably. I keep remembering Jessica Brown saying that it was, we were able to come to consensus on the report in 2019 because it really was from 30,000 feet. And when we got down to, oh, I don't know, let's say 10, it's probably going to be less consensual. So I guess I'm suggesting that we take a look at suturing this into our work on the 2019 report. And I will, I'll start that. I'll take the report and look at the list of concerns and put them together in a document that I will then send out by email to everyone. Does that sound like a reasonable way to proceed? Does that, also Susanna and members of the, I can't, R-E-T-F, sorry, I gotta go slow on that one. Does that make sense to you? Everybody, I just need feedback. I just put a proposal together. Jessica's giving me a thumbs up, so I'm happy. Sheila's giving me a, all right, I can't have enough. I was gonna say, yeah, this is. All right, then I will do that, folks. I will sit down with the computer and I will take the concerns, because Susanna and I've been in contact over this and so I will suture stuff in and like say, here's this part of our report from 2019. Let's, you know, this would seem to fit here. Let's start these discussions from this point. Yes? Cool and groovy. Is there- That sounds great, and I'm gonna add one more, which is I rattled off a couple of subtopics, but, you know, again, our conversations had been tabled and so our thinking wasn't necessarily limited to that. So one thing that I appreciate about this conversation is it feels as if we're coming to you saying, hey, we didn't have enough runway to do policing stuff, but we want to. Can we help you or can you help us? And then it sounds like you're also saying, hey, when we did our policing stuff, we didn't have enough runway to do ancillary stuff that you may have been working on. And so I think I agree with really finding those intersection points and I think this is a great opportunity. I will also send you the summary of the recommendations that we've made, a number of what you touch on, like school discipline, et cetera. And I also note that a couple folks who are generally at our DAP meetings also have seats on the Task Force. So the ACLU has a seat on the Task Force, HRC, et cetera. And so I think there's probably a lot of, a lot of those common points that we could identify. Great. And when you send me that summary, then I will also send it out to the entire our DAP so that you guys see it. In other words, I'm thinking of what? No, I will do that. And I think I can actually put it here in the chat now. Oh, well. And I will also send it secretly by email because I know that that's easier sometimes. Yeah, you know how good I am with the chat. So, so yes, if you would put it in the email, that would be great. Thank you. So we'll start there then and move from that point forward. Any other comments people want to make? All right. Thank you very much. I'm very glad you all came. I'm hoping this will be a very fruitful collaboration. It looks like it's going to get off very well because even that there are a lot of overlaps. So thank you for coming. Feel free to stay. I mean, I'm not, you know, we're gonna keep going. So, but we're gonna move on to the next agenda item. Thanks again. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Okay. As I said, we had, I had moved a couple of things around because I wanted to get the racial equity task where it's folks in. So they didn't have to be here for our whole meeting. I wanted, this is part an announcement, part not. I want to let you know that I was asked to testify on March 11th, which is the day after tomorrow, concerning the repeal of the sunset of the RDAAP as you have in your, and on the on the agenda, the bill S97, I had, you know, there's a link there and you can look at it. I'll be testifying at 8.30 in the morning, bring some coffee. Judge Grierson will be testifying, Pepper will be testifying, David Sher will be testifying and then me. You may remember regarding the repeal of the sunset that this was an issue that Representative Brad brought up last month at our meeting and that this concern has now become part of this bill of S97. And as I say, testimony will be taken on this on Thursday. I personally feel that we run fine. I mean, there are some kinks and some of them have to do with the pandemic, with the intrusion of technology into something that ought to be in a room, but I don't feel like there's a major screw-up here on some levels. There is one issue that absolutely does come to mind to me and that I'm hoping to testify about and that would be the need for a fairly stable link between the RDAAP and the legislature. And I say that because as you guys learned from my emails the last month, there was a lot of, I don't know, people were asking me really good questions about what had become of the bill that we looked at last meeting, the draft, and I really didn't know. And that's no one's particular fault. It's just because things get going, everyone has things that they do. And if there are roads that need to move in directions, they're not familiar with, they don't tend to happen. So what I would like to say on Thursday is, yes, this is a lovely idea, we're all for it. And by the way, we need to talk about some kind of link so that communication comes to me. I mean, I've been sitting pretty much on this cushion, on this couch in this room for 12 months and it's really difficult to get information. So I don't always, my usual, my peeler moles as it were are not as functional right now as they are when we're not all sitting on the same couch on the same cushion and so on. So I just feel like I wanna suggest that when I testify. If anything occurs to you, if anything pops to your mind right now, could you please just shout it out because I'd like to know. My plan is to speak of our concerns as kind of a list that I can present to, this is gonna be to the Senate Judiciary Committee, by the way, that I would like to give them a list of concerns that we have that they may want to take up. So feel free to discuss. Anybody got stuff? Anything that pops to mind? Pepper? One thing that I was thinking about when we submitted our most recent report was that the enabling statute that created us had very specific reporting requirements. And I don't pretend that we've, achieved any of those goals per se, but we have reported on all of them to some degree or another. And I wonder if we're gonna repeal the sunset, whether it makes sense to re-look at, re-think about our enabling statute, to think about other areas that we might wanna try to weigh in on as a panel. Even if it's as simple as working with the racial equity task force on just kind of a broader criminal justice reform strategy or something. You know, I just, it was very specific about data collection. And I remember there was like three or four parts. And I feel like, yeah. Right. And you know, they haven't necessarily acted on all of our recommendations, but if we just sit here and keep recommending the same things, I don't know how useful that will be for our time. So I wonder if part of the recommendation, maybe it's part of the conversation here tonight, or just moving forward is, what do we want that kind of next step to look like? Okay. Anyone else? Hey, Pepper, this is Don. My question for you though, is we're looking at that, should that be expanded a little bit instead of it always being reported to the legislative bodies that maybe there's a way to also work with local law enforcement or other type of agencies to make policy changes. It's not all legislative, but it could be recommendations with the law enforcement, courts, juvenile justice, whatever. I just didn't know if maybe it should be expanded or just stay with legislative. No, I actually think that's a great idea. I mean, so much of the disparities that we see around the state are due to, I would say kind of disparate resources people acting locally, and they're being a disconnect honestly between the legislature and the kind of local communities. So I think some direction for us in that realm would be welcome at least from my perspective. Okay. Yeah, because like personally from my end, I would love that DCF and the court systems recognize the Indian Child Welfare Act. I mean, I get contacted with courts and DCF from all over the country except one, Vermont. And I don't know why that is, but it just happens, but it would be nice to be able to work with those agencies directly to make changes. So that way maybe they do extend those laws to state recognized tribes and other type of things. Anyway, that's just a suggestion. Thanks. Pepper, can I ask you a favor then? Yes. And that pepper's like you can ask, but you may not have it. Could you write what you just said about looking again at the statute that brought us into being and that gave us direction? Could you please put that into a small paragraph and shoot that to me? Yes, of course. That would be lovely. I would appreciate that. Hey, Tom, if I can ask a question. Yeah, Judge Greelsen. Back to Chief Stevens. Chief, I'm curious in what context have you had to reach out to other states and in what respects hasn't the court responded to your concerns? It's not, I've reached out to them under the Indian Child Welfare Act, anybody who claims to be of a certain ethnicity they would con those social welfare department or the judicial system will contact me and ask whether I want to be involved, what kind of information or resources I can provide. I'm saying is the state of Vermont hasn't done that with us. It's only when I found out a child is being in custody that I have to actually approach to try to intervene. And a lot of times I'm hearing that you don't have standing because we don't recognize the Indian Child Welfare Act because it's for federal tribes only. But I'm just saying other states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, other people contact me all the time and ask for my input because they've extended that benefit of contacting tribes to the state tribes so they don't discriminate against federal or state tribes. But Vermont hasn't extended that to state tribes. So we don't have standing. So we don't become an interested party. Does that make sense? So I'm saying is it would be nice if the state of Vermont might do that as part of this racial disparities or racial justice. Right, no, I understand how the process works. I guess, and I'm sure you're aware that the court doesn't independently investigate cases that information would have to come to us through DCF as they present the case. Correct. Through the court. So I... Usually like what I'm saying is say somebody is DCF they're doing an investigation and they want to take custody or potential discharge parental rights. If somebody identified that they had Abonackie heritage usually then they would reach out to that tribe to find out if they are in fact on the tribal roles and if there is any concern about how to place the child and whatever the case may be. I'm just saying the state of Vermont hasn't done that where others have. I know the maybe the judicial system or the court doesn't say, well, I want to research this but it's through usually the DCF process that I'm contacted. It's by the social case manager and social welfare case manager but then that plays into the placement and other types of things when a judge makes a decision there's some kind of you have some kind of say on what happens. That's not true. I understand that that's why I'm concerned that if you don't think it's being addressed then I would agree with you that we need to make sure that those issues are addressed. Well, if it is, I'm not being contacted and nowhere in my tribe is. So if it's happening, it may be happening with somebody else but there's no conservative effort. I'm just making the statement that those are the type of things I even get called by prisons inmates from prison saying they're not getting certain things or need legal help, which ask our tribe to provide which we can't because we don't have lawyers and we don't have those kind of things. There's a bunch of things that I think from a native side we could work on but we don't touch on them really because where we have it. But anyway, I just wanted to at least say if we're going to expand the purview that might be nice to include working with specific agencies directly to make policy changes or recommend adopting certain policies to be more equitable in the state of Vermont which hasn't been done in the past. That's all I'm saying. I don't know if anybody's ever looked at it. Thank you. Can I ask you, chief, I'm going to ask you the favor that I just asked of Pepper. Can you write me a little paragraph? Yeah. Very specifically. In what regards? I mean, about working with. About really looking very carefully at the... I'm trying to remember how you worded it. Basically, the disjuncture between federal recognition, state recognition, and then a disparate application of law. Yeah, I can kind of write down what I'm seeing and where things can be improved because, no? Well, what I'm thinking of is just something briefly that I can put in this discussion in the testimony to say that our DAP would also like to look at these issues. Okay. That if, because following on what Pepper was saying about the expansion and you followed on him saying this would be part of that. So we would say, for example, the Indian Child Welfare Act, those kind of things as an example. Yes. Okay. Is that all right? Yeah. Wendy, just let me know when you need to buy. You were saying? Well, like, could we say like close the business tomorrow? Would that be too much to ask? There's not a lot. I mean, I don't, I know the things that I know there may be others, but I'll use all others that apply as a catch all like all additional duties as a sign type thing. Three or four sentences. That's all I'm asking. All right, I'll get you something. I want to thank you. I just want to put this in front of the judiciary of where things that we're thinking of that if we're not being repealed that we want directions we're thinking of going. That's all. Yep. Sounds good. Thank you. Other discussion. Okay. What I do want to do though is say if other ideas occur to you between now and really close the business tomorrow. Do not think I'm getting up at five a.m. on Thursday and I'm going to check my email. Please don't do that. Please don't. If something occurs to you by close the business tomorrow of something that we think ought to be considered in our role going forward, please send it to me. I don't feel like we need to vote on it. I think we just bring it in. These are issues that we are looking at as we go forward as a body that continues to exist. That's all. Jeff. Yes, and I may be way behind the curve here but I am still concerned with the access to a support person for our office therefore for you. Maybe that's been addressed but if not I encourage that it be done so. If for no other reason than we have seen over and over again that data has to be disconnected from profit. Okay. Thank you. All right. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you. As I say it will be Thursday morning at 8.30. I will shave. If you've got more, please send it to me in an email. The next issue and probably the larger one of the evening is the discussion of the housing of the proposed Bureau of Racial Justice Statistics and Bureau of Racial Justice Statistics advisory panel. God, that's hard to say. The bill as it now sits is basically as we saw it last month. I sent you a link in the agenda. I don't think there's a need to rehash that. If you do feel free to chime in. Our concern is however still the recommendations for the housing of this organization, this body. I'm not gonna go on at length but the ideas that we have are seven and you have those in the email that I sent to you and right in the email that I sent to you. I don't remember the date. The first idea of course was under the office of the executive director of racial equity. The second was the agency of digital services. Third was a complete standalone body. Fourth, the legislature's joint fiscal office. Rebecca then sent an email that she had researched and added three more to this. The Vermont Secretary of State, Office of the Vermont State Auditor and the Human Rights Commission. Lastly, so the matter at hand is as follows. Where do we as a panel want to have this proposed bureau house? What are the issues involved in its housing? What are its needs? And where will those both best be met? We spoke in that recent report from December about the need not only for accountability for this proposed body but further for the need for the body to be politically independent and institutionally then we need to ask where is such independence most likely to be found? So we have those seven options and I had also written a sort of desperate email saying I need help from the jurists because this is a bit beyond my skill set. I had suggested in my last email that we sort of whittle this down as much as possible if possible really, the number of possibilities that we have. And what I suggested and I don't know how you all feel about this is that after this meeting, proponents of various locations could get together. I hesitate to say as subcommittees but you know something like that and write a short paragraph again supporting their choice. I would compile those and we could submit them to the legislature as a series of recommendations from this body for the location of this new bureau. That seems to me and it certainly did when I wrote the email most reasonable given that I don't know that we're gonna actually get to consensus on this matter. And I'm not also particularly reassured of our inter-meeting interaction and input. We should discuss deadlines for that and so on as well. So, Pepper, you were gonna have some things to say about these seven choices. Were you not? Well, I will and what I did earlier today was just look at those seven choices that we identified and just write down from my own perspective some of the pros and cons of each. And again, this was kind of just off the top of my head. So it's more designed to be an exercise and getting a conversation going than kind of having these be the definitive pros and cons of each. But I will go through my pros and cons and I would just note at the beginning that when a lot of my I guess cons involve kind of independence from the executive branch as a theme or from the governor. And I just wanna say at the outset that I do not wanna cast dispersions on the current governor. It's really just about removing this body from kind of the political kind of whims of any given moment. Because I think this governor has actually been, he's shown real support for racial equity and criminal justice reform, police modernization and everything else. So this is really about kind of a hypothetical future governor. But so with respect to the office of racial equity, if we were gonna house this bureau of racial, what is it, bureau of racial justice statistics there, I think the pros of that would be the bureau really could support the statutory duties of the racial equity executive director, which you can find in three VSA section 5003. But she, I'll just say she, because we all know it's Zuzana, but she's required to identify systemic racism in each of the three branches of state government. And she's also statutorily required to manage and oversee the statewide collection of race-based data to determine the nature and scope of racial discrimination with all systems of state government. So that is a natural place to put this. The office of racial equity also statutorily has the support, technical, legal, administrative support of the agency administration, which is a pretty powerful arm of the government. It's supported by the racial equity advisory panel, which includes appointees by legislators, the pro tem, the chief justice of the Supreme Court. So there's a lot of kind of political capital with that racial equity advisory panel. And currently, and this could change of course, but the office has broad political support. Act 147 of last year called for an increase to the resources of the office of racial equity and the governor's budget actually funded two new positions for the office, including a full-time policy and research analyst and an education and outreach coordinator. So those are the pros of putting it there. The cons that I just kind of quickly thought of are, the executive director is appointed by the governor and housed within the agency of administration. So there is potential for attention if the executive director disagrees or says something potentially controversial that doesn't jive with the governor's kind of agenda. And putting it, housing it in that office also could distract or consume some of the other duties of that office, which are immense, of course. Her purview is not just criminal justice reform, it's every aspect of state government. So that's that. I don't know, Aetan, if you want me to just go through all of them, or if you want me to pause for discussion after each of the seven. I think we could pause after discussion. Aetan, if I can jump in, I think I indicated earlier, I have to lead for another meeting. Yeah. And Pepper, if you've got a list of those pros and cons, I would appreciate receiving, because I'm not gonna be able to hear the rest of your presentation. But even before you made your comments without hearing the rest of your pros and cons for the other six, I just think the place to house this is with the equity, with Susanna program. To me, the cons that you've identified, I recognize, but at the same time, I think they're way outweighed by the benefits of lodging it in her office. And I just wanted to make that position clear. I will consider the others, but that's great. That's my position. Good. I'm sorry, I have to leave. Now life goes on. Thank you, Judge. If you could send me that pepper, I'd appreciate it. We'll do. Susanna, can I have, oh, go ahead. Sorry, no, go ahead, please. No, I was gonna move on, but please. Oh, okay, I did actually want to sort of go, I mean, I was gonna go with the discussion thing you had suggested. Susanna, can I ask you a question? Or actually two? There were the two questions that I have that really only you can answer. Do you really have the support that is claimed for you to have in the statute? That would be my first question. And my second one would be, how do you feel about having this bureau, which is actually three people? If in fact you have, those people are doing the work that they're doing. I mean, it wouldn't be falling on you. It would be falling on these people who would make up the bureau. So would it really impact you in terms of workload? And just so that I'm clear, you mean these three people would be separate from the two stoppers proposed in this budget cycle, right? I would hope so. Yeah, you know, first of all, thank you for asking. And if I were not in this role and somebody were to ask me, where do you think this should sit? I would probably think it could logically sit with the racial equity director, but I do also agree very much with everything that Pepper and others have said during the conversation about the importance of independence and the importance of being able to keep this work clean for lack of a better word. So for that reason, I can understand and even maybe agree with was not wanting to put it in this shop, but I guess to the actual question you're asking, assuming that the proposed budget item goes through with those staff and assuming that this bureau would be adequately staffed and all right, I think that it would probably be enough support to make that work go forward. And it would actually then ask me to reconsider the role of the policy and data person that we're looking to hire. If we have three data people looking just at criminal justice data, then I wonder how that changes the role for the other sole data person. And I guess those are nuts and bolts that need to be worked out if and when that happens, but those are some of the things that come to mind. Thank you. Anyone else? Tyler. I'm just wondering if somewhere in here isn't a solution between the idea of our group and our relationship to Susanna's shop and wondering if that could help at all with the concerns around independence from an executive. Well, yeah, an executive branch seeing as this group reports the legislature. Rebecca. So I've shared my views on this and they haven't changed, but I'm willing to explain a little further. I think that what Pepper said initially, I want to just state as mine as well that none of this is personal. Of course, it can't be personal because Susanna Davis, you're wonderful. And so it's not, it's more about recognizing the significance of the project. And when I say that, I have to admit that even though we've brought this to being this idea through the RADAP which its very name is racial disparities, but what is proposed in this bill is bigger than collecting even racial disparities data. I think we recognize that. So from the long view and the role that this data collection is going to serve for this entire system, it doesn't fit. It's already outgrown itself in terms of just, are we instinctively just looking because the name of racial equities is there? A. And so I think that if we can just sort of remove that sort of natural lean just because, oh, of course it's natural. Again, removing the personalities and the people who are there but the actual entity. So we're just stripping it down. A. I don't think that's a match. B. The suggestion about whether our panel could be or some other non-professional entity could organize and maintain this level of data that we're proposing even with this support. It just, it's not there. It needs the weight, the gravity of what we're doing and data being collected. It warrants a fixed entity. And so we talked as a panel whether or not, again, and part and again at the core is this holding on to the independence of it because if at the end of the game, we can't trust the data. We can't trust how it's being used. There isn't the transparency, the accessibility, the accountability, the enforcement that incoming state agencies will do it and produce it. Then what, then this project, then what is the point? So whether it's an actual independence problem or a perception problem, I think the concerns start to merge into one and we avoid all of that by giving it the authority, the, by making sure it's independent. Now, ideally we could come up with a separate independent type of organization, not even as a state government. The three recommendations that I made and I know, Natan, you wanna focus on one at a time but it merges with what, where I went with the alternative and I went to the defender general for guidance on this given his time in state government and his time as a commissioner level pointee in the system and of course his role in the defender general system. And his point is, realistically, it's easier to work within something that's already existing. Realistically, it's easier to work within an organization that is state government. And then working within those parameters, he quickly identified the three that currently have the capacity to potentially take in this kind of huge project. And that was the secretary of state and the independence because again, independence being elected by homeowners. And then also the perception and reputation and all of that given the infrastructure that's necessarily built around keeping that independence. So around the voting. And so that was why the secretary of state was suggested first, the auditor's office is second close second, similarly aligned with the same pros. Again, the position and the role of the auditor in the state government, the independence that that office is given and the recognition, again, a natural fit for this, but so small that it couldn't, it's not infrastructurally built currently to adjust to that, but that can be fixed. And then the three was the human race rates commission. Again, in terms of, again, overlapping of what we're looking at, that's the broader look in terms of not just racial equities, but now human rights generally. So again, the independence built in there with the structure a little bit different, not elected per se, but removed from a really close, closely linked to the governor's office, which is also one of my biggest reasons to oppose the current proposal in this bill. I'll stop there. Thank you. Pepper, do you wanna continue? Sure, and I guess because the secretary of state, the state auditor and the human rights commission were invoked and most of my pros were the ones that Rebecca just enumerated. I will just go to the cons of each of those. The secretary of state, the cons are, it is an elected position. So future office holders might not support this bureau and might try and defund it or just decide that their findings are not relevant. The mission of the Bureau of Racial Justice Statistics is not easily aligned with the mission, the constitutional authority of the secretary of state, which really is about overseeing elections, professional regulation, business registration, public records and maintaining the state archives. It doesn't seem like a natural fit for a kind of policy statistics bureau and analysis bureau. And the secretary of state really does not have the expertise in criminal justice reform or kind of a nexus with criminal justice system period. So those are the cons that I thought of. I mean, I'm not saying that it doesn't fit there. Those are just the ones that came to mind. With respect to the auditor, again, an elected position. So kind of requires buy-in from whoever is currently holding the office. And again, not aligned with the constitutional duties, which you can find in 32 VSA 163, which are really about auditing finances of the state and ensuring compliance with federal grants. So I would add one pro to what Rebecca said, which is that they do have audit authority. I mean, it's mostly related to finances, but they are kind of an investigative office, investigative office. Human Rights Commission, again, independent, deep understanding of discrimination and racial disparities. But it really, this, what we're looking for is somewhat tangential to HRC's mission and their day-to-day operations. I mean, they really are about enforcing the Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act and the Fair Employment Practices Act. So this would be, to me, just kind of an appendage to them that would be totally different than the normal work that they do. So those are the cons for that. Okay. I'm happy to move on or just pause. I'm looking to see if anyone's got thoughts or anything, but I'm not seeing any. This is pretty heady stuff, so. Well, and I'm trying to, like, I'm doing it. You're doing it. I'm trying to do that. You're being fine. You're fine. So Agency of Digital Services was another suggestion. The pros of the Agency of Digital Services, sometimes it's just referred to as ADS, they oversee all executive branch data projects and technology initiatives. They have IT personnel, I mean, all of our IT personnel, and I think this is true of all executive branch agencies report to ADS. So they really could hit the ground running with respect to developing the needed infrastructure to, like, for instance, just procuring the appropriate technology. All the technology asks have to run through ADS anyway. They could kind of take the lead, just like Kristen McClure did on overseeing a data governance council, creating the master person index that kind of are essential to what we're talking about. The cons, again, this is an executive branch agency. So the secretary is appointed by the governor, not entirely free from this kind of appearance of conflict or potential conflict. And they just like some of these other organizations don't have any real expertise in the criminal justice system or racial disparity issues. Hmm. Pepper, can I ask something? If, even if this were housed somewhere else, other than ADS, isn't ADS gonna get drawn into this somehow precisely because that's what they do is data and digital, I mean, the kind of negotiation between the data systems that we were getting all caught up in, that's gonna be in their wheelhouse no matter what, correct? Well, we can't get a data project approved without the approval of ADS. They have to recommend it for us. And so I would think that that's true across most of the executive branch agencies. I don't know if that's true of the judiciary or the legislature, but I don't know, Monica, do you have any insight on ADS? Yeah, I mean, I work with, we all work with ADS all the time in the executive branch. And my thought about ADS is, yeah, they're going to be necessary if we're going to have to have, you know, a database, if we need the infrastructure. And it's kind of in a branch where they, they're critical. I personally am not a fan of having the ADS because I think that their expertise within infrastructure and systems and as Pepper mentioned, it's not so much about policy and in office and certainly no real familiarity with criminal justice that I'm aware of are the issues that we talked about. So we would need them, but they're certainly, yeah, that's what they're there for, right? It doesn't mean that they, we would want to house the spirit of them. We just know that we would have to take care of them. Got it, thank you. Okay, Pepper, you want to keep going or? Sure, so the legislature is joint fiscal office. So this office already exists for the purpose of informing policy and budgetary decisions. I know that part of the racial equity task force report or no, it's just the office of racial equities report talks about equity impact statements that could help inform policy, you know, if the judiciary committee is considering, you know, a bill, you know, this office could help kind of look at the data that we've collected and say how it might be impacted by this policy decision or that. So it already provides nonpartisan analysis on fiscal issues, adding racial data analysis would not be a stretch for this organization. They are trusted by the legislature, you know, as a nonpartisan organization. So, you know, the legislature ultimately is what's going to be making the vast majority of decisions with respect to, you know, the recommendations. So, and, you know, the Connecticut model that a lot of our data bill was based on kind of treated this office. They put it in the office of policy and management in the governor's office, the executive branch, but you can kind of see, you know, they treat this as kind of like, this helps inform policy and budget decisions. So you could see how it could go either in the governor's office, which is in charge of organizing the government or the legislature, which gets to determine the policies. So in some ways, you know, I could see how it would make sense in the joint fiscal office. The cons of the JFO, it's not really accountable to the public, it's accountable to the legislature. And I would say it's somewhat of an odd fit for them to do this when their main focus is on financial and fiscal policy, fiscal analysis. So, you know, this would be kind of stepping outside of what they normally do, but they are there to serve the kind of data needs of the legislature with respect to fiscal policy. So, and that, that's all, we already did the secretary of state, the auditor and the human rights commission. So that's it, that's it. And again, this was just off the top of my head. So please, it was designed to spark a conversation, not to be the kind of definitive list of pros and cons. Chief Stevens. Hey, Pepper, what do you think since all bills are passed through legislative council, what do you think? I mean, they're often called upon for interpretation or what do you think about something being held or housed there? Because, I mean, legislators turn over all the time, but legislative council is pretty steady, right? I mean, I don't know, is that not something that they would probably, they wouldn't be in their house either or do you think that, what do you think about that? I mean, and correct me if I'm misrepresenting what we actually want out of the Bureau of Racial Statistics, Racial Justice Statistics, but really it's kind of a policy think tank, data analysis, data collection and analysis group. And that is mostly done, it's a different skill set than legislative council and legislative council is really a group of lawyers that are designed to ensure that the laws that are being passed can comply with certain, constitutional and other statutory requirements. It's to me, it's a kind of very distinct separate thing that legislative council does, then kind of data analysis and ultimately making, I guess policy recommendations are responding to policy recommendations. I don't know if that's helpful or not, honestly, but. Yeah, I'm just curious, my only comment was, so where should it be housed? In other words, we have a lot of pros and cons, but it doesn't sound like there's any ideal place, really. I mean, like there's a lot of pros and cons for each. So I'm just trying to think of areas, but anyway, thank you for telling me about that, Pepper. Appreciate it, Eric, you're welcome. Monica. Thanks, well, first I wanna thank Pepper and Rebecca for the thoughtful analysis they put into this, because it's been a couple of unique views here and I didn't go that deep into it. And it also, I'm thinking that there isn't a perfect place and we had mentioned, like, oh, it's sort of out of there, we'll have this out of there, we'll have, I think what's gonna happen is we're gonna have to fit it into some place and their authority, their responsibility is going to need to change and then take on, you know, this year. Because there's no seemingly, or we haven't uncovered, you know, a natural fit for it. I myself have some, you know, one that I think could be eliminated from the list, you know, so maybe we don't have to put all seven and I was curious if other people had to eliminate them. It does feel to me like the agency of digital services and the standalone idea should just go away. And I would say the agency of digital services should go away because they're gonna be here no matter what. So we don't need to actually address that. And secondly, the standalone, as Rebecca was addressing, it's just easier to have some infrastructure that's already in place to attach something to. I mean, standalone is just, it's prohibitive on a lot of levels, it seems to me, which would take us to five. Yeah. I see that Martin Lalot has his hand raised. Representative, please. Yeah, I really appreciate you guys going into this because this is going to be one of my big projects once we get past the crossover this next week in addition to looking at the stuff coming over from the Senate. And the way that I've been looking at, and I do have a question for you, but the way I've been looking at is just trying to figure out, there's this proposal, I think I understand what we're trying to ultimately do. And of course, the politics rears its ugly head and you're all not dealing with that part of it and you're not supposed to be and that's great. But so there are some political difficulties with some of the suggestions and I won't go into that, but I'll just let you know that I'm trying to figure out the way that we are most likely gonna be able to get this done. That's kind of where I am with this and how that's gonna happen is still a little bit up in the air and I can see why. I mean, it's from this conversation, there's not a clear answer. So it may be messy for the next several weeks, but just so you know, I'm gonna be really trying to work for the end goal. But the question I have is the way that this seems to be set up in the bill and in the report, the recommendations is a combination of collection and analysis. And it's one way I've been pondering this a little bit as well is that the collection is somewhat separate. And I actually think the agency of digital services is the key potentially for that. But the idea as far as I'm looking at it is we certainly wanna instruct what data we want to have collected. And I think that's what actually the bill and the recommendation does at least in the criminal justice area, we know what we wanna collect. But then I think it needs to be made available for policymaking, which everybody's been talking about, but for that policymaking endeavor, it needs to be made available not only to the governor and the administration and the legislature, but readily available for the public as well for weighing in. So I'm trying to, in my mind, I'm focusing on how do we best collect the data and make it available for those different entities? And yes, maybe we want to set up the entity within the director of racial justice area for their purposes of now analyzing that. We also want it available for the legislature and for the public. That's just some of the thoughts I'm having. And I don't know if that helps any of the conversation we're having, but just so you know that this is really appreciated, the input that you have been giving. And we'll continue to look to you all for your guidance as well, so appreciate it. Thank you. Anyone else thoughts? Rebecca. I forgot to mention we should throw it out there because they have come to testify, not testify, well, to speak with us. The Abbey Crocker, Steph, Stephanie Clark, the National Restorative Justice Center. And again, I know we were talking about the possibility of this independent, faceless, nameless thing, but there is that other entity out there that has not yet been named tonight who has been included in the board. So I just, I wanted to throw that out there. And I don't know if we wanna add that to the list. Not that we need a longer list, but in terms of just listening to what Representative LaLonde was just saying, not being privy to all of the political questions and issues there, but in terms of thinking about all the things you're trying to address in the bill, but particularly the analysis side, the collection side. I mean, they are the experts. I mean, there are CRG, and then we also have learned about what UVM is doing in terms of that kind of level and the capacity they potentially could have, the funding sources, perhaps that's an answer there. And I just wanna make sure that's not being ignored. So if I could just real quickly, yeah, I should have mentioned them. That is definitely one of those entities that I see as getting the data from the state and being able to work with that data to help form policy. So thank you for reminding me of that, Rebecca. Yeah, yes, a longer list. Thank you, Rebecca. No, really, we needed to put them in. I, you know, one of the issues, what we might just do, I mean, okay, hold on, I'm gonna table that for a moment. Sheila, go. So same stuff, different day. I just wanna echo what Rebecca is saying and Pepper, I really actually really appreciate your knowledge and your research and your presentation that you were giving us and Rebecca for your options as well. This is exactly what I needed. And I loved how you said it was heady stuff because I'm just like, okay, I'm not responding because I'm trying to take it all in. And I'm just like, yeah, so I'm just taking it all in. And it just comes back to the same stuff, to where I feel like we going round and round and ultimately discovered the same thing. And so I just wanna go back to what Rebecca said was that it sounds like we need something independent. I'm voting for something independent. That's what I wanna do. I feel as though that there are many reasons why we could put many pros that we could use to put it with regards to different entities that we've discussed today, but overall still comes down to the same thing is about the power, the political will, the conflicts. We've named so many different things with regards to the cons with it not being independent. And the whole point of having something like this is so it can be accountable, it can have the oversight. It can have basically the cred that it needs to as part of its effectiveness. And I really appreciate you, Rebecca, continuing to say that because if we don't, I feel like if it ain't broken, don't fix it. And I feel like it's broken. And I feel like we need something new and different. And it sounds as though we are going to need resources wherever this is because it's a new branch, a new thing, a new this and every single pro has then been followed up with, well, it doesn't quite align or the mission does that or we would have to create new positions or it'd be totally like it still is really creating almost an independent thing within a thing. And I understand that sometimes that can be sort of easier to do like to have a roommate rather than to go get your own apartment. I get that. And sometimes having a roommate brings back to your childhood, brings back to your college days, brings back to that relationship that you wish you had gotten out sooner than later. So I would like to get out of this relationship sooner than later and to have some independence from the government, from the political ways, from people who choose not to believe in racial justice. I would like us to continue to move forward in that conversation of like maybe the conversation is, how can we start looking at if this is independent, what conversation do we need to have for that? And then I just wanna say, I'm really appreciative Chief Dawn Stevens that you're on here because we almost always forget about indigenous people and native people. We almost always or not, even though we're talking about racial disparities, even though we're talking about BIPOC, we often do not get into the nitty gritty and we invisible eyes. And we are conditioned and swimming in the pool of the sea of just like, oh, we don't really talk about, so it doesn't really get mentioned. So it just keeps going around and around. So I am very appreciative of you having your voice here and expressing what you are, because I can't do that. And I think we need you and more people and for us to be listening more of the other aspects of this racial justice work that we need to be doing. Thank you. I, looking at 732, we are certainly, I mean, we've added another option, but I think that the conversation's been really fruitful as Representative LaLonde says. And I think we may, no matter what you've said, Sheila, we're going to have people who are going to be on the other side of this and maybe what we're gonna need to do is simply submit a list, because I don't, it may not be possible to whittle it down much further. I'm gonna just say that much, that that's where my suggestion is going, that we submit a list to the legislature and they're gonna have the conversations they're gonna have. We're going to probably be asked to weigh in further on it as will people from these various organizations. I'm hoping, including the Center for Restorative Justice people. So I'm just putting that out there that I didn't want anyone to think that I thought that the conversation, oh, well, here we are. Didn't get anywhere. I don't mean that. I think the conversation's clearly important, but I'm not sure it's gonna produce what I was hoping. I don't even know why I was hoping that. That was ridiculous. Feedback, a list, maybe, just a list. Why was, I was thinking, oh, maybe a list of pros and cons, but then I thought, maybe we don't need to actually agree on the pros and cons and we thought we got one. I'm just saying, but it's possible we could include that the list of questions and concerns that we would suggest that we could look at. I don't even know. Maybe doing what Pepper did and actually formalizing that as a submission. Tyler? Yeah, I don't know that everybody agrees with his pros and cons. Well, other people can have pros and cons, sure. Right. Tyler? So I'm wondering if this list is assuming that both these, I'm really appreciating what Representative Lalonde put out there and saying that there's really kind of two sides of this equation when we think about the data collection and the analysis as distinct parts from one another. So when we start asking questions about this list that we're proposing, is this list assuming that both those elements are housed in the same place still and do we need to entertain more conversation about what it looks like, what it could look like, how it could be built if we looked at those parts distinctly from one another. Okay. Not to get us farther into it with dwindling minutes. Well, there's no way we're gonna, yeah, that's fine. David? I left my hand up, although I think Monica actually said what I was getting at, which was not, I think it might be useful not so much to have a pros and cons list because I agree that we may not actually be able to agree on the pros and cons list, but rather to have just three or four sentences summarizing the animating concerns that I think we've heard tonight and I've got some minutes that hopefully can help summarize that. And I think it's just independence, trust in the results and competence to do the job. There might be a couple others in there that we can distill out of the minutes, but I think those were sort of like, this is what I hear and I think I've been here and what we've all been hearing from the comments tonight and just submitting that to the legislature is like, this is the RDAB has a list, couldn't agree, didn't quite know where to go with that, but these are the concerns that we hope are driving your decision-making. Okay. My, I'm thinking. And then there's what Tyler just brought up, which like throws this all back to do, no, Tyler, don't get weird. Do we need to also have a discussion about whether the different functions of this are housed in the same place? Monica. Well, I will say when I first read the bill and then we had a conversation at our last meeting, I think we decided we weren't gonna sort of talk about that part of the bill, which I will say for my personal reading of it, is fraught with a lot of concern and there's a whole lot of questions I have about what's in there and how functionally it would need to happen. And maybe that's where Tyler's coming from as well. And that might be something that the committee needs to take up. And I'm not sure if you want to get into that because the way I read it, David's just gonna magically appear into this bureau and they're gonna have everything available to analyze. And we all know in practice that that's far from the truth in terms of being able to happen. So I guess we would need to have a separate conversation around what we think that looks like and I'm not sure if you want to get into that right now. But I thought we were just focused on the whole bureau piece because I think we all have a lot of different opinions on the other side. Okay, Chief Stevens. Yeah, first I wanna say thank you to Sheila for what you said, I appreciate it. But other than that, I think one of the things I'd like to add in regards to what David was mentioning is authority because it doesn't really matter if they're separate or together. It's whoever's doing this needs to have the authority say for ADS to actually put this as a priority and to actually create the data that they need. Cause what I heard before is that ADS has to actually come to you and approve it, not the other way around. You're not saying, hey, ADS, I need this. And you're actually getting their approval to actually put you on the list. And you can see how that can shove down where this doesn't become high on their list and it doesn't happen. So I think A, there needs to be authority to work with ADS to capture those fields. You need the authority to work with someone to analyze the data. So, and you also need the financial resources to carry those things out. So I think I would like to, would David add those two things like whoever this is has the authority to work with the people needed and has the resources, whether they have it themselves or they can get it from the department that they have the authority to work with. So it might be like, you don't have to maybe fund someone to do the data collection, but you may need to be able to say, ADS, I want you to do this and we're willing to that to come out or however that's budgeted. So, you know what I'm saying? Maybe there's a mechanism to be able to fund that or at least put it out of somebody's budget, but without directly saying, I have to have my own separate piece of money. I don't know, but I'm thinking authority and supporting the resources needed to do it. However that is, thanks. David, I'm wondering whether, given that you're already writing this out in the minutes, whether the smartest thing to do would be for you to formalize that since you're already underway on that. And then we send it out to everyone and we get comments back because I don't see, I mean, I'm again doing timekeeping that with 18 minutes to go, this is gonna go any further than more comments, which is fine, but 18 minutes and if we're gonna keep doing that, they could be written down, compiled and sent out again. So I think that's what I am gonna sort of suggest here is that I take your minutes when you get this done, send it out, people comment on it, we do that process because I don't think with 18 now 17 minutes, it's going to become clearer. And that's not a failing, I'm not saying it that way, I'm just saying structurally, logistically, reasonably. So my proposal would be that I do that, I guess. That work for people, let's do the thumbs again. Okay, all right, that's what we'll do, I think, but that leaves us then with time to consider what Tyler's bringing up, which is these two functions and whether they really do belong in the same place. I was just assuming they did and don't really have anything to say. So if someone were looking at me right now and saying discussion, I would just be silent because I have to think about it. I was just assuming they did go to the same place. Tyler. So I think part of my thinking around there is this might be an easier pickle to get ourselves out of on one side of the equation. When I think of something like data collection, it starts to make more sense to have an auditor, our office of the auditor saying just the data is supposed to be collected in said way and we have the authority to audit, are you collecting the data in the way that is dictated, you should be doing it. It's the analysis part that gets really tricky because I really appreciate what Chief Stevens just brought up about authority being pretty crucial to this, but I feel like there is almost like a teeter totter. There's a fulcrum in the middle and on one side of that we have independence on the other side of that we have authority and as you veer towards a more independent agency, it feels to me, maybe this is a bias of mine or something, but it feels to me as it becomes more independent that it has the potential to lose capacity for authority and so that's the challenge and really it's around how are you analyzing that data that feels to me like that's the more complicated part of this equation. Okay, thanks. Rebecca? I think the current structure of the proposed bill right now using the racial equities office as the body, but if it changes to one of the seven that we send up and Tyler, as you were talking about in terms of the how to, the experts who can do the analysis, seems to me that that's where, if say you just use the auditor's office, say the three positions, two positions that will be funded within that collection auditor's office, they could contract out with the experts. Again, let's just say the UVM, VLS crew, right? And so that that becomes the way to bring in easily, but I mean, in terms of how to deal with it, I don't know if we need to do that level of detail again, though it's great to have representative Lawns here and if he's not hearing anything that would be useful for him in terms of recommendations, hopefully he'll chime in and suggest what he'd like in terms of specifics, but it seems to me that's a way to get around that question or concern, Tyler. Chief Stevens. Yeah, thanks. I think Tyler hit it on the head and I think if you think about it, common sense-wise, when you collect data, the data's the data, right? You're not changing the data, you're just collecting data. So if you get the right data that you're trying to collect, it's pretty stagnant, right? Then you go over to the Lawns position where as in if it's available to the Racial Equity Director, they can farm that data however they wanna compile it. The public can do the same thing and so can't the legislators. So then it doesn't matter because as long as you collect the data that you want, different people can massage it the way they want to or what they need it for and then it really doesn't become as critical, right? Because you're gonna have data analysis within the Racial Equity because of the new positions. I mean, the state police people have that analyze their data, right? So we can have somebody analyzing data specifically for racial disparities, but you could also have it being available for the legislators wanna know something or the public. So I think as long as we maybe if we focus on the collection of the right data that different people could use, maybe that's the answer, right? I mean, but give the authority or the resources to be able to have those different analysts to be able to collect that data. Does that make sense or am I out of the realm of what we're thinking? I'm not sure. Representative LaLonde, I... Well, first of all, the answer Rebecca's question. Yeah, this is helpful and what you're planning on giving is helpful. But I do also understand at the bottom there needs to be resources put towards the data collection and the analysis. And whether that is in one body or as I kind of opened this up and I apologize in two separate entities, there do have to be resources. You know, it has to be resources there and I do recognize that part, but so, but this is helpful. Where? I'm a little bit of a loss. What to do with this one? That was a, that was something I didn't anticipate and now I'm not sure what to do with it. I'm like fine with where we got with David and now I'm not quite certain to Rebecca. I was, I was just gonna say I thought your earlier idea still works, which I understood to be once David writes these minutes up and she sends them out and we approve or that somehow we can pull all the suggestions of what we think is critical to have. And then the seven or whatever the number is and somehow put that together as well. All right. Good, that's what we're doing then. And I'll just get it out as soon as David gets that to me. I will, I will work on that. Somehow there will be another day this week. It'll be a ton day to do the panel work. I will get that out as soon as possible then. Are there other issues people wanna discuss right now? Okay. Thank you. This has been very fruitful. We are obviously not doing the discussion of readings. Yet again, sorry guys, we will get there obviously but not tonight and likely, well, possibly at the next meeting, which is on the 13th of April. Is there new business that anyone would like to bring up? Okay. Again, the next meeting is on Tuesday, the 13th of April, second Tuesday of April, just before tax day, Rebecca. Before we lose the sites, Julio, I think you just put in maybe two hours ago, some sites, are those, is this new information you want us to observe? I know I'm not going there tonight, but for next month, these hyperlinks, Julio, are you still here? I inserted it when Susanna was talking about taking a look at police related issues. These two resources, which are put out by the leadership conference, I think they were put out about 18 months ago, relating to community. One of them is a 480 page detailed dive into different issues of police reform related issues, including some that Susanna mentioned like body worn cameras, et cetera. The other one is more of a community toolkit. It's about a hundred pages about how to get communities involved. It's more tactical than detailed. And the reason I mentioned them now is I think they might have more topical currency than they did, say six months ago, because the executive director of the leadership conference is Vanita Gupta who was before the Senate today is likely to be the number two or three in the Justice Department. And also the lawyer who worked with her on this project, Linda Garcia just took a job as Cory Booker's chief legal counsel at a time where the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act is over in the Senate. And I think these two documents will give you, may give us an insight into what's going on on the federal level, which includes, and that law includes things that are of interest to all this like use of force reporting, standards relating to accountability and the like. So I think it is, I just have the timing coincided with what Susanna mentioned and these two people are now in positions in the new administration. Well, I guess Senator Booker's been there for a while, but they work together and I would expect to see, I think this will shed some light on what we might see on the federal front. So that's why I thought it was timely. Thank you, Julio. Sure. Anybody else? If not, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion to adjourn. Okay, anyone want to second it? Second. All in favor of adjournment. Aye. Aye. All opposed? You're opposed, David, okay. Oh no, that was, all right, great. We are in adjournment. I will see you, we are adjourned. Take care, I will see you all in April, but I will be in email contact long, long before then. Again, just as a reminder, if you want to be on my text list to send to people for notifications for when I am testifying, please send me an email with your phone number. That was thanks to Sheila. Great, see you all later. Thanks, Rachel. Thank you all. Thank you.