 don't know where everyone is. Hi, Matthew. Hey, Jennifer, how are you? I'm okay. How are you? I'm doing all right. Trying to figure out which lighting works so that you don't have the glare that I do in the world. Yeah, exactly. Um, so Ben said that he was not going to be able to make it. So I don't know if that leaves us quorumless or not. I don't know if it's Gazette's not going to be there if Petra can't make it as well. And so I hadn't heard back from her, but she had said last month, I think that she had a conflict for July 16th. So that would mean Petra, Gazette, and Ben, and so that's three of six, which would leave us with me, Sid, and Deborah. So that would not be a quorum, which would mean that this would not be an official meeting. So it would be a reporting session, basically. But we couldn't deliberate and we couldn't make any plans that would be binding on any of us moving forward, at least. So how is your time away from Amherst? I asked while you're on. I just came in from a beautiful walk on the ocean. So I think we're going to go to Newport when we're done here. And go in the cliff walks for late evening in the late supper. That sounds lovely. Yeah. It's beautiful out. I have not yet made it outside today, but at some point. Yeah. Yeah. It's in one of those days. Yeah, that's not good. Yeah, if anybody else is. So somebody we have another attendee. Yep. Sid. I said, Hello. How are we doing? Well, doing well. I just saw the email from I think what she said he's not going to be able to make it. Ben, Ben. Yeah. Yeah. So we're if I believe Petra is is here and will soon join us as a panelist. So that's three. And I think Deb Neubauer at least spoke with me or emailed a couple of days ago saying that she wanted to. Yes. So she's just doing it. Yes, she's just doing it. Hello. I'm gonna keep myself muted because I got home about 15 minutes ago and I'm bobbling my dinner. So I'm gonna mute myself. Okay. So if Petra is actually able to sign on, then we'll have we'll have a quorum and we'll be able to start the meeting. Yep. Everybody's healthy. Family's doing well. Think things are what they are. Yeah. I know. What do you guys what are you guys doing, Matthew, at your institution? What's your plan? We are we are going back. We are having the kinds of testing where the swab goes up towards your brain. Yeah. And so we're and then we're going to be having masks on all the time that we're in the same space. We have plexiglass is being delivered and put in as we speak. And and then for people who need an accommodation, we're also teaching online. So that means that we're going to be in a box where we're teaching. Yeah. We're standing in one space so that we can be recorded so that everyone can see us so that and at the same time teaching people who are they're live and who want to be able to interact. So so we're working through it. We'll figure it out. You guys will be in the classroom. So you have face to face, but also zoom capability. That's right. A hybrid one. Okay. That's right. So it's a little bit more complicated than it needs to be. Yeah, it is. Because with us at UMass, only I think it's only about 15% of our students will have face to face classes. Everybody else is going to be our own zone. I'm in virtual bottom. It's gonna be other platforms. It's gonna be interesting. I don't know. I don't know. Keeping us all awake at night. Yep. And then of course, there's always the other stuff. So I've had a brother. My my only surviving brother has been in and out of the emergency room over the last months. So yeah. With COVID? No, it's it's it's heart related. A friend of mine who's in the yard doctor has said that the pericarditis and things like that only come about after you've had a viral infection or something. So it's probably something viral, but they haven't been able to hasn't tested positive for COVID. So okay, good. That's good. So we'll see. Hi, Petra. So I hope everyone's doing well. I'm going to call the meeting to order at six after six. And the first thing that we need to do is make sure that there's nothing that we need to put on the agenda. I will tell you I've heard there were there were two requests for the meeting from commissioners. One was for review of the distinction between the role of the chair and the in the town staff liaison, as well as the commissioners. And the other was a report back on the town's meetings and understandings with the police department. I was not at the July 6 meeting. So I can't report on what occurred when the town council had a specific meeting to deal with. But if any of the rest of you were, that that's something that we can talk about in the context of discussing the the our role in conversations with the public school police departments in the town more generally, you know, housing issues of health issues business development and economic development. So there's a question of what our role should be and how many conversations we need to be a part of. And there's also the possibility of the town starting something else that would be specific to the question of anti racism. But that might be a little bit more complicated, but we can talk about that in a bit. Matthew, can I just jump in for a second? Sure. Um, I saw a post on Facebook, not by any of the HRC commissioners, that there was some town where something like 57% of those in attendance wanted to see the police's budget cut. I was and that but that happened very recently. That wasn't July 6. That was like last week or something or Sunday or I don't even know when it was. I was like, I found out about on Facebook. When there's there's a lot of this push because we also deal with the tonight's situation, you know, the fund reform and abolish, you know, the all three areas of the police department. So that is, you know, what's going on nationally. And I think every area is really taking a look at at the police department, right? Based on everything that is going on nationally. So I'm not surprised with those numbers personally. They had it was under it was spoke about at budget review. So they had budget review. And so during public comment, several people spoke in regards to the 57% cut to the police department budget. And that is the cut about relocating the funds to some place somewhere else, right? Okay, yes. Right. So I think that that's one of the issues that we've looked at. And then we've talked about is this notion of the police wanting to have or being comfortable with the budget going elsewhere, if someone else will take responsibility for the behavior that is currently within their, their ambit, the stuff that they're supposed to do. So if they don't have to deal with calls to look at housing, or disputes between people who may have mental difficulties and therefore might might be better to have someone who could counsel, there's there's a concern, though, that that those situations might cause a threat or might seem to be a threat to other people. And therefore, do you want someone who is also trained, not just in deescalation, but also in deterrence by being able to hold people and having the right to do that. That's something that we can talk about a little bit more when we get to our discussion items. Right now, we need to finish making sure that there's nothing else to add to the agenda. Again, I think that this is part of our, our discussion of where we should be involved in these conversations. So I think that that's on the agenda. But if there's anything else that should be on the agenda, that is not if you could let me know, I'd appreciate that. I had also asked about wanting to follow up about the webinar and also think about future actions. And so, yeah, I clearly I intended to have a lot in those conversations, because I'd be looking at the conversations that we've had and reporting back on them. There's no way for you to know having looked at the agenda, all the things that are in my head that we'd cover in that. But, but that's part of looking at the conversations that we've had thus far. So, so we'll be reporting back on whatever conversations we've been a part of. There was a conversation around the July 4th, the what to what to the slave is the fourth of July conversation that followed up on the readings that were done. So that would be part of our discussion too, I think. So, if there's nothing else to add with the understanding of what else is already included in the agenda, then there's a question of review and approval of the commission minutes from June 18. They are very long. I will say that. I had a moment when I had to call Jennifer and like, I don't know what to cut out of this discussion. These notes are very long. So I don't know if we want to take a much review them, and then we like, approve or whatever in the next meetings would take a while to go through them. Because I only scheme through it myself to the issue. Yeah, and my reading of them suggests that there's a lot of kind of reporting of what people said. And again, I know that that's part of what people are looking for at this point, like how are we thinking through this? But the minutes are intended to be the action items taken by mission on what votes were taken, what we expect to do moving forward. So I'd want to look at that a little bit more closely for that to see where there are action items in there and what we say we're going to do prior to voting to approve. So, Deb, you've said that you're okay with us waiting until next month. Sid, you said. Yeah, I didn't read in depth through it to tell the issue. So I just came back to it. Okay. Petra, you're also okay with that? Okay. Yeah. All right. Then we are open for public comment. We have a couple of attendees, and if they have something that they would like to share in public comment, we are all ears. Yeah, there's two right now. I should note that anyone who speaks this meeting is being recorded. You should know that anything that you say at the meeting, therefore, will be recorded and will be shared. With that said, we are open to public comment. I believe the way to do that if you're interested and you don't know how is if you hit participants, you can click something that says raise your hand. You can be approved to talk. And then once you're approved to talk, you'll have the opportunity to speak. If you don't know how to do that, just put a question in the question and answer box. Okay. I don't want to rush through things. And if sometimes people ask for a volunteer and then immediately speak, and that stops anyone from having a chance to volunteer. But I also would be willing if I am speeding through things and someone puts up their hand within the next minutes, I'd be happy to recognize them at that point. Otherwise, I think we're going to move on for now so that we can go through some of the discussion items. So we have been engaging in conversations since our last meeting on June 18th. We had the Juneteenth celebration that was televised. We all were able to receive books relating to reparations. And so if you are a commissioner and you haven't picked up your book yet, please do so and feel free to take a look at it. We also have had conversations. Again, around July 4th, there's a conversation. There have been rallies in town of other people who are expressing their voices. With regard to policing, I believe Gazeta Kaya spoke at our last meeting about the fact that she and Dr. D and Dr. Amalkar Shabazz had organized a meeting with our police chief. As I was mentioning earlier, my understanding of that was that the police department was willing to shift funding to other areas for behavior that they feel they have to engage in that's currently the responsibility to engage in. If someone else was going to do that work and if it was no longer going to be considered part of their responsibility. We know that 60 years ago there was a lot of money that was in social work, that money has been pulled out of social work and put into other places. There was money for better for worse for inpatient counseling for people who had mental difficulties. That money has been stripped from those types of companies and state agencies. We saw a lot of people become homeless in the 1980s and 90s. We saw that people then had to deal with the homelessness problem and with crime or at least reports of potential crime among that population. We saw police getting more and more involved, especially as we're dealing with broken window police and all that kind of stuff. I think one of the things that if there comes a time where we are asked to opine or if we want to lead a conversation around this, I think one of the questions I would have is what type of behavior that the police are currently engaged in we see as shifting to other agencies, what hiring we could do and what kind of support we as a town would actually give. I think there's room to do that, but it's going to mean a change in perhaps the number of police officers because if you don't have as many calls that they're responding to you might not need as many police officers. It might mean hiring in other areas as well. I think that there's a lot to discuss in that question. Jennifer, were you actually at the meeting where that was discussed and were there reports on where the money could be shifted and were there people in town who worked at the other types of agencies that said, yeah, we could use that funding? I was at the budget hearing. I wasn't at the July 6th meeting. So at the budget hearing, several public folks who spoke at public comment suggested that the money switched over to social services. So we don't have a social services fund or account or we don't have a social service department at the time. So there's talk about that and then there's an additional $80,000 and then there's discussion about what would happen with that as well. And how was that taken by the members of the town council where the people will make in those public comments? Yeah, no, I think everybody for the most part understands what they're saying as if basically if you have two people who have mental illness and maybe a social worker could be better or one person who has mental illness, then maybe a social worker to respond to that might work out better than the police because often the police, you know, nothing to do with the particular police officer, but just the uniform can cause somebody who has mental illness to have post-traumatic stress disorder or just react poorly to the police. And so, you know, I think every council understands what's being said. And I think at this time, you know, really it's going to be the community that really needs to kind of rally to push for those types of changes. I, you know, I just, I, yeah, I can't really speak anything else because I'm curious if there were any agency people who actually do this work who thought that they could like, you know, create this position, supervise it, you know, that they could do this. I'm just curious if anybody in that kind of situation was there. Not during the time period that I listened to it, no. Yeah. Most people spoke just saying that they were in support of it for defunding the police. I mean, that was basically the message and to take it and move it to social services or for services for people of color or for like a community organization and just so forth and so forth. So do you know if the town will be doing an assessment of those these services? Because, you know, of course, you would have to do an assessment before, you know, changing, moving those monies and all this stuff because you have to know what services, you know, you can provide what's available, what's the capacity and all this stuff, right? So yeah, and I don't, the budget hasn't been finalized yet. And so we just have to kind of sit and wait for them to, but I think that they've done with all of the public comment period of the budget and the presentations from departments. It would seem like you'd need a request for a proposal if you're having an outside consultant who would do the kind of social work. If you're not going to create an agency that is internal to the town, if you're not going to have it under Julie Fetterman or someone like that, then you're going to have to hire an agency as we work with outside consultants that have worked on housing issues, for example. And so we would therefore ask for them to propose how they could serve the town in a particular way, but we'd have to have a list of what we're looking for them to do so that they could then propose how they would do it, what the cost would be, all that kind of stuff. So it seems like there are ways to go about creating that in entity, either internal to the town by saying, here are the offices that already deal with questions of mental illness, dependency issues, homelessness or housing precarity issues. I'm trying to think of the other ways that the police would interact with people and with people of color. And because there are ways to do it, it's great to hear people say we can slash the budget by a particular amount, but if it comes back to us, I think the question or if we were to try to support a conversation, we would probably want to have some idea of what direction our community would like the conversation to go in. It seems like it would take a long enough period of time that the budget, which will be set because all the public comment on it has been completed and it's now in the town council's hand, it wouldn't have any further effect on the budgeting for this upcoming year. And that might be okay because maybe it takes time to really prioritize, at least over the course of a year, we'll have a chance to see what the needs are that aren't being met. And then by next budget cycle, we might have a description of what we're looking for. But if we're going to do that, if we're going to take a year to do that, then it might make sense to start those kinds of conversations now. That goes back though to where the Human Rights Commission should be involved. Our public schools, I know that there's a lot of teachers and staff and students who have been talking about the need to have conversations about anti-racism in the schools. The police department is obviously a space where a lot of people are talking about how we can deal with anti-racism. And then the other aspects of the town, there are a number of different places where incrementally, people are treated differently based on a lot of their background. And so we would need to figure out where we think we fit in and where we think we can add the most to the conversation or at least bring out the conversation the most so that it's representative of what our town actually would like to do. And I know in my social justice circles, the folks that I connect with that from the police department, there has been an outreach by Chief Living Sun and Captain Ting for some of them to some people in the social justice world to come and do some of that work. Specifically, I don't know what that looks like, but I know outreach has been made in the area to do some anti-racist work with the department. Maybe asking them specifically from the Human Rights Commission, asking them what specifically that means and then we can talk more about it and see if there's more input we can put into it. I think that would be a good conversation to have maybe at our next meeting with more people. Because I would like to know what kind of work is that that is being done by these folks and these folks are amazing. I know lots of them and I know the type of work they do. But specifically I don't know what they're going to be doing. Other thoughts? Well, it seems to me there's a lot that we don't know, I think right now. And there's a lot of questions and conversations. So how does all that get clear, especially in terms of the role of the HRC? Will we just facilitate a conversation? Will we participate in a conversation? Are we responsible for taking a position? Do we need to have a unanimous position? I think I just don't really, there's so much I don't understand. Okay, I want to raise the point. You asked whether we would facilitate. And I think that that has come up. I will say that just before our last meeting I had been contacted by the chair of the town council who asked whether I would be interested in facilitating a conversation around anti-racism. And I said that I personally, there's a lot on all of our plates I'm sure, professionally, personally. And I pointed out that A, I do think that when there have been people working in areas of equity, and particularly at this time period racial equity, and who can be paid to facilitate, we should do that. And I don't want to step on their toes because while I lead a number of conversations when I teach in federal criminal law and international criminal law the issues of ethnic violence and respect for different groups and the history between groups. There are people who will speak more specifically to the questions of police abuse and the history of that in the United States and be able to facilitate conversation more and allow for group discussions more. So Jennifer, I want to thank you for helping to pull together the conversation that was led by Dr. Holmes on July 11th. One of the things that was tricky about that though is the town was aware of people not respecting a public space and therefore Zoom bombing. And therefore we had it in a webinar format. The webinar format allows for more speaking out and less conversation. There was no ability to break it into breakout rooms and allow for small group conversation. And I think a lot of the people who signed on for that conversation of the kind of history of racism and how we can be anti-racist were hoping to have the ability to talk with each other. So one of the things that I think we need to think about is if we are going to allow for conversations to begin, how do we make sure that they're the conversations that people come to people come back to so that it can be an ongoing conversation and that it won't turn everybody off. And so I think that's something we kind of need to work through whether it's going to be in questions of continuing to interact with the police department, trying to have more interaction with the schools. Obviously the schools have a lot of other stuff going on right now that trying to figure out who's going to be in the classroom next year and a lot of other questions. And a lot of people are working towards or around equity questions in the schools. And I think that that's really important. Again, our January meeting, we had the chance to talk with staff in the schools and talk to them about how important it is to move against the disparities that we're currently seeing in the Amherst schools. And I understand it's a nationwide problem. That doesn't mean that we have to allow for it to continue in our part of the nation. But it does take work and it does take funding. And there are choices that have to be made to support revisions in that system. So the questions of where we plug in to conversations with schooling, especially the part of the schooling that is post elementary and therefore is not truly within the control of the town of Amherst. Again, with the police department, I'm hearing from at least said that there are people who are trying to have different conversations. And from from Deb as well, that there are conversations about particular funding amounts that could come out and can go elsewhere. So I think we need to figure out how to engage people in the conversation of where that goes in a way that is proactive and positive for the town and also anti-racist. And then what other aspects of the town would need to get involved. On top of that, there's the question of whether that needs to be done or should be done through the Human Rights Commission, which our bylaw is about educating people in the town of Amherst, as well as responding to complaints if someone wants to bring the complaint to mediation before the Human Rights Commission. But those those are our two the two components of our work. And so education is definitely there. But it's education about discrimination of all various kinds that are in the bylaw. There's a lot of other components to the town and education would be helpful in all of them. How much involvement should we have? Do we have an obligation to have? Do we have a right to have when people who say, look, I've been trained to be a police officer. And what you think of as police training today is very different than it was 20 years ago. So it's great that you want to come in and help with my education. But you need to understand what expertise I have in the first place, right? So and that could be true for every type of department that we would be dealing with. So what role should we have? Or should we have an entity that brings together? We can we can bring people together. It doesn't have to be education with us having knowledge and sharing it. It could be us bringing together people who have knowledge and trying to help them share it with each other. Is that something that would be more doable for us? And what should that look like? Actually, really love that idea of bringing in people who work in the fields, both in terms of racial equity and in terms of responding to people in extreme states. I know, like, I mean, I'm a social worker in a jail. So I see people when they first come in. And I really question, like, when people talk about defunding the police, I wonder if they, you know, in that like, oh, mental health professionals might be better suited to respond. I wonder, have they ever seen someone in an extreme state? And have they ever personally tried to respond? Because it's scary. And it can be dangerous. And so I just think that educationally, it would be, and there are very few people, I guess I will say this too, having worked with the folks at the the dart from the dart team in the in Hampshire County. There are very few people who are really suited to do this work, you know, to actually intervene in crisis who have the nervous system to do this. It is a really tricky thing. And I'm not I'm definitely not saying, you know, the police certainly don't get a lot of things, right? I'm not. I just think that it's tricky. It's really tricky. And so educating, I think that would be awesome, because I think a comprehensive needs assessment has to happen. We have to figure out, like, well, what role, you know, like this was already made, this request was already made. What role do we really think social service could fill? And and then even understanding how many of those kinds of complaints are the are our town's police responding to and figuring out where are people who are in social service, not in public safety, doing the successfully and and like who are the people who do that, you know, I just think that there is a lot more studying and educating that needs to happen. And I guess the other thing I will say is that like this originally began as a response to racial inequity and injustice, and all of a sudden it's morphing into thinking that we could get social service to respond to mental health and possibly substance use crises. But that still doesn't solve the original problem, which is when the police move in to communities of color living areas that, you know, just like that doesn't solve that original problem of how the police are interacting with communities of color. I don't in my mind it doesn't those are those are like two different those are three different populations. They're not, you know, there could be people in extreme states, people involved in substance use, you know, those can be people who are of all races and ethnicities, right. So it doesn't necessarily solve the original issue for which this, this, you know, this began this movement began. So did you want to say something? Yeah, you know, I totally agree with that, especially the last part, you know, how you solve the original problem, right. Because we can't forget that that's how we got started. But on the other, on the other side, what we were talking about our role, I think I understand our role, but also I want to put some ownership into the town, right. And try to figure out what is the town also doing, you know, from, you know, the town manager to all of these departments, right. What are they doing in looking at, you know, in worse and saying, you know, what kind of education are we going to be anti-racist, right. And then I think once we know that, then we could either supplement it or help with that, right. Because even though it's, it's, it's part of our mission, I don't think it's our sole responsibility. And I know that you're not saying that, you're not saying that. But I think that, that some people may think that it is the responsibility of the Human Rights Commission to deal with all of these stuff, right. And personally, you know, I think it's the town's responsibility. And then we then come in and we supplement and we give ideas, we, you know, we take care of some of the other pieces, like when people file complaints and all that and we work with all of that. So I would be really interested in, you know, finding out what is the town doing from, from, you know, the town manager on the way down and, and all of these departments that we have in town. And not just the community police. Right. No, I, I appreciated the quote from Paul Backelman in The Amherst Bulletin last week. I assume because that as well, but the Amherst Bulletin that said, the town has to recognize that there are inequity issues and the town has to do something and that requires putting some financial support to that. Since I've served on the Human Rights Commission, so that's now for the last five years, I have asked every year whether there is room for carving out a specific role so that there's an actual job for Director of Human Rights, right? That's what was originally called for in the Human Rights Bylaw in 1998 or 1999, whenever it was originally passed. And we had that for some period of time. I've been told that, that was rolled into the human resources role because it needed to be someone who was in town hall who could receive complaints, who would be able to have connections with everyone who is working in the town so that they could resolve the complaints more easily and more quickly. I've also been asked, well, where am I getting it from the budget? Because there's a budget that is set and there's unions and there are people who have expectations of what they're going to get paid. And if there isn't someone who is going to be receiving complaints all the time or if they're going to receive two complaints a month and it turns out that they're not complaints that people want to follow through with, why would we hire someone and spend the town's money on that? The difficulty with that analysis is it assumes that the education that we would like to be able to share with other people in town or that the town should be getting can just be done internally in every department. That there's not going to be a conflict for the funding within each department that is always going to say, if I have to choose between giving you two more sick days a year or if I have to choose between something else and taking that money away and putting it towards someone who's going to be able to coordinate conversations around equity, around racial equity and other types of equity, I'd prefer to put the money into someone who's going to pay attention to this day in, day out and who has a responsibility of educating and working with everyone throughout the town. I will acknowledge I was a little bit surprised that two of the town counselors who came to our last meeting had no idea that people were concerned about racial equity in the town of Amherst. I found that a bit incredible because it's something that we talk about year over year over year and if there isn't a point person that is making that clear, then there's a problem. I think that question of what we need to do as a town goes to consistency and I will also say without attacking us as a group, usually you have a three-year cycle to be on one of these committees or commissions. That means that there should be people stepping down every year and new people coming on every year and if we tend to lose people in somewhat large groups, for us that would mean we'd lose on average three people every year, there are new people coming on who have to learn what we do before we take the next steps to support the town. We need someone, we need to have consistency in the town office and I really appreciate a town manager who understands what our role is. I really appreciate Jennifer and before Jennifer, Deb who was able to take on a role of saying, well here's what the commission can do, here's what some of your limitations are because that was helpful for us. If we don't have that or if we don't have the town council aware of what our role is, such that again we are not meeting for three months because we're non-essential and then end of May comes along and all of a sudden the town council is concerned that we need to be moving on anti-racism and there's a question of well who can we use to help us deal with this issue right now? Let's talk to the Human Rights Commission. Well that's great but you told us we didn't need to meet for three months so that's an issue. So you know I for one would think again if the town is putting money towards something I'm not trying to take it away from anything else but I'm just saying that if we put money behind someone whose role it is to really work in developing education for different departments in the town on anti-racism and other ways to support the community without violence that might be helpful as it stands even well-meaning ideas and I brought this up before to this group when Chief Livingstone really was thinking about having more police officers go through housing complexes more often and my view was places where there are thinner walls higher concentrations of people in conflict with each other more often perhaps just because of that you know liaison officers great but patrol officers going through and over-policing that area not good and so having that conversation with him where he was able to say oh I hadn't thought of it in that way that's great but we need someone consistently who can say no we talked about this last year we talked about this five years ago we needed to develop a plan and Chief Livingstone we're going to support your plan moving forward but it has to contain anti-racism as a component of it every year so I think that putting money towards something like that would be would be good to do and would create consistency and so that's something I I don't know exactly how we would propose that either to town councilor or again bringing it up with the town manager but I think it's something that I've in the past yielded saying I hear what you're saying you don't have the money right now I see that though as not being the right answer and I think the money needs to come from somewhere for and I think that the role should exist you know I I'm listening to you and I I always I mean we're just we're one commission so whatever ideas we come up with may or may not fly or be welcome or but I know like in my work on the opioid task force um this was a really like to have so we had a coordinator of the opioid task force and um that job started the process of community conversations gathering all the stakeholders in areas where you know that were touched by the epidemic and so now I'm thinking about a social justice coordinator or a racial equity coordinator like call it whatever you know name we want to use it and bringing the stakeholders in public safety bringing the stakeholders in the housing units bringing the stakeholders in public health bringing the stakeholders in education and you know in all of the arenas where social justice issues matter you bring people to the table and you meet once a week and through that dialogue uh they're like the group magically comes up with incredible solutions and before you know it you have you know new programs grow out of those dialogues and um new partnerships grow out of those dialogues and somebody sitting at that table is a great grant writer and new ideas for writing a grant come out of those dialogues and so I do wonder about this idea of proposing a position a social justice coordinator or you know whatever we want to call it that literally just begins the process of like every every week there is a new um like each group so like say it's the public safety public safety arena those people meet once a month at a predictable time you know um the housing unit people meet once a month at a predictable time and the coordinator is at all of these meetings so they're meeting throughout the week they're meeting throughout the month but each each sector is only meeting once a month I'm not sure if I'm saying that in a clear way um and and little by little over time magically like the community comes up with its own solutions the people who attend these meetings come up with their own solutions and bring their skills to the table as well I've seen it done and I think that could be an incredibly exciting thing to happen in our town so I know that there are two community groups that are already working on stuff to present to Paul and or to the town manager in the town council about a the $80,000 that is supposedly going to be allocated if it hasn't already been approved to be allocated for uh I'm going to say race and equity I'm not quite sure what exactly the $80,000 is for I don't think anybody really knows but I think part of these community groups are will help decide that and then I also it seems that these groups these groups are in talk and will bring it to the town managers attention of I mean I don't know for sure that that's how it's going to go down but I think that there are groups that are going to be meeting with the town manager in the town council to try and help figure some of this stuff out and break into other subgroups perhaps with other community members to try and touch all the areas of an inequity that happen for the people with the people of color with people of color Jennifer who's in those groups? I I sadly enough get abolished from all side community groups but um I D. Shabazz is in is I think is plays a critical role in the groups that are going to be um working there is a race equity task force I think that is forming now that's through the community and then there is the black indigenous people of color group that I think is starting to become an or a larger organization or community organization as we move forward through this so I think that both of those tasks force there which you know it's kind of hard when you so like if the human rights commission or even if there was a human rights director all of those commissions so anything that happens through the town has to meet those open meeting laws which sometimes and just town government somehow is can often be very stifling and so it doesn't move as fast as it as people would like so sometimes when you have community members that are moving forward the ideas or um it helps it move faster right because they can get some of that legwork done that would take the town more time to do right I think one of the difficulties though is uh an argument that was made against town meeting and for town council was that um that people who were in town meeting um could talk with each other and could conspire and could aggregate power to themselves like I did not buy that argument myself personally um but the idea was supposed to be we need something where people can see where you're where you're coming from um and therefore if we have a limited number of town counselors we can figure out uh what they're meeting on when they're meeting and we can kind of hear from them it's incredibly frustrating to be in any kind of of town government uh entity where no two of us can talk about stuff that relates to our work for example the human rights commission outside of this meeting without violating the open meetings uh law and because of that um we try to schedule regular meetings we meet uh once a month so that there's time between meetings for us to do something and try to get uh get other things done um and we try to meet and talk with with other people in the town um but at the end of the day we know that we have to come back and and report back and be subject to others from the town seeing us asking us questions and responding to them um that's not at all to say that there shouldn't be however many community groups that want to form and communicate amongst themselves there should be um but as far as eventually the town spending money on something it's the town is going to need to make a decision based on uh an analysis of what whatever that group is um has been thinking through what their reasoning is and um I think eventually they're going to need to kind of have an open conversation over a period of time so that they can know that the logic uh being applied by the group is is correct before they allocate resources so I think eventually it's going to get slowed down in any event um I also think there's a question of if 21 years ago um the town voted and said we need to have someone who actually coordinates this stuff and about you know 14 years ago or whatever um people feel like the person who is doing it for the town is not focused on everything that they'd like that person to be focused on and then we roll that into human resources and then we don't really have that director position in place um I mean I do kind of wonder whether this is a um a solution that's already in search of a problem that the role is one that exists in town bylaws um that is meant to do exactly this thing now that doesn't mean that um if we were looking to hire someone we couldn't use uh you know what the race equity task force is looking for um or um or the other group that you mentioned um is looking for I mean all that information could come in and it definitely doesn't have to come through us as to come through the town but it just seems like there's room already for someone to do the work for the town where they're going to be focusing and I think that when this was created I wasn't here in 1998, 1999 when this was voted on um I've only been here for 14 years but to the extent that the town 20 years ago said we'd like to get changed in a particular way and we've moved away from that and it's on our books I think that there's we have room to say we recognize that in our bylaw we want to see this come to fruition and um it's already been approved by the town of Amherst um maybe that's us adding to the task forces that are already um in existence and are searching for something to say this is something the town has already approved we just have to frame it in the way that's already on the books I don't yeah so I don't I have to get ready to cut it short I'm so sorry that's why I'm into saying something right now um the the two you know I I think that the idea is that the town is feeling pressure from the community like right and so that's that's what's gonna make the most change the fastest is what it appears to seem like is that the community is making is putting pressure on the town themselves and I can't really speak much more on it other than that but um I do want to say that I am sending out to the individuals who were at the webinar I'm sending them out a survey to find out what it is that exactly that they would like and then and as far as it goes for conversation so the intent of the the webinar was to be conversation you know community conversation the powerpoint was a little bit lengthy and so it just kind of threw it off and I didn't see it until anyway so that's that and we will try and figure out what it is or where how we can make next steps by what the community is telling us off of the survey and the survey will also be open on our website to anyone who would like to fill it out I know that those two community groups have surveys out there as well so there's just a lot of surveys circulating around at the moment so we I will move forward with that when I come back from vacation on Tuesday and in the meantime I'm the beach is calling me I gotta go I'm so sorry guys I love you is there anything I need yeah I I need to know um am I a co-host if you leave nope I'm gonna make you with a full host okay yep make host there you go the power Jennifer you've you've actually been on vacation and you've participated yeah I did I did but now I'm leaving thank you thank you thank you have a good rest your vacation thanks bye guys I hopefully will be able to continue because I think the last time I was made host and Jennifer stepped off yeah we're still here good all right okay um so uh I wish you'd say one one more minute because looking at this one of the things we didn't discuss you just mentioned that she's going to be sending out a survey to the people who were on the call on July 11th you'll remember that at our last meeting um we were asked by the town council if we could participate in facilitating a conversation um perhaps with the police perhaps with others um it was asked well why can't we do our own conversation as I mentioned earlier um I I had not yet processed you know how to communicate to everyone that I had already been asked to facilitate the conversation by town council and I had declined personally um because I I feel like um for for those of us who really want to engage in conversation if we're made facilitators we don't we don't get a chance to talk and so it's it's wrong to ask particularly if you're trying to have a conversation on anti-racism to try to have uh people in town who would like to have their voices heard be facilitators because then they can't actually speak to those issues so um but that meant that we we delegated uh we authorized Jennifer to um to pull together the the conversation that we were going to have between our last meeting and this meeting because we wanted to get started um so I was unaware until I got on the call that that the speaker was planning on presenting to uh those who signed on for three hours um a three hour zoom webinar is rough it is rough it was good information don't get me wrong and and um and Dr. Holmes Gloria Holmes was the uh the person who was presenting she did a very good job she was very engaging but I don't think um I about two-thirds of the people stayed on for all three hours but you're not going to be able to hold people that long and the question is what format are we really looking for if we want people to be able to engage I don't think the webinar format uh really gives people a chance to talk to each other and if we are going to try to have community conversations I think that that's a large part of what people are looking for and historically we've had uh conversations where people come together uh at the Jones library um in whatever the room is downstairs the Woodbury room I think and then people break out into groups of like six like we have conversations um I don't think that we should plan a bunch of of webinars where people don't get to talk to each other but the question is if in between meetings we want to be able to move more quickly and we want to encourage conversations how do we do that when um you know I'm I'm not staff for the town of Amherst uh I have a day job and uh I try to do my work and do it well at my day job and that requires a lot of time um so in between meetings I have other things that I'm focusing on and I also do some work for the Human Rights Commission but if there's someone who can um if we want to have conversations that are occurring and we delegate we have to live with the repercussions of what that looks like unless we have clear uh instructions of what it is we're looking for from the get-go that we think will be most responsive to what the town is looking for and I think that that's where it's more our responsibility to set the tone for what um what the conversations could look like and then afterwards see whether um our liaison with uh town hall can make that happen uh or if we need to partner with some other group that is already um able to arrange a conversation and and see if we can do something together so but I think we have to do one of those things and we can't we can't punt on it and say yes we want the conversation to occur but we're out of time at our meeting so let's just see what happens and the idea is on on whether we should set up a framework um set parameters for what the conversation should look like you know the webinar does give you at least some of them that have been and I'm not super duper you know um educated on all of this stuff but it gives you an opportunity to break people into groups and and go into different rooms and have some conversations so you know depends on how it's done you can still have some conversation different groups with you know different topics that people want to discuss and bring people back in it's not the optimum way I agree with you but if we want to go and and do something where you can start the conversation and then hopefully once this thing is over um this whole pandemic and we can get face to face continued then it's it's a start right um I agree with you at the beginning that like I personally would would not want to be one of the facilitators because as someone who lives in town we've had experience on I want to be able to participate in the conversation right even though I do have facilitation experience I've done lots of that but I would not want to be a member of the human rights commission facilitating that so there was an opportunity to bring somebody from the outside that would for me that would make the most sense my understanding from Jennifer was that once she used the webinar format she could not create big breakout rooms there is there is there is one out there that you can and I can explore that more because there's somebody at UMass who you know we have a big group of of the clusters of directors that meet and he's able to do that so let me I'll talk to him and see what what he uses um and then come back with it next maybe let me take some notations here on that Pet you I'm just curious if you have any thoughts about were you on the July 11th webinar I was not on the July 11th webinar so I don't know much about that but I think I would be personally okay with facilitating a conversation as um because I think I have some things to say but I also really like just hear other people have to say and I think I have some experience facilitating conversations but yeah I could I could try doing that if if needed someone to do that I I actually thought the I thought the July 11th webinar um I agreed with you Matthew it was I thought it was great everything she was obviously a very skillful presenter and she pulled together a lot of really wonderful resources but it was long three hours was like way too long and um I mean especially yeah just on this I don't know Saturday or Sunday whatever it was um in the middle of the day it was just too long and um and I I I sort of got a preview to the fact that it was going to be a webinar because I in a panic I had emailed Jennifer to say like am I taking notes for this for this and she's like no no one is taking notes and then she made some mention about the zoom bombing and um so I think like not having conversations versus the possibility that the meeting could have gotten zoom bombed and somebody could have said something really offensive and jarring it maybe was like a better choice to just keep it a webinar or a one-way format um but and and it was and like in my mind I was thinking it was just the start it was just the first one let's think about now a series of these to get the conversation and the learning and the education going and I really like the idea of bringing somebody in from the outside so that everyone who lives here has the opportunity to bring their voice into the conversation but Pat you I love the I love that you're you would be willing to facilitate I think that that and I just wonder like if we thought maybe we would do a couple of more just educational that were more in the webinar format and then and then lead into then um a series of dialogues but I mean it's tricky right like we're in COVID time so bringing people together is completely different than what anything we're used to and facilitating an online conversation is so different from facilitating a meet like a conversation where you have you know six 10 15 20 people in a room together and you can see people's faces and you can observe their body language and you know and you know the role of like empathy and the heart comes in because you're actually in the room with people you know I agree um but the question I think that also comes in is you mentioned having a webinar but then leading into dialogue I do wonder whether if you do three educational things that are webinars people realize over time you know the human rights commissioner someone and they're going to post it on a website at some point I can look at it if I'm interested and then they don't really engage in the conversation there might be a way to do something where you do an educational component and those who participate is are able to engage in a conversation and something else where they sign in they have to sign in by name they have to be allowed to enter by the person who is hosting the conversation so there are ways to do it it's a lot more work but you know maybe in ways that would increase engagement for all of the people who want to be part of the conversation I still think the next question is what conversations we are trying to promote um you know are we bringing in specialists in a particular area because the town of Amherst is ready and willing and needs to have a conversation around something and if so Jennifer and I had a chance to talk with the speaker afterwards on July 11th so after the three hours I had another half hour chance to stay on and one of the things she said was she was really grateful to be able to speak for three hours because when she's been hired to teach in other places they've given her one hour and it's not enough time but you know the question is again do you break it up into different components and I'm not saying that we have to decide what the next conversation the town should be having is right now but I do think that if we expect there to be more conversations over the summer that we need to be part of figuring out what that might look like so that we can give suggestions to others or that we can engage the town through our liaison in helping to bring people in to speak so are we saying that we would want to see more conversations of a shorter duration and maybe have a mix of an educational component followed up by a chance for conversation even if it has to be on a different platform or at least you know you sign in for the webinar in one way you sign in for the conversation in another way I'm trying to put together as part of what Sid has said part of what Deborah has said part of what Petra seems comfortable with trying to get us all on the same page but this doesn't have to be a one-time conversation right but it could be a series so I agree I mean I do a lot of this stuff in my social justice role one hour is not enough you know obviously we all know that so I think if you could build a series you know of of these conversations then you know and then assess it as we go along and hopefully continue with it then that's that would be and at the same time making sure that as we do on this work that is action steps right and achievable action steps right that that will be put in place at the end of each session you know and the action steps could be as simple as you know giving people these resources to read and then come back for a second so for a second second third and fourth conversation but then to have after those to have some very meaningful action action steps that could be that could be taken that would be that would be my take on it so by action steps would you also mean something like if you're talking about police funding maybe asking people who are there to put together what they would prioritize that police actually do and what they would say maybe they feel others would be able to do just so that the police would have that information where the town would it doesn't mean necessarily that it's the right answer but it does mean that after conversation a lot of people who are thinking through are coming to this perhaps the same conclusion that they would like to see focus in one area as opposed to another yeah yeah there'll be one one of the ways other ways is you know I mean since there's going to be members of of the town council there right is you know maybe they'll have a they'll chip in and say you know these are the areas that we were looking for and then folks who are there says okay so how are we going to implement this how are we going to research this you know are we going to assess this you know I think those are action steps that are achievable um that can then bring some some good outcomes you know for the time because ultimately it's about outcomes for the time right right and I think as a Human Rights Commission we can help connect um like the public to government um in ways that might seem like there's like a wall between both uh and so like if we so like we can have conversations with the community where we just talk about our experiences um and like our grievances and stuff that we've been talking like we've been experiencing and feeling throughout um these past months and all of our lives really but um uh we can use those experiences to then we can like because knowing our role as like a government and and someone who advises government we have expertise to help take those experiences and make it into change so I agree with Sid when he was talking about having action steps at the end of each meeting uh each like conversation that we have um but we can use our role as a connection to the government to like help write proposals and help um like take our experiences and make it into change that we want to see in the community and so like the people who come to those conversations will help the Human Rights Commission like draft like what we want to say but the Human Rights Commission can take on that um whatever we propose or gather and bring that to like the town council or bring that to the police department and have those conversations that some people might not be comfortable with having or don't know how to talk um to other people so we can be like the bridge that helps take experiences which I think is what the bylaws are about like educating we can have experts come in talking about uh their knowledge about policing or defunding the police or whatever and then we can also have um the experiences and the grievances and it will all be public and it will be known that but it will also be a community where we can like promote um like like we have each other and so then we can take that and then bring it to the council and get what they need what they need to know bring those experts to them so they can get the education they need and our proposals so they can so are the proposals that we make with the other group can make sense with the council group and sometimes those groups can be together or not it could look different but that was just what I was thinking I think that that that sounds right although again it it doesn't have to it doesn't have to come through us kind of drafting things one of the things that we have seen in the past is for example in our sanctuary community bylaw there were a number of people organizers and um people in the human rights commission like said among them who were working on that bylaw um then brought it to the human rights commission for our discussion in our support they testified I testified for the commission before then our our select board the select board said well we certainly support this and then it went to town meeting and and so it was a way for people who already have a great idea and and you know have some some ability to put together the language that that we would support um before a government body and and build up the support over time so um I think that there's a lot of people who have that expertise such that it doesn't have to be us doing the work for them but it does have to be us willing to support their work um and understanding where they're coming from and so but I think that Petra that's kind of what you're saying is that if we have these conversations and there are people who are trying to get something through that we could be a facilitator in some way is that correct yeah I think that it does if we don't have to necessarily like write everything or like write it out like because people do have that expertise but we can like help move it forward I think is what I'm trying to say so like facilitating and help like push like give our support or whatever so yeah yeah Matthew that was a perfect example of of you know something that came together and built some action steps and it was achievable right um it did take you know almost a year but it did happen right and and all of these connections came came together including human rights you're going and you're doing your you know in front of of the town council at the time no it wasn't on that select board select board and all of that and to see that outcome that's that's what you know action steps is all about right this is to come up with an idea and say this is how we're going to work on it and just like Matt you said and you said better there's so many people that have that expertise it's about bringing those people in the same room and then bringing all those pieces together perfect perfect example absolutely so um do we want to propose the next conversation that we want to have and I'll acknowledge it's not that different from the conversations we were having where we were trying to figure out which uh governmental entity did we want to meet with introduce the human rights commission explain to them that we were going to be looking at issues of anti-racism and uh and equity issues uh and and begin partnering with them that was our plan for this whole uh calendar year and we started off in january with the schools and um and have uh since fallen off uh because we weren't able to meet but um so I guess I am asking is there a next conversation that we know we want to have and that we want to see if we can manage to organize through someone working in the town who can kind of follow up get the funding that we need from the town manager's office etc well I'm really curious about these other two groups um because they're in they're people in the community so I feel like I would love to hear what they're I mean this is the first I've I've even known of their existence so maybe that's my bad I don't really know um but I would love to hear what they're working on and what they're proposing or what they're wanting to propose and um because that's in the community that those are the voices we need to hear I don't disagree however I I'm always concerned uh with with captor and what I mean by that is um when you get a relatively small group of people for a revolution that works really well if you get a small group of people who want to see massive change who gain control for a period of time and and change things greatly because they have a specific vision that they'd like to see um I will acknowledge that I'm probably more of an evolution than revolution person um and because of that I uh I'm wary of um of a small grassroots group that says it wants something without there being some kind of process by which what it is they're arguing for gets gets heard and gets argued through in a way where there's a chance to kind of challenge it and and make sure that it's the right idea that said I also recognize that if we send things through the democratic process where you have to vote on everything in a town that might have a majority view that wouldn't understand what all the problems are then you won't get a lot done because people will not understand why they're voting um why it matters to vote one way or another so I we're in this spot where we do need to hear from an amplified voices that have not been heard but we also need to make sure that what it is that's being argued for is representative of what the concern really is so um if uh if there's a series of groups that have had conversations that people have known about and people have been able to participate in I'd love to just use that and say let's move on from there if on the other hand there's a group of right-minded people who come together and reach out to a circle beyond their their that initial inner circle and have really great ideas I'd like there to be some kind of additional process by which other people get to participate rather than us as a government governmental entity saying well that's who we should meet with because they seem to be representative of something the the two approaches are not mutually exclusive you can do that you can meet with that group of people and hear the concerns which is what we've done all the time when uh there are people who were bringing things um before town meeting and they said we just wanted to go to the human rights commission first we'd have a conversation sometimes it was someone that had something that really didn't fit within the human rights commission we would say that sounds really interesting it's not something that we're going to vote for or against because it doesn't deal with issues of discrimination as as far as we can see them but you know I I if we're going to suggest a conversation are we going to leave this meeting suggesting that the conversation be with find out what the the two groups Jennifer is mentioning are and what those groups are proposing and what their process is and have that conversation next um or open something up to a broader group of people and and I will say as well um some of the people who are involved in in those conversations are people who have partnered with us um to create community conversation so um that's that's not to say that they aren't necessarily representative it's just to say that whatever process we buy into it should be one that we can stand behind and that we support um so I just want it to be something that we decide we want to go forward with so um I recognize that we're we're at the quorum number four um and ideally I would have wanted to for there to be a numerical majority of the that we are of the current commissioners but I would have wanted as many of us as possible to be part of the conversation of what we would like the town to do who we would like to see them engage in conversation and how we would like to suggest that the conversations occur um that's what I would like to I'd like to have as many ideas from us as possible on that um so if there's a limited number of conversations that we are going to engage in in the next month before we're able to meet again um how how do the four of us see that occurring um do we see there being um partnering with someone else to expand to make sure that there's a community conversation so looking at the groups that have been in contact with the town on these issues and saying can we expand on that so that they're presenting in a way that other people are coming in hearing what they're saying and that we can therefore um support that and do we feel comfortable trying to um kind of sponsor that conversation when we are not necessarily um aware of all the arguments that they're making or do we want to sponsor a separate kind of conversation and invite the larger community to come including uh those groups of people uh that are already speaking to the town council I think those are two approaches that both would involve um the people who are doing work already within their communities uh and say we want to hear from you but one of them is saying we're happy to let you take the lead because this is grassroots and you're trying to start a conversation and we support that and the other is us saying um we think that the conversation needs to be uh more process oriented and we think the town should be responsible for that process but we think the town should um should invite those people who have already been putting the work in is um I feel comfortable with both to tell you to choose but if you were to ask me to choose um based on what you said that we would want to see more input from commissioners I would choose more input in commissioners and just from the get go join the conversations that are going on right and support those conversations and then as we listen because this has been recorded so the other commissioners can you know take a look at it and see what is being discussed right now um and then get the input and then we can have something more robust you know that we as a commission can put together but I'll be I'll be very comfortable in joining the other the other conversations because I got I haven't been in those conversations but I get a gist of what's going on and I don't think it's unlike what we would come up with is it I'm saying so um but that's that's my take would love to hear some more um sometimes at the end of the day and I've been going since 7 30 in the morning I feel like I've kind of have lost my ability to parse through the differences that you just said so I apologize I just like my brain is um fried um I I mean I understand the basic concept that you're saying that um these conversations are going we support those conversations continuing to go on but we probably need to create something different is that what is that what you were saying Matthew uh that that was option two which is the town takes ownership and says we are going to um lead the conversations but we want to hear from the people who are already doing the work but we're making sure that the conversations are open and the first option was we recognize people are already engaged in the conversations we as commissioners support a grassroots effort to make change and we would like to perhaps engage in that ourselves or at least understand where they're coming from so that we can opine on it and be supportive of it but we're going to let the group that has already taken the lead which isn't restricted by open meeting laws and and doesn't have to have a quorum and all that kind of stuff we're going to let them kind of continue to take the lead because we think that they can move more quickly and and can make changes on a more revolutionary scale which which is the argument for doing it that way and not by following a process where you have a town commission uh that is taking control of the conversation i mean i kind of think there is a way there's a third option which is to um you know and maybe you said this and i'm just not understanding because i like i said i mean i feel like my brain at this point is not is like all my cylinders are not firing um so but um to sort of come in behind these two task forces here and understand the conversations they're having and then and then additionally build on those with an eye towards us structure having structure conversations you know not just one or two but like all throughout the fall and all throughout the font the coming year with an eye towards being able to inform you know i mean because the original issue it well one of the original issues right is um well all the ways that inequity shows up but specifically right now it's very very hot in the realm of public safety and policing right and so one conversation that's on the table is defunding the police or not defunding them but you know taking a portion of their budget and attributing that in other directions and as you were saying this is sort of in my mind is where we initiated this conversation which was this is probably not going to be happening in this budget cycle we're looking to next year and to be able to do that there needs to be more information we need to study this we need to have a needs assessment we need to understand this more carefully before we make a recommendation and before town council can actually craft this into their next budget cycle and so in my mind and maybe this is just too ambitious and too idealistic like i'm hearing nine conversations from september to june one a month like this is not just like a one and done this is like community conversations on race and all of the places all of the domains where racial inequity shows up and impacts people's lives in all kinds of ways and so to me i guess i'm just wondering well what if we started by listening to the conversations that are already happening even though these are small and vocal groups but it's it's already happening so it's a way for like it's a way for us to begin this conversation and as the hrc also gets involved with them i feel like that i don't know i just feel like numbers begin to grow and we start to understand a little bit more about you know maybe it's like nine different conversations one a month that happened all throughout the coming year so um petro i want to hear from you as well but i also want to to get a sense of what we think that that next conversation should be should there be a conversation that we whether we participate in or we call for that is about that that funding question um or do we feel like that's a conversation that others have just had and we don't need to call for that we you know are looking for something else um i think i think that uh in terms of like listening people who are already thinking about what they want and how they're going to get it i think we should listen to they have to say and offer that to the public as well because these are public meetings or gatherings and it can be shared with multiple people in multiple spaces um and we don't have to agree or disagree with anything we just have to hear or provide the space for both the public and us to hear what they have to say um and i think that in terms of how like i like i agree when she said that like uh we should have like one each month be consistent and have it be a series and not just a one and done situation but i also think that there should be like one part that's about like education and one part that's about conversations because i and i don't know how that would look like whether that would be like either two different meetings or in the same type of meeting um and i think both are very important in order to understand what you're talking about what you're experiencing um in some way uh so yeah i don't know exactly what it would look like but i think it's important to have like it be consistently through the next year and it should be like in different types of topics not just um the police although that's a really pressing and like hot topic right now um that could be like resolved for it like with amount like a certain amount of conversations but um i don't i don't know what we would do uh with that so yeah that's so let me ask if we're talking about something like a conversation a month are we going back to the idea that we um originally had last november of saying um we need to have a focus on anti-racism and you know education one month so and and let's say we then meet with the educators and students who pulled together um in petro you spoke at this one um the uh the educators for black lives matter um do we then have something where there's a learning component to um to education black lives matter like you know pedagogy or how do you bring different voices in the classroom things like that and then a a so let's say that's in a one hour introduction to the ideas behind it uh with some kind of uh expert who wants to speak on those issues and then a another one hour conversation that follows so a two hour day um where people break into groups and talk about how they're going to use that in their classrooms in their um in their homes and that kind of thing um but education being like let's say a september thing when when people return to school and get really excited about being educated once again um and then october move on to um housing disparities uh and because that kind of organization i i agree with it in theory it is kind of hard to pull together to make sure that you have um the process by which you're going to have the right people come every month um whether you're going to maintain interest over time but i i like the idea of it if it's something we could pull off or something that that the town will support and um you know that the town can pull off with some support from us and some ideas coming from us is petra is that what you were thinking about yeah i think i i think it was either like having like a two hour session with one hour's like uh education the other hour's just conversations and commitments or it could be like two different discussions like one the first one's like education and after that like we have another one dedicated to conversation so that way no one feels rushed in either one or like it's it's like set out but that would require a lot more organization um in general um but yeah both i think both ideas are i think it's important to have both that's all i'm really saying so i'm looking at our agenda and we are coming up on we're we're on the uh c and d components of our action discussion items from the timing that i had on the side so that means fall planning and what our roles can be um so we're right where we should be in the conversation um i'm just wondering if there's something concrete that we want to to recommend um for for fall whether we want to try to plan something for august and whether it's something that we want to say we'll start up in late august it's a busy time for a lot of people a lot of things are occurring um and and we whether we want to get off right when everyone is busy and say we want you to commit to this or whether we want to start in september um and if so who do we want to reach out to what do we want to see first um and i think what i'm hearing is uh from deb there are um some groups that are working specifically on uh on uh race equity and you know we can kind of communicate with them and try to hear what they're doing and perhaps create a discussion around that um i don't know it how that fits in with our plan of anti-racism and um and doing something every month and making sure that there's both an educational component and a uh and a community conversation component so i love all the ideas i'm just trying to figure out how i think they could start by seeing what's happening and connecting with it that would be great to tell you should me august i'm not going to be able to do anything because umass is is going to open so i wouldn't be able to re-engage again until september and that's like god on the shoot because august is just going to be a nightmare um so and then we also had talked earlier about us doing an assessment of also what the town is also doing right um and and and maybe joining up with some of that if there's something that's going because again it's not just the responsibility of the human rights so that would be my take yeah and what you're saying said um i mean even those of us who aren't necessarily in education if we have kids we're thinking about are our kids going to go back to school is that going to be safe and what you know like what decision do i need to make as a parent and yeah so there's a lot that everybody's going to be considering in august i know you're paying i'm in the abc house i got seven young men that i have to make decisions on and it's not going to be easy not going to be easy oh my god i have so many questions for you but i'll stop because this is not a personal dialogue but wow you call me tomorrow or something i know i'm just trying to think about like how would you even do that make decisions about somebody else's children's safety yeah not it's a lot of conversation with the parents believe me i mean which also makes me think about one of the conversations to be about health equity but you know i mean obviously doesn't i mean maybe that could be the first one right because that's what is on all of our minds right now is how do we stay healthy and that's harder for some you know people individuals in groups of people than others correct it is yeah i think i thought so i think we should do we should whatever if we're having these conversations that should start in september definitely because we all have things to think about in august and decisions to make that might take our time away i thought personally that we should start with like like what our role as i think it should be like specifically anti-racism i don't think we even know exactly what we want to do so for our first conversation is deciding how we engage in anti-racist conversations um and have the public give their input and have experts talk about their experiences with anti-racism and the work that they do i think that would be a good first conversation then we can move to like health equity um and then also i was thinking about doing um environmental racism and other stuff like that and schools and stuff like that and then housing like i think we we could easily find different discussions for different months but i feel like starting with anti-racism as like our first conversation and what exactly that means to us and what we want to move forward in whatever discussion we're having having anti-racism be like the core of what we do i think that's really important and we can start that in september um and bring people in and right now just engaging in conversations with people that are already doing the work so that we can just ask them when we're ready to like share what they've done over the summer and engage in conversations later after we like establish what we do so yeah um so it's sounding to me uh like we are going to reach out to the town and say that we understand that there are conversations that are ongoing please let us know about those conversations to the extent that they will touch on issues of equity within the town because that's that's something that we're supposed to be focusing on we don't have to be the only educators we're living a town full of people who no matter what they do are ready to educate you so we're we're good on on getting educators in the town um but that is part of our role so um if if we can kind of find out what conversations are occurring um i i would say that the um the july 11th conversation was specifically i mean it's it's three hours on anti-racism um but i think patria you raised a really good point about trying to put us in a position where we situate ourselves in that discussion at the beginning of the year um and and allow for conversation around that uh i don't know if we can use the material that we've got because it'd be a lot to ask people to kind of just sit and and watch that although maybe they'd be willing to do that um as part of the educational component of the anti-racism discussion before the conversation itself um so do we know whether we're able to meet in august i have to look at when we would typically meet i recognize that in the past the human rights commission has often taken a break over the summer uh and we have not done that thus far this year um let's see i think we would typically have met on the third thursday which would be august 20th so we're talking deep summer um that's the period in which uh if people are able to take vacations before a school year begins quite often they're doing it um or for those of us who are already um in orientation that week for our schools we're um will be in orientation that week um and and somehow trying to drive our our kids to college for those who are dropping off their kids to college next august um so do we uh do we have uh the possibility of a meeting will at least um a few of us who are here now know that we can meet august 20th and again there's nothing magical about that date it's just a date that um the commissioners have said they would uh try to make themselves free the third thursday of every month so that we can meet as a group um do we think we can have the meeting in august that'll help us set up for for what we're doing in september i personally could meet earlier in august that week is the week i'm supposed to be on vacation so but i could do one of the earlier weeks if others can just with the thirteenth work that's when we have the uh the house i have my housing um i could do it from six to seven because the housing um housing meeting is at seven o'clock so i could i could do six to seven on the thirteenth there will be a problem okay um um yeah i mean we can we can try to start the conversation and and whoever can stay on can stay on um we could also try to do it earlier although depending on how workdays look it doesn't always help to try to shift it to five because sometimes there's just not time in the day yeah all right so no i couldn't do that okay let's go 13 let's go 13 that's six and then okay the then one last point that i will make and i'll i'll see if we can reach out to the town and and if there are conversations that are ongoing um let us know about them uh to the extent that they're they're uh not private conversations such that we can follow along and and try to be supportive of a grassroots effort the second thing that i want to bring up is um we are looking to fill out the commission again our quorum is for because there's an expectation that at any given point there are going to be people involved in school in something else where they're going to have to miss meetings um but the the more people we have on the commission with a maximum of nine so right now we're at six because three people came off um so if we can refill to nine that puts us in a position where again if there's a couple of us who say we can't make it that's okay because there will likely be other people who can show up and be there for the meeting and keep moving things forward so i'd ask you to consider people you would recommend to apply to be on the commission think about it you don't have to answer right now but but please do encourage the right people to apply to serve on the commission they would apply through the website right yeah go ahead yeah yeah i may have someone actually let me talk to her great um so uh when we do meet on august 13th at that point give some thought to how you'd want to frame an event in september uh and what you'd want to prioritize if we're going to try to do something month after month after month uh because i think we can we can then get things going um and feel like we're hitting the ground running this upcoming year okay sounds good yeah good all right um is there anything else that we should discuss right now or do i hear a motion yeah i'm hungry i second the motion all right i'm assuming that's a motion to adjourn yes all right made and seconded all in favor hi all right well thank you all very much thank you have a great night and talk to you soon all right good night everybody good night