 So you'll go first. But I'll do the pledge really quickly after just a quick pass. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for that. Welcome, everyone. We'll begin this ceremony with the Pledge of Allegiance. If everyone would please rise. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic which stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Mr. Mayer. Great. So good afternoon, everyone. Welcome. It is really exciting to be with you on this day of milestones for many of you. I always appreciate the opportunity to be with you on these happy days, be with the families. Thank you to all of you who have committed yourselves to this city, who are advancing. And I want to thank all of your families as well for all the support that they have given you that makes today possible. I like on these occasions to try to reflect and find some wisdom to share with you at this key milestone. Today, really what I did to get ready for today is to get ready for the event to happen just before here, where we had a roomful of community leaders who stepped up, took some risks of their reputation, irritated some people, made some people unhappy to step forward and from their positions of serving in the medical center, of serving in mental health, of being in other unions that have different, usually have political allies that made it hard for them to do what they did today, which is stand up and say, the Burlington police are important. We need them to have the kind of city that we have long enjoyed and we need to make sure that all officers, and really all members of this department, are treated fairly and that they are supported properly in their roles. And I was proud to be part of a community effort to say that. We have a big discussion between now and town meeting day to make sure that our charter continues to guarantee those protections for all of you. So I want to say again, thank you, everyone in the room, for your service. Thank you to those who are stepping up and entering this profession at a challenging time for this country, at a challenging time for this city. You are going to be a part of a generation of officers that a lot is demanded of. And I have full confidence that you are going to rise to that challenge and you are going to show that it is possible to meet the high standards that this community expects, while also keeping this community safe and prospering. And I'm very grateful again for you stepping up at a time when so many are stepping away and not being committed to this path. Thank you. Chief, thanks for letting me be part of this as usual. Absolutely, sir. It's always great to have you here. So I echo his sentiments. Thank you all for being here. I welcome all of you and family members especially, because I know how much family members share the burden of this unique and challenging and rewarding profession. It is one of the greatest professions in the world. One that is absolutely fundamental to the wellbeing of our free and civil society, because in any democracy, the first obligation of government is public safety. Why? Why is that? Because all of the other things that government promises rests on it. At its heart, our democracy promises some very important things. It promises what the Declaration of Independence announced, all people are created equal. That they are endowed with unalienable rights like life and liberty, the ability to pursue happiness. Our democracy promises what our constitution proclaimed that we establish justice, that we ensure domestic tranquility, that we promote the general welfare for everyone, that we secure the blessings of liberty. America hasn't always fulfilled these words, but the key to doing so rests on public safety. It rests on fair, equal application of the law. It rests on the work that you do, that you will do, that you in the back of the room who are already parts of this department do every single day. Our department is committed to making Burlington safe and fair everywhere for everyone. And our department is you, it's people. And that's why this day is very, very important because we need very good people and I think we're getting great ones. So we're going to start by meeting some, all right? I would ask that our professional staff who are being sworn in today, let's see, I think we'll bring you up by title. So if you would please come on up, Shan Shan. Shan Shan is our redaction specialist. You can stand right over here please. We'll sort of start a line behind here. Shan Shan is our redaction specialist. The redaction specialist is a new role that we have just created. She is our very first incredibly important role with regard to transparency. She is allowing us to fulfill an agreement we made with the Burlington Police Commission in August of 2021 to release certain body camera uses of force unilaterally and preemptively and proactively something that no other police department that I know of in the country does. And it allows us to be as transparent as possible with our public. Incredibly important role. Shan Shan is originally from China. She moved to the US in March of 2022. Her home province there is Hainan which is sometimes called the Hawaii of China. So I would assume this is a little bit different temperature-wise right now. Prior to moving to the US, she lived in Shanghai and worked for social media, did social media and graphic design at an international hospital. Her skill set isn't just going to be redacting stuff, it's going to be creating stuff for us as well and helping to tell our story. Her hobbies include singing, badminton and pickleball. There's a lot of that around Burlington so you can probably find some people to play with. And she's excited to try downhill skiing for the first time sometime this month. All right, good luck, that'll be great. I would ask now our community support liaisons to come up. We have three of them. Please come on up and stand with Shan Shan. I'm sorry too. The community support liaison is a position that we created in the wake of the turmoil of 2020. It is a position that is an in-house social worker. The community support liaison addresses issues that have to do with substance use disorder, with houselessness, with chronic calls around mental health. It is an incredibly important part of how we are evolving the way we serve our community. And it is something that our community called for. We base this role on an existing position that was occupied by Lacey Smith, who is now the community support supervisor and oversees these positions. We are allotted a total of six, I believe we're now at four and we are closing in on having all six of those positions filled very soon. Our first is Catherine Mara. She was born in Burlington, grew up in Williston, attended SUNY Albany where she majored in Homeland Security and Criminal Justice and Political Science. And before transitioning to BPD, she worked at Burlington Housing as a rapid rehousing coordinator and move coordinator. That's somebody who's dedicated to this concept of making certain that we're taking care of everyone in our community equally. Before BHA, she was at the Correctional Facility at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility. And she's looking forward to traveling now that the world is finally opening up again. Bridget Blyzek was born in upstate New York and moved to Arizona after her father retired from the NYPD. She graduated the University of Arizona with a Bachelor of Science in Community Health and later attended the School of Public Health at SUNY Albany and graduated with a master's degree. She came to Vermont in 2021 and was a team member here at BPD as a victim service specialist, which is actually a part of CEDO, the Community Economic Development Office, part of the Burlington Community Justice Center, but it sits here at One North Avenue. So in many ways she's already been part of this team. She's also a package deal because we don't just get, Bridget, we also get Rocky, her sidekick and a therapy dog in training. So that is something that's really terrific for all of us. Rocky puts smiles on everybody's faces and it is terrific to have him patting around the halls. The community service officers, if you would please rise and come up. Thank you, fill it in that way. So the community service officer is a position that we've had for a very long time. It is an unsworn, unarmed officer, but nevertheless very important for our city's public safety posture. They do address quality of life issues. They are capable of issuing municipal tickets and so they can address certain kinds of issues that rise not to the level of criminality, but are components of how our community feels both strong and safe. We used to only have two and they were basically split apart two shifts. We're now allotted 12 and we are working to staff it up. This is a very important role for us as we are addressing what our public is asking of us with regard to how we serve it. Our first is Yusuf Abdi. Now Yusuf's parents are originally from Somalia, although Yusuf was born in Kenya. He came to Burlington at the age of five and is the oldest son in his family. He's a 2016 graduate of BHS and recently took a degree in political science with an economics minor I think at UVM. He previously worked at the Boys and Girls Club in the Old North End and he was the assistant director of education there. He enjoys spending time with friends and family and family is a significant part of his identity. He currently lives in Burlington and enjoys traveling when possible. Peter Hatfield. Peter was born at the Plattsburg Air Force Base on the base, yeah? After graduating from high school, he joined the US Marine Corps and served four years achieving the rank of sergeant. He went on to serve later in both the US Coast Guard and the Maryland National Guard in both those he had law enforcement roles. During this time he also served several combat tours in Afghanistan and with embedded tactical training teams also worked with the Bosnian Army Military Police in Sarajevo. He now makes his home in St. Albans in an old farmhouse on 35 acres where he shares his time with canine companions, Zephyr and Annie. He's the command sergeant major of the first battalion of the Vermont State Guard which is a volunteer arm of the national guard. It is consists of people with explicit skill sets but it's all volunteer and they are an ancillary sort of a national guard for the national guard, a reserve for the guard. To be the sergeant major of that is a big deal so congratulations. And Krista Town. Krista is originally from Berlin, Vermont. Law enforcement is new to her. She previously officiated football and basketball which I assume probably has a certain amount of negotiating skills that have to be involved there and worked security at UVM. She's looking forward to being here in Burlington and helping to improve this community which I believe is a shared goal of everyone who's in this room. Enjoys biking, skiing, traveling and we are happy to have her here as a positive and fingers crossed slightly funny sometimes new perspective for our department. Next and last for our professional employees we have our emergency communications specialists. Would you please come up? Emergency communications specialists, big mouthful, ECS another way of saying it or more colloquially dispatchers. Our dispatchers are our lifeline for our community. We're allotted 12 for a while we were down to four. That was simply not enough to serve. We are back up to seven thanks to these additions. We hope they'll soon be joined by others. This is an incredibly important part of our police department. When the pandemic first hit then interim chief Jennifer Morrison shut this department down sooner than many other places in the state shut down and the reason she did so was to preserve that dispatch center because the emergency communications center without it we cannot function. Our first is Robert King. Robert grew up in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He attended undergraduate studies at Unity College in Maine and graduate studies in both Wisconsin and Vermont. He has lived in Burlington since 2003 and he lives here with his wife as three children and many animals. Pastimes include fishing, unlike she on plane, working out. Working here is a second career in which he is looking forward to serving this community that he's been a part of for 20 years. Maritza McLaughlin. So just over a month ago, Maritza moved from Nebraska to Vermont to join this department. She originally grew up in Puerto Rico. My mother is Guadana and I was born in Venezuela. I grew up in Puerto Rico so we should talk at some point. Maritza is fluent in Spanish and English and Portuguese. She's got a bachelor's in forensic psychology and before becoming a dispatcher she worked as an estate specialist at a credit union. She enjoys spending time here with her whimer on her named Howard and watching thrillers and horror films of them. Nice to have a dog if you're gonna watch horror films. Jennifer Balligan. Jennifer is originally from Long Island, New York but she moved from Washington DC to Burlington in 2020 to pursue a career in healthcare. Jennifer has an academic and professional background in applied psychology and is passionate about reducing the stigma surrounding mental health. And the first line of addressing mental health is very often dispatchers. It is dispatchers who pick up that call and can understand whether or not a call is driven by something that's actually happening, something that is maybe in the mind of the caller, that the caller's needs are, whether those are a crime is being committed, whether or not there's some other kind of underlying issue. So having somebody like that in the dispatch center is incredibly important. She's currently an emergency medical service provider with Colchester Rescue as well. And in her off time she enjoys true crime documentaries and stand-up comedy shows and games like Sudoku and Solitaire. So we will now administer an oath to all of our professional employees. Each of you will have to just say your own name and your own professional title and we'll work through this. Am I doing, okay. Excuse me, I gotta grab the paper. Raise your right hand, please. I, state your name. Hi, Peter Hatch, you. Do solemnly swear. Do solemnly swear. That I will faithfully execute. That I will faithfully execute. The office of state your position. The office of community service officer. For the city of Burlington and the state of Vermont. For the city of Burlington and the state of Vermont. On my honor. On my honor. I will never betray my position. I will never betray my position. My integrity. My integrity. My character. My character. Or the public trust. Or the public trust. I will always have the courage. I will always have the courage. To hold myself and others. To hold myself and others. Accountable for our actions. Accountable for our actions. I will always uphold the truth. I will always uphold the truth. And community that I serve. And community that I serve. Congratulations. So I have, for each of you, pins. Thank you. So now it is time for the police. And I would ask the probationary police officers to come up and join me. Attain judge for word mark. About face parade risk. Nicely done. These men and women are about to embark on 16 weeks of academy training. And they will be learning about community policing and fair and impartial policing and addressing mental health crises. They will get training in the use of force and firearms and fingerprints and forensics. And those are just the Fs. There is also precision driving and domestic violence and drug recognition and motor vehicle law and counterterrorism and interview and interrogation and juvenile law and, and, and it is a lot. But the academy is just a piece. When we get you back, we will expose you to how Burlington does what we do. It's differently, I believe, and better. You will have at least 580 hours of field training with experienced officers by volume and variety. The men and women of this agency do more and see more than those of any other agency in the state. We will expect a lot of you. And I know that you will deliver. Carolyn Erwin-Morse, who is our recruiting officer and has been overseeing their pre-basic training, I know that she has been working with you to get you ready. You came to us with unique life stories and skills and abilities, and we chose you from hundreds of others because you have the ability to be the future of this agency. The mayor said it, it is true. You are the future of this agency. So let's meet the future. And we will start with Kim Lockerbie, badge 410. Kim was born and raised in Franklin County, Vermont. He is currently living in Highgate with his wife and three daughters, ages four and six and 11. Kim served in the U.S. Navy for 10 years in a Riverine Squadron, Riveron III. These are small boat units that provide both offensive and defensive force protection, and they are tip of the spear type units. For the past five and a half years, Kim has worked in county, federal and state corrections, and in his free time he enjoys going to the gym and the range. Dominic Tenon, badge 411. Dominic is from Bristol, Connecticut, not Vermont, but he moved to Vermont in 2015 after graduating from Tonksis Community College with an associate's degree in criminal justice and a certificate in homeland security. And for the past year, he has been a very valuable and effective member of our team as a CSO. Before that, he spent six years at the TSA and was a behavioral detection supervisor. Dominic is married and he has three dogs and two cats. Devin Cotton, badge 412. Devin was born in Massachusetts and raised in South Carolina. He's currently residing in Essex Junction. In 2018, he enlisted in the South Carolina Army National Guard as a firefighter and he currently serves as a senior airman in the Vermont Air National Guard. He is married to Amanda and they have a 16-month-old daughter, Everly, and his hobbies are playing basketball and video games. Beebeck Gurung, badge 414. Did I miss, I'm sorry, these got stuck together? I'll come to you back, I'll come back to you, Logan. All right, we'll go with Logan. I'm sorry, Logan Perret, badge 413. Logan moved to Vermont from Connecticut in 2021 with his girlfriend, Sydney, and their cat, Casper, so she could finish her post-doc at UVM, which is what it says here. And I assume that that's Sydney and not Casper, which is a lesson about making certain that we write clearly on these things. Logan has worked at the Burlington Police Department for the past years as a community service officer and he and Sydney and Casper live in South Burlington, Vermont. He spends his spare time skiing, hiking, and rock climbing. Beebeck Gurung. Beebeck has lived in Burlington for the past 10 years. He emigrated from Nepal to Burlington in 2012 and he identifies as a Bhutanese Nepalese. Beebeck is currently attending Champlain College and will graduate this May with a criminal justice major. Champlain is allowing us to actually make his academy experience a component of his college education so that he's dual-purposing it, which is terrific. And the ability to cooperate and partner with agencies in town or in the region who are educational is tremendously important and helps us potentially access new people to join this department because we are in a growth period. Beebeck has worked with the Burlington Police Department already as a beach and parks patrol officer for two summers. More recently he's been working for Howard Center at Act One Bridge. He's excited to join and serve this community and during our backgrounds he received some of the most uniformly glowing personal references of anyone the background investigator had seen. It seems that no one doesn't like Beebeck. And last but certainly not least, Suzanne Hansen, Badge 415. Suzanne was born and raised in Nevada although she's lived in Canada the past 12 years. She's a graduate of Athabasca University in Alberta and took a bachelor's in psychology. For the past eight years she has been a volunteer crisis coordinator and responder with a Canadian police service. She enjoys running and photography and she's excited to join BPD and will be moving her husband and three sons ages 15, 12 and 15 months to the area soon. Jeff is here. Jeff, join us. Jeff Bauer is one of three police officers who has joined us since our last swearing-in ceremony. Jeff was a police officer here. He left and he has returned to us. And I'll tell you that when I had my exit interview with him it was a sad one for me. Jeff's father served here a long and distinguished career as a supervisor. Jeff came to this building as a young person, had been a part of this department as a family member, wanted to be a part of this department and did not feel necessarily that he still could be a part of this department, that there were other opportunities and that there were senses in the community that perhaps there were other places for him to be. That has changed. There are aspects of that have changed. We brought other officers back to us as well. That is an important statement. It's important that we are bringing people back to this agency even as we are bringing new people into this agency. It talks about a change in our posture and the way things are going. And it's wonderful to have Jeff back as well. So, I will do the oaths for all of you and I encourage any member of the service who is here today to take this oath as well. Raise your right hand, please. And say after me, I, state your name, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of probationary police officer for the city of Burlington and the state of Vermont, on my honor, I will never betray my badge, my integrity, my character, or the public trust. I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions. I will always uphold the Constitution and community I serve. I will therein do equal right and justice to all men and women to the best of my judgment and ability according to the laws of this state and the United States of America under the pains and penalties of perjury. Congratulations. 410, 411, 412, 413, 414 and 415. Everyone, our new set of recruits. You can take seats. There is a stereotype of a cop which in Burlington hasn't been the reality for a long time, if ever. And nevertheless, it lives in people's minds and it's not always to the benefit of the profession. Maybe you know it. Maybe you have a stereotype like that in your mind as well, but the stereotype isn't Burlington. Never really has been Burlington. And this new group of police recruits is proof. We have diversity of background, of race, of national origin. We have diversity of sex, although improving that for me personally is a goal. Our sworn officer corps is currently 17% female, which is better than the national average of 12%, but we want to do better. We have two military veterans because there are skill sets and experiences that military service can impart that are tremendously valuable to policing. We have cops with degrees. We have cops with backgrounds and social work. We are striving to look more and more like the community that we serve and we're getting there. Of the 66 sworn officers we currently have, we are 17% female and 18% non-white. As the stories that you've just heard indicate, we are making inroads with communities that are important parts of our Burlington community. But the most important part of any of this is that our recruits are great people. Burlington wants and deserves great cops and we will not. We cannot compromise on those standards. Looking at these employees here today, all of them and their families, I'm confident that we haven't. We are in the midst of one of the most important periods this agency has ever known. It's a rebuilding effort that we have not experienced in more than half a century and all of you are part of that effort. You are the foundation on which we are rebuilding. This is a high-stakes job. It is a high-stress job, but it is a highly rewarding job. Someone once told me that there are three phases of being a cop or any employee in public safety for that matter. In the first phase, you're just lucky to be here and the adventure is there. There's a sense that you can change the world. I can't believe they are paying me to do this, you say. In the second phase, you've gotten some miles under your belt, you're competent, you got this. You know that there are real problems and if only people would recognize them, we could fix them together. They don't pay me enough for this, you might say, but you suit up anyway and you do the work. And by the third phase, there's a sense of immovability of problems that will never go away, of pushing against the sea. They can't pay me enough for this. I've been at this 18 years and I am nowhere near that third phase. I suit up every day and I feel lucky to be a part of this profession and this police department every day. I hope that you will feel that way with me. I'm almost done, I promise. There's a movie, Jerry Maguire, which doesn't seem like an old movie to me, although it's older than some of you and it ends with a quote that I like. I don't have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I have failed as much as I have succeeded, but I love my life, I love my wife, and I wish you my kind of success. It's a good movie if you haven't seen it. It is impossible to have a great life unless it's a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. I can't promise any of you a great life, but I can promise you a meaningful life because I can promise you meaningful work. This is meaningful work. There is very little work that is more meaningful than what you do. I'm here for it, and I am so glad to have all of you as new team members here for it, too. We are on an upswing. There is momentum for rebuilding. There is a better day ahead. And we can see this through. We can come out stronger, and we can ensure that our city stays safe and fair everywhere for everyone. Thank you all for being here today, and thank you for joining this department. So, everyone, there is food on the sides. There is mingling to be done. I would love to meet many of you, but our employees have something to do first, which is come up and sign your oaths and your sheets for your personnel files. So...