 First and foremost, thank you all for being here. It speaks volume for you being here on a Sunday evening and because you care about the city because you also are concerned about the public safety as we move forward in the city of Wellington. So as you know, on Monday, the city council will be voting on the approval of chief elect John mirad as the next chief of police for the city of Wellington. We are here to give chief mirad the opportunity to speak about his vision of public safety and also to be able to answer questions that members of the public may have. We have received several wonderful great question and chief I shared those questions with you to a Google document and will be asking you those questions as well. So this is possible today because it's a collaboration effort between longer. Dave Harnett who have been a city council for a long time in the north district. Life long Burlington years. Commissioner garrison would represent word for and seven and commissioner heart, who also represent work seven at the police commission. We decided to do this in order to give the public an opportunity to speak with john mirad. Okay, so I'm going. Only a second to come back on. Mr heart that please the floor is yours. Thanks all the thanks for having us. I think this speaks to really what growing to is all about to be able to have one of these input sessions with our neighbors and friends. And I think it's important that we bring it to the people. And I've been working with all the on policing issues and other issues over the last year and a half or so along with your meeting Kevin. And this is what this is what makes Burlington so special right to be able to have the chief, any chief but particularly this to be able to attend one of these neighborhood gatherings, we wish it was live. We didn't have COVID but we do. And now we have to, we have to kind of, you know, pull a switch here and come together like this but I'm looking forward to it. I hope everybody stays positive I hope we have some great questions for the chief. And I'm hoping that we can be moving forward. We have a lot of things in the city that quite aren't settled yet right we got the, you got the pet, you got going to high school you got a lot of things that haven't really come together. I would like to see public safety are going to police department take the next step forward, and I'm hoping this will be the start so all the thanks very much for having me. Thank you so much for my city council Dave partner. I would like to go now to Commissioner garrison and and meet yourself and meet yourself. Sorry, Commissioner garrison we cannot hear you maybe we can go to student while you figure out the, you can unmute yourself. Yeah. Commissioner heart. I don't know if they can, sir, I was given like special permission to unmute myself, but I think everyone else is not. Okay, I just, I just was given permission to unmute. Thank you john. So, can you all hear me now. Yeah, great. Okay, wonderful. I just wanted to thank all the for bringing us all together. This is a great opportunity for us to ask the chief some questions around policing. And I just want to say the, for the short term, I've been on the commission. I've spoken to the chief on numerous occasions. He has always picked the phone up for me, he's always picked the phone up and he never sets it down unless I'm finished talking to him. So I respect him for that. And any of the issues or concerns I have he's always willing to talk. I spend my experience with him. And I'm, you know, as far as representing BIPOC people. He wants to reach out to this, the BIPOC community is as much as I do, and and listen to their concerns and see what he can do to help bring us all together as a city and community. So those are some of the, the strengths that I've seen him all over time, speaking to people. And I think he's the right person for the job. So I'm glad we're together here today and let's just move forward. Thank you. I don't know if Commissioner Hart can yet unmute herself it looks like she cannot. So we also want to thank Jim Hallway. He's taking care of the technical, you know, behind the scene everything that you see today it's possible because of Jim. Great. Can you hear me. Yes. Okay, thank you Jim. Thank you councillor Jang. I am really grateful you asked you, you know asked to include me in this and I appreciate it. I can echo what Kevin Garrison said about working with the chief. In terms of accessibility that has been much appreciated I should say I've been on the Commission for two terms and finishing my sixth year. And the accessibility of the chief has been fantastic, whether it's just sending a text. Do you have time to hop on a call the answer is always yes, and it's always right away if that's what's needed. I also like that he is independent, an independent thinker so that can look many ways whether it's sticking to his position on a disciplinary matter where seeing it through to the end, you know whether it's through a grievance procedure but not buckling to uniformed officers who are challenging his decision as an example. With the Commission I appreciate that he doesn't just rubber stamp everything that we ask for or request, it is, he's independent and so he'll push back on us that something that we are pushing for. The opinion based on his experience in policing is not advisable from his perspective that doesn't mean we don't continue to push back but I appreciate that independence from the chief. I wouldn't at all be an interest interested in the chief who just says what we want to hear. Another thing that has been very good about cheap your ad is his willingness to learn from things that have happened, except mistakes that he's made or the department has made and he will just come out and say it. Whether it's to me or to the group he will say you know what we could have done that differently we should have done that differently is policy can look different. I know there are other opinions and I should have started this and I apologize by saying this is, these are only my views, we don't speak for other commissioners so there are seven of us. I know there are other opinions on the Commission we all have our own relationships and we're a very cohesive group but we have different views, but my personal interactions have been extremely positive and I, I really appreciate the chiefs acceptance of if he has said something and someone is, you know, takes section takes exception to it, he will apologize if that's appropriate. He's called me after meetings to pick my brain about an interaction. We've talked about the upcoming BPO way contract negotiation their three year contract is up in June, and I think he's going to be critical in helping that his role from what I understand is more of a neutral or, you know, it's between the city and the BPO way which is the union, but I think the chiefs input on that and and assistance is going to be critical so I too am very supportive of the chief being appointed as the permanent chief for getting this contract. So thank you. Thank you very much, Commissioner Hart, Commissioner garrison and Dave, so chief, we have right now over 50 people listening to you. Why do you think you are the right person for the job. And can you also touch on your vision about providing the best public safety possible for the residents of Burlington and beyond. The floor is yours. Take the time you need to be here to listen to you. Thank you. Thank you, counselor and thank you everyone for being on this this zoom call I see faces who are in the neighborhood faces of people with whom my family and I interact faces of people who are are passionate about this police department sometimes critical of this police department sometimes supportive of this police department, but I think everyone here is ultimately a neighbor. This is the crux of my philosophy with regard to public safety, it is, and I have an officer on this call that I see who is also a neighbor and and I think that I have folks who will roll their eyes inside my police department at my constant use of this term, but I believe that public safety and police. It exists to keep people safe by preventing and responding to crime and disorder with and for our neighbors and that is the key part with and for our neighbors. And I am a member of this community because I believe that I have my, my home in this community because I believe that I was born in in the hospital when we still called it Mary Fletcher. I grew up in in under hill and spent was a proud cougar class of 91. My parents taught at the university 35 years for my father, and somewhere on the order of 25 or so from my mother as as a lecture both of them the romance department. I spent time in Burlington, I know it from from lunatic to lyric and from the the rock seat a rock point and from the hill section to the waterfront I, I love and am part of this community and I, I came home to it. Three and a half years ago now, after having been away for a very long time, because it was something that my wife and I had been seeking to do for years, how do we come back to Burlington and she's from Texas but she wanted to be in this community this place. How do we come home. I, I ultimately found a way to do it when chief though pozo opened up the position of deputy chief to an outside search. I applied for that, and I took a 60% pay cut from the private sector to join the police department. So that private sector experience I've been at the NYPD for 12 years. All of this is available in my resume and in my cover letter, both of which are linked online and so I don't necessarily want to rehash those things I actually would prefer to leave as much time open for questions as possible and Council Jen I apologize I was not able to get into that Google document that you sent so I haven't seen the questions already, but I certainly want to hear about them to give a little bit of guidance towards them. You know that's that's my quick bio that I've given but to give some guidance towards the questions that may also be about what we're doing not just who I am. I will say a few things and then I'll cede it to to the audience because you are what matter and and how you think about what we are doing is what matters. But here's some things that I don't know that we've done a good enough job of sharing. Since the murder of George Floyd, there has been a huge amount of change and focus in our profession on how we are going to address this moment, and what we are going to do, both to live up to it, and to have an opportunity to move forward from it. On the day of George Floyd's murder when George Floyd was murdered by people wearing uniforms not unlike the uniform that I wear every day or that the men and women inside this police department where every day. We were in the midst of overseeing a food distribution on the belt, we had shut down the entire highway, so that we could work with the Vermont National Guard and Vermont food bank in order to distribute the largest food distribution that Chittenden County had ever seen at that point. We did it on our overtime on my budget overtime we didn't get paid for by anyone we had officers at each end and officers at the site facilitating the movement of hundreds of cars and people who needed help in the midst of the very early days of the pandemic when things were. It's hard to remember now how uncertain things were at that time and how I think all of us needed to know that we were in it with each other and for each other. That's what we were doing on May 25 of 2020. And that does not mitigate what happened in Minneapolis on May 25 of 2020, but it speaks of a police department that I believe is something that is a service oriented department one that wants to work with and for its neighbors one that has at its heart and ethos of, of protecting and connecting and of a fair and safe community as its goal. And since then, immediately after that, we immediately released a rule that intervention was necessary, it was a duty to intervene rule that was immediately promulgated. We then started working hard on a new use of force policy a directive that we had been worked on for many months already through a group called the committee to review policing practices, but I reinvigorated the work on that that committee had ended in 2020. We dug in with the police commission and that month we were able to promulgate the single best use of force policy in the state, the most progressive, the most complete, the, the most, I think, directed at accountability and for safety and the public safety, and frankly the state took it, they took it and cut and pasted most of it into a statewide mandatory policy that superseded that one that one's no longer extent, because in October of 2021 the state put hours for the entirety of the state. Because that was a cutting edge policy, we then of course had the arguments over headcount and the decision at the city council level to reduce the headcount of the department by 30% through attrition thankfully and not through layoffs which which was the great fear in my life through June 2020 that I would be forced to lay off cops, and I was already the acting chief at that point, because interim chief Jennifer Morrison left at the very beginning of June. I worked through that period, and once the decision came down that we were going to be limited to 74 officers from our normal authorized number of 105. We normally had about 96 to 97 officers that's our historical average. We were never at that total authorized number but we'd have 96 to 97 about 95 of those would be what I call effective, because you always have some officers who are on long term military leave or some officers who are on long term injury so they're not effective. Our average number was 95. At the time of that decision it was 92. And we are now at 60. We have 60 effective officers today. The attrition happened very rapidly. I predicted that rapidity. I think it caught some people on a wares, or there wasn't an appreciation for how fast it would happen in some quarters but it has happened. So to address that we've done a number of things a number of things to address that fact of life. We have implemented what we call the public safety continuity plan, which I'm very proud of. We introduced it in December of 2020. It was authorized by the city council in, in January and February of 2021, and we were able to start putting it into effect when the new budget year began in July of 2021. We're being involved, bringing aboard what we call CSLs or community support liaisons people who work with mental health, who work with substance use disorder, who work with houselessness, and can fill the gap that exists between what an officer can do on a call for service and what there are services available to address downstream. We created actually not created we augmented an existing role called the CSO or community service officer unarmed unsworn officers who normally do mostly animal control, but can issue municipal tickets, they cannot enforce the law in the sense of state law they can't arrest people they can't issue state level tickets, or citations to appear in court, or take people into custody or carry a firearm, but they do have the ability to do certain kinds of work around animal control around open container around noise complaints, and we've hired a great number more of those we had to, we currently have six and I have two in the pipeline actually I think I just hired one on Friday I signed off on it on Thursday. And so I believe it's hired so technically I think I've got seven I'll have eight by the end of February. I'm authorized to have up to 12 I don't know that I'm going to yet because we're trying to figure out what they can and can't do and what work volume we have for them. Because the fact of the matter is there are a lot of calls for service that only police officers can handle as much as we would like to remove them when possible. And that's many many that only they can handle. And right now we're stretched on that. Another thing that we had to do owing to that and that we worked on here is our priority response model. In order to address the fact that we have fewer officers available, and that our call volume was picking up after an abnormally low year and 2020 unsurprising owing to the pandemic call volume went far down. The call volume began to pick up in the early spring, excuse me the late spring early summer of 2021, and we implemented something called the priority response model. That is designed to make certain that we always continue to respond to the most important life safety calls, even when our staffing is far lower than we're used to. Our officers are normally used to patrolling this city with eight to nine officers on a patrol shift, and we now routinely have four or five and sometimes fewer. And so, and that's the days and the evenings the midnight's are lower than that. And so, in order to maintain the ability of those officers to respond as they're trained to do, they need two officers for many kinds of emergency response many kinds of incidents that have a life safety component, have to have two or more officers available to respond. And so we've implemented this priority response model. And so, we're, we're trying to take on this challenging moment in both directions, with regard to doing what we can with our uniformed officers, building these other resources that our constituents and our public clearly called for during those those long moments over the racial justice resolution and those call ins in June of 2020. And then also now we're working on addressing another thing that came out of that resolution in June of 2020, a full assessment of the police department that took a while but was finished and completed and set forth in late September of 2021. We're now looking over its many recommendations, trying to implement as many as possible working with the Public Safety Committee of the city council and with the police commission in order to do that. There's a lot of change that's going on. There are our new and renewed efforts to of course continue this agency's long tradition of training very very fulsome complete training, including training around racial justice and racial bias, and, and issues of the quality. There are ongoing efforts for us to recruit and retain and the city council generously approved incentives based from ARPA funds on both retention and recruitment. The city council also partially reversed its decision from June of 2020 and raised the headcount. So the headcount is now stands at about 87. I'm going to, it's going to take years to get to that. In our best years over the past decade. We have had two more hires in and we have lost in the course of a year. And that's normally what an agency wants to be able to keep headcount homeostasis, the sort of fancy term for as many in as is as go out because you're only budgeted for so many, you want to maintain that equilibrium. But we've in the past only managed to bring about two more on in any given year for us to get from 60 to 87 is going to be a very, very long time of perfect years, a lot of perfect years in a row and not just perfect years. If to above norm is our perfect year, but better than perfect years, many in a row. That's going to be a challenge and it's going to require a concerted effort and a concerted plan and probably concerted resources in order to make it happen. But these are all changes and things that have been happening within the police department things of which I'm very proud things that we have been doing on a daily basis over the past 20 months that I have been in this role. I mentioned that at the and I'll stop on this but I mentioned at the Mayor's announcement of his desire to appoint me that I felt that I'd been in a in a 20 month job interview. And the difference is this that you know a job interview is about what you've done, and what you say that you're going to plan to do to the folks that are looking to hire you. My job interview has been about doing those things actually doing those things, and we've done a lot of them. We have done a lot of them. There's more to do. There's more to do and we want to do it with neighbors. We want to come out of this pandemic crouched that we've been in where we have not been able to connect as well as we used to. No community barbecues. That was a line item that was struck from our budget but we want to do it again. We want to be able to have meetings in person again. I went to every single NPA before the pandemic, not just this one in the New North end which was mine where I live, but every around the city, and I miss that tremendously I miss that level of connection. We want to dig into those things. We want to continue to dig into these transformations and changes and we want to build back in order to get this agency back to what it was and has been and is and certainly can be, which is a an exemplary 21st century policing agents. And with that, I'll stop because otherwise I could go on and I don't want to I want to hear from everyone on this, this call and thank you all for being here all of you. So, Sean you have access now to the document with the questions that people have submitted. I don't know that I do. You should. Center to you. What I couldn't do is I couldn't actually get into the Google document it was asking me for a password and I don't have one for Google Doc so not certain that it wants me to sign in and so I didn't I don't have a Google Doc account. That was the issue for me. Perhaps Ali you could read them some questions. I'm sorry if you could send me the doc if the documents like a something else like an Excel document or word doc and just emailed to me I can. No problem, no problem. I can ask you the question and also I think you, you need also to rest a little bit in between. Jim, if you can please allow Eric to come in. He's a deputy. Eric, you can introduce yourself and just speak about, you know, working with the chief at the police department. How has it been. Can you talk about that a little bit. Thank you. All right. Hi, everyone. My name is Eric Cradival and the detective at the police department. I've worked here for a little over 11 years now. I live up in the new North and I have two daughters. I wasn't really expecting to talk tonight. Councillor Jang, thank you though for giving me a voice. As far as my experience with working with acting to your ad. I found him to be someone who really is thoughtful. You know, something for me before as a police officer I spent nine years as a college coach, a coach growing at Ivy League universities. And I worked with a lot of people who it's home to do something and then when they were really kids that they'd have all these questions and all these ways that they overthought something that you're trying to make simple because you're trying to deliver it to, you know, 30 or 40 people at a time. I went from that environment to a police environment where you talk to your coworkers and, you know, frankly they would generally try to keep things as simple as possible. It was a culture shock for me. When acting Chief Murad joined our staff though I found someone who was unique in the profession because he was thoughtful, and he had a really strong historical perspective. And how policing has worked and has not worked in different communities, not just in the United States but also in other countries as well and so he's someone that has really stood out to me as a thoughtful cerebral reflective person and policing which was frankly I think is unique because you know the role of policing is public safety. It's reporting facts. It's finding an environment where some things unsafe, intervening quickly, provide safety, and then again the other part is reporting facts to the court system. So you know you're not really looking to interpret those facts you're looking to convey them. And when you're looking at a public safety emergency you're not sitting there and scratching your head you're acting quickly to restore order and safety. So, you know, in that space you don't have a lot of people who are thoughtful, who are reflective. Acting Chief Murad is someone who's able to do that. So, I've been pleasantly impressed with with, you know, you know, with him as a member of our team. So, I won't blotter on forever but those are my quick thoughts. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here also. And Mr. Chief, we have a couple of questions right here a lot actually but I'm going to ask you one that is coming from and Brenna and also from sendering to boy, and both questions are specific how does. How do you plan to recruit and return police officers for the bulletin police department and Sunday is asking about hiring diversity, equity and inclusion within the department, officers of color. Thank you. So, we are working hard on recruitment that the $15,000 incentive that was granted by the city council applies to the first 10 officers who get it and that will get us a ways probably into 2023. We're going to be able to use that not only to get new recruits people who are new to the profession but also lateral officers people who are coming from other agencies either inside the state or more likely given our current reputation inside the state from outside the state, and can join us diversity is a huge component of what we want. I have been able to promote more diverse leadership than than we've had in many, many years. I think 40% of my promotions have been officers who are people of color. I am looking of course to hire those officers as well we've had very we've had some success in hiring people of color into that CSO program I talked about and into the CSL program, bringing in officers sworn officers as well is really important. And to do that, HR does a lot of that and much of what we direct our recruitment at is dictated by our human resources department at the city level, but I personally speak with people at ALV people with at the boys and girls club with other city leaders, particularly in communities of color about socializing these job applications that we have and trying to reach out to those communities inside our own city. And those are very important. A department that looks like the city it serves is always going to be a stronger department for that. Thank you chief. We lost you counselor, Jane, you're muted. Okay. So yes, I was saying that thank you representative body for being here. And in order to give the chief a chance to breathe a little bit, we were just wondering if you have you know what do you think of public safety in general. And we have some words of wisdom about what's going on in the city, when it comes to the next chief of police representative body. Yeah. I don't know that everybody has the ability to unmute themselves counselor. I think that's sort of challenging. I really wish that I were able to log into that Google doc in order to answer the questions because I sense that certainly. I'm not, I'm not up for election I'm not a politician and I'm not here to campaign, not here to try to make any kind of case necessarily. I think it greatly the fact that many have done so on my behalf over the weekend. It embarrasses me in a good way. I'm, I, I, I don't, I don't know what I've done to deserve and commune that I've gotten from friends and people but that's not why I'm here tonight is to answer your questions about where you see public safety going and to assure you that that we do have a path forward and ideas for where we go and how we meet all of our neighbors desires. We're not going to fulfill all of them, nor are we even going to pull in quite the same direction that everybody wants. On the other hand, I think that we will because ultimately all of us want a safe city. All of us want a city where we can enjoy our public spaces equally. All of us want a city where we know that people are treated equally and fairly that they are judged by not their color, not their creed but by their conduct. And we want a city where we know that there is vigor and vibrance and strong economic incentives and bases for all of us, where our property is safe where our children are safe, where all of us can can be together. That's our common ground. And I know that I can pull towards that no matter what other kinds of things or specificities there are that may be points of divergence. I want to answer questions about those kinds of things from this audience and I certainly want. I really wish I had access to that document I'm sorry that I don't. No problem, no problem, but now here is one question. And it is coming from Connie Krosny. And she's asking does she select mirror support citizen oversight or policing. Is he comfortable with the current selection process. There are two sort of different questions are they not one one is about oversight and the other one is about this current process. I cannot speak to the current process. I was a participant in it. I was an honest participant in it, and I did everything that I was supposed to do in it. I never felt like there was a quote unquote fix in there was a for a foregone conclusion or a preordained outcome. I put everything into that that I needed to put into it. And again, my resume and my cover letter are available online. I, I did what I could do, and I cannot control the applicant pool that was or was not present. What I do know is that I am a qualified and capable applicant that my resume is is more than qualified for a position of this kind and more over that I've done it now for 20 months so there should be, and is, in my mind, no question that I can and this role. The other question about oversight. I know that our community is is looking for changes in that we have worked hard with the police commission to make those kinds of changes. We've codified a number of different things that had been done at both ad hoc and informally before information sharing the ability of every single complaint that comes to us at the police department goes automatically and simultaneously to the chair and vice chair of the police commission and now the co chair there are two co chairs and a vice chair. And so those documents go immediately to them there is no, you know, ability of the department to say we'll send this one over but not we have given all of the commissioners axon accounts those are the body worn cameras that we use so that they can view footage of incidents that they have questions about. We are, we have a document that's available online that talks about how we work together with regard to incidents involving complaints against employees of the police department. And they have also promulgated a new document about how we are supposed to be publishing our body camera footage for the public in large at large. I have taken that and written a redaction specialist it was supposed to be voted on at the most recent city council meeting it was postponed as a vote because of the great deal of discussion that went on about prostitution in our charter language, and is supposed to be voted on on this Monday, and I'm hopeful that it will be up voted because we need that redaction specialist in order to put out the video for the public their privacy concerns and rules about when we put out video of uses of force or any kind of video, what we can and can't show we do not edit it in the sense of taking a subjective point of view and chopping the video in order to move that point of view, but we do obscure faces and at times audio in videos out of privacy concerns and in conjunction with state law. So I need that position. The other thing that we've done with regard to both the Commission and with regard to public transparency is we have made every single use of force public. We've had two uses of force in 2021 that caused concern for our public one in January involving a young man who had allegedly broken into cars and was observed doing that and then was stopped by police and a use of force ensued when he resisted the police. And the second use of force in May involving a juvenile that was that also involved the use by the fire department, not the police department of a medical intervention in order to calm the youth down. Two articles were written about that incident in seven days, both of those incidents are included in our use of force or monthly use of force reports, we make every single use of force public. And we describe what the use of force was the narrative and context around it and the demographics of the people involved. And the reason for that is that I know we have continuing disparities in both the rest rates and use of force rates. And I want the public itself to be able to examine these for where those disparities may or may not be coming from. I believe that the bulk of what we see is not the officers discretion and what they are thinking in their hearts are acting upon from their minds, or the biases that exist in them because they exist in all of us biases universal and so is the experience of it. But what we see in these disparities is the result of the very systemic racism that we are concerned about as a community and as a country that exists upstream of us, and our officers are the inheritors of a lot of this. And they see it in the conduct that they intervene in in the street. So, you know, the idea of confronting these uses of force is it is designed to prevent us having the kinds of situations that we had in the past. And I'll know the two incidents of which I'm speaking. Those were not shared as fully as they could have been not with, they were shared with the commission, but they were shared in different ways with the commission because we had different rules, and they were not shared with the public as fully as they should have been that is no longer the case. When I have body camera that I can share I share it. When I have the narrative I share it period, it always is shared and every single one is there you can go online to the city's web page. It is called our transparency and data sub web page on the police department page, and I have multiple reports, I have a data dashboard a data worksheet I have these monthly use of force reports. I have data rich reports that I give on a monthly basis to the police commission. All of this is transparent because a an important key to police legitimacy is transparency and sharing with the community. So those are aspects of oversight. Those are the aspects of working with an advisory board that has an appellate authority, which is what our police commission is by charter in order to make sure that it is doing what it's tasked to do to give voice to public concern, and make certain that the police department is living up to those public concerns. Thank you. John, I sent the questions to your email just cut and paste so you should be able to look at it that way now. I mean, I think it will be easier. So I can ask you the questions because most of them are similar to the question is specific to model at the police department. What are you, what is your plan in increasing the model and also how do you make sure you return the police officers who are put in the force. Thank you. I think that morale in the department is simultaneously as low as it's ever been and in some ways stronger than it's been. I think there is a sense of foxhole camaraderie inside the agency officers have felt and I think this feeling is significantly diminished over the past two or three months since we had those incentives since we had the change on the head count decision. So those have have really given a sense of, of maybe there's forward momentum. And I think that if we get to the summer with as few losses as possible we will regain that forward momentum, especially if I'm able to hire sworn officers for the coming late March or early April, Vermont Police Academy class if I can get some bodies in there, then that will be a sense inside of okay we're moving in the right direction. We've nevertheless had a sense of foxhole camaraderie because officers have felt beset from external forces, they have felt a lack of support from their community. They have felt certainly the pressures that were clear in the summer of 2020. They came to work almost every day for large portions of that summer with people posted outside the building with the names of officers on cardboard signs with calls in profane language and ugly terms about them and about their coworkers and about the mission that they have chosen to dedicate their lives to, and that makes for a hard place. They are getting over that. And one thing that I am really concerned about is how we take something that frankly has some negative emotion and even residual anger in it, and turn it into forward momentum, and how we take that and say we have to serve this community the same way we always have. I bring this up constantly at roll calls at large in group meetings called all ends in communications to the department that I think, you know, maybe that the detective crowd of Il can not his head and agree that the folks roll their eyes when they get these communications but they are always about serving our neighbors, fairly and safely and equally and making sure that we are not becoming pre falling prey to to darker sense but instead always dedicating ourselves to this thing that brought these women and men to this profession, a desire to keep people safe and to serve. Thank you. Now, we may be able to ask members who are here the questions are a lot of questions, but anyone with a dying question for the chief. Please use the race, raise hand function. So we can allow you to ask the question here. Anyone who would like to ask a question, Jim, you can make that person visible or allow him to speak. Yeah, chief, we also have another question about this question is specific to, did you discuss with the mayor. What will be, what will you do if you don't get the confirmation. And also, are you prepared to stay within the police department. If the console doesn't approve your confirmation Monday. So my discussions with the mayor have been about trying to make this happen and trying to move forward and I'm focused mostly on Monday night with regard to the department and and where I stand. My home is in the city. I am a person who, as I said, I've sought to come home to Vermont for a very long time. And I, I spent a long time away from Vermont, and I'm home now, and I am very happy to be home now. The first year being here 1919 was, was a spectacular year. I lived with my parents in under hill while we searched for the right house, we found the right house, we found the right community for us. And my family loves it. I'm in this community and I have told the men and women of the police department, again and again and again that the ability to hold on is what is keeping us together. We are what we are for as long as we are what we are. And every time one of us leaves we do become diminished. We can stay tight and I have told them that I am in this with them. I'm hopeful that what we have tomorrow night is a clear path towards being able to move forward all of us together. And to get stability into this police department, recruit again with that kind of stability, grow, develop the new resources that we need to develop, and continue to serve a public that wants the kinds of safety that it long grew to expect, and that we can't deliver right now, not the way we used to. I have a question from Meg polite for it, right. Can you commit on implementing all the recommendations from the NCA. If not, why CNN. You know, a group of people come in and look with never without ever setting foot in Burlington and look at documents and parts of a police department for a couple months. Those recommendations are not all going to be implementable. They're simply not, they're not going to be effective all and so no I will, I'm not going to commit to doing all of them I'm committing to looking at it. I've spent a lot of time with it already. I published a very fulsome look at the first three sections of the report with ideas about what our police department's position is uncertain on each of those items in those first three sections. I'm interacting with this document vigorously. I venture that I've interacted with it more vigorously than anyone else in the city with regard to, aside from I think you know the folks who manage it at our eib but I put together a very fulsome examination of its of its early draft the draft that was leaked by somebody. So whether a point by point examination of that draft it's available up on that same data, not on the same data page but on our city web page under the police department page under police transformation. You can see it's a 20 page document of of how we look at the things that were said in the draft version, and I've worked on a version that addresses the changes that were made in that draft version to the final and interacting with the final version as well. I'm absolutely committed to looking at that thoroughly and implementing the parts that we can, because I think there is a lot of stuff in there that is our changes that we've long sought to make. And if I asked for a follow up about that specific question it seemed the city council decided to take those recommendation to a specific committee, which is the public safety committee. Now, that's good. I believe that's correct. And now, what if the specific committee would like you to implement what they thought is necessary to do, would you allow it to happen or would you block it. Well, I, you know, I think that I hope to be involved in that process so that we can all shape it together and determine the things that make sense and the things that need to be tweaked. And the things that are ultimately going to be really helpful to the way the agency runs and serves the neighbors. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. And this question is about mental health. And I think it comes from Tom Burke. And Tommy is asking how many recommendations by the government health crisis response commission, specific. Yes, especially addressing law enforcement has come to be BD. I don't know that I'm familiar with that exactly. What, what doc, I don't know that I'm familiar with that. I don't know how many recommendations by the Vermont mental health crisis response commission, especially addressing law law enforcement has come to SOP, meaning maybe he's talking about BPD. I know you are here. I'm afraid I'm not concerned I don't know the answer to that what I do know is that I have been working with Lacey Smith who is our community support supervisor. And with with members of the community who have lived experience and with members of UVM and with other stakeholders to develop a plan an RFP for a crisis response team. Similar to the one that is known in Eugene is cahoots, but different because it is really about crisis response. Operationally for the most part what cahoots does is very similar to street outreach and we've been doing it nearly as long as Eugene has with great success, terrific entity street outreach. We've cannibalized it for our office my one officer who is currently at the police academy the first officer I've been able to hire in nearly two years, a former street outreach worker, one of our community support liaisons or CSL's a former street outreach worker, terrific team that does terrific work and collaborates with the police department very similar to cahoots. The part of cahoots that's not quite that that is crisis response is what we are trying to develop into a crisis response team. We're working on that RFP with a lot of stakeholders. So I'm not quite certain what specific document or or committee is being referenced in there, but we work with, you know, with with a number of partners to try to make this RFP and I'm hopeful for getting that RFP promulgated soon and being able to start to work with with what comes from it. Could you please clarify your question for chief select. Can you hear me okay. It's kind of putting them on a spot but in 2017, the state put together several individuals to look at police response and community response and mental health response to individuals with crisis because they've been actually, I think three individuals have had a lot of past five years who are in a mental health crisis and actually ended up dying in their interaction with Burlington police department. And as a result of that this also happened to state police level to. So, those are the, they were on page 36 specific recommendations that were the findings of this state commission on mental health and crisis because usually the police are first there due to 911 and response and everything like that. So I can certainly send the links to the chief and everyone else who's interested, and you can get a state page I have in front of me, which can search. I believe it's mental health crisis commission. Or you can look at fill. I think the latest person who died with Phil, and I will not pronounce his last and gr, and oh any. It was largely result of. Thank you, Mr. Yep. I don't have in front of me to read either so. Chief, any additional thoughts on that. The, the, the tragedy involving the bar in the police department and Phil Gretin is one that caused this agency it happened before I was here many years before I was here. But it caused this agency to significantly revamp how it dealt with those kinds of incidents significantly. We created a quarter million dollar vehicle with tools, and the training that went with it in order to implement and then and co create with the organization called the police executive research forum, a system called I cat for integrating communications assessment and tactics, and I cat is a has been shown demonstrably in studies to be tremendously effective at reducing injury to subjects and officers in crisis events. Primarily crisis events where firearms are not involved, but crisis events involving people who are armed or barricaded and have bladed weapons. We've, we not only adopted it we pioneered it and are all of our officers are trained on it. We train the trainer because we have officers who are trainers in it. And it's, it forms the basis of what we now do not only for crisis incidents, but also for operational warrant, executions, when we are executing search warrants or arrest warrants. Any kind of incident in which we think that we have a crisis that crisis situation or emergency situation where we could end up with barricades or the needs to enter a space that we don't have knowledge of our full control over. These are the techniques for all of those. So it significantly change this agency. Thank you chief. Can I ask the second question or you want to take a break a little bit. No, I'm happy to take questions I really want to hear from from anyone. Um, so this question is from Dale Tilt, Tilt some right and the question is what number of officers do we need to resume active neighborhood patrol as well as active food patrol in the area of the city that are needed such as downtown and the older event. That's a terrific question. We are working on a plan that actually puts officers and or community service officers CSOs on the marketplace on a recurring basis each day. When we do that we, we are at a place where we are robbing Peter to play Paul at every single day. If I don't have resources in the downtown core, then I don't have resources in the north end, and I don't have resources in the south end. I don't have enough to spread across the whole city. When you have four officers on a shift, you cannot do that. We had an incident several weeks ago, a person was observed with a firearm, chasing following another person. Then came over report that that individual had fired the firearm through a door. We got to the scene we realized that that individual hadn't fired the firearm but there was broken glass they broken the window and door with the firearm, but not shooting it. There were people upstairs they tossed a huge amount of drugs out their window onto a low roof. We ended up with more apprehensions than we had officers because we had three officers in uniform on the road and we ended up with four people in custody. And if it hadn't been for the fact that the detective bureau was in that day and able and what we're doing other things but we're able to be mustard and brought in and handle that scene. I'm not certain what would have happened. I think the likely answer is that we wouldn't have dug in and made the apprehensions we would have assessed understood that there was nothing happening at that moment. The reason that is that was suspected of having the firearm no longer had the firearm that nobody was hurt or bleeding that there hadn't been a gun discharge and we would have said, let's get your names and off everyone goes, and not have the ability to dig into the situation and follow it through and realize there's a lot of narcotics here. There are people who have long histories and are wanted on warrants etc etc, and had a more dynamic criminal justice resolution to that situation. And that's the key in the position of doing flybys where we only do the minimum, because that's all we can do. So, having few officers is is a is a challenge. What is the number. We're going to try to make you do with what we've got because that's all we can do until we can grow. And having officers having CSO is patrol church street is has an effect. It is not the same as a police officer. If people are going to see those CSOs and say that is enough for me to say that there's public safety presence or that that I'm not going to misbehave because I see that there is a person in some kind of uniform who appears to have some kind of authority. But there are others who do not do that. There are others who don't even yield to the authority of police officers and are more than happy to willfully disobey or continue unlawful behavior even in the presence of police officers. So what we can do as people like that is through enforcement power. But I'm hopeful that we'll be able to put more resources into our, our very important public spaces, in order to have a greater sense of public space safety and again, the big key here is rebuilding to be able to get to the, to what we need with the big key for all of us. We're very worried inside about what happens in the summer. It's going to be a challenge, but it's a challenge that we're preparing for and are gearing up for and trying to have plans for. Wonderful. Thank you again so much for taking the time to be here. It's almost seven o'clock. We have 30 more minutes and I wanted to also recognize, you know, a couple of city councils that are here, such as Councilor Powell, Councilor Barlow, Councilor Carpenter, as well as I believe, Councilor John Shannon, they all did here and they are active city councils right now. And you guys whenever you're ready to ask questions and jump in, you are more than welcome to do so. But Chief, I wanted to ask this question from Lee Turner is saying, is it important to hire a professional with experience to rebuild a police force after a traumatic breach of community trust. So I do have a part of the plan that I have long wanted to implement, and it proceeded in fact the pandemic was bringing aboard their three positions that could significantly change how the police department is able to to grow and improve the way it makes both connections internally and externally and hires. And those are a, a, and these, these were things that the mayor requested in his discussions with the city council are a person who is a professional recruiting officer. We have a terrific officer, a uniformed officer who is assigned in that position. It's a contracted, it's a contractual position defined in the CDA, or the collective bargaining agreement. And, and that officer does great work and you have to have police officers in police recruitment. People who are interested in the profession will not talk to civilians about what it might be like they want to talk to cops, they want to know what cops are thinking, and they want to know whether or not this agency is what they think it's going to be, and what work does it do, they've got to talk to cops. But I also think that what we need is a person who has more professional sphere and, and private sector experience in recruitment, and can augment that that those two would work in tandem, or a team of officers would work with this professional in tandem, in order to be able to leverage newer methods of outreach, targeted methods of outreach, and really being able to get into communities that we haven't gotten into. We've done a very good job. We are much more educated as a police department than most departments around the country. We have 60 something percent officers and bachelor's degrees. And, and he has a master's degree from the Harvard Kennedy School. We have unusual officers, we have people who have dedicated their lives to social work and psychology and other kinds of things, and have excellent histories in that, but we want more that is something that we want to recruit from those are the kinds of pools that we imagine bringing in in order to get the kinds of officers that our community wants. One of those officers I just lost an officer with a master's degree in social work, who went to the Vermont State Police, because you no longer sees enough opportunities in this police department to move into. And, and that's one of the losses that I experienced in the last three days that bring us down to that 60 number because we were 63 when I presented to the city to the police commission on January 26 or fourth or whatever that date was I don't recall exactly. So yes, a public professional recruiting officer to support that a professional graphic designer, somebody who's got talent with video somebody who can put together materials collateral, as they call it, that can sell the agency internally and externally to recruiting. And then the third position, a public information officer or PIL a dedicated officer to not only communicate with the press, not only put out press releases which we do and do voluminously, but also do some of these stories. Some of the things I'm talking about tonight are things we've been working on for more than two years and I'm sure that many on this call are hearing about them for the first time. This is not good. And it's and I do take responsibility for some of that. There are limits to what we can do when we are daily trying to figure out how we're going to operate in a sphere we've never been in that no one's living memory I've talked to chief Scully who lives in the north end. He does not this agency was never this size in his long tenure with it. So we have to go back 4050 years to even think about this size and even then I don't believe it was, think you got to go back go back farther. Every day has been a struggle, and it makes other kinds of things sometimes difficult, like telling our story, like connecting, like having good art about the what officers are doing, and being able to share what they're doing so it's not only about a rest work. It's not only the critical incidents to which they respond. It's certainly not only the incidents that are most fraught, and that are often the most loaded with regard to how the community feels, but instead the incidents that dictate and represent most of what a police officer does on a day to day basis, which is helping people showing up in simple ways and helping people. And so, telling that story does require somebody who's dedicated to do it, and it requires a person who can support that individual with the ability to make art, and the ways in which we communicate today, including on social media, including video, including good photography, and that person can also simultaneously support a person who is recruiting, because you need collateral you need to sell Burlington. And I'm working with the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce, I brought the chamber in to what's called CCLEE, the Chittenden County law enforcement executives, a meeting group that meets monthly, all the Chittenden chiefs and the prosecutors and our federal partners. And I brought CC, I brought the chamber in to say, we need you to help us sell this community, so that we can bring people from far away into be police officers. And if I have to compete with South Burlington or Williston, well, I'd rather have them in Chittenden County in the first place, and sell this beautiful place. Look at this lake, look at these mountains, look at this community in this city. I love it. I wanted to be here. I think it is, it is one of the best places to live and raise kids in the world. We need to sell that. And to do so, we need collateral, we need photos, we need an understanding of what it is we need a way to to advocate that to potential applicants and their spouses and families, because if we're bringing in lateral officers who have experience in other places they may not be coming alone like a new recruit, who is often younger and may not have all those things. So those are all parts of it and those three positions would significantly reinforce our ability to grow and to grow out of keeping with anything that we've seen before with regard to growth rate. Thank you, Chief, for that passion, the city and also the passion of the work that you do. It will be important also to allow Gary the catalyst to maybe ask any question about substance use disorder, and also the work of the police department around that. So Jim, if you can allow Gary to ask that question, that would be great. But while waiting, I wanted to ask you this question that is specific to the mental health summit that the commission recommended to the city council. I know Sylvia is nodding her head because she wants to understand, when are we with that and Jordan you can answer if you would like to go ahead, Chief. Well, I will pass that to Jordan it's not in it's not in the police department's hands as far as what we're doing with that. So Jordan just said that she's glad to answer so I will back off and let her do so. Okay. I can answer my camera is not working unfortunately. Councilor jing you may know we had a staff person leave the mayor's office so we've been short staffed, but the planning for the mental health summit has been underway. We've been developing a list of people to invite and I sent that to Commissioner come referred at the end of last week for her to review so while it's not. The planning was delayed somewhat just as a result of that staff departure in our office. The planning is underway and we hope to have more information about it very soon. Jordan, what are your potential, who are you, what do you do. Oh, pardon me. Hello everyone my name is Jordan Redell I'm the mayor's chief of staff. Wonderful. Thank you Jordan. Yes, Gary the carol is, please. Any question comments what do you think of what's going on here. Thank you hi chief. It's great to be here tonight with you and I appreciate all your hard work. One question that I sent in to counselor Ali was around social profiling and and making sure that everyone in the city is treated equally and that we're not tipping. We're not we're not stopping arresting people of color more than any other segment of our burden citizen rate. One question the other is around substance use disorder I'm the executive director of the recovery partners of Vermont. I represent some nine recovery centers around the state. And I, I know of late one very, very positive evidence based practice has been sending out with the police a recovery coach, someone who is in recovery from a substance use would be there with the police so when there's an overdose, and that person is perhaps saved by Narcan. They're also met by someone who's been there themselves who knows what's going on for them and many times has been more willing to seek help. Versus if they see a police officer alone. Their first instinct is to they got to get out of there. Any thoughts about either of those questions. Very much for both of them so I'm right here. These that's Narcan Narcan is a huge component of what we do. You know, my office has the things that sort of mean things to me there's a sign behind me that my son. I was I was an assistant commissioner under Bill Bratton in the NYPD. I rose very fast to that position after 12 years, actually after after 10 years and I was promoted to assistant commissioner my son wrote a speech that bill actually delivered to a promotion body and promotions in the NYPD have thousands of officers hundreds of officers and thousands of family members. Always do your best. Be good. Keep moving forward even if you're hurt. Always help people and keep them safe he wrote that when he was five and made it a photo you know a painting by by Rockwell about the new kids in town Narcan. These are things that definitely are important to me and with regard to substance use disorder. The Narcan is a huge component every officer has it they have the ability to give it out they hand it out. And with regard to what you're talking about we do send CSL's those community support liaisons to overdoses. In order to do follow up what you're describing of having somebody who has been there and has that kind of lived experience. Yes, that's something that I'd be interested in figuring out whether or not we can facilitate it whether there'd be a group of on call people who would be able to respond as quickly as officers can or who could be looped in after the fact would probably be a more likely way of doing something like that, and they would liais with not the officers so much but with the CSL's because the CSL's generally get there. Unfortunately if it's a fatal overdose we're going to be on that scene for a while and the CSL's and the officers may be there at the same time, but officers are there for different reasons when it's a fatal overdose. When it is an overdose that has been reversed or involves a transport to the hospital, officers get there first the CSL's may not get to the scene at all they may end up having to connect with that person after the fact, assuming that person wants to. Plenty of people upon having their overdose reversed, don't want anything to do with the people who reversed it. They leave the scene, they reject any kind of help they are sometimes angry that they had that their high was disrupted. So, they're not on scene when our CSL's arrive and they have to hook up with them after the fact. I could envision what you're describing as being something that works with the CSL's in order to be an added layer of interaction with people who need help, and that we want to give that help to to encourage them to do the only thing that we can do which is have them make the choice to make a change. You can't mandate those changes you can't put people in prison and make them have those changes not that will last. They may be cleaning or not during the time of in prison, but if you want something to actually take root and change in that individual's life and help them follow a safer path. It's got to be them that chooses to do that. That's right. All the tools that you can leverage to make that happen are important. A rest is not really one of them, not for use not for personal use and certainly not for overdose. Very different. However, when we talk about for example the kind of felony weight narcotics that we recently obtained in a long search warrant case involving methamphetamine or those the felony weight narcotics that were tossed out the window in that incident I talked about with the gun. So, that's that and then I'm sorry sir the other question you asked it was the whole issue. Sure. So, you know, I'm very proud in 2021, we have zero racial imbalances in our traffic stops zero. Now we're still going to dig into the data, we will do a full annual report that gets released in in late March, early April, maybe may but hopefully April. And make sure now that we that we find new things or different things as we really dig deeply into the data but my preliminary review of our traffic data says that we have zero traffic disparities. And that has been a long time topic around the state, certainly in Burlington, we have drastically reduced the overall number of traffic stops by somewhere in the order of 80%, but we in this year stopped fewer black drivers than they are represented in the driving population by crash data. And we ticketed even fewer than that. So we ticketed black drivers at a lesser rate than we stopped them and we stopped them at a lesser rate than they exist in the driving population. And we had zero searches of black drivers. That is an elimination of that disparity that has been talked about for a long time. We still have disparities in our rest rates and our use of force rates as I talked about earlier in the meeting, and a part of what we do, as I said with those two uses of force that have given trouble that have troubled people, a use of force against a juvenile in May, that is in our use of force report and described in that use of force report, but also involved two articles in seven days and Vermont digger about it. And also the use of force that occurred in January, and involved us doing a full on press conference releasing all the body camera footage, and being able to say here's what happened, and let the public decide what they want. And, and those bring up other issues around use of force and what the public wants are not which I'd love to dig into but not right now because I think we want to move on to other questions, but both of those are available in those monthly use of force reports that we publish online. We want the public to feel sandbagged again by use of force, and by, you know, an example, a description of it or discussion of it. And that's why we make every single one public within the month. So that the public can see for themselves what's happening. And in so far as what you're talking about these racial disparities that exist in those uses of force, examine them for themselves and say where am I seeing patterns. Do I read this narrative and say this was not a proper use of force. Do I say that there's a problem here and it ought not to have occurred, or is this something where the officers reaction is driven by the subject behavior. Mm hmm. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you chief. This has been very, very amazing town hall with you. Thank you for answering all of these questions. Now, you know, members of the public, we have a retired colonel who's here, and who I believe when there was one someone in the new North End who was pursued by the police. He ended up in has inside his boat. Right. Richard colonel is right here. He's a very concerned citizen of what seven. And we were wondering if retired colonel, how good three, if you could, you know, say, ask a question to the chief in front of you. Richard. Um, this is right. I know two years ago when the council voted to reduce the brilliant police department by 30%. They touted it as a bold action. I look at it as irresponsible action due to the fact that they had no plan to follow it up as acknowledged by I think counts one of the counselors. My concern is, looking at it, I see six progressive counselors attempting to defund the police department in Burlington. I was wondering about your comments regarding that. That's that frankly is a sort of political distinction and a political question I do what I am. I work with the resources that I'm allotted by our city council and through directed by the as directed by the mayor, I did not. I didn't agree with that decision I made it clear during the discussions in June of 2020. Since then I have sought to have changes made I'm very grateful that those changes were made this past autumn. And in the meantime, I've sought to work with what we've got. And that is the reason that we created the public safety continuity plan and created the position of the CSL. And an augmented the position of the CSO. That is why we created the priority response model that is why we have, you know, double down on our ability to attempt to address issues without using armed officers when necessary, or excuse me when possible. So, yeah, I mean that's that's sort of my answer to that question. Thank you. Thank you chief. And along those lines, a similar question about we are talking about strategies of hiring, but given the different in the police, the council failure to raise the police cap. How many more officers are expected to leave and where, where will we be in six months. So we will lose more officers than we can bring in for the foreseeable future for the next couple months. I will have some tenure retirements that are inevitable their tenure retirements. And so what what I want to distinguish is is I've got attitudinal retirements that are resignations attitudinal separations that is people who are leaving the agency because of us because of how they feel. I have tenure separations that is officers who've done their 20 or more, and are saying I'm, I'm going to get my pension, you know if I stay here too long I'm actually working for free, and off they go. I have officers who are going to be leaving with tenure retirements, and those are definite, and I'm proud and I've got three to five of those. I've got three to five departures not all tenure, some are tenure some are not. I've got three to five departures that I am relatively confident will happen in the next several months. And I'm hopeful to keep that at three, and I'm hopeful to be able to bring in three in the meantime. Now, the danger is that those officers won't be effective for a long time if I bring in three officers into the next police academy or two into the police academy and one lateral. We have long training periods, recruit officers take months, almost more than a year almost really to be a solo officer on the road. A lateral officer doesn't take that long. He or she already has requisite experience but has to follow a training program that is revised by the Vermont Police Academy and go through field training here. We have a very robust very stringent, very very rigorous field training program, but a lateral officer could be on the road within three months. A recruit officer will not be on the road for more than a year. So even if I bring those officers in, and thereby outpace my attrition. I still don't actually have them on the road as effective deployed officers and that's going to be a challenge in the summer if the summer picks up the way we are worried it might with regard to different kinds of incident volume. But it is still a place where we are growing. And if I could bring in more than three or four officers bring in five or six the way we used to in our best years. If we do that consistently over the next three or four years, then we get to a place where we're starting to tick up again for us to tick up at any rapid pace, however, to actually jump towards that 80, that high 80s number, rather than eat our way towards it bit by bit for us to jump up at that is going to require a change in how we hire a vigorous push in how we hire and doing things we haven't done before with regard to incentives and with regard to bringing people in. It's also going to require and this is a more difficult part component, a change at the state level that we do not control with regard to how many people we can put into the police academy which has a limited number of seats and serves every agency in the state. How many people we can put through lateral processes and training processes. I am on the entrance test working group subcommittee of the Vermont criminal justice council. I am leading a group of other chiefs and executives and law enforcement people and civilian participants in revising how we admit people into the Vermont police academy. It was this group that I lead that was responsible for getting rid of the existing test, which we had real concerns about with regard to bias and outcome. I certainly do not have a written test for the Vermont police academy that's not acceptable in the long term, but we've done it for the previous class and will probably have no test for the next class that as I said begins in late March or early April. I want to have a test in place by August, which is when the next class after that is supposed to happen the second class of 2022. We're starting to get an RFP out there and to identify vendors who can give us a fair and measurably demonstrably defensible and equal access test that can be delivered, not just in Pittsburgh but anywhere, and allow us to be able to begin to expand our pool of applicants. We also got our group to advise the criminal justice council the criminal justice council approved a change in the physical PT requirements. We no longer use something called the Cooper test which involved a half mile a mile and a half run and push ups and sit ups, we now use a rowing machine. It is far fairer. It assesses fitness adequately in a way that we're not compromising our fitness standards, but more people can get through that test. And it is fairer to the job to because the fact of the matter is nobody does a mile and a half foot pursuit. So a mile and a half run was not an effective way of measuring the fitness of the people going in running is always going to be a component of the physical training at the academy, but testing that is not necessary and it was excluding candidates unnecessarily. So we've created a new method that doesn't compromise our standards but does expand the pool. I'm doing that with this team, this working group of which on the chair, because it's important that we get this in place and actually start growing the profession not just here in Burlington, the entire state has lost in the order of three to four times more officers than they have brought in over the past three years. It's a crisis around the state. Burlington crisis is unique in that we created it to a certain extent, but in other places it was it's just a function of the times. It is a difficult time to be a police officer, and it's a difficult time to convince young dedicated passionate people to be police officers. I try to do that every single day. I try to convince the ones we've got to stay and I'm working to try to bring in new ones. Thank you again, Chief. We have five minutes left and was just wondering if Sally Hayes, for example, an educator can be promoted to ask a question maybe about, you know, we no longer have SROs in the city of Burlington. And Sally, would you like to ask any question as part of your role in the state? Holly, were you asking me? Yes, yes. So I had written earlier, John, and everyone here that and similarly to piggybacking on what somebody else just said about the removal of so many officers and having a plan in place but speaking to the SROs are just the way that the police has interfaced with all the schools elementary middle school and high school over the last many years with the removal of those SROs. Do you foresee the school, the schools being able to interface in a positive way and educational way with the department and how do you envision that happening? That's a loaded question, sorry. But it's a great one. I thought the SROs were an incredibly valuable part of this police department. Officers like Brian DeFranco, who was promoted to the sergeant because of the way he made community connections in the schools, officers like Mike Heman, officers like Jess Norris, they connected with the schools, they connected with kids, they were pipelines for not a school to prison pipeline. They were pipelines for knowledge transfer and for encouraging collaboration and an understanding of officers as humans and children as humans and of understanding the dynamics that are in effect in our communities. I really regret that we have lost them. I regret it. I wanted three, not two. If I had been still, if I still had 96 officers I would have been working very hard to find a way to have three dedicated SROs instead of just two. Instead we have none. And we don't have a youth officer anymore either. And a function of that was in part, I'm sorry, my light's going off. A function of that was in part that officers deep sadness at no longer feeling as connected to the schools as she once had. And worrying too that an inability to work in the schools the way she once had left liability with regard to if things happen in the schools. When you're in the schools on a day to day basis you know when things are happening, you know if there are rumors about of kids coming in or God forbid of guns at play in school. When you are distant from it, if that information is not being shared, it is, it is harder to make those connections. And there was a great fear on her part that there would be something that would happen, and that she would be liable for something over which she had no control and no real interaction. And as a result, I don't have a youth officer anymore either, nor do I have those SROs, I want them back, I want to have to be able to have a presence in the schools. I was very willing when I had, if I had staffing, I would be willing to have those SROs be different than uniformed officers wear different clothing, have a certain different kind of role. I'm less willing to have them be on the at the call of the schools and not based in schools. I don't think that's fair to the officers. I don't think it makes the officers feel like part of a community when they have to be invited to come over to it and have to have an appointment to enter. I would, however, be able to put them in other other clothing if I had a fuller compliment, but right now I couldn't do that even if I had an SRO, because I can't afford to have somebody dedicated only to something like that when my resources on patrol are so low. I have to be able to say that this officer is doing dual duty, the DVP or domestic violence prevention officer an incredibly important role and I know there are people on this call who've dedicated their their passions and their avocations to dealing with battered and with helping people who are in domestic violence situations. Our DVP is incredibly, incredibly useful. He's who I lost to the Vermont State Police. I've put another officer in that role. She's going to be learning on a steep learning curve, but I can't dedicate her to it 1000% the way we used to, because I need her to still be able to pick up calls for service when necessary. And that's not a good way to run that role. Any more than picking up calls for service is a good way for a detective to operate. They need to be able to dedicate themselves to the casework in front of them and not worry about what the radio is saying or not absent emergencies, everybody goes all hands on decks when we have an emergency of some sort. But we're in a different kind of position with that. I want these the relationship with the school because it's incredibly effective for all of us. Wonderful. Maybe this will be the last question and Evan, I know the question has been already answered, but let's allow Mr. Cliff Cooper and Madame Cooper to ask their questions. As the last question and then we'll do a closing remark. Cliff Cooper from North Avenue news. The floor is yours sir. Yes. Are we on. Yes. I have a lot of questions. I mean being, I've never written out anything until just this week to the council with a statement because of my responsibility to the city. It's just really sad that someone that is so qualified and here that could start now has started now and he's being yo-yo. It's just really hard to watch. I agree that maybe there's other ways we could have gotten a different office of chief of police, but who wants to come to Burlington with a police force the way it is right now. I mean, we're a short staffed it's hard it's, and he's willing to stay how can we let him go. I mean, it's just sad to see something like this happen. I don't have any questions I just have concerns. I would like to know why the city council, and I think you are on TV saying you're going to vote against Ali and the other counselors are voting against a person that for two years has really done the job. Why would you go out of your way to vote against somebody that has been so good to the community so far. I'm aghast at what's happening in city council tell you the truth. I think there's some changes are coming up on March 1, and hopefully those change will get more, more on the side of right than wrong and safety than what it has been. It's rarely been a shock. Absolute shock. Wonderful. Alright, so I think it has been a wonderful town hall with the chief here today. Thank you all so much for being here. And we hope that this conversation continue at the Wellington City Council on Monday. And as for me, and as how I would be voting on, I mean, definitely you'll see a statement from me. Right. I think we all care about the city, including the progressive and non progressive. Everyone and also, people need to understand that those who are elected official, they may have some level of understanding that the public don't. It would be imperative also for them to be given the opportunity to speak about a once to why they want to vote this way, or a certain way. But personally, me, who thought that to bring everyone here together. I have no doubt that this chief is qualified for the job. Right. But the process has not been a well done and thoughtful process, but that will not be disqualifier for my vote. For me, please look for my statement soon before the vote. And it has been a wonderful evening with all of you. Thank you chief for being here. Thank you for those who call organize this gym hallway we cannot thank you enough for all the technical things that you have been doing under behind the scenes. Councilor Harnett commissioners heart and carry some. It has been an opportunity for a lifetime putting this together with you. Thank you all and have a good evening. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all.