 I just started the recording. Perfect. Okay, I'm going to call to order the October 3rd meeting of the African Heritage Reparation Assembly at 2.01 PM. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. So we'll start as usual with a sound check here and I'm going to start with Hala. Hala president. Hey, and Ms. Bridges. I hear you, I'm here. Great, Dr. Rhodes. I'm president. Okay, Dr. Shabazz. I see your wave, but let's hear you. Can we hear you? Yes, I'm here. Okay, and Pamela. I'm here. Excellent. All right. Wonderful. So we have a few really, I mean, everything on our agenda is important, but there are a couple of things that I want to make sure we do not miss this week. One being I would like to give you an update on the free cash transfer. So I'm going to actually begin the meeting with that. And then I would also love if Hala or Dr. Shabazz would be willing to give a BAM update. I believe there was a meeting. And so if one or both would be willing to do that, it would be great. And then we will talk about our engagement campaign and our upcoming listening session. So before we move into any of that, are there any general questions? All right. And Alexis also will be here, but will be a little bit late. So I'm going to share my screen. I want to show you, Kamala, would you be able to enable screen sharing for me? I should be able. And just so that you know, you have two attendees. So I don't know if you want to do public comment. Let me see. Yes, we will absolutely have a period of public comment. And in fact, Mary, I'm hoping when we get to community engagement, we'll be able to come in and join us because she was integral in the boots on the ground effort that started yesterday. So I've asked her to give us an update on that. Okay. Are you able to share now? Let me give it a try now. Yeah, it looks like I am able to do that. Okay, can everybody see a screen that says other financial orders? Okay, great. So this is in the packet for this week's tonight's town council meeting. It's a draft that was produced by the finance department. And the reason I'm showing it to you is because it shows what is being recommended in terms of the reparation stabilization fund and the certified free cash transfer. And that's for, so remember last spring is when the town council initially approved moving forward with this. And then we had another round where we then got to the $2 million commitment. So this is the actual amount of cannabis tax revenue that's been collected in FY22. It's $134,330. And that is being recommended to be transferred into the reparation stabilization fund. This, along with all of the draft financial orders, will be referred to the finance committee tonight. And so tomorrow, the finance committee will meet and discuss this order and several other orders that are on the table. And so I wanted to just share with you that progress. And of course, after tomorrow's meeting, I am a finance committee member. So I'll be there for sure. I'll be able to answer any questions or concerns. And then, of course, I'll report back to the group. But I wanted to see if there are any questions or comments or observations that members would like to share. Well, one observation that I have is that amount is, I think, lower than in terms of what was collected from cannabis tax revenue is lower than maybe we had thought it would be or that it had been previously, I should say. So it was in the $200,000 range previously. And I think there was an expectation that the number was going to be lower for FY22 for a variety of factors. I suspect that it will rebound and be back up to that $200,000 range. But as you recall, our cap is $205,000 annually anyway. So of course, if it remains at this level, it's going to take us longer to build the fund. And if that is the way that it's being modeled, we just want to keep our minds aware of that. So any other questions or comments on that? All right. So Dr. Shabazz or Hallow, would either of you be willing to give the group a BAM meeting update? Is this an appropriate time to do that? Is there something that you could share with us about what's happening with BAM and with the meeting? Dr. Shabazz? I welcome anyone else's input on this. I was trying to pull up the email that I have that gives the specific details of an upcoming hearing session or opportunity for members of the African heritage community to learn about and to discuss within an all African, all Black people environment. And it looks like October the 8th at 2 PM, I believe. Does anyone else have their hands on that handy? And it will take place here at. I do. Dr. Shabazz, it's from 1 to 230. Thank you. I have it now. So the next BAM meeting of the Black Assembly of Amherst, Massachusetts will be hybrid and will take place Saturday, October 8th from 1 to 230 PM. The in-person gathering will be at New Africa House on the University of Massachusetts campus. That's 181 Infirmary Way and Clark Hill Road. Snacks will be provided. And I will be sending out a link no later than Friday, October 7th, no later than the day before. So if you are on any of our emails, email list, then you will get it. If you are not, then please feel free to email us at amilcarshabazz at gmail.com. And we will see to it that you get the link or details of where it will be held in person on Saturday, October 8th. Thank you. Thanks, Dr. Shabazz. And we have Mara here, who is an editor and contributor and founder of the ND. And so I will follow up with Mara after this to make sure that she has all of that in case they want to. I think they usually put an issue up on Saturday morning, but I know they've also been doing it like on Wednesdays. And so, and to clarify, this listening session is only for residents that identify as Black and of African heritage. And it is being organized by the Black Assembly of Amherst Mass. And so that's an important distinguishing element from the listening session that the AHRA is going to be hosting on the 27th, which we'll talk about. So which will be open to all community members, but will center African heritage voices. So thank you very much, Dr. Shabazz. I really appreciate that. Halla, would you like to add anything about BAM? And what's happening with BAM at this time? No, thank you. Dr. Shabazz has covered it. Thanks. OK. Awesome. OK, so let me just see what Exa. OK, great. So we yesterday started our Boots on the Ground campaign. And it was really, really exciting, I think, step in our work. And I'm going to bring in, or Pamela, if you would mind bringing in Mary. That would be wonderful. And in the meantime, I am going to pull something else up here to share. No, don't pull that up. OK. Wonderful. Hi, Mary. Hi, everyone. Nice to see you. Nice to see you all. So, yes, I was just about to share. I just want to give people a sense here. So welcome to AHRA's Facebook page, which we are going to use primarily the reason that I created it was so that we could create events and be able to share them easily on social media from our hub here at AHRA. But what I wanted to show was this lovely photograph of the group yesterday. I hope everyone can see that. So this is the group which consisted of community members, including Mary and Matia Kramer and others, as well as Amherst College student senators, three of them. So we gathered together and at Riverside over in North Amherst and we had all of our materials and then we devised a plan. And I'm going to let Mary give an update, or I would love for Mary to give an update if she's so willing just to share what got covered in terms of development, in terms of the areas and then what, if anything else you'd like to share, Mary, that would be great. Yeah, you might, you might have to help me, but Michelle oriented us really nicely. We, I think most people hadn't seen the lovely inclusion cards in their finished state. So we, you know, we divided them amongst us. And I think we had, we had one, two, three, four groups. And we fanned out me. And one other, I think there were one, two, three, four, five of us went to Rolling Greens. And in near, near Echo Hill. And three went to Riverside apartment complex, which is in North Amherst. And then we had, what was the other, one other apartment complex. Village park. We had village. Yes. One joined later by three. So we, we fanned out and people had really good experiences. And we found, you know, lots of, lots of people don't open their doors. So we left a lot of cards, but the people that we did meet, I can, I can speak for the, the five of us that went to Rolling Greens. We had several people of African heritage that were, were very interested, including one who was really a highlight. We'll tell you about in a minute. And then several white. Amherst residents who were really interested in the project. People didn't know much about it. And they were interested and they were interested in the listening sessions. And so, you know, we, we were excited, the five of us there with felt that it was, it was really exciting for us to be just, to being the, being boots on the ground and interacting with real Amherst residents. And so one person at the very end, a black woman who was, has, was raised in an Amherst, went to schools, elementary, middle, high school, college in Amherst, and is now a mom of three. And her kids are middle school and one high school. So as we were just kind of talking and introducing, the reparations effort, tears just kind of spring to her face. And it was, it was, it was really a moving experience. So there were two of us that were at the door with us. And we spent about an hour. Kind of just listening. And hearing just this. Powerful, articulate sort of combination of her personal experience. In Amherst and, and as, as well as just how she wove it into the experiences of her friends. And there was one just really poignant. Moment where she talked about. Having, having had a lot of shame personally. That when she went to college and took a few courses and began to get a picture of what systemic racism was about. Things started to shift for her and. So she talked, you know, so she is that, you know, she is that, you know, you know, you know, throughout the conversation we, we. Said you, you're really a voice that would be wonderful to have at these listening sessions. And she said, you know, I have many friends who have a lot to say. And who would really like to be heard in particular, if it can be as safe as this conversation is right now. And she, she talked about the, just the desire to be seen as the person that she is. And instead of consistently being seen as a stereotype. And her kids, she has a 16 year old, she has two boys, middle school, 16 that she's really worried about and lots of stories about difficulties with the educational system. Kids being pushed into IEPs and special ed programs when she didn't think they were working, not an opportunity to have a voice. Being have children and Department of Children and Family being called on, on her challenges with I'm trying to think something else that she, oh, and she talked about the ripple effect of each one of these things and how she felt her housing was threatening as, as her reputation got, you know, got misunderstood and misrepresented. So at any rate, she, she was a highlight. She invited us in, she showed us her children's artwork. So she will be there. She took 10 cards to, to bring to lots of her friends and, and really, I think in summary, having, you just chatted with some of the other people, it was great to be, you know, to have these lovely pieces to, to, to bring, to offer people to, to be included. And I, I think that, I think that we will have some response. And people will be at the listening session. And if not, they more broadly understand that, that there is a reparations effort going on. And, you know, and we felt, we felt supported. I don't think anyone had, had a experience where the door was slammed in our face. And we have many more experiences of interest. And I think that was great. And the pizza, Michelle, heroically had to run. I do have to mention that on a public meeting, because as a district one counselor, I really wanted to get the pizza from Amherst house of pizza, because that's where we were meeting. But unfortunately they weren't open in time. So I did run down to Antonio's. And so I'm just mentioning. I might get in trouble. Michelle, but the student, many, the students really appreciate anyhow. And that was also really nice for us to connect as Sam's residents and students from the college. This, this was a lovely connection as well. Well, thank you, Mary. I just, before I have more to say, but I want to just pause and make sure that Yvonne, welcome Yvonne to the meeting and make sure that she can be heard and hear us. Yes. Thank you. I'm lunching. Late lunch, but yes, I can hear everything. And it's just so elated by your responses. That's wonderful. That's really great. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. My pleasure. Yeah. And really thank you for the energy and dedication that you are bringing and that you brought yesterday. I really do feel. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to somebody this morning called from New England, public media, and they wanted to cover our meeting today. I don't see anybody in the audience, but maybe the reporter really. I think was just getting up to speed with our work. And we'll get to some questions I have about media's involvement. I really want to hear from the committee about that in the, for the future, but. That effort yesterday and getting out into the, into the community in that way. And listening to people and sharing what it is that we're doing with people, we can sort of do all of this all day and put Facebook posts up and newsletters and whatnot, but really going and connecting with people is such a powerful way for us to really draw out these voices and these stories that most of us never hear about or would never hear about. And so really thank you for that. And I think there are, I think there's 30, 33 senators. Many of them are very interested in doing this. So we are going to continue this effort with various groups of residents. Mary has a list of people who have shared interest in being involved. And then of course the senators, 33 of them and we had three of them yesterday. And I think they want to rotate. And, and continued this movement. So thank you, Mary. And thanks for joining us just quickly to say kind of on a more data way. We covered all of Roland green, all of village park. Rolling green, I think there were 10 units left, but somebody's going back for them. We covered all of village park and we color covered all of the river side. So that was first effort. And then on our next one, we have a running list here. So we can talk about that. But all right, Mary, thank you so much. Any questions for Mary before. She goes. Their comments or observations. Dr. Just a word of thanks. And to observe that the. You know, there's so much of the process here. Is about truth telling. And having that opportunity to live, to live in, in one's truth and speak that truth. Without, you know, without fear of, of, of, of contradiction or retaliation. And so I'm so blessed that there was an opportunity for that kind of. For that kind of truth telling to take place. Thank you so much. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. And I just, I just want to quick add that. You know, we kind of were pulled this together at the last minute in terms of the. Amherst residents and these are, you know, people that have been, I've been involved within several. Of the book groups that reparations for Amherst has, has led people that I've met and I, I, I know have been interested. And so they've been asking over really the last, you know, year and a half, what can we do? How can we help? How can we help? So it was, it was exciting. There's a lot of people out there who. Want to contribute. So this was a really, we were all excited. We were all excited to meet each other in person and to be contributing and feeling like we were held. And so people are out there. I do want you to know there's a list being compiled. So I'm just a regular Amherst residents who really want to help. Absolutely. Dr. Rhodes, did you have a comment? I really appreciate Mary and the others who did this. One of the things that I learned when I was running for office the last time for school committee. I knocked on over 500 doors. Wow. Throughout of Amherst. And there's nothing like. Upfront and personal contact. With people who actually. Listen. To them. To hear what they have to say. And often. Those voices get lost. And often. And, and, and, and running for public office. The interpersonal and personal relationships. That you can form when you're going door to door. Or absent. So you don't, you don't. People who have not, who have run for office. Who have not done this. Don't understand the incredible diversity of our community. And the, and the different voices out there. That. Often are not heard, but want to be heard. And to understand the whole. Scope. Of what and who Amherst is. So that effort is really, really important, especially for the age. Absolutely. All right, Mary. Well, thank you. Please feel free to stick around for the rest of the meeting. But, and we'll, and we'll, we're going to continue this conversation. And. So let me. Just get it. I want to just look at the agenda here to get organized quickly. Most importantly, and Yvonne, I'm sorry in the beginning you missed an update on our free cash transfer to the stabilization funds. So I can follow up with you after just to give you. The, the background on that. And then. Right now, what I'd like to do is to finalize some details about the upcoming listening session. Some questions have been posed and I want to make sure that I'm answering them. Appropriately. And in the way that the assembly. Would like for those questions to be answered. So the first question is, well, let's just give the background. So we're going to have that listening session, which will be open to all members of the community. But we'll center African heritage and black voices. And it's going to be at the Hitchcock center. In person from six 30 to eight PM. The Hitchcock is working on having the PVPA bus moved so that. People can be dropped off right in front of the Hitchcock center and get picked up. For that event. And there will also be childcare provided. So I haven't put those two details out in really any of the marketing yet that I've, that I've. That I've asked, like, for example, the town council, or the town has put. This event in their community calendar. I think that's going to be at the Hitchcock center. I think that's going to be at the Hitchcock center. And I think that's going to be at the Hitchcock center. This event in their community calendar. I think I sent that link to you all. We have it on the Facebook now. I wanted to hear from you to see, and these are details and maybe a little bit boring, but we've got to cover them. For example, with childcare. Child care, I think is a really important aspect of giving people an opportunity to be there that might not otherwise be able to register if they think they're going to need childcare, or should we sort of hope that we have enough childcare provider people, which are going to be mostly volunteers, of course, some of which work at the Hitchcock and others. Or like, does anyone have a sense one way or another on that? Yeah, I think it's always great. It's always great to have people tell you beforehand so that you're prepared for which kids are coming. And also there are folks who, I mean, it's great to advertise it because there's folks who would decide not to come if there's no childcare and there's folks who would decide to come knowing there's childcare. Having said that, I think that having, having people register beforehand means you also know the ages of the kids. Yeah. You know, so then you know, like how many people you'll need. You know, if there's infants or if there's toddlers or whatever, you know, Right. Yeah. So I think, I think people should register before I'm sure there's folks who are just, who are just going to show up with their kids once they see that, but I think as much as we can just so that we know what's, what to prepare for, have people pre-register. Yeah. Perfect. Okay. I will do that. I'll set it up so that it's not mandatory, but I think that's a great option. And I think that's, it's, it's also very optional if you'd like to tell us in advance that you're coming with children and that's great. And I do agree that making that known is really important. Hala, I saw your hand come up briefly. And I also saw Dr. Shabazz. Mine was a little premature because then even said about factoring in for the people that won't RSVP. So then I took it down, but thank you, you. Okay. But you covered everything I was wondering about. Okay, great. The other thing, the other- I have a quick question about that. I mean, it may not be pertinent, but do we have insurance for events? You know what I mean? Does the town, because we're a town committee, does the town's insurance cover us doing events in different places? I think that's a really great question and one that's worth us investigating a bit. So I'll talk to Pamela and Paul about that and try to get, Paul did approve this. I had to ask for permission to do an in-person event because right now council meetings, excuse me, committee meetings are happening virtually, but given it's a listening session, he did approve it. But I will double check that piece of things. I think that's a great inquiry. You have like, if you have childcare going on, then you need some kind of coverage for the kids who are on site, right? There, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would think, and also the Hitchcock itself, right? What does their take on that? So- You know, some places when you do something at their event, they require you to take a policy or to extend your policy to them so that it covers them. You know, it covers their property or whatever. So you might wanna find out from whoever's helping you sponsor it at the Hitchcock if they require that. That's great. Great. I'm just thinking, once you talked about kids, I'm like, oh my God, some kids gonna fall and something's gonna happen and some parents gonna be like, you know. I know, yeah, I know. I think that's legitimate. Yeah, really legitimate. Dr. Rhodes, did you wanna add to that? Yes, I mean, two experiences come to mind in relationship to having a large turnout of BIPOC populations. One is as a school committee member and going to open houses at schools and also teacher conferences at schools where they would hold them on one night, they would send buses to the apartment complexes and provide the transportation. One of the most amazing things is that the attendance was off the charts for those. And I've witnessed those. The other one was the similar to that is that the Rotary Club of Amherst would have their annual Christmas giving celebration and they would provide transportation from the various apartment complexes. And that too, the attendance was always off the chart. And that one was, the Rotary was done in connection with the family outreach was provided the distribution of the information, etc. to their groups that they were familiar with. But the attendance was always off the charts. So are you thinking that we should try to find some way to provide transportation or are you just making an observation that I think having the PVPA bus dropping off and picking up there needs to be really put out front when we're advertising this. And so that's a good, that's one level of what you're talking about, but it's certainly not the bigger level which is actually providing that transportation which may take a little bit of navigating and I'm not exactly sure. That's something that really has to be coordinated way in advance with groups who have the ability to reach into that population to notify them that transportation will be provided if it's going to be provided at that particular location. And also, those particular groups have an incredible relationship with the population that we are trying to reach that would allow them to communicate in a way that would encourage participation. Yeah. Yeah, I will reach out. I was on the board for a few years of family outreach of Amherst and I'm still in connection with those folks. So I will reach out and just, that's a great connection to make transportation or not just to get the, if they do a newsletter, I think they're always out in the communities. So I'll see just, I think that's a really great suggestion overall or thank you. And the other thing is that through the schools, there are opportunities to provide the information to families via either the PGOs or the schools themselves in terms of putting that information in the backpacks of kids that they can take home. That's top of my list is to figure out who the administrators are or PGA leadership folks that can get that information out. So I will be working on that today and tomorrow, probably more likely tomorrow at this point, but that I think is because Jennifer Moisten reminded me that we missed an opportunity to be, I guess we could have been tabled at the open houses that were happening at the schools. Yes. And I did not know that, but that would have been a great opportunity for us. I don't think we were quite ready with our listening session date when those were happening, but anyway, same point. Yeah, that's something that works. And that PGO information is on the ARPs website on a school-by-school basis. Okay, great. Maybe what I'll do is I'll draft like an email with all the information and I'll send it out to all of the PGOs. And if anybody knows like Pamela, if the administrators in the schools, I don't know if you've made any connections. I have a couple of connections over there. I know Hala probably has some connections. So if you do have anyone that you think, if you could send to me and I'll make sure they get the information or you could send it to them either way. Okay, so the other two questions I have are health safety. So it was somebody asked whether we were going to be requiring or recommending that people wear masks indoors for the listening session. And I haven't put anything out about that either way. And that might be something that we wait until closer to the time to see where cases are and see how people are feeling. It's gonna start to get colder at that time. So, and I know the cases have been really rising again. So anyone have any thoughts on what sort of disclosure we should be making right now about that? That, you know, the room there at the Hitchcock Center, if they're going, depending on the amount of people and given, and also taking into consideration where the caseload is in terms of COVID, I would just like to err on the side of caution and say, you know, masks are recommended, but are optional because that is not, depending on the number of people, that is not a large space. And so we need to look at that. And especially in terms of how we set up that room. Okay, okay. And we could always provide, like I could grab a bunch of boxes of masks in advance too. And so we could provide masks for folks that don't have them, but would like to wear one that day. All right. And then the last question I had, other than like actually programming the event, which I think we can do at our next meeting, and I'd really love for Alexis to be part of that too, is I was asked this morning by the reporter at New England Public Media, if media would be allowed or welcomed into these spaces. And I didn't have a definitive answer to offer other than to say, these are public meetings. This one, and kind of along the same lines with this is, this is not, we don't have a plan to record it. We could record it. We might want to record it for internal purposes. We don't have a plan to be hybrid for this particular listening session. So I'm curious what you all think. One of the things that this reporter said very clearly is, it's one thing for us to report on what you're doing and to get status updates, but to be able to be there and really like understand what's happening in the community from the people, from the voices of the people is a whole nother level of, you know, significant. And so I leave that all to you. I'm curious what people think about that. Dr. Rhodes. You know, this is a tricky kind of question because you want to provide a space that where people feel safe in terms of speaking. The question is, will the president presence of media dampen that enthusiasm for speaking? That is an unknown question. On the other hand, it is a public meeting. Exactly. And actually I probably should check in. I'll check in with Athena and Paul and others just to, we might not even be allowed to not have the media come in like it may not even be an option. I think they're allowed to come to council meetings and other meetings that are public. And I don't think there's any particular, you know, criteria for listening sessions as opposed to public meetings. So that I have to look into a little bit, but we may want to just think about when we're thinking about the programming and whether we're going to sort of break out into small groups to do some listening in small groups and then coming back. I've been now at a couple of these symposiums and Dr. Shabazz was with me where certain aspects were being documented and recorded by media, but other aspects were not. And so for example, if the media came to see that there were people and a lot of people there and they could sort of generally get a sense of what then maybe when people are being listened to, that part is not, you know, we ask the media to kindly step out for that. So maybe we just give this some thought over the next week and I'll also check in with Paul and Athena and just see what the requirements are and then we can circle back. Does that feel okay? Oh yeah, please, Yvonne. Yeah, no, I agree with you. I think that we want to encourage people to be able to speak up and if the press is there, some folks may feel like they can't really be as candid as they would ordinarily, but then on the flip side, I feel like there's opportunities for the press to maybe listen in general and interview people individually. You know what I mean? So that it's not a part of the whole thing. So yeah, I think that it also depends on who's going, who the reporter is that's going. No, really, like who is who, you know what I'm saying? Like is it somebody that we can actually rely on some discretion, you know, understanding that a portion of this might be private and not that they're here to really record everything, but having someone who can publicize what we're doing and have it be real is something that we want. At this stage in the game, now that we're doing listening sessions, we want that, we want people to know. Yeah, yeah. I see Dr. Shabazz's hand is up, I think, right? Yeah, I'll just say quickly that I think it goes toward our own policy and what we think the sessions are about what we hope to get out of. And I think we ought to set the tone. The session is for us to hear from members of the community what they want us to know about this reparative justice plan that we're charged with developing. So that being the case, I think the tone to be set and set on the spot is that while this is a public meeting and we invite people as they come up to share whatever identifying information they're willing to share about themselves in terms of name, in terms of being a resident of Amherst, general location of where in Amherst, North Amherst, South Amherst, downtown, whatever village center that they're willing to share and then to feel completely free that we are listening attentively, but if they wish to put a boundary that their comments be appreciated and be heard by us in that moment and that no one records, then our tone we should set is that if requested that all recording devices would be paused or silenced or stopped per the individual community members request. And that furthermore, the perspective of the meeting is that we are under a kind of cone of silence. We are within a zone of empathy and understanding and trying to listen to achieve a certain understanding such that we ask that what is heard here be heard here and felt here and reserved for one's own processing being here and that if you do wish to make an accounting of this, whether you're writing for the Amherst Indy or the Gazette or whatever, ask the person's permission to speak to them after the meeting ends to see if they're willing to go on the record or be mentioned by name if they wish to have that identifying information attached to their comments. But in other words, I see this as modified, as kind of a modified public hearing or public meeting to the extent that we are willing to reserve a certain amount of privacy to the moment per the request of the speaker. They don't request it then fine, but if they do then let it be something that we can all hear in the spirit in which they're willing to offer their comments. That's how I certainly would see it. Sometimes they go like this when people have good words in a meeting. I mean, it's always good words, but thank you. Dr. Rhodes. It would be really behoove us that when at the beginning of this session that that be made very clear and that usually reporters don't want to put someone else's name or terrific comments to them unless that person agrees to that. But if we can say to any reporters who are there that we would like for them to gain the permission of a speaker or a person who's talking to be quoted in their particular newspaper or media outlet. Absolutely. Okay, yeah, I think that I have a list of the media that I that has ever made contact about this. We can have a full disclosure like that. Sorry, Dr. Shabazz, go ahead. Oh, okay. Yeah, so that sounds really good. And one other matter that I want to make and I wanted to ask you all about, and again, we can discuss it now or you can think about it. So as a town counselor and knowing that our recommendations are going to be presented to the town council in June and need to be approved by the town council, I've certainly let the council know that we're hosting this session. They've seen the flyer, they know about it, but there have been circumstances in the past where, and in particular, in my experience, it's been through Zoom because we haven't had these in-person meetings since I've been doing this, but where maybe it was felt that having people in those positions of power in the room or in the space, and again, these are public meetings. We can't turn anybody away, quite frankly, you know what I mean? So however, we can set the tone, as Dr. Shabazz said. And so I'm curious, on one hand, it feels like having counselors there to really be able to hear from their own ears what's going on and to be there would be very, very powerful. And on the other hand, I think almost it feels like we need another way, like a person on this committee and maybe it's a rotating person of African heritage, not myself, that would be willing to do the listening for somebody that isn't wanting to talk publicly about these things, you know what I mean? So, but that ties into just if there are any strong feelings about counselors being there and how much I should encourage participation or not. I'm curious what folks think about that. And you know, like I said, it doesn't have to be now, but just that was another thing on my mind. All right, so let's see here. The registration portal, we're continuing to get the word out, the boots on the ground effort, the card that went out, which had the listening session information was the original card with the portal. If anybody needs cards, please let me know and I will distribute them, I'll bring them to you. And I will try to find ways to get into these PGO and into the schools as well. Amherst Media has graciously offered to put the information and the card up on their programming. They actually have an intern that is covering us, like is just dedicated to covering us, Jim tells me. And Jim has asked if anybody on the committee would be willing to come and what did he say here? How did he call it something that I had? Maybe it's like a lingo that I wasn't. He said, he asked, why not set up a time for some voiceover or talking heads about this important survey? And so I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I think he's asking if somebody in the committee would come and do a voiceover, something that's going on programming-wise. So I can give anybody Jim's information if anybody wants to organize or coordinate around that. I think he was really happy to help us with that. Look, the place is right next to the post office on University Drive. I think anytime anybody has five or 10 minutes, certainly if you can give them a heads up beforehand, that's fine, but probably even without a heads up if you can go there. And yeah, and record your, I think all six, seven of us ought to do this. And I've offered to buy y'all lunch, buy y'all dinner. It doesn't seem like anybody wants to get together. We're able to get together. So if we can all do our individual one minute, one minute, 30 seconds spot, that will be so valuable just as a record, even of us and a record shared through Amherst Media. That would be very good. I'll try to get by this week myself. Thank you, Dr. Shabazz. And if you do, and if somehow you can share it with the group or just to give us a sense of what would work well, that would be great. I'm gonna share my screen one more time and show you all where we're at with our Engage Amherst page here. We made some changes to it. And we really, Dr. Shabazz, I think was right on to really upfront and center, put our postcard here, given that originally we had that picture, which still doesn't include all of us. And I'm thinking the listening session. If not, oh, actually, Yvonne, you can't beat the listening session, can you? Okay, well, we'll figure something out, but for now we... I'm really sad about it too, but I'm gonna be traveling, so yeah. Yeah, well, if you want and you're available any portion of the night, you can FaceTime with me and I can set that up and just have you set up on FaceTime. So we have this up front and center and then we have information now about our listening session. We also have a community calendar, you know, spot in the community calendar on the town of Amherst website, which a lot of people do check out. So that's there and then more information about the listening session here and then some other news features. And I would love if Dr. Shabazz would just take a couple of minutes to talk about this wonderful talk that I was very sad to miss before we finish up with this meeting. That would be great. Is there anything else that... So I didn't, I don't know if you saw this Yvonne because you weren't here, but I also set up a Facebook page for us so that we can begin, we created an event for this session, we can begin to sort of document, put things up here. This was, oh, I love this here with Dr. Shabazz went up to the peace pagoda yesterday. That's another connection we're hoping to make or that is already been made by Dr. Shabazz, but we want to deepen. And then this was the group that went boots on the ground. So anybody that's on Facebook that would like to be an administrator of this, just shoot me a text or an email, I'll add you and that way we can all be contributing. And just keeping in mind that it's centered around our work at the AHRA, but of course, there's always things that are part of that that aren't direct. All right, so I'm gonna stop that. And then one other thing on the engagement line that I wanted to mention is me and Ms. Bridges and Anika have very, very early just planted some seeds and Dr. Shabazz as well about given and Ms. Bridges, I'm gonna just ask you to talk about this, but the ancestral Bridges exhibit that's up at the History Museum is going to be there through November, remind me, seventh, fifth, fifth, yeah, I knew it was close. And really that exhibit, if you haven't been there is it's basically the heart of everything that we're doing in some sense. And so getting people there to see the early history, to see the early black history and Ms. Bridges, I'd rather you talk about it for a second, but just to say that we wanna try to maybe have some efforts to get folks over there to see the exhibit before it's gonna be in a different location or not in that location anymore. I think when you sent the email about doing that it would be great if we got together beforehand and to see how that needs to be done through ancestral Bridges. Absolutely. So that would be great if we could get together. You doubt it, yeah. And put something together the way it should be put together. So it'd be great for people to come and see that, but I just wanna make sure that that's going on the right path to be to make sure that ancestral Bridges is involved in putting this together. Oh, absolutely, not only involved, but leading. And we're only there if it's supportive for the AHA to be at all involved in that. Absolutely, but that would be great if we could get together when you have time. When you have time. Yeah, yeah. Before November 5th. That's why I'm brain, yeah, exactly. Hopefully within the next few days maybe we can get something together. Great, yeah, absolutely. And I'd like for us to, yeah, if we can do it in the next couple days and then maybe at the next meeting we'll have something that we can talk about. That would be great. Cause I was hoping we could maybe have gotten together yesterday, but things were kind of like, yep. Sideways, sideways, crisscross, all that. So if we can get together, yeah. Yeah. Within the next couple of days, that would be great. Perfect, okay, we'll do it. Okay. Definitely, all right. Great. Okay, now are there any, so that's basically all that, let me just, I'm just double checking here. I don't have any topics that were not anticipated. Dr. Shabazz, if you would just add a few words about the event on Friday of last week that you participated in, if you feel like it, if you don't, that's fine too. I just, it seemed like a really powerful experience. Well, absolutely. The five injury areas associated with reparations, one of them includes criminal punishment. And this book, Stolen Wealth, Hidden Power, The Case for Reparations for Mass Incarceration by Tassily McKay makes this point. The sweeping criminalization of blackness that was integral to Nixon's war on drugs and the decades of racially targeted crime policies that have ensued shapes the lives of all black Americans, whether they have personally dealt with the criminal legal system or not. Combined, these community and population level dynamics contribute to wide national disparities in health and access to economic resources. The chasm between black and white Americans physical and material well-being is most starkly evident with regard to infant mortality. A tragedy twice as likely to befall black children as white. Among infants born from 1980 to 2004, mass incarceration elevated the death rate by a magnitude that public entities would generally be by a magnitude that public entities would generally be willing to expend $239 billion to prevent. Most of this figure represents avoidable deaths among black infants. Mass incarceration also diminished population level life expectancy for Americans born from 1981 to 2004 by a degree that government actors generally value at $1.76 trillion. That figure includes $727 billion associated with lost life expectancy among black Americans. This is work that is very germane to our own town of Amherst, to the lives of black people in our town of Amherst and cannot be overstated the importance of this area of criminal punishment as an aspect of what the case for reparations is all about right here in Amherst. Thank you. Thanks, Dr. Shabazz, and I see Yvonne's hands up. Yeah, I looked up that book and put it in my list to buy. But while I was doing that, I was like, maybe it's worth it for us to have a resource list that we can make available to people maybe through the Facebook or wherever where there's a book of the week or something. Cause this is fascinating reading. I mean, I think a lot of this information are things that people aren't aware of. And I wasn't aware of this book, but I mean, I'll read the book, but it would be great to have a reading list. And maybe it's something that committee members also can get a chance to read articles or read books. I know there have been some other resources that have been circulated before, but maybe we need to have them all in one place, like one list that we can send people to or we can refer to ourselves. I love that idea. And in fact, Pamela, you had sent along some information that you suggested may be good for our Engage Amherst page. I actually attended the first of those two Boston Foundation workshops, but I didn't see the second which focused on local initiatives, I think more. So what I would like to do is at our next meeting, if we could focus some time on putting together that resource list, including books, videos, and other resources that we want to have made available and where we want them. Do we want them on AHA Engage? Do we want them on Facebook on both? How do we wanna organize that? So I can then work with Brianna and Pamela to get everything up. So think about that for next time. And we'll pull up Pamela sent some things. I think Dr. Shabazz sent some. There's something circulating. So great idea. It'd be great to have it all in one place and begin to even educate our own people. I mean, you were doing this listening session, it'd be great to just say if you want to have more information yourself, you can go to this resource and watch this video or read these articles or books. Cause I think lots of people, there's so many misconceptions about this process, you know? And so it's great as much information and knowledge as we can have people get. I think that's part of the reason where we have this committee, you know? Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm gonna pause and just call for public comment. And there are two people in the audience. If anybody would like to make public comment, please use the raise hand function. And I will, or Pamela will actually bring you into the room. Yes. So I see Mara is great. Wow, Pamela, fast. All right. Hi Mara. Hi. I just wanted to remind people that Community Land Trust is having its fall meeting, which is going to be a combination of a get together with refreshments, brief meeting and also a walk around Mill River. We've reserved the pavilion from two to four on the 15th with the rain date of the 16th and everyone is welcome. And we'd love to get to meet people in person. Awesome. Mara, do you have anything that we could put on the Facebook page? Like do any imagery or anything? Yeah, I'll email it to you. Okay, that would be great. And do you know if you've, have you received any applications for the open grant that you had available? I don't think there are any completed applications, but there have been a number of inquiries. So that's been great too. Good, okay, good. We'll keep getting that out too. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. So are there any other comments or questions, anything else that you'd like to see other than sort of the standard items that we're working through here on our next agenda? If there's anything that you would like us to cover, just email me, text me, and I'll make sure that it gets put on the agenda. The once a week meeting, especially with just sort of some of what's, there's a lot going on right now. And so I'm curious if folks, like we skipped a week this past time and that felt okay to me. We could meet again on the 10th or we could meet again on the 17th, but continue our efforts in between now and then. I'm fine with either one, but curious what folks think. Anybody have a preference? Deborah, were you, Ms. Bridges, were you going to say something? So my face. I did. I'm fine with the 17th as long as we can, if we make a point of scanning it out for the exhibit, if that goes out before the 17th, then I'm fine with that. If we're going to meet before that anyway, and if we can put that together, that would be great. Okay, so that's really up to you. You're good with that. Okay, I mean, that's up to the assembly. If the assembly is good with that, then we're good. We can kind of meet in between just to work on getting that out. I'd also be fine with doing a meeting on the 10th and just touching in and making sure that we're, it doesn't have to be a long meeting. And if, so we could do that, let's put it this way. Is everyone available? Oh, we can't meet on the 10th. It's Indigenous People's Day and it's not, it's a holiday, right? It's a holiday, yes. Yeah, it's a holiday. I will say that I'm traveling for two and a half weeks and I won't be around after the, like the 17th. Are you, can you come to a meeting on the 17th, Yvonne? I'm looking to make sure, I'm not sure I can. I think I can do the 17th. Okay, let's just go with that. I can do the 17th, but I'll be gone the 24th and the 31st. Okay, so let's, we'll do the 17th and then we can sort of re-evaluate because that, in fact, then it will give us time for one more meeting before the listening session. And yeah, great, all right. Any other comments or questions before we adjourn? Good meeting. All right, thank you. Great meeting as always. Yes. Yes. It's just one of my favorite times of the week. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see everybody. Yeah, bye-bye. Bye.