 Okay, should I, should I call the meeting to an order? Yes, at least call it and then we can just kind of wait a few minutes for everyone else. Okay. My name is Alicia Walker and I am calling this meeting to order as co-chair. Governor Baker's March 12 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law allow us to hold this virtual meeting of the working group. Given that we have a quorum present, I am calling the June 3rd, 2020 meeting of the community safety working group to an order at 537pm. I will call upon each member of the working group by name. At that time they should unmute their mic and say present. This will indicate that they can hear me and we can hear them. Please remember to mute your mic after saying present. Deborah Ferrera. Present. Darius Cage. Present. Tashina Bowman. Present. And is it okay to go forward in the agenda? Miss Moisten or should we wait for other members? No, we can open it up to the general public if you would like for public comment. And I can just pull up the agenda. Miss Moisten, do you mind just sending out the link again to everyone? Just to make sure. Yeah, I did. Well, when I sent it to you, I sent it to everybody. And I'm texting Pat now to see. To make sure that she saw it. Yeah, I texted Russ too. So. Well, Russ said he might not be here this evening. Oh, okay. So I will take a couple of minutes to review the agenda. We will first hear any public comment that members of the public want to provide to the working group. We will not respond to your comments, but we will listen to your comments carefully. We will then hear comments from the members and review. Wait, did we get any minutes, Miss Moisten? No. Okay, so we won't have a review of the minutes today. We will have a discussion on the second part of our charge and whether or not we'd like to request an extension. A discussion on how we would like to develop a strategy to move forward with the second half of our charge. Discuss a preliminary design for the resident oversight board. Discuss the CSWG as a standing committee or the possibility of a creation of a new committee. And lastly, we will try to leave time to discuss the CSWG summer meeting schedule. Our first order of business is the public comment section of the agenda. If any member of the public would like to make a statement, please raise your hand. I can ask Miss Moisten to turn on your microphone. I ask that comments be limited to no more than three minutes. The working group will not be responding to your comments, but we will be listening intently. Yes. So Miss Judith Glaser has her hand raised. Okay, can you please bring Judith Glaser and Miss Moisten. Good evening. Hi. So, you know, I've been with you on most of this journey watching. Very intently and I'm glad Mr. Bachman is here tonight. I want to want to thank all of you. I'm sorry, not everybody's there for your incredible work. And also for the, you know, dealing dealing with all the stress and anxiety of what's going on. And I also want to thank Mr. Bachman. I've been with him for more than 50 years. You know, I'm looking on all this with joy. And I also want to thank Paul Bachman for his part in it and for encouraging you and guiding and appointing you to begin with. And also for Mr. Bachman. And I hope that all will go forward smoothly from here. And I will be making that point to the town council members. So I mainly just wanted to thank you for all your work. And the hardship it's brought. Thanks. Thank you, Miss Glaser. Do we have anyone else who would like to public comment at this time? No other hands are raised at this time. Thank you. Thank you. This is the time for members to update us on any work they are doing or any events that are coming up. Is there anyone who has anything that they would like to share? So it looks like we don't have any. Updates at this time. So I'll just move right into the first order of business that we have here on the agenda. And that is a request for an extension. So the deadline for the second part of our charge is June 30th when we have the first part of our charge. So I'm not going to go into that right now. I'm not going to go into the first part of the agreement that we would need an extension, but I just wanted to confirm with the group first. And we have Mr. Bachman is here today. So we may be able to just have a discussion on that now. Miss Ferreira, did you have something you wanted to say first? Yeah. I mean, the only thing I didn't see on the agenda, though, was I guess where do we stand with the first part of our charge? I mean, I, I, I know that we did the finance committee kind of change his budget in terms of increasing it, but obviously not to the point that we wanted it increased too. So I guess where do we stand on that? You know, I know we're already going to the second part of the charge, but I still, I guess I'm fuzzy on the first part of the charge when we stand, you know, in regards to that. Thank you. So what happens now, the finance committee is they make their recommendation to the, to the town council. That recommendation will be delivered on Monday, June 7th at the town council meeting. The town council will not vote at that time. It is my understanding the town council president expects the town council to vote on the budget, which this is part of on June 21st. On Monday's meeting, there's a public forum on the capital project. List that happens exactly when that happens. It's 6 30. And then they go into the regular agenda for the committee, for the council. Do you know what time they might be sharing the, what they'd be recommending in regards to our recommendations and what you stated. So I think I don't know what time the agenda should be posted or should it should be posted by now, but usually what the council president does is do a timeline over the weekend where she thinks things are going to be. So she can tell people when to be at the meeting. And so she can share the agenda with you. And then do that with you. Yeah. When she thinks it will happen. Sure. That would be good. And then June 21st. So is there anything else that you think they would need from us at this point, or is it now just in their hand? I think the, the, the thing that's in their hands is the budget that was presented by the town manager, which has then been changed based on the work. And so that they have that as of last Thursday. Have you made any other changes since. Since Thursday. No. And what about, has there been any other. Meetings around creating crests or any of, of the other recommendations because that was the other thing we wanted to make sure that we would be part of the conversation. At least a member, some of our members. So I would be, that's a good topic. I do want to, so I have, I continue to have conversations every day with different department heads and other people in town. And so I would like to thank all of the people who are even, you know, part of this town staff think talking through how this can work, because there's a lot of energy to creating this program, which I'm very excited about. We, you know, I think in my presentation, I talked about putting together a group and asking for representatives from the working group to participate. And so if that's something that you're, you know, we can talk more about that. That would be a really good thing. I think it's a good thing just to move on it pretty quickly. So if there's, you know, a couple of members who would like to participate in that, that would welcome that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Keep us posted. I guess when, when is the invitation going to be done? I guess. So we're, you know, I'd like to get moving on this, like soon within the next couple of weeks. So I think if you, so the challenge we have is a lot of staff people's, I guess one of the questions is whether people are available at the end of the day. And I know all you folks all work. And I try, maybe I try and do it at the end of the day or something like that's to make, make available for town staff and to make it palatable for both sides to be person participating. Wouldn't they're not public meetings. This is not a community safety working group meeting. This is sort of the getting into the details of what we really need to get going on. Okay. Yeah. So I guess that would be the thing, but I think we'll have a, I think we'll have a meeting. I guess we'll have a meeting. I mean, I think we'll have a meeting. I know you all meeting and the time so that then we could know what members. Yeah. So we haven't set a time or anything like that. So if you had members who want, if you could choose the members that you're interest, who are interested in participating, we'll try and work around everybody's schedule. I also have a question. Mr. Bachleman just in regards to Deborah's question. I think there was a scheduled finance committee meeting for June 1st. Did that meeting take place? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the second meeting was. I think canceled. I know that one of the meetings was canceled. And I think that there may have been some discussion of the Crest program at that meeting. So I wasn't actually able to attend that meeting, but I did hear some feedback and. Heard that there was some discussion around the Crest and that there may have even been a vote. That happened at that meeting. So I was just wondering if you knew anything about that. So they met, they had two meetings on June. If I get my calendar right, Jen, you can help me with this. June 1st. I think they had a meeting in the afternoon at one. And is that the date they had the 530 meeting? Or was that, no, that was last Thursday. I'm getting. So let me just check my calendar. So we're not talking about last, last week. I'm sorry. They did have a meeting on June 1st at one o'clock. Yes, they did. And the question is, did they vote? I really don't remember if they voted or not. Honestly, I can look at what they did. I'll get an answer before we leave tonight. So I guess my, I would just post to the co-chairs is just, yeah, for us to figure out at some point, you know, we want to go about finding some members. That could be available to take part in this. This group. That Paul has. Mrs. Owen. Hi, can you guys hear me? Yeah. Yes. Okay. I'm really excited. To be on this committee. I do have a little bit more free time after this week. I'm traveling right now. So that's why my video is off. But yeah, I'd be interested to sit on this group. And I think it's important that CS, other CSWG members who are interested. Join that conversation on the details. Thank you, Miss Owen. Okay. And welcome, Miss Pat. I would also be happy to be a part of that group. I don't know how many people we were interested in sending or wanting to sit on that. If anybody else was also interested. Sorry, Miss. I was out of hand. No, I could be like a backup. I think it would be good to have at least the two of you. And then obviously if this time, days you all can't make it or things like that, you know, then let me know. And I could. You know, I think there should always be representation at those meeting. Yeah. My busy schedule because of the, you know, work and everything. I might not be able to make it all the time. That's why I don't want to be like, you know, say, yes, I'm going to be there every time, but I would definitely be a backup so we can make sure we always have representation. So Ms. Walker, what is your availability during the day? Do you have it? So well, I work full time from an office, but I am in an office. So if there's, sometimes I have popped in the finance committee meetings from my office. So like I can do it during my lunch break because sometimes they fall usually from one to three. Which depending on how busy work is, I can just pop in. I just can't be really an active participant, but I can like sort of passively listen while I'm there, which is what I do sometimes. But if we scheduled it around lunchtime, that might be more like 12, 12, one ish. That would help. And Miss Ellen, does that work for you as well? Yeah, that works for me. Okay. So let me, let me see what our, when we can get the next meeting going. Get folks going. Okay. Thank you. And actually, why don't you just put me in there. If you guys want to do lunch. I could be on there. And then obviously we're not providing lunch. Not providing lunch. But if it's during lunchtime, I can, I can, I can be available. So I can just join the meetings that I can. Yeah, we just, we just can't have a quorum of the, of the crew. Then you think it's better to do two then keep it at two. I would, given the size of the group, I would ask it to be two with backup. Let's leave it like I said, the time and then backup for me. And I think the other thing that we can do is report back to the full working group or the, or the co-chairs can, depending on what you're doing. I think it's better to do two then. I would give them the size of the group. I would ask it to be two with backup. I would give them the size of the group or the, or the co-chairs can, depending on how you want to handle that. Yeah, that would be great. Yeah. And you all can just report back on, you know, I put it on the agenda. Everybody. What is it? What are talking about? So this is about the group that Paul has in terms of working out the details for the crest program. So we're making sure that there's members from. The group on that group. So Alicia and Brianna will be on, and I'll be a backup in case they can't make it so that we can always make sure that there's at least two people going to those meetings. I'm also interested in joining the group as well. Well, that's what we are just talking about that because of the whole thing about having a quorum that probably better to have two members and then maybe me and you could be backup so that we can't make it. We can go in either one of us or both of us. We can go in either one of us. We can go in either one of us. We can go in either one of us. We can go in either one of us. Either one of them can make it. Because my time is very flexible. I am able to. I'm self-employed. So I'm able to. You know, move from one office to another and do what I need to do. Excellent. I'm fine being a backup. Okay. So myself and miss Pat, we'll be back up. And. I'm sorry. Yes. So like what the council voted. I just got that. So I was kind enough to send it to me. Thank you. Sorry. So that the council, the finance committee took two motions. One to recommend to the town council that they approve the FY 22 operating budget. And the second motion was to recommend to the town council that they direct the town manager to seek funds. To fill eight community responder positions. And other elements of the program as proposed on the May 27th, 2021. And report back to the town council and residents of Amherst, and the city council. And the city council. And the city council plans to accomplish this no later later than January 31, 2022. I can email that to folks. And this is what will be reported to the town council on Monday. So that means they increased it then, right? They didn't increase the budget. They are saying this is what they want to see happen. Yeah. No, I understand them. Not the budget, but I'm saying in terms of the positions. They did increase the number. Okay. That's what they're requesting. So this is for fine from finance committee. It's, it's a recommendation from finance committee to the town council. Yeah. I apologize. Mr. Bachman, can you just please repeat those for me? I'm emailing it to everyone right now. Thank you. Miss Ferrara. So question for Mr. Bachman. So nothing though on any of the other recommendations, because it seems like that was specific to crest, right? And if unless anybody else has any other questions regarding these meetings or this topic, I would like to just go back to the discussion regarding the deadline for the second part of our charge. Is that okay with you, Miss Ferrara? Or do you have other questions regarding the first phase of our work? I guess the only thing that kind of leaves me a little bit uncertain is, yeah, I mean. You know, if there's not anything else in terms of the strategy, right, from our group, is there anything else that we need to do to kind of share with the town council members or whomever in terms of our recommendations again or making it specific or kind of answering any other questions? Because, you know, again, I'm happy that they made, they voted to increase the number of crests positions. However, you know, it still wasn't to the level that we would have wanted. And also the other recommendations seemed like it wasn't changed. I do know that for the, at least the director of diversity, equity and inclusion that you included that in your budget. So that's good. Mr. Valkerman. So yeah, so that's my only thought, you know, so I'm not saying that we need to answer it right now, but that might be something that we need to kind of still keep at our forefront. I mean, there's a meeting now, so Ms. Pat, just so you know, on the seventh, I guess the finance committee is going to be sharing their budget. And then on the 21st, the town council will be voting on the budget. So those are the things that, you know, it's in my mind right now. If I may. Yeah. Okay. So I think from last Thursday, the finance meeting, we didn't have a chance to actually discuss or explain our budget. I think the next step for our group is to actually try to explain the comparison because I think, you know, the public are under the impression, oh, they're asking for 2. Something million compared to police APD 4. Something, but that's not the point. Because with our Crest program, we're talking about dispatchers as well. So we really need to do better job in our messaging. In terms of our budget, because I've gotten inquiries from just resident. And they didn't, they didn't realize that part of our budget for Crest also included dispatchers. So I think we need to test things out. Yeah. I also think that we need to put something in the paper to really explain. What we're proposing because I had a conversation where they would start the reporter last week. And he actually agrees that we should put something out in the paper. To counter what people think. We're asking for, because we need really need to compare Apple to Apple. Okay. So if we're talking APD budget, we need to be talking about responder budget. And then if we're talking about communication center budget, we should be talking about Crest dispatcher budget. And so on and so forth. We can compare human, human resources department budget, which is, you know, might be similar to DEI budget. Like you will try to compare Apple to Apple. Right now people, they're not getting it. And I'd be happy to, you know, to put up something that we can send to the town council. But I'm pretty sure that they get a lot of documents a lot. And we can assume that they took the time to read everything. So I think that's a good point. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Pat, Ms. Owen. I'm also, I agree with Ms. Pat entirely. And I'm wondering how the group feels about putting out some sort of press release. So the public has a more clear idea of our proposals and what we're asking for. I was really concerned by the Gazette article that was posted about our group and our recommendations. I didn't like the title. And I do agree with Ms. Pat that. Our budget isn't being thoroughly explained. But I do agree with the paper. I also think that would be a way to hold town council members accountable, just given the overwhelming amount of support for all of our recommendations. Not just class. Thank you. Miss, Ms. Pat. So I would like to volunteer myself. Maybe a work with. Brianna. For the press release. I know she started something already. But yeah, I would love to do that. And we can get that out to the group ASAP. Yep. Do you guys, when do you guys need it by Sunday, Monday? Does anybody have a preference? I'm not sure. Just as soon as you guys can find a time that works well for you guys to get together this week. I think Ms. Ferrera. Yeah, I mean, I think you all can let us know like when you're gonna send it out by when we work with your schedule and then let us know by when you wanna get our feedback by. You know what I'm saying? Because that usually works well when you say, well, get it back to me by Monday at 12 or Tuesday at 12 or whatever, and then that would make it easier. And then for me, I'm thinking whatever you all write out for the press release and the draft and whatever we kind of finalize once we come up final version, we could tweak that and kind of send that out to the town council too, you know? Sure, of course, yeah, of course. So Brianna, your schedule, is it realistic to have it sent out by Monday morning? So I'm away until Wednesday, but I did work on a first draft over the weekend and it's about two pages right now. So I can send it out to the group to make edits and everybody could just edit it. And I will, I still have access to my laptop and everything. So Monday does work for me. Okay, so yeah. So we'll send something out, you know, maybe Monday morning, okay? Okay, and when do you want it back to you so that? Okay, so give me somebody enough time. Tuesday by, when does the media, I think they have deadline every week. I don't know if it's Monday or Tuesday. I probably will check with Scott. Okay. I can look online too. Either it's Monday or something like that, or I'm as bulletin or I'm also for the dessert. I'm as bulletin. Well, okay, then just like send us an email if you need it sooner. Sooner, okay. Yeah. Okay, I'll say Tuesday morning. Okay. By 10 a.m. Okay. Okay, thank you, Ms. Pat and Ms. Owen for working on that. And then also I just had a couple of comments because I'm just looking at a few things here. And so just in regards to Ms. Ferrera's questions in terms of strategy moving forward and what else we can do, I have a couple of thoughts. So the two bodies that we were interacting with were the finance committee and the town council. And so I'm looking at notes from the June 1st meeting. It looks like they've already done a vote to pass the budget as is. So, not that I think it's a bad idea to continue to explain our budget to them, but they have already done their vote. So there's no changing that I don't believe at this point. So the only vote that we have left is the town council vote. So if we want to continue to reach out to the town council or continue to reach out to specific council members, I'm not sure if that could be a strategy moving forward. I absolutely agree with the thought of a press release and maybe even an op-ed for the paper. Just like our opinion and our thoughts also and then just a factual piece so that people who haven't been as involved can get an idea of what is happening. And so I just wanted to offer those thoughts as well. Okay, so I need to raise my hand. Yes, Ms. Brown. So a couple more things. Before we move to part B, I think that if the town council decide to set up the resident oversight board, their charge would be a lot, just dealing with APD stuff. I think that should be a group or board that should focus. And I don't, you know, the word equity has been used so much that I'm sick and tired of it. I've been reflecting a lot after last week. In this town, there are so many boards that many of the BIPOC folks are not represented. And I tend to watch planning meetings and I tend to watch planning board a lot. And I see the discrepancy between the power they have if you compare it, for example, for Human Rights Commission. I think we need to think about establishing BIPOC affairs commission. And part of the charge will be to, because I heard some councilor say that BIPOC employees come and they leave. Of course they leave because sometimes they don't get the support. I would hope that this BIPOC affairs commission, okay, will monitor the progress that the Cres program is doing, will work collaboratively with the DEI director, just like we have the human resources director working with the Human Rights Commission, just as we have the town planner director, Christine, working with the planning board. And I can go on and on and on. So we don't have anything to really monitor who is making decisions to monitor the input of BIPOC folks in this town, who are the people making decisions in power, white people, follow the money, who is benefiting for all the taxes that are being raised in this town. Mostly white people, from businesses to home ownership, we have to have a dedicated board to really monitor the progress that the town would be making moving forward. I will even go as far as to part of the job of that board would be to provide input, officially, about the performance of our time manager as well. I just feel that BIPOC community here have been taken for granted for a long, long time. And it's time for the town to include us in the decision-making process and sitting on the table, and trying to figure out what is best for everyone in this town and not just for some people. So something we really need to think about, to have the resident oversight board to do both CRES and APD, I just feel that there will be a lot and CRES might be like in the back burner because there is a lot of work to be done to supervise APD. It's going to be a lot of work dealing with the union. It will be a lot of work. So we have to be realistic what we are asking the resident oversight board to do. And I can go on and on. So something to think about, I think CRES, the way I say it is to provide support for that program, the way I see the resident oversight board is accountability of APD. That's the way I see the differences. Just like, yeah, I'll shut up. Thank you, Ms. Pat. I think that was very valuable input. Ms. Ferrara and then Ms. Owen. Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, we definitely need to kind of keep thinking through what Ms. Pat just brought up because to really think through like how all of the in-workings of the town and how we can monitor and make sure that true inclusivities is happening. So that's something definitely that, we need to talk again about. But I guess I wanted to kind of go back to what Alicia had said about ideas for strategy. I guess just to kind of finish that conversation so we can move on to some of these other things in terms of what Ms. Pat brought. And obviously the second part of our charge is we're going to do the press release. We're going to still send something also to the town council. I think it wouldn't be a bad thing for us to kind of like, meet, like maybe meet with the town council members before their vote and talk to them. I don't know how we want to do that or how we can do that. Maybe we can ask Ms. Valkerman in terms of obviously we don't want to make sure, we don't want to have a quorum or whatever but how we can go about doing that because I think that might be a good idea to kind of reach out to the town members individually and discuss with them in specificity the details of what we recommended before they do the vote on the 21st. And then I forgot what were some of the other things. I know you said an op-ed and all of that. I mean, we could do that after the press release. I think we want to keep it in their minds until the vote on the 21st. I think that would be my kind of say in regards to it but Ms. Valkerman, is there any advice you can give us in terms of like talking with the town council members? Yeah, so I think talking to individual council members I think is a really good strategy because I think, I mean, email campaigns are one thing but I think having one-on-one conversations with people is it's just more interactive and allows counselors to give you feedback directly. I think it's, you could request meetings. I'm not sure if many counselors are actually meeting people in person at this point in time but I think, you know, there's 13 counselors you could divvy up the names and each calls a few and talk to them about where they stand, what you're thinking. And that's their job is to listen. Thank you for that. I've also hired people, I'm sorry. And I think their numbers are on the website. Their phone numbers or else, if not, we can help you with that. Or you can just email them and say we'd like a meeting or time to talk. Thank you, Mr. Valkerman. I would be happy to help in assist setting that up too. I would be happy to send out emails but so I think we have options on how we would like to reach out to them. We can divvy up the names. I think that's a good suggestion or we can have, I don't know if there's any other ways that you would want to do it if everybody's interested in calling people or if you would like Ms. Pat. So I've also had people reach out to me and say, is there anything else they can do for CSWG? I think this is a time for us to reach out to our networks. People with influence in this town to please, you know, reach out to the counselors and advocate on our behalf of what we've put out as well. Like, you know, calling the counselors personally, yeah. Thank you, Mr. Valkerman. But you need to understand that the council can't increase the budget. They can only cut the budget. So as you start to think about what the request is to the council, understand what the realm of requests are, if you like the motion made by the finance committee, you could say we want you to support that motion, that type of thing. I mean, they can take other motions like the finance committee has recommended. So that's just within their realm as well. Thank you. Ms. Valkerman. Sorry, can they reject the budget as a whole? What again? In part. I'm a co-host, so I can't raise my hand electronically. So I'll just raise my hand physically. So yes, they can reject the budget. But they have to pass a budget by June 30th. What happens if they don't pass it by June 30th? We don't have money to spend for anything. And if I, sorry, if I might also add to that, Ms. Bowman, I think last year, because there was a lot of discrepancy on the budget that they did something, what they did was pass a temporary budget. So they passed a one-month budget to give them more time to discuss the budget at hand. And I think that's actually where we came from, but they requested, the way they got an extension in time was by passing a temporary budget. So I think that that's also something to think about. Ms. Ferrara. Yeah, because for me, I mean, I guess that's like for Mr. Bachman in terms of what like Ms. Bowman was saying, I want to go down the same route, Mr. Bachman, which is to ask, okay, you already told me that obviously they can increase it, they can slash it. So what are all the options? I guess what is it, like you said, would be voting to, for them to adopt the motion that the finance committee, because at least that's the biggest right amount of positions was the one that the budget, the finance committee recommended to date. At least that was it. So I guess what are our options? Because yeah, also I don't want to go talk to them to waste my time too, if it's going to be a waste of time. What are the options? Because my goal still is for us to have those recommendations in place that we made and to have the sufficient budget. So then where does that leave us, I guess? So where it leaves us is the budget that I presented to the council that was revised on last Thursday. So that's what's on the table. And they voted that motion, which to add, to have eight people working in the community responder program, but they did not, they are not able to increase the funds for that function. So I think you are all aware that the Senator Comerford has secured $90,000 in the state budget that will help, that could fund two positions for the rest of that fiscal year basically. So, and I think what the council was saying, thinking is that can we get a little bit farther than that? Thank you, Mr. Backelman, Ms. Ferreira, and then Ms. Pat. So basically you can kind of move around funds like what you were trying to do before in terms of like moving funding from the kind of, from the economic development position to the DEI position, that sort of thing. Is that what the options are? Well, both of those positions are in the town manager's budget line. So the economic development director is in the town manager's office under my budget line item and the DEI officer would also be in that budget line as well. So that's sort of just a swap for positions. We just took out, the position is still there but it's not funded for the economic development director. We're creating the new position for DEI director or officer, whatever we're calling it. And then Ms. Ferreira, I don't know if this is helpful but I think so at this point, Mr. Backelman has proposed a budget, the one that we saw on Thursday at the finance committee meeting and that's the budget that is going to the town council as proposed. So correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think they can suggest any other swaps like that at this point. That I don't know what our full spectrum of options are, but they can reject the budget, they can request a new budget, but I don't think they can say specifically they want this position swapped with this position. I don't think it's like a specificity that they can decide. Ms. Pat, did you have something you also wanted to say? Sure, I meant to say this much earlier but I was having internet issue at my home. So thank the town manager for listening to us because I remember raising the concern around why do we need economic development director because I think it benefits BADE, landlords and land owners. Thank you so much, I appreciate that. I also thank you for finding money for the DEI director and it seems like you already created position for the DEI coordinator, is that my understanding? I'm willing to support that. So and then there is the administrative assistant, correct? In that budget. So you have the DEI director, DEI coordinator, is there an administrative assistant or no? No, okay. So those two, okay. Okay, and then I don't know if you guys already discussed this, but please help me understand even with the eight responders in terms of 24-7 programming pilot program, I'm still scratching my head. I have a lot of experience in program development. I know a lot of people know me as the, you know, somebody who used to run restaurants but I'm more than that. I used to work in non-profit world and I have developed programs from ground up, particularly 24-7 is one of my specialty, Dane Binder Dane. So I'm still scratching my head, Mr. Buckman, how even with eight responders will cover 24-7 shift. Help me. I don't have an answer for you. I mean, we're again, just, we have just starting to think this through and the council hasn't even voted the budget yet. So, but we've wanted to be, I literally want to contract with LEAP to get them in and right now to get that work started that they have to do because it'll take some time for them to do a pretty detailed analysis. And I like that they've done it before and that the working group had recommended their work. And so I want to get them in now and I'm not sure how long it's gonna take them but in terms of all the details, there's a million details to work out on this program. That's why it's gonna take some time, so. I'm raising my hand again. Thank you, Ms. Pat, is it the same question? So another thing is, I believe I overheard the finance director stating that the time will be reaching out to some non-profit organizations in terms of Solaris scale. I just want to put it out right now that let me put it this way. The time will be potential competitors to some of the qualified candidates that might be interested in working for increased program. And non-profit world is notoriously known that they don't pay well. So I was highly concerned on, was it Thursday at finance committee where it was mentioned, we should not be comparing salary from non-profit world. Let me tell you, there are some folks who work in group homes and in mental health that are making minimum wage when they should be making way more. People who make good money in non-profit mental health are the clinician, the psychologist, the psychiatrist, the registered nurses. I mean, this feels, I know what I'm talking about. So we should not compare the salary with what the town plans to pay responders. Otherwise, you know what is going to happen? We're going to have a lot of turnover. We need to be paying comparably comparable salary that we pay the police officers. It's what we should be looking at. Please, nobody can live on $20,000 a year or less than $20,000 a year. Please don't do that. And since we're pushing to have more BIPOC candidates, you know, this is the time for the town to really shine and say that they actually paying people comparably to what they're paying other town employees. I cannot stress this enough. If there is any way I can be part of the discussion on salary scaling, I would love to be part of that because this is my background, part of my background. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Pat. Ms. Owen. Yeah, so I have a question for Mr. Backelman. I'm wondering what needs to happen for the CSWG to continue our work. I know that our charge ends in September, but I think the points that Ms. Pat brought up were really important. And I also think through serving on this group, we've become a liaison to the community because community safety is such an intersectional issue. So we're not just talking about alternative responders, but we're talking about translation services, housing, education, all these different things. So I would like to see the group continue. But as far as that goes, how would that be reconsidered? Are we convincing you? Are we convincing the town council? Yeah, so I think that's an important conversation I have. You have done really incredible work and I do compliment you. I look back to where we were a year ago and it's remarkable the progress that the town has made in a relatively short period of time generated by your efforts. So I just want to recognize that. You know, I think the next conversation you're going to have is the next one and then we have the conversation after that. The next one is about what about the oversight, resident oversight group, whatever we're calling that group. And let's look what that looks like and what that charges. And then let's look at what else needs to happen. And I think we just look at it sequentially. I mean, I think there's a lot of, you all have built up a lot of credibility and knowledge in the town that we'd love to continue to engage with. And if someone will be decided, you will decide some in terms of what you want to continue to contribute at what level for the town. Some people might be ready to do something else and others might say, yes, I'm fired up and ready to do more. But I think the next thing is to focus on the next part of the charge. Thank you, Mr. Backelman. Mrs. Pat. Thank you for your comment, Mr. Backelman. So one of the things that got me really excited recently was I was cruising the town website. And to my surprise, surprise good one. I saw the technology on translation and it was surprising to me pleasantly is the fact that my native language, Ibo, is in there. Three languages of Nigerian languages. I was beside myself. I was very proud of the town. Thank you. I just want to acknowledge that. Did it work? I said that I'm not advertising for anything. I said that because I translate services in my language that are some areas in this country where you have cluster of people who are my tribe and they're in the school system and are cutting to the law. Sometimes they need translation and so I provide that. So just to see something on Anna's website and saw my language included, I was like, now we're talking. And nobody knows them. Not many people know that. So that would be the work of the BIPOC affairs commission. And I said, yeah, we're seeing some progress. I'm pretty sure that our people in this town that, I saw so many languages actually, but I was able to tap into my own. I saw the translation right. I mean, the technology is wonderful. It was, you know, I wanted to test it and it worked. Perfect. Thank you. I just wanted to say that. Thank you. Ms. Bowman, I'm not sure if your hand is still up or if it was raised from before or Ms. Ferrara, if you had your hand up. Okay. So Ms. Bowman's not gonna go then? No, I think her hand was still up. I left my hand up for both of us. Okay. All right. So for me, it's just to kind of like, you know, I know that we've been kind of on this, but I wanna make sure that we are all on the same page in terms of what we're gonna be doing around the first part before we move to the second part. So Ms. Bowman, I wanna make sure that we're on the same page. I know you had your budget that you presented to the finance committee, which kind of upped, you know, some of what was in the, what we had recommended for the press program. And then you did the budget for the director, the diversity equity inclusion, and then a coordinator, right? So those two. And then you had said four positions, right? For the press, which obviously we didn't think was nearly enough. But now the finance committee has said eight positions. Do you know what those eight positions are? Is it like one director, one dispatcher, dispatcher and then four responders? I guess I don't have... I believe it intended, it was intended to have eight responders, but I would need to look at the motion. So eight responders and then... I believe that I just... So what happens to the director? I mean, who's gonna be directing the responders, I guess. So that's where I'm confused then. Yeah, it says eight, to fill eight community responder positions and the other elements of the program is proposed. So that means then what you had recommended in terms of director would still stay in place. It would be a director plus the eight responders then. I think that's what we budgeted in there, yeah. Okay, all right. So it'll be eight. But yeah, so that's what their recommendation, the request is. That's their request. Right, that's what the finance committee's recommendation to the town council is. Okay, so I guess my next question then for the group would be since the only other options would be that they reject the budget or they try to say for a new budget or whatever, which I don't know how feasible that is. I mean, I guess my thing would be, what would be our next steps? Would our next steps be then for us to make sure that we reach out at the town council? I mean, I still think we need to do our press release as is and send to the town council what we had sent before in terms. Like our press releases, describing what our recommendation was in more detail. But I'm saying in terms of contacting the town members, what are we gonna be contacting them about? Is it to say, hey, adopt what the finance committee said? What are we? Yeah, so that's where we need to kind of be on the same page. So what is it so that we can move, you know? Yeah, Ms. Pat. So basically we can, if we contact them, we just need to let them know that we would like them to reject the budget, our budget line item to reject that and how the town manager go back and redo it. I think it's the only option we have right now. I do have a question to the town manager again. I've been thinking about this. So you had recommended four responders, right? Originally. Did that include the administrators, the director and the coordinator? I think that we had that in addition to. In addition. So if I'm, and I haven't read the motion yet. So if you recommended four responders and the finance committee recommended additional, am I reading that correctly? So it would be 12 responders now. Total of eight. Total. So total is the key. Okay. Gotcha. I wanted to make sure. Let me just double check the language of the motion again. Because when you read it, I was thinking, oh, 12 responders. No, eight. They said eight community responder positions. In addition to the one, is it clear in the motion that it's an addition to what you have proposed? What they say. And the other elements of the program is proposed. And it says and so that's in addition to me, it sounded like, you know, is 12 responders. No, no, no, I think it was clear it was eight responders plus the other elements, the DEI and all that other stuff that was presentation. Okay. I got what I thought you said also would include the director then. Right. I think that was also as one of the under the other elements of the program. Yeah. So it would be a director for Crest and then the DEI and coordinator. Right. So those would be the position. That's what they, that's what they've requested. That's what they're recommending you. Got it. So altogether 10 employees. Is that correct? Right. But I should be clear that that's what their request is. And that's what my mission is. They want me to come back to them by January with what do you propose? What's the program going to look like? And again, there's so many details of this to work out that we need to really dig into it. So I wouldn't get fixated on the number so much except that, you know, what I heard from the working group was that you wanted this program to be town employees not contracted out. And I think that's something we still want to talk about because, you know, the CAHOOTS program is contracted out. But there are pluses of my assist to both. Or is contracting out as, you know, there's a million things to talk about all these things. And then the second is 24 seven coverage. And that's another sometimes some of the programs aren't 24 seven, but I think the sense, it just makes sure I understand what you're saying. Your sense is that if we don't ramp it up right away to 24 seven, people aren't, it's you're sort of setting it up to fail. And we're not looking at this, we're looking at this as an implementation program. How do we get this program up and running and implemented for success? And we're really not looking to have it fail or be diminished or anything like that because across the board, we're supportive of this and think it can really serve the town. And people are thinking, coming up with new ideas all the time. So it's really an exciting time, ways to problem solve. Thank you, Ms. Bowman and then Ms. Pat. So I actually totally forgot what I was gonna ask. So if I remember it, I'll come back to it, but my bad, I just, you just let my mind. No worries. Thank you, Ms. Bowman, Ms. Pat. So just a couple of comments on the question. So with the implementation, it looks like it will be next year. Is there plan to, you know, hire the Crest Director right away this summer? So participate to be part of the planning process. So we haven't even had that conversation yet about the timing. I think the first thing we wanna do is look at a timeline in the milestones that we wanna hit so that we don't wanna get to October, November and say, oh, we forgot to do that. We wanna get a plan laid out and where does everything fit into the plan? So I can't say yes or no to that. Yeah, because my suggestion will be, it will be really, really nice to have the director on board. I understand that. So you can get significant input from that director and help with the hiring of his or her own staff. I mean, at least that's how they've done it in nonprofit world. That's one thing to keep in mind. So with the DAI director, when are you hoping to get somebody on board? Is it the summer? So that program will have money available available to a July one if the council approves the budget. So they will vote on the budget on June 21st and I'll know for sure if they've approved the budget or not. By then we will do a job description and start to recruitment. I think this will be a, hopefully we'll get great candidates but I think it's a recruitment. It's not just putting an ad in the paper. We want to find people who are good, who can be good applicants for that job. And it will be very critical that the town advertised to outlets that actually target people of color. Yeah, and I think- I don't know the history. I don't know where the town recruits beside the website or even indeed beside those. There are some networks that the town could advertise to attract highly qualified BIPOC candidates. Something to keep in mind. Yeah, so Ms. Boyston works in the HR department as well and she has expanded the scope of how the HR department has reached out. And along those lines, I would like to, I will be reaching out to Ms. Farah to get her experience because I know that these positions can be set up to succeed or fail. And I wanna make sure that this is an important position for the town and that it's not a, we want it to succeed. That's right, that's right. And in order for it to succeed also is to have enough resources to carry the duties, the job. And so I'm assuming that will be enough funding in the department. Because the 90K is for the salary, but there are other things that come with it. So I'm assuming that it will be included in the budget or somewhere. Because if we just hire a director and that's it and said, that's it, it's not going to work out. It will not work out. So this brings me to the position of recreational director. So where is the town at this? And what is the town doing to attract BIPOC folks? Because I very much like to have BIPOC candidate the opportunity to apply as well. So is this like the, is the recreation director like LSSC director, like the same level like home and resource director, like the APD chief, like the public works director. Definitely we should really, really think about attracting qualified BIPOC. That's what I'm talking about in terms of equity and influence and power. We need somebody, I'm hoping we'll get to our three BIPOC folks in directorship position in this town. So that we can start leveling the playing field. So what is the town, what are we with the hiring process with that position? I know they're getting ready to interview. I mean, I can talk, this is not exactly a topic for this committee, but I'm happy to talk with you that another time, Ms. Pat. But where we are, I think Ms. Moisten may know better than I know that we've had applicants. I know they're getting ready to do interviews. I'm not sure where else it is on that. That's working its way through the process. Ms. Moisten, if you wanna offer some response to Mrs. Pat as well. So it has been harder for us from the HR perspective to reach out to the different networks. So any networks that individuals have is great. I mean, I often do a lot of like recruiting for people that I just know in the communities trying to get them to apply. Our affirmative action policy requires that we have to interview anyone who applies for any position that is identified as a person from an under-representative group or BIPOC community member or other marginalized community member. So thank you for sharing that. So that's part of what I'm thinking about the new committee. Like that BIPOC affairs commission, like when positions of power comes up, how many people of color applied? You know, and did any of them get hired or not? You know, tracking things like that because right now, I don't know anything about that in this town. All I know is we have mostly white folks in power of positions that have little or nothing to understand our experiences as people of color. Yeah. Yes, Ms. Moisten. I just real quick, cause I know Tishina and Brianna have their hands up as well. But I also want to say, you know, one of the things that is the struggle. So first of all, I think a lot of people between councils and our personnel board and the town manager are striving for us to diversify our staff at all levels, right? Cause it's really not a reflection of what you see outside when you walk outside of town hall. And I will say that we do, but there's like a lot of cultural changes that need to happen that exceed, I don't want to say exceed race, but there's just, you know, there's things that need to happen here in order for us to be able to retain individuals from different backgrounds that are being worked on as well. And so, you know, it might have to all roll out kind of at the same time in order to get it done, but those efforts are being thought of now and will be pursued. Thank you, Ms. Moisten. Ms. Bowman and then Ms. Owen. So I really agree with Ms. Moisten. That was actually where I was gonna go with this is that, you know, they've done in this community, there has been hiring efforts to get people of color, people of color, Lord have mercy, people of color in particular into the school system. And on average, it lasts about two years, okay? We have a few exceptions to the role, but in average, they kind of, especially if they're coming from outside of this community, they only last about two years. We have to figure out, like, if we're gonna really push to have BIPOC people recruited into these positions, then we really need to have something set up to offer support because, you know, I've had a few conversations with some of the people who have been administrators, teachers, so on and so forth who are like, now I'm leaving because I don't have any support. I'm the only one, I don't have any support. I'm out of here. I'm not gonna continue doing this. This is ridiculous. You know, anytime I make a grievance, anytime I make a blah, blah, blah, like there was one particular person that was a principal and I had absolutely no problem with him, I got along with him no problem, white teacher, every white parent had an issue with them because he would call them on their BS. We need to know that there's administration, there's people backing that person so that they don't feel isolated and alone. And that is one of the biggest issues as to why we don't maintain having people of color working in government and working in our school systems and so on and so forth because they don't have support. So that being said, one of the things that I was thinking is that just as far as ideas for recruitment is looking at the HBCUs, looking at the HBCUs and trying to recruit people coming in from those locations, looking at people, because I think you're gonna really ultimately have a very hard time trying to pull people from other communities where they're working with other people of colors in their communities. Cause I think what's gonna happen is we're gonna get them and they're gonna go right back because they're gonna be like, absolutely not. Because that's what Amherst does, absolutely not. When people of color come into this community who have not been here before, they enter this community, they have hopes and dreams because the non-BIPOC community sings a great song but when the reality comes and it hits the fan, they absolutely do not back these people and these people up and leave, they go back to their communities where they are working in more of a safe environment. Amherst is not a safe environment and until we really approach Amherst as being a non-safe environment for BIPOC community, which means we are setting up situations that like we're setting up boards or whatever to support BIPOC people within the community who are administrators, who are people who are working in government who are people who are working in whatever they're doing that has to do a place of exposure, a place where they're in charge of non-BIPOC people, they need a place where they feel safe. They need to be able to turn around and be like, this is what I'm trying to implement, this is what I'm trying to implement it and this is the pushback that I'm getting, can you get your people and get them on board? They need that, they need that support and so I'm gonna say right now that until like that's part of the big picture, like you have to get that, that has to be part of this when as you're like looking at creating a system. Thank you, Ms. Bowman. Ms. Owen. Yeah, for me, Mr. Bowman, I'm wondering if you can provide more clarity around Crest Responders being paid salary ranges in comparison with non-profits. I think that's a really dangerous idea with implementing this program. For perspective, I'm a director at a non-profit and I work two jobs and I worked three over the pandemic. So I don't think that's gonna retain staff for Crest and also I think just after investigating the APD, the different officers' salaries, it's a little bit disappointing because we're asking them to do simpler things. We have not set salaries or job descriptions for any of the positions that all that work has to be done. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bowman. Thank you, Ms. Owen. Okay, just in light of the time, I wanted to double back if possible to the question of whether or not we're looking to request an extension for the second part of our charge. So it looks like our second report is due June 30th, which is at the end of this month. I don't know if an extension is possible, but I'm just wondering if that is what we're interested in as a group right now. And if we would like to have that discussion with Mr. Bowman since he is available. Ms. Ferreira. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I definitely want to have that discussion with Mr. Bowman to see about an extension of the charge and whether there's any budget to get anyone to help us out or whether we'd have to do this on our own because there is no budget. I want to get more clarity on that. So yeah, the deadline is important because we want to keep this project moving. There are three more meetings. If you're meeting weekly, there are three more meetings. So, I mean, I would suggest just my opinion would be that go at it and see how far you get on the next couple of meetings and see if we need additional time. We can talk about that. You know, we don't have the funds for the $80,000 is expended. We have dedicated the last $12,000, I think we had to partially to the core equity team and partially to the reparations framework group. Thank you, Mr. Bowman. Ms. Ferreira and then Mrs. Pat. Okay, so all right, that's clear. We don't have further funding. I guess the other thing though, you didn't mention was I thought we were going to be paying some gift cards to people that had done the surveys and have spoken at the two forums. Did we do that? So is there funding for that though? I want to make sure we have funding for that because we have to be our word. I think that was included in the contract with the seven gen group. That was the way we were able to do that. We can't give, the town can't give gift cards to people. That's not loud, but I think the deal was we were going to contract with the seven gen group and they were going to be able to process it that way. Well, yeah, I guess I'm not clear on that. So you're saying that folks that went to the forum, the two forums and did the surveys, they were going to get the gift cards through seven gen? I don't, when Ms. Moyster had to step away when she comes back, she made no more about that, but yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure where that stood honestly. Thank you, Mr. Buckleman, Ms. Pat and then Ms. Bowman. Okay, so actually myself and Alicia and Ms. Moyster was subcommittee on gift card. And I think what we had proposed to CSWG is to get it to work collaboratively with the Chamber of Commerce, something like that, because Ms. Marchion had told us that the town don't purchase gift card. And so that's what I think we're supposed to be doing. So I'm hoping we have a little bit of money, at least 1,000 to cover the people we promised we were going to give $25 gift cards. I hope we have some money for that. My second thing is if we don't have, and I'm switching topic, if we don't have budget for this fiscal year to do the Part B, would there be money in 2022 fiscal year if we need help to complete Part B? Because the way I'm looking at it, I don't want us to rush it. I mean, we'll meet every week, we'll do subcommittee, but I don't think we can pull it off end of June. And then July comes new fiscal year, there should be money if we need help to do a thorough job because I have a lot to say about, you know, how to reform the police, especially with traffic stop and, you know, all that process stuff. So I just want us to make sure that we do a very good job that will present to the town manager and to the town council. So I'm pleading that we'll probably need help to get the work done by September. Thank you, Ms. Pat, Ms. Bowman. Yeah, so I kind of agree with Ms. Pat because like what I don't understand is that we're supposed to be going until September, right? But so I feel like, I don't know, I feel like there should have been money put in the budget for us to continue our charge through September. I don't know, I just, I'm like, again, like I'm in a place of feeling frustrated and defeated and duped and like, I just, I don't know, like I just, I feel like the town says a lot of words and they don't mean any of it. And it's kind of exhausting, it's kind of exhausting. Like I want to be, I want to participate in this and I want to be part of change in this community. But I feel like what ends up happening, just like the people who leave after two years, it's like everything's a fight, everything's a challenge, everything's an argument. And you know, I don't know, I just, it's really disappointing. It's really, really disappointing. And I want better for the community that I've been in for 30 years. And I just, I don't know, I just, I really just think that like, it's just, here we go again. I really do feel like it's here we go again. We're doing this over again. We've done this 15 plus years of, you know, hey, we're going to do this thing. And then after about a year, just windows out and goes away. And it's really, really frustrating. And like I said, very disappointing. And I'm very like just shame on this town, the shame, shame, shame on this town. I just hope that like, I just hope that like, people like the non-bibog people can really like, really feel shame. I really do. Because I just, I'm, every single wall that could be come up is coming up, you know, and, you know, we're trying to implement something that's good for the whole community, but like not even thinking about just ourselves, we're thinking about the community as a whole. And we're still being stepped on. And that's so frustrating. And I really, really, really hope that I'm misinterpreting the situation, but my gut says I'm not. My gut says in six months, this is going to be just another whim, you know, in the back of the minds of the non-bibog people of this community. Thank you, Ms. Bellman, Ms. Pat. So. Pashina, thank you for saying this so eloquently. And that's what I've been observing this town. When it comes to BIPOC affairs, it's nickel and diamond us. Let's call it spade a spade. Let's call it out. Okay. Seven gen. With highly qualified over qualified. And company. Only charged or 60 K only. I challenge people in this town to go do their research. And find out what it actually costs to do the work that they did for us. They went above and beyond. And yet some town councilors had to question the amount being paid. At the same time, nobody heard the similar amount of money. That went to the business community and the business woman. Okay. I am not anti-business. I just wanted to be honest and simple. I wanted to be honest and simple. I wanted to be honest and simple. I wanted to make sure that nothing was said about similar project to revitalize downtown to bring back commerce in Ames Town. Actually, that contract was actually conceded out. Not to it wouldn't benefit whoever the consultant was. Nobody should be surprised about it. We have budgeted more than $100,000 to fix a mess common. Are you kidding me? When we're telling people how we're being harassed by police, when we're not benefiting from all the money that is rolling in in this town, and then we have to beg to get additional help in this project, I mean, that's why we need more people to be speaking up to be, you know, pointing things out. I did that with special education as a co-chair, co-president for CPAC, and I was very successful. We were able to expose corruption. We were able to expose some educators whose license expired. We were able to expose people who were not qualified for their positions of authority. Because I had to request for public records. We posted everything on CPAC website. That's my contribution in this town. We need to follow the money. We need equity. I can't come up with another name, but that's what is overused. If this group is saying we need additional money to complete a budget, I get irritated when excuses come because I'm 100% sure we have the money. We have reserve. Yes, we want to get good, you know, rating if we go to borrow money. Borrow money to benefit who? Okay, to benefit who? Who is getting contracts in this town? Who are getting the, you know, we're going to have a lot of building projects. I'll be following the money. Who will win the contracts? The contractors are actually hiring people of color to benefit from the money that will come out of doing some of this construction. I am geared up to be calling it out, exposing it, and I have nothing to lose. I have nothing to lose. I survived back a restaurant when I was calling things out with special education. I'm in hardly now. Even if I'm still in our midst doing business, I have no problem calling it out. You know, we're just tired and I agree with Tashina. She's right. We're being stepped on and that's not okay. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Pat, Miss Ferreira and then Miss Bowman. Yeah. Yeah, and I guess this is for Mr. Backelman and you've heard from Miss Bowman and from Miss Pat. You know, I think for me, it has to be like, we need to figure out an extension. It can't be like, okay, you all need to go hard for the next three weeks. It's not going to get done. You know what I'm saying? So we need to figure out on, okay, by when can we get the extension, Mr. Backelman, because that's basically it. We're not going to rush this. We can't get this done in three weeks time. There's no way. So that's one, two, you've heard from us. Is there a way to get more money? I mean, we can continue to do work. But given the new fiscal year, is there a way to get some additional funds to be able to hire a consultant group? Well, we already have a, we already have, yeah, we already have a relationship with Seven Gen. Is there a way to kind of extend their contract or whatever the need be so that we can contract them to help us with this? I guess, so those are my two questions. And completely, we need to figure this out. I guess that's the thing, not to say, well, there isn't anything. How can we figure this out? How can we make this happen? Yes, Mr. Backelman. So I guess the question is, what is the work plan? What is the need and what's the timeline you're requesting? So I think at the working group, how much more time are you looking for? What do you need consulting support for? We can't extend the Seven Gen contract. It's not, that contract is terminated. We already did the IFB for that. And I think there isn't, we've given that, I think previously we had talked about, we had $12,000 left, but we've reallocated that funding. Assuming that, I assume that this work was going to be done by the staff, by the working group. We can provide staff support to help you with some of this work. I mean, writing a charge is, most of our committee charges are about two pages long. So we can certainly provide some samples of that. We can go to other communities and see what their charges look like in terms of creating a resident oversight committee. We can do some of that legwork for you so you don't have to do that. And then I guess, I'm not sure what other things that you want to take on. Yes, Ms. Bowman, did you have your hand up? Yeah, the other question that I had, that I feel like she's never got answered. And then I guess it's for you, Mr. Backelman. So, so let's, when an officer retires, right? They're at one pay bracket, right? But when an officer comes in, they're at a lower pay bracket. What happens to that money in between? Because obviously you were paying more to one and now you're paying less to the new one. So what's going on with that money in between that? What's going on with the difference between the one who retired and the one who is coming in new? So under the towns, when there's savings in the town's budgets, that would be called a savings, that money gets returned to the town. It goes into our free cash and then that gets reallocated as needed to whatever the budget requires. That's interesting. And thank you, Miss Owen, Mr. Backelman, to answer your question on like what we would need consultants for. I think that the second part of the charge confuses me a little bit because obviously it's written as if it's geared toward resident oversight, but also exploring the structures of the police department. I would want to know more about the APD being an accredited agency and learning more about what control we do have over policies and procedures. Because again, in the forums and in the surveys, we did review really horrific stories that I would say warrant us to investigate those policies and procedures that could change. But also I'm not sure how much jurisdiction we have over that, given that the APD is an accredited agency. Oh, so that's it. So my interpretation was that the resident oversight group was going to do that work. That's you're going to set the charge and then they were you're going to say, go look at all their policies and that they were going to do whoever was on it on that resident oversight group was going to take on that task of examining the work. I want to call on Ms. Farer and then Mrs. Pat, but if I could just really quickly read the just the second part of our charge, it is to make recommendations on reforms to the current organizational and oversight structures of the Amherst Police Department, and then it specifies later by exploring models of resident oversight of police departments and recommending reforms to the current organizational and oversight structures. Thank you, Ms. Farer. Yes, thank you so much, Alicia, for saying that because that's exactly what I was going to ask was for the charge. Because our charge was not just to recommend the oversight board. The only thing the only reason why we recommend that the resident oversight board was because we know that, of course, it could be a budget. There's going to be a chunk of money that was going to be needed for that. But this reforms is around reforms. There's so much that we need to talk about in regards to performing the police, the APD. I mean, you know, residents aren't happy in general. And then specifically BIPOC residents are unhappy with with the performance of the APD. We need to look at the diversity. We need to look at the structure. We need to look at what they've been doing all these years. We need to look at their hiring. We need to look at supervision. We need to look at the officers and what they do. We need to look at this community, you know, policing that they do. We did this a gazillion amount of things that we need to do in regards to actually and we need to look at all the research like we did for part A, right? In terms of what others have been doing around reforming the police structures and one of the most pivotal parts, which is traffic violations, right? We need to look at what we're going to be doing to reform the traffic stops that they put in place because that's the number one way that they profile people of color. So you ask me, what do we need to do? Part B is a ginormous amount of money. And then you have the oversight board that we still need to define what more specifics in terms of what we want them to do. It's a ginormous task. It's not just a rush, rush, rush and do a charge for the oversight board. Oh, no, no, no, no. We have a lot to say and we have a lot to research and we have a lot to put on paper in regards to recommendations for reform. Thank you, Miss for Miss Pat and then Miss Bowman. OK, I don't want to repeat what Miss Prada just said. That's exactly what I wanted to say, but she even said it much better. In addition to that, OK, us researching and coming up with recommendation for the organization or the structure of APD, it will also be an opportunity to educate, raise awareness in our community because, you know, APD is a huge mystery. You know, knowledge is power. I'm hoping that our second charge will not only provide recommendations to reform it, but also to empower, to inform, especially bifurcate folks, how the APD system works. OK, so I'm seeing this as an educational component. I've lived in this town for a long, long time. I've never run an office or any of that, but I will consider myself as somebody that is considered credible in this town and people do, you know, reach out to me for all kinds of questions. I may not be in any committee. I may not be very articulate, but people do come for me, for wisdom, to check, you know, where I am on different issues. And I think people are anxious. I'm ready to hear what our recommendation is, you know, beyond the site, the resident oversight board. So I see our work like really, really huge. I think we're going to, we should expect some, you know, public comments. And it might be a real traumatizing some people. So I'm not seeing this as just, you know, one or two pages. We do respect to you, Mr. Buckman, but we're talking about decades and decades of history of what BIPOC works have been through in this town. We need to be very transparent, bring everything out here in the open. No, because people deserve to know some things that have been like a mystery to them, it should not be. And I hope, you know, that's what you thought when you, when the committee that interviewed us that we're supposed to do. And so when I'm involved with something, I have to be very subtle. People know me for that, you know, and even with the police reform, I said beyond that, like, Human Rights Commission will be part of what we'll be recommending, you know, the human rights commission, for them to have more power to implement, to do their work. These are very, you know, good people, intelligent people who could do the work better, but their hands are tied by being considered advisory. I think it should be beyond that. I have some ideas when we start discussing, because when I hear about when I think about police reform, it goes just beyond police reform. People have to have outlet where they can say, I want to go to Human Rights Commission and I want solution. And not just, oh, this is personal issue. We're going to human resource. Yeah, we know all that, but the Human Rights Commission should have power. Just like planning board, that's the model most organizations should be. Planning board, they approve or disapprove. They allow public to make comments, you know, abutors like, you know, homeowners can object to stuff. But, you know, they have a lot of power. I would like to see that the Human Rights Commission. I'd like to see that with BIPOC Affairs Commission. I'd like to see that in resident oversight board. So when we're talking about equity, that's a lot that is involved. That's what I want to say. Thank you, Ms. Bowman. Did you still have your hand up, Ms. Moisten, I do not have my hand up. OK, thank you, Ms. Bowman, Ms. Moisten. So I feel like the second half of the charge and I know like during the first before we really started working on the first or you guys started working on the first part of the charge, I sent you guys out recommendations and I feel like the same thing applies here where the recommendations you guys might be able to come up with and leave the and send the the exploring the models, the reviewing of policies and complaints and trainings and examining the different public safety. Well, that part you've already done. But there are certain parts that I think that you guys might absolutely need to have another consultant come in and do. But just like I said, and I had recommended for you guys to do the recommendations on your own, which was what ended up happening. I think that you guys can still do these recommendations and then have the consultant do that other piece only because I say this because we already know like if you walk into the police department, how you feel like you already kind of have an idea of those things. And maybe some of it would need some more investigation. And I'm not trying to say that you guys don't need a consultant. But I just think, again, the recommendations in the same way that you guys had to do the first set of recommendations from the first part of the charge, you guys had you did those on your own. And you guys can probably do these. I feel like you guys can do these recommendations on your own, but you still need the consultants to do the remaining stuff, you know, to help you with those interlacing pieces of information. And I'm not saying that to do the recommendations, you don't have to do any background work because it absolutely needs to be done. It's just a. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Mohsen, Miss Ferrer. Yeah, I mean, I hear you, Miss Mohsen, you know, what you're saying. But, you know, obviously we've been through a very trying and difficult process for that first part, which I did not come out of that process very trusting. So for me to kind of think that I could just do recommendations that are empty, that don't have any backing with it, you know, from a consultant that's gone and done a bunch of research and stuff like that. Even with what we have from 7th Gen, we were questioned up and down till this day. They basically don't even, you know, really even, you know, trust what 7th Gen came up with. Never mind if we just walk in with like some recommendations based on just us, you know what I'm saying? So no, I don't trust that. We would have to the same way we treated part A, we need to treat part B, right? We need to have forum. We need to make sure that people are able to chime in in terms of of what they would want for the because again, these are going to be police officers that are going to be in place right now, still at 43, 44, however many, right? So we need to make sure that that, you know, these recommendations are going to be applicable to them. And then as they get decreased, because hopefully that's what's going to happen to them, right, they're going to get decreased because the crest is going to be taken over in terms of a lot of their work. But still, whatever police officers are remaining, these recommendations are going to be applicable to them. So my thing is, is that we need to treat this with the same veracity, the same importance, the same type of, you know, seriousness that we took part A. This is not just the kind of like, oh, well, let's just get this done really quickly and stuff like that. And I don't trust it, Miss Poison. I'm sorry, I don't trust the town to be to this for us to just do like what we were told by Mr. Barkman last time. Just write up some recommendations and then, you know, send it in. And we did that. And then we got question of the wazoo about it. Well, you didn't put enough details. You didn't even include this and that and the third, you know? No, no, no, no, no, you know? And so my other question is for Mr. Barkman in terms of, so in order for me to have an idea in terms of how much time I would need, right, I would need to know, OK, we're writing the recommendations to you, Mr. Barkman. And then what happens? And then what you're presenting it to the town council? Is there going to be a series of meetings like there was for part A? I still need to know that, you know, so that I can know what the timeline is. Because as of right now, our charges of September 1st, I would say we need the summer. You see what I'm saying? To get this done. It's not at the end of June. We need until August, you know, 15th or whatever, you know? I mean, you need to tell me about when you need the recommendations and blah, blah, blah, but I know my charge in September 1st. So I'll be giving you something before September 1st, right? But maybe it's the day before September 1st. I don't know. So you need to tell me what, what, what, you know, what to deal. So I go back to how much money do we have to be able to hire someone to help us out or, you know, and let me put it there. And then I want you to to answer my other questions. My when do you need the recommendations? Because then I could tell you how long we would have to do them. But it's not going to be June 30th, because that's not season. No, it's not. Might I be able to just add a couple of questions on to Ms. Ferrer's questions before Mr. Bachman answers just because I had a similar questions? And I thought that the reason we were working off of June 30th was because we were hoping that these funds would be included in this fiscal budget and that we would want these things to be implemented right away when the fiscal budget was available. But there aren't like the question of the funds available for this to be in place right away. It's still a question mark, like there was the ADK set aside for racial equity that could be used by the resident oversight board, but could be used by other things also. So there isn't like a set amount of money allocated for the resident oversight board. And so because of that, I think that kind of frees us of the deadline of it needing to happen by the 30th. I'm not sure if that's correct. So I still would like the same answers for Mr. Bachman, but just like an interpretation of that would also be helpful. And then in terms of funding, I think there was also just the discussion of free cash and if that's something that we could use, like free cash or stuff in the budget that wasn't used, if that money would be available, I think we would have to like put in a request or I don't know what that process actually is. So. So I think the best the best course is to say what are you what is the information we need? I'll say we, because I feel that what's the information you need in order to develop the second part of the charge and to answer the questions that you have and then lay out the timeline in the process. And I think, you know, as you start to lay that out and I hear you saying we will need the summer to do that in order to finish it. Most of the recommendations, if I look at the things, they're non-monetary implementation things. It's like change this policy, change that policy. It could be something like that. So I don't think I think that's why this was set up separately because it didn't have budget implications in terms of the implementation of the recommendations that would come out of the setting up an oversight board or or having changes of use of force policies or whatever. So I think that that's that's why it wasn't tied to the budget necessarily the first part we anticipate it would be tied to the budget. You know, and I guess what would be important is to say you know, I can't give you a number on what you don't build to you say what you what the need is where you need help with this part of the of the research or that part of the research. I think just to be clear about what that would look like. And if there's if there are things that we can provide with existing staff and research that we can provide, we will. And if there's things that we need to go outside for support on, we can look at where we can get funds to do that. And so I think, you know, I think Ms. Walker pointed out to the $80,000 that that is in the budget for a next fiscal year. So that would become available on July 1. Thank you, Mr. Bachman and Ms. Farera, just if you wanted to follow up to that question, I would like to give you an opportunity to respond first. So you can go you can go to Miss Pat and then Miss Pat. So, Mr. Bachman, when you say staff support, what does that exactly entails? Because the way I look at it, your employees are good people. But at the same time, I mean, they work for you. It would be different for an independent consultant to work with us. So I'm not saying that we will not, you know, we don't want, you know, support from your staff to do research for us. But you've heard a number of us saying that we don't trust the town, you know, can you at least understand that? Because this is, you know, we're talking about reforming police. And then you want to offer some of your staff to help us if we need for that research done. I can't speak for the rest of the committee members. I'm not going to trust the research outcome. It's just because of how is the best way to put it? It just I won't receive it as well as if it's coming from a consultant that involves people of color, that they're not employed, currently employed by the town, that are independent, that they're free to, you know, find out, you know, what they found out, what is working other places, challenges people are getting into, as opposed to having what I call insider helping us out. And I'm speaking for myself right now. I can't speak for everybody else. So that's, you know, we receive Jennifer very well because, you know, I can identify with her, you know, she's like, you know, I look at her like she could be my, you know, baby, baby sister, or even she can be my first daughter type of thing. So it's different when I look at her. And I look at you, Mr. Bachman, you're a very good man, but I can't help your white man. And you have a lot of power and influence because of your position. So that's how I always see you, you know, as much as, you know, you come from a very good place, you know, you don't want to help. But my experience and your experience are very different. And so that's, you know, when we, when we talk about, when we, when we, when we talk about how we will, you know, our, our vision for this time, that's where we're coming from. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Farah. As a way to move forward, I know that we had worked on, we had draft RFP for the second part. I think if you recall, we had already started doing that. But the thing is, is that we were like, well, we don't know if we're going to have enough money. But so I think that that could be a starting point, right? When you keep on asking us, well, what do you need the consultant for? We could start with that draft that we have put together. Now we can update it, right? Based on the fact that we've gone through part A and we've seen the details, the details of the capacity and the detail that we need to have in regards to our recommendations, we can update that, you know, but that would be a starting point at least to get that conversation going. Because yeah, I mean, you know, yeah. Thank you. And obviously I'm thankful that we've had the support from the staff, like the other staff person to help us with the first RFP was very helpful. Jennifer and yourself, Mr. Bachman, however, this is very specific, right? And as Ms. Pat said, we need a consultant group that has a specific expertise like seven gen had, and that are independent from the town. So that then they also, they're independent from us, independent from the town. And so they bring a certain neutrality, but also a certain respect, right? And even given that, remember how question they were, you know, so never mind if it is someone that's tied to us or tied to you all or anything like that, then they won't be given any respect. So that's why we would need to get someone that's independent, but obviously that we are lying in agreement with hiring so that they could assist us in doing this work. Thank you, Ms. for Ms. Moisten. So I just wanted to go back because I, and just say, particularly to Ms. for I'm not saying that you guys don't need a consultant or that you need to do these blind, blind, but when you go back and think about it, the first part of those recommendations, the seven gen hadn't submitted their recommendations, right? You guys came up with those off of the information from the stuff that we did. And I made it very clear when I said that you guys will have to do research and open forms or whatever that may be. And part of them, part of you guys been questioned so much as A, because this is new, B, because it had large numbers, C, because people just don't believe that. You know what I mean? Like the people didn't really understand what you guys were saying to them, like that BIPOC people are treated differently. Like they, they didn't, they don't understand that. So between high numbers, not believing and just being new, they're going to question it to the umpt degree, which they would probably, I mean, maybe they won't do it so much with the second half, because you guys have well established, you guys have voice, how you feel. I'm just saying that I don't know how much money is going to be given, but we all know that the consultants are expensive, right? And then there's a certain amount of this that can be done or started or whatever to relieve some of that work that the consultants have to do because it's, and I don't know what is in, you know, the $80,000 though, I thought was kind of for resources for the, I'm so sorry, the resident advisory, not resident advisory, the resident oversight committee, maybe I'm wrong. I don't, but so we don't want to touch that $80,000 because you guys are going to want that to go there. And we know that if you hire a consultant to fill up that whole second part of the recommend, you know, the whole second part of your charge, that's going to be $75,000 plus, right? And that's going to be all of the money. So I'm just trying to offer, you know, some suggestions and how you guys can work with this at the same time and get the same results. And I'm not saying by far that you guys don't need a consultant because there's a lot of stuff in that second part of the charge. And it's equally as heavy as the first part. There's just no money piece to it necessarily. If that makes sense. So I just wanted to clarify and, and, and state that, that's all. Can, can I just respond real quick? Yes, Mr. I mean, I, I get that, um, Ms. Moisten, obviously that, you know, I think. As you saw, you know, we're going to continue to do our independent work and coming up with the recommendations and things like that. But we do need that assistance in terms of the, the data, the research. And there's certain things that we can't do ourselves, even if we do the forums and everything that only as we saw, only gets a certain, you know, a certain group of people that have access to internet and so on and so forth, right? And even if we end up doing something in person at some point, whatever, that's still going to only get a certain viewpoint from certain people. And we might, especially when reforming the police, there's going to be a lot of people that are going to want to talk to us, especially marginalized folks, why the folks that get impacted by police on a day to day basis. All right. So, so we're going to need that to have that type of, of, of, you know, back and forth with, with that, with that group too. You know, my thing is that again, I get it that all of this, this is new and things like that, but unfortunately, you know, we're not getting, we don't get the benefit of the doubt with this, you know what I'm saying? We have to be strong. We have to come thorough. We have to come detailed. We have to come focused with that type. This type of information because when we were going through the first part, I felt there was a lot of like misinformation and a lot of it did come from, you know, the town and stuff like that. That we had to kind of circumvent or try to jump over and stuff like that. And so I don't want the same type of mistake. And lastly, I mean, again, we're jostling for money, right? So again, it's like, well, you know, again, it's kind of like trying to be divisive while we gave some money to reparations. We gave some money for the equity group and stuff like that. Well, why isn't there money to these groups, period point blank, because these are the groups that are helping out this population, which again, as we know, is the population that's hurting. It's the population that gets the scraps, right? We always get the scraps. The BIPOC population gets the scraps, right? And I remember like when I was working at UMass and doing, you know, different work and everything like that, I remember when I would come across certain populations. And I remember a lot of populations talking about, it's about the majority. It's not about the folks that are, you know, less than number and everything like that. And I never forget that. That no, it's not about the majority. It's about everybody, right? It's about everyone. And seeing that folks that are more, you know, the numbers aren't as, as big as the majority. They're the ones that are always as we, that's why we use the words marginalized and so on and so forth. And I'm not even talking to you, Ms. Moyes. And I'm talking in general, right? To the town, that the town, you know, is, is never, you know, ready to take ownership of that, to take responsibility of that, right? That it's only certain residents that, that get, you know, the full effect of the town, they get the benefits of others do not. And this thing about us now having to scrap for money for consultants is an example of that. I'm sorry, but this is, this is it. This is, we're seeing it happen yet again. Because we've had to scrap, right? We have, we've had to be like, oh, okay, we can't get a good consultant because we can't. So we have to put all the money towards part A. And so now we have no money towards part B. What is that? You know, I mean, so again, setting us up for failure, setting us up for us to not do as good a job, setting us up for us to not have the information that we need to have so that then if we don't include it in our charge and our recommendations, then we got called for it, right? And that's not fair to us. No, I'm someone that when I take on something as Ms. Pat, as everyone else on this group is, right? When we take on something, we want to be thorough and detailed and we want to do a very good job. Because if we, if we don't do it, we're not letting just ourselves, right? And our families down, we're letting the residents of Amherstown and specifically the BIPOC residents of Amherstown, right? So I take this, you know, as, as, you know, very seriously in terms of this and why are we here again fighting for scraps? You know, so why, why is it, you know, Rob Peter to pay Paul and so on and so forth? No, we need the funding to get this done correctly. Right. And I'm not, I like, I'm not arguing that point with you nor the part of the consultant or needing it because you guys worked hand in hand, but you made the last recommendations on your own. And I'm not saying that you guys should do that again. I'm just saying that like you, it, I'm just trying to say that there are, that I think that you guys can start to move forward with it. And but you do need the consultant. I'm trying to make myself very clear. I'm not saying that you guys don't need a consultant. I absolutely think that you do. The second part of the charge is super heavy and it almost seems even heavier than the monumental section of the first charge, right? The only difference is there's no money. And I know you guys don't trust the town. And so I will offer up that I know that just in general, the culture here for the town is, is a little, the infrastructures create a little bit. Crazy. And some of it has to do with the race and some of it doesn't. But I know that we, you know, I think I'm trying to say, like, the human resources department is very well aware of, of PD and we, and, and as part of the change to the overall culture, we were going to start to look at that. And I hope that you guys can chime in with the HR department and work kind of with them to a certain degree too. But I'm, and I'm, and I'm not at all trying to take from you guys. I'm not trying to like say that you don't need this because I don't want you guys to fail either, right? Like it was a waste of all of our time, regardless of where I sit, right? It's still a waste of time. And so that's not my, my thing here, but I, you know, similar to the first one, the first part of the charge was make the recommendations and you guys made them. And yes, we need to have forms. And yes, you can work side by side with a consultant, but you made those, what I'm trying to say is you made those recommendations without the consultant's recommendations, but you did utilize some of their information. And I think that the same thing can happen in the same manner, but you still need it. You just don't have to have it so heavy-sided on, on the consultant, maybe. I don't know. That's, I do know that's what I'm trying to say, but that's what I'm trying to say, sir. Thank you, Royston. I'm Mr. Backelman. And then I think Ms. Pat also had her hand up. Do you want me to go first, Ms. Pat? Yes, please. Okay. So I didn't, so if you have that draft RFP, can we start looking at what that looks like? And if there's something that you need to, or maybe take some time to refine it and look at it again. You know, as you know that, you know, doing any kind of RFP takes a chunk of time. So I think it would be helpful not to delay, you know, continue the work, like Ms. Boyston said, some of the things you may already know where you want to go or things you want to address, but you do need the sort of support. So let's look at how we can get there. And let's start with looking at the draft RFP and figure out how we can start to build on this. And, you know, I think it's, it's to our benefit to keep the process moving. And to, you know, lay out a timeline and start to say what, where are the gaps that we need to research in? What are the things we think we can, I keep saying, what are the gaps you think you can do yourselves with town support? And see how we can, what we can do on that. I have the last IFB for phase two. And I'm going to go ahead and make a few comments. Like on my screen now, I mean, probably don't want to share it because it's kind of late, but I will send it out to you guys and then you guys can go from there with what you guys think. Thank you, Ms. My son, that would be very helpful. Miss Pat and then if I might make a few comments also. So basically it seems like people have said what I wanted to say. When the subcommittee myself, Alicia and Mr. Buckman suggested there's no way any consultant on the planet with the timeframe, they'll be able to do the whole thing for us. I was the one who suggested we break it into part A and part B is what I was going to say. I was going to say that Mr. Buckman is the same document that, you know, you created for us and we just, you know, decided to do partial, but the other one, we didn't touch. And so we should have that document or, you know, Miss moisture will send it to us. And I'm glad that Ms. Brera raised it. I want to throw out three numbers. And I want it to sink in to all of us as we're talking about when it comes to funding for BIPOC projects. Okay. One I'm going to repeat. The front of the town hall. How they come on more than 100 K. To fix it. Cherry golf course. The expenses is more than $100,000. Who goes to play golf course, mostly white people. I just want that to sink in. I'm going to repeat it. I'm going to repeat it. $100,000. To pay. Project manager. That is. Someone that will oversee. Building project for the. Library. For if, if we found. That right. For the fire. Station. I just want those three. Those three amount to sink in. Even if I don't say anything else tonight. And they're compared to us. Like begging. Negotiating. For us to get help. From neutral. Independent consultant to help us finish the work. I just want that to sink in. Okay. I don't even want to go to other places. Just. And you know, that's what I hope moving forward. To educate people in this town, like. Follow the money. Make comparison. You know, how much is actually trickling into our community. How much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Pat. So I just wanted to say that it sounds like from the group that we're interested in. In asking for an extension. I know, Mr. Bachman, you wanted to know what we need, but I think it seems like we'd be interested if possible and taking a similar route as we did for the first charge. And so I think it, it would be interesting for us to get another group together to use the funds. And I think that would be a waste of our time to put that whole document together, which took a lot of time and then not to have the funds to be able to use it. So again, my question was not about using the ADK that was set aside for racial equity, but was about using free cash that was unused in the budget. And you said that those things could be reallocated after they've been determined that they haven't been used and that there may be a process to be able to use those funds. And so I think it would be interesting for us to be able to apply to or contest to use, to be able to pay the consultants so that we can approach the second part of our charge in a similar manner. And also want to want to pose these questions to Mr. Bachman and also just. A formal request for an extension past June 30th. Well, into the summer, if that is possible. Yeah. So the free cash doesn't get certified until September or October. Typically the free cash has to be, you know, the free cash doesn't get certified until the fall. So that's not a source of funds for this. And so I think, you know, it sounds like definitely. Given that we, we adjusted the schedule for the first, for part A, we're going to have to adjust the schedule for part B as well. So it just, I just, I think part on your agenda tonight, you want to talk about your summer schedule. I think you want to talk about how much. Time you want it, you kind of devote during the summer. I know people's schedules change during the summer. And see what, what, you know, obviously you're going to want, we're going to need as much time as possible. So. Yes. So I think you should just talk amongst yourselves and determine what, what your timeframe is, what your. How it's going to work into your own schedules. But what my question though to you was like, do you need to, when do you need to get it? So where our charges done by September 1st. So what's the, what's the process in terms of, do you get it? Does it need to go in front of the town council? How does, how do our recommendations get adopted? Those sort of things. So September, I think September one is would be the, the last possible date. In terms of the recommendations, most of the recommendations under this part would come to the town manager and how manager would implement. I mean, I think you, you may want to take the advantage. I think the council's very interested if you wanted to have the, the opportunity to present to the public and to the council. I think they would welcome that. That presentation. So I think September 1 is would be the last possible date. In terms of the recommendations, I think they would welcome that. That presentation. And I think you would, I would guess you would want that as an opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. In section. Sorry, go ahead. Sorry. No, go ahead. Sorry. I was going to ask. It's a town council in session during summer. Yeah. Let me just, I got the dates on that. So they meet on August 2nd and August 23rd. So those are the two dates. If you, you might want to target those possible dates for yourselves. Good. So I guess the question I have for the, our group is do we, are we still going to be meeting this summer every week? Ms. Farera. I mean, my, my thing is, and I heard this from Ms. Bowman last time, I think it would still be a good idea for us to have a weekly meeting on the schedule. Cause I think if we start doing a weekly meeting, we're still going to be meeting on the schedule. So if we want to buy weekly or monthly, then we can move from traction. And as we're seeing, this is, you know, the part two is part B, part two, whatever it is, it's still going to be as important as serious as part one. And it's going to entail a lot of work, especially if you do some forums and so on and so forth. And I think we each have to take our time as, as we do, you know, so, you know, I know I have some vacation time. I'm going to try to be on the meetings, but let's say if I can't be on the meetings and I'm not there, but you all can still keep trucking along, you know, because if we start doing bi-weeklies or monthlies, then there we go. Then, you know, I don't, I don't see the work moving forward, especially with the summer schedule, you know, with the summer, I mean with summer and summer vacations and stuff like that. You know, that's my two cents. Thank you, Ms. Farera. Yeah, and so also I was thinking that the extension would also influence our meeting schedule. So if we are able to, I'm not sure if that was a confirmation from Mr. Bachman that we can extend this out until August, then I think that gives us more time than if our extension is not going to happen. I think that might influence how often we'd want to meet as well. Yes, I agree. So my thinking is I know that, you know, the last possible day is September 1st. I was hoping it would be September 30th and perhaps for the months of July and August, we can do bi-weekly so that we can have everything done before the end of September. I mean, I guess that that would be up to Mr. Bachman or the town council, whatever, but I'll try Jen's on September 1st. I know that. But that's why I'm thinking like if we can, you know, extend it to the end of the month. Well, that's a question for Mr. Bachman. Can we extend it to the end of the month, end of September? I think it ends on September 1. And I think, you know, I think we should recognize that all the work that needs to be done isn't going to be done. I think we're going to have a to-do list after this, of additional work that needs to be done for the next iteration, that whatever needs to be the additional work that needs to be done in the town. I think this is important chunk of it, but I think it's most likely by the end of your charge, this work is never done. So there's always going to be the next thing that has to, what's the next phase of things that has to be done? So I think we should be thinking along those lines as well. Like what's on the next day? What's on the next stage? What's at the next stage? Thank you. Ms. Don't you guys think it's part of the next stage though, should be that you guys just continue as a permanent. Committee. Even if you guys change your. If some of the members can't. Continue on that you can. Paul can appoint new members or Mr. Bacchum. I think that the, one of the most important things is that this committee, whether whatever the name be, is continued because it kind of helps. And then you can kind of possibly spread the work out a little bit farther if needed, not saying that it will be needed, but if needed. If you guys were standing committee as opposed to a working group. Ms. Don't you think that's not going to happen because then you keep saying, Mr. Bacchum, and you keep saying that yeah, you all don't need to get everything done. And then, you know, and then there will be, you'll leave us a list of to-dos and stuff. But the thing that we're trying to communicate to you and others in the, in the community. Like town council and so on and so forth is that a group like us, right? That's been dedicated has been doing the research that's committed to this is not going to be the same thing as now someone that's not going to be the same thing. We already have the momentum. We have the, the knowledge base. We have the expertise. We've been formulating as a team as a group for all of these months. Right. So if you disband us and then we just leave you with a to-do list, it's not going to get done with the same kind of tenacity and the same type of, you know, seriousness and order that we have taken on. Right. And so, and even if let's say we went to go on beyond this, like what Ms. moison said, you know, maybe all of us might not be able to, but we could still bring on some, some other members and there would still be members who have been on this. And for the last few months. So it would keep that continuity, you know. So my question to you, Mr. Bachman, which again goes towards my, again, not trustiness of the town is that, is that what you all are trying to do to make sure that things kind of die out after September 1. And so, we're not going to do it anymore. And so there we go. You know, back to the state. After September 1st. Mr. Bachman. No, I think at the beginning of the meeting, no, that's not my intention at the beginning of the meeting. We talked about what is the group look like. And I think one of the things was the, the police oversight committee, right? Once we figure out what's in their bailiwick, right, and then I think the successor group to you. I mean, your charge will be finished, you know, everything that's written into your charge will be completed. I'm just saying that this group itself or whatever can't continue, but I think it's going to be a new, we're going to have to figure out what is the new thing that sits there. And we have to come up with a new charge and then see what people want to do. And I think so then we're going to have the oversight group that's going to be focused on the police department and maybe, you know, maybe a more expansive role and then there'll be this the other group. And then it's really important to have that conversation about who's doing what and understanding who's who's got what role. So there's not confusion. And is the police oversight? I mean, we don't know the answer to these questions. Is the police oversight committee just to sit there in case there's a complaint about the police and then they handle that? Or is this a group that is actively evaluating policies and meeting with the chief and looking at statistics on a regular basis and that kind of thing. And then if that's the case for that group, what is the other group going to do? What is their charge? And so I think those are all really strong questions. And it's and so when I say this group, your charge will have been completed. And so it doesn't mean this the folks. I mean, I truly appreciate it. You're all have have brought and have gained so much knowledge that we don't want to lose that. And so how some people might say, I want to be on the police one. Others might say, I want to be on this new thing. How. But I think that's all part of the conversation that we have to have over the next couple of months. Miss Farah. Yeah, just to kind of respond, I mean, I know that the oversight group, we still need to kind of delineate a lot of details and specifics because obviously that's part of this part B, right? The way to get more into the details about the oversight group. However, what I've heard and obviously being on the CSWG for these last couple of months, my the important thing that I see in terms of CSWG or whatever entity ends up kind of, I guess, being formulated on September 2nd, because I guess that's what it seems like. Right. This new group is going to be birthed on September 2nd. Is that all of our recommendations, right? Because you presented to the budget finance committee this timeline and you even put in other recommendations and so on, so forth. I would like to see all our recommendations put in place for part A and whatever other recommendations that are we're going to be recommending part B also be put into place. And I think that we or even if it's not just all let's say some of our members leave or whatever about whatever core group stays as part of this group ends up being the one monitoring these recommendations for however long it takes into its finality. Right. And it might be something else, too. But at least as recommendations for me, that is very important that the recommendation for part A and part B. I'm sorry, but I can't leave it in your hand or in other people's hand as a to-do list. I don't see that happening, you know. Thank you, Ms. Ferreira. And if I might just say something really quick before Ms. Pat. So what I would propose if everyone is OK with is that because I'm not I'm not sure if it's in specifically in Mr. Bachmann's ability by himself to extend our group and our charge that this might be something also we present to the town council. So if we do decide to reach out to town council members directly, that we might say that our ask is to reject the budget and full and to continue the work of the CSWG while for the duration of the implementation of all of our recommendations or something like that, adding that to the specific ask of the town council, because if the town council tasks it to the town manager again, that's how it became under the control of the town manager was through appointment of the town council. So I think that we could also use that as a strategy in our ask if that's something that we're looking for to happen. Ms. Pat. What I wanted just to say is that after, you know, I got interviewed, OK, and the first night that we met or maybe the second meeting, I knew as an administrator myself that even after we recommend everything, the people who recommended it really need to follow through to make sure that it's implemented. I knew earlier on that it will it will not it will not make any sense to disband. CSWG in September. I was looking at this like a project beyond one year. How are you going to recommend something and then not know how it worked out? I do not participate in projects like that. I will not agree to do something like that. Even though it said September, I'm like, let me put. So that's the difference. Let me put my my fate on the door. And then let's see. Even though people want me like they just want to check the box. I said, you don't know who I am. That's not going to happen. They're not going to check the box. And so that's where I am. I don't know about, you know, the rest of you. I didn't think that it made any sense to disband CSWG in September. And I've been raising that concern in that time. That's what I want to say. It's eight o'clock now, so we need to be wrapping up. Yes. So just in light of that, we were a little bit all over the board tonight, but we did actually touch on most of our agenda items, just not linearly. And so I just wanted to confirm a couple of things before we end tonight. One is that whether or not we have a firm answer on the extension for our report, if Mr. Buckleman, you could let us know if that's something you need to get back to us on, or if we can definitely have at least until the end of August for that. And then also whether or not we can continue the chart after I think those things, though, that we can, if everyone's OK with, continue this discussion next meeting, but I think that we would need to know just in terms of timeline and urgency, whether or not we can get that extension because that does limit our content for the next three meetings that we have if we cannot have an extension. So sorry, Mr. Buckleman, is that going to be something that we can get an answer to? I'll get back to you prior to the next. I'll get this back to you before the next meeting. Yes. OK, great. Thank you, Mr. Buckleman. And so I think that may inform all of our strategies moving forward. I don't know if as a group, we wanted to make a quick decision on whether or not you would want me or Brianna or both of us to reach out to town council members to see if we could set up a time that we can meet with them or if you just want us to send emails to informational emails to each of them, or if there's something that we want to decide with that before ending this meeting. Yeah, yeah. I think that that would be important, you know, to kind of reach out to them and say what it is that we want to happen before the 21st vote. You know, and I guess, like you said, Alicia, you know, to say that it's reject the budget and to extend CSWG until the recommendations get implement, all of our recommendations get implemented. I think that might be the thing to communicate to the town members. I think you and Brianna can talk it talk it through and see what you would want. Right. Because, you know, if you want it, just be you all kind of outreach to different town council members and discuss it. Or if you want us to kind of take on, you know, divvy it up, you know, divvy it up and assign some town council members to me and to the rest of the CSWG group willing to do that so that we can outreach, call them and explain to them. But we just need to make sure we're all on the same page about what it is and what we're doing. And then lastly, I think we should still, even though I know right now we don't have a commitment from commitment in terms of money, we should at least look at that RFP and then come prepared to talk about it at our next meeting. I think that should be ready on the agenda. I sent it to you guys. Yeah, no, you sent it, Ms. Moyes. But I'm saying just for to add that to the agenda that we will discuss it at the next meeting. So I think that's a great suggestion. Thank you, Ms. Ferrera. If everyone could take a look at the RFP, I did see it. Miss Moyes and did send it in the email and just keep in mind when going over it like essential and necessary things that would be for a consulting a consulting group to do. And maybe we can try to redact some things and make it a smaller document just in terms of the issues surrounding funding. So I think that would be something that the working group we can all work on separately and just group back next meeting and discuss our thoughts around that. And then in terms of reaching out to the town council, I would be happy to do one of two things, just send out a general email to all town council members asking to arrange time to meet with them just so that they know that we're looking to meet with them before the vote because we also have a little bit of a time limit there. And then I don't know if I would be happy to set up a time with Briana if she's available to speak with each one of them. I think it has to be a one on one conversation, like where we can either do a Zoom meeting or if anybody's willing to do in person so it can be interactive and not just an email exchange, I think would be beneficial for us at this point. And if anybody wants to take on like one council member, I think that would also be helpful, but I don't think it's necessary. And I don't want to, if you guys don't have the time for that, that's something I can make time for. So I just want to also ask that if you guys feel the need to reach out to one. That's a possibility. Otherwise, I think me and Briana can take that on. So that's fine. Yeah, you all can take it on. Is that OK, Miss Owen? Sorry, I volunteered you. No, yeah, no, I think that's great. OK, great. So we have that. And then I think we continue our discussion about whether or not the CSWG can be a standing committee after we get all of that information and we speak with everybody else. And then I also think that next meeting, we can discuss our summer meeting schedule because we'll have an idea about our extension at that time. So those were the last two agenda items that we didn't necessarily get to today, Miss Pat. So I know I'm the reason why we moved our time, our day to Thursday. I notice that Ross, Mr. Ross is not here tonight. I wondered if if we go back to Wednesday by six o'clock. I mean, oh, no, somebody's saying no. No, what is that, Miss Meister? He's just out of town and for like a family gathering or something. So he had informed us that he wasn't going to be here at today's meeting, but he'll be at next Thursday's. And I appreciate the work that. Thank you for letting us. I appreciate the work that he did. The stuff that you sent us this afternoon. So I didn't think we should discuss it when he's not here. If we can put that on the agenda for next week. Well, yeah, some of the stuff that he put together for us. Yes, I think that would be. So he put together a very detailed and very well thought out document as two ideas for the the organizational structure of the committee. And I think that would also be if everyone could take a look at that. It was included in this and today's agenda. If you didn't see the email directly from Russ, if everyone could take a look at that also for next meeting, that would be a good lead for our discussion, I think as well. Thank you, Miss Pat, for bringing that up here. OK, and then so just to also confirm our next meeting is going to be next Thursday at five thirty. OK, and unless there is anything else that anybody would like to share at this time, I would like to miss Watson. So the Human Rights Commission Youth Hero Awards are this Saturday. I mean, we're a little bit low key because we're just coming out of covid. We're not having our typical fabulous barbecue or anything. You know, we're probably going to have pre-wrapped sandwiches and maybe some pizza and stuff because there's a lot of concern about serving food and stuff like that. So unfortunately, it's not going to be one of our more spectacular ones. But we are still having it. And so it is on Saturday, June 5th from eleven thirty to three a.p.m. And so we had a large group of kids from the Amherst Pellum Regional School System who participated in an anti racist art competition. So it's kind of neat. And so kids from fourth grade on up participated. So it's great. Well, that's nice. Thank you for sharing this, Moisten. So I just have one thing that I can't remember the name now, but as I was watching MSNBC and there is a group of really smart black men that came up with app. If you get pulled over by police, you can press that up and it will take you directly to Anathony. Who could interact with the police and, you know, make sure that the motorist civil right is not being violated or something like that. If you get pulled over, maybe for speeding and decided looking inside your car, maybe you have drugs or something like that or want to search your car or something like that. You can press that up. I'll get the name and I will send it to everybody. Yeah, I'm like, oh, wow, somebody thought about that. That's nice. So I just wanted to share that. Thank you for sharing this, Pat. OK, with all of our business being complete tonight, I would like to declare this meeting adjourned. And thank you all for your time and contributions tonight. Second. Oh, you didn't say. Do I have to call a motion, Ms. Winston? Or can I? OK, yeah, sorry. Thank you all. Yeah. Thank you. I'll see you next week. Yeah, thank you. All right.