 Liz, I'm going to go ahead and make you co-chair as well for co-hosts. I don't know what that means because I don't know how to pull up this stuff anyway, so I'm going to be relying on you. This is 6.30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 18th, and I am calling to order the meeting of the Amherst Town Human Rights Commission. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone, and you can see the instructions below. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time by way of technological means. Our agenda is posted, but before that I'm going to take just a little bit of liberty to say to Deborah, I'm glad you're here. I actually wasn't expecting you to be here. As a person and as a member of the Human Rights Commission, I am extending our heartfelt prayers and blessings to you and your families and all of those who you know that have been directly and indirectly affected by the unrest over in Israel. So I just wanted to say that Deborah had left our meeting because she had got some messages that were bubbling for her. I'm glad to see us here. Thank you. It's an ongoing trial to stay present with everything that's going on in life here, but it's also a good diversion. So I'm glad to be here with you all. Well, thank you. Our first agenda is opening remarks, which I did. Announcements, we will get to some other announcements and committee reports if we don't have any general announcements. In our agenda review, we have our call to order. We have our reports and comments, actions and discussion items are listed and updates are listed. We are expecting, hopefully, Paul Bochumann and Lynn Greshamier to address some of the things that we came from our meeting, our retreat that happened on the 9th, but on the 8th. So first, public comment, if there are any members in the audience that wish to address the human rights commission, please raise your hand. And I'm going to defer to Jennifer to let them in because I'm on my phone and I don't even know how to do that. Are there any members of our audience that would like to speak now? I do not see any hands raised. I just wanted to let you know that Paul is here in the meeting. Okay. So is he in the meeting or in the audience? She went back. So the next item is item number three, action and discussion items. So Paul is here. So we have town council president and town manager discussion. We'd like to discuss the town council representative to the HRC, our budget and HRC bylaws. So Paul, one of the things that came out of our meeting is that we have adjusted, amended our bylaws. I do believe that it was reported in our retreat that you received them a few months ago. Knowing that there's a lot of things that are on your hot plate right now, we'd like to know, have you received our bylaw request of changes? Have you looked at them? What's the next steps? And when can we get something from you, whether you are accepting them, adjusting them or not accepting them? Paul. Great. Thank you. Yes, I did receive them and welcome everybody and thanks for your service here. I did receive the bylaws and Pamela shared them with me. We have gone through them, so I understand them. I guess what I would like to hear a little bit from you and I know, I appreciate the time you put into it at your retreat, especially on that Sunday of a three-day weekend. Very impressive. But these are clearly going to be required to be reviewed by our town attorney and get your feedback on what the goals of some of the changes are so I can understand a little bit better. I know you put a lot of time into it, so before I just gave it to her code, I wanted to make sure. And it might mean that she might have to come and talk with you to understand better. And the things that she looks at are compliance with law, liability issues for the town, if there are any, and a sort of like legality thing. So are we attempting to preempt anything that's an existing law? So she'll look at the different pieces of that and I had a conversation with her this morning, so she's aware that this is coming her way soon. So would it make sense to go through the major changes or is that so I can understand the things? I'm going to defer to Ronnie and Tyler on this because they were directly involved with some of the changes. Tyler, would you like to speak on that or is it our wish that we are just asking Paul to take a look at them, to pass them on to the attorney and maybe have the attorney then question. That's another option. So Ronnie, I'm going to defer to you for that. Tyler? Yeah, I think that it could be productive to briefly go over it, especially if there's any specific areas of it that you think we might want to talk about a bit more. I think generally the changes to the bylaws are mostly geared around making it more clear and consistent with the Human Rights Commission's mission and also on updating some of the language in the definitions section. Since we consider the definitions section as it was to be a bit redundant and to have some language that didn't really reflect our current understanding of the issues at hand. So would it be okay if I just ask some questions along the way and maybe that's the most efficient way to do it? Yeah, I think that would work from my perspective. Okay, so I have a list if that's okay. Okay, so on the definitions, so it looks like you remove the definition for gender identity, right? And what you're trying to do is sort of standardize the definition of human rights on the UN's definition of human rights. Is that sort of what you're set the goal of? It's sort of aligning it with what the UN is defined as human rights? Yeah, we went with the UN definition largely out of convenience, but also because it's an extremely universal definition. We felt if we were going to have a definition section, that was probably a pretty good term to put in there. It's obviously central to our mission and we consider the UN definition to be the best reflection of current understandings of human rights. Okay, good. And then in 3.3b, it looks like you take out the term gender. Do you, let me see. It's a genetic information. Oh yeah, you took out the genetic information. I don't even know what that honestly means, but is there a purpose? Were you like, oh, we really want that out or is this just like a cleanup type thing? We had the same issue with it. We couldn't figure out what it really meant either. We went over the definition and at every corner there were potential issues with the way that it could be implemented. It basically defined it as anything that can be accessed from a genetic test, but that ends up being a pretty circular definition. We felt that especially given that it's not an excessively common category and major rights legislation, so we didn't really have much of a model to go off of for an effective implementation of genetic information, that the categories that we have listed were adequate to cover all protected classes necessary. That's very helpful. Thank you. There's some minor changes that don't really make that much difference, I don't think. So the way we have the director enforcing and it's sort of how we receive complaints that you wanted to establish the procedures. And so what's different when I read this, it looks like it's, I guess, one of the terms you use somewhat frequently is in conjunction with. And I don't know, we'll have to ask our lawyer what does that legally mean. Pamela is here now, she may understand, but Mrs. and we're on section G, I think, or whatever it is, three. It says that in conjunction with the commission, the director shall in writing the established procedures. So I think we will want more crisp language on that and that's something our attorney can put together in terms of like in conjunction with. Does that mean both parties have to say yes? Does it mean there has to be consultation with the HRC? What if one party says no, I don't like it? We just want to be clear what roles people are playing on this. But it's the way I read it. It's right now it says that the director shall set procedures and what you're saying is that we'd like the HRC would like to have a role in setting those procedures. Am I reading that right? Yeah, I think so. Yes. I don't know specifically about the in conjunction with language. It's possible that Ronnie or Pamela has a better idea of how they saw that language. I mostly just saw that sort of languages meaning in collaboration with. I didn't really think through all of the details of that part of it. That's why we have attorneys who will look at it from a legal point of view. That's fine. Just want to understand what the intent is and that's what we want to understand and whether that's something that we're in agreement with or not. If I may interject, the intent is simply that we didn't think the procedures were something that the director of human rights should do without the involvement of the Human Rights Commission. And we did see that something where the commission would have a voice and what those procedures are and how they would be implemented. And as you say, I think it's something we should discuss with the lawyer because there were several issues with regard to consensuality in terms of the implementation of the procedures and how the procedures would protect that and at the same time bring in the expertise that the HRC already has into the procedures. I think that makes a lot of sense. Just so you know our attorney, it's KP Law, they represent 150 communities in the Commonwealth. They look at so every community has something like this. They will have looked at a broad range of they'll know what other communities do as well. So they'll be able to put it into context like no communities do it this way. Everybody does it this way instead of that way. So it's very helpful for them to bring their expertise to it. Before you go on, that clause actually doesn't have to do with doesn't need any confidentiality whatsoever. It's about establishing procedures. It's not about evaluating cases. And so I want to know what does the commission want? Do you want to have input or do you want to have shared decision making? That's the question Paul is asking. So I would rather us make that decision and or at least discuss it and say what we want rather than saying, Oh, well, the lawyer will just tell us because if the lawyer is going to tell us I'm pretty darn sure she's going to say you get input and not shared decision making. That's actually fine with me. But I don't I'm new here and I don't know what you all were thinking, you know, when these initial modifications were made. So I do think input rather than shared decision making is fine. I don't know in procedure development. I don't know if that's what you all wanted. And partly I feel that way because Pamela is the director. And I'm not worried about what Pamela is going to propose, you know, and I know that Pamela is going to actually get input from us one way or another. But I'm just wondering what other people were thinking about this. Does anybody else want to weigh in? So the way it was written, there was no input. And in fact, the commission didn't even know what the cases were. Only the co chairs knew. I think that was part of it. That we felt like the commission should be should have there should be room for the commission in the procedure. And there wasn't room for the commission because of confidentiality. But we felt like a solution could come up, could be developed. It wasn't discussed in sufficient detail to answer your question. But we just opened that up. We were not. That's why I said let's discuss with the lawyer, not to accept what the lawyer says, but to sort of figure out what are our options here. Okay, I see Jennifer's hand. Yeah, I was just going to add that when it comes to procedures, any time there's a change in the administration, there's a different interpretation of it. And so having someone so while so having input and having shared are two separate things when it comes to the procedure. But just keep I would just keep in mind like we all love Pamela we're glad that she's here but she's not going to be here 25 years from now or maybe she would be but she's not here 25 years from now. And how is that next person going to interpret that are they going to change the procedure. So it's just something different from a procedural standard of how things are done. They could change it either way if that was what they wanted to do, but just that I'd add that. Okay, thank you, Paul. Let's see your hand up. Yeah, thank you. So yeah, I think this is so Ronnie, this is just the procedures piece. It's not about cases or content of cases. So it's just about setting procedures. And I think the idea of procedures is that it outlives any current director that we set a set of procedures. And then that is how we because when people look at how we do things, they look at things over years, not just oh, we have a new person, they do it differently. So I think the idea of procedures is to help us standardize some of the things. So so we can just put a question mark on this. Does it mean consultation? Does it mean input? And this is not a fine. This is just we're just gathering questions tonight. So this is helpful. And you guys can think about it. And next time we talk, we can weigh in on it more. The next thing I have on the list is to see. There's not a whole lot that don't change significantly. Oh, the one thing I noticed is looking for a twice a year report. And you also have the annual report to the town council, right? And I guess the question for you is, is a semiannual report what you want? Do you want, I mean, how often do you want the report to be done and what is included in that report? I actually have a question about that because I don't remember saying we want to submit more reports. Was it something different? I think we just said we would submit the one human rights report once a year to the town council as we're charged to do. I'm sorry. Sorry, Paul. Pamela. Yeah, I should do that. I think this is one of the areas where there was inconsistency between the bylaw and the charge. And so the suggestion that I made in my comments is like one annual report rather than two. So there's some inconsistencies between the two documents. And I'm sorry I'm late, but I left Amherst and ran in late and then ran into traffic getting home. Traffic? Really? So I think the then then I have these proposed procedures. And I think the sort of thing there is about is the time frames. So you have sort of two time frames. One is six months. You have a time frame for six months. And then you've got a time frame from six months to two years. And then and then there's a two year plus time frame where you don't consider anything. And so I think that that's a discussion point as well is like what is the goal of a complaint? What is it an ability to air and or exactly what is what's the goal on that piece? Because I think right now, I'm not sure what it says right now if we have a procedure right now actually. Pamela, Elliot, that's you. There are no procedures now. So I think one of the critical things that KP law will do will be to help revise and standardize procedures because there were none in place like the bylaw simply states that there's a that the commission and the director will establish procedures, but none had been established. So I think that will also speak to the consistency of how things are done because if the procedures are included in the bylaw, then that's how the operations will work until there's a bylaw change. So that's a really important piece is to figure out what's the best procedure to have. And so there was so I actually am the person who advocated for like six months because generally that would be in line with the the Massachusetts Commission against discrimination. And beyond that, the person would not have at generally beyond that, generally the person would not have access to to the MCAD. And there and their only recourse would be through a civil suit. And I felt like it was better to have the statute of limitations aligned with mass commission against discrimination. But there are others in the commission who felt like it was important for people to still have an opportunity to voice their, you know, to voice grievance, even though they may not have an avenue through mass commission against discrimination to pursue a claim. So and it would be interesting to see what KP law has to say about that. And, you know, what advice they might give. Okay. And let me just clarify, were you saying that you, I'm sorry, I should raise my hand. Sorry, I was just wondering if Tyler wanted to comment on it. I know I do, but yeah, I was more in favor of a longer statute of limitations, especially since it takes people so long to find out the complaint process exists usually, especially in some of the cases where it's the most needed for that matter, which would be cases where people just end up in a situation where they feel that they need to come to a governmental authority over a human rights abuse, in which case they're where the rise is more simultaneously, at least, they're not very likely to know about the resources that exist. And it's likely to take more time for them to discover them. However, I did ultimately end up agreeing that the two year time frame was acceptable, especially since it's in line with other jurisdictions' time frames, and therefore kind of helps to establish consistency. But all the same, I definitely did recognize and still do recognize a fairly compelling argument in favor of doing it differently with the longer statute limitations. No, go ahead, Ronnie. I was calling upon you. Oh, okay. So I would add that for one thing, sometimes human rights violation can be somewhat traumatic. And I don't want to use an overly dramatic word, but let's say you have an incident with the police who everybody's afraid of. So it can take time to come forward. So we wanted to have that time. It may be that it's not possible to refer that person to a legal regulation. But the part that I wanted to bring forth more in our documentation is that we do have this option of having a conference and trying to work outside the legal framework. And I think we underestimate that when we say, oh, there's nothing really that we can do. Well, there's no legal reports, but we have to become good at trying to find more sort of human and community-based reports. I also believe there's a lot of power in just being able to stay and be heard about what you experience. And so that's why the six months fell short tonight. And I guess I feel fairly strongly about the two years. But obviously, there's going to be a vote and I would go with what people agree, but that's my thinking on it. Good. I have a different topic. Liz, if that's okay. Are you all set with your questions around? Yeah, no, this is along the same lines. Okay. So the question is about the, I think, Pamela, you said you put the procedures in the bylaw. And I think that's worth the conversation as well, probably with law and just sort of procedurally. Sometimes you try to keep the bylaw relatively simple and then the sort of operating principles, like our, for instance, our personnel bylaw is relatively simple, but the regulations are more extensive because you want to be able to change that, you know, if we find we have to change something in a procedure for some reason, there's a law change, we have to change something, it's easier to change it in this body versus going through the bylaw change policy, which has to go through the town council and there's a notification and all the kind of stuff that happens. So I didn't know if you were saying that Pamela, do you want it to put it in the bylaws or was a standalone document? So I think either or, but there's right now the bylaw just makes reference to procedures. So I would say that at a minimum it should, you know, that they should be established and there's the reference should send it to some document because there aren't any procedures and that's I feel like that's a huge gap. Like people should know what the process is, regardless of whether it's six months or two years, there's no, there's nowhere that anyone could have would have any indication of what the process is and we that needs to be made public somehow. So whether it's part of the bylaw or whether it's a standalone procedure published on the Human Rights Commission website, but right now it's the procedure is basically documented through oral history. So. Oh, okay. So that's those were the comments I had on the on your proposed changes. I think the next step is to sort of package this up and send it off to the attorney, get led them start to grapple with it a little bit and then either I mean, I think we have a couple options for you to consider. We could since this is a bylaw that I assume this is a bylaw that you're going to propose to be adopted. It's going to be a commission's initiative bylaw. That's I think that's your intent, right? Correct. Yeah. And so it might be that it's always helpful, at least when the town council has to consider something if we've had legal, we want the legal review in advance. So they could either meet with the co-chairs or they could meet with the full committee. However, you want to sort of do this, we can try and match up the schedules and things like that. So let me let me talk with them and see what and then I'll confer the co-chairs and you can think about how you want to gather the legal or any representatives from your committee. How you want to gather that information? I'm glad you added any representatives because I'm definitely what Tyler there. So do you happen to and I'm saying this and you may not know how long this procedure will take for us to get packaged up, sent to the lawyer, lower response. Yay, nay, we need to talk to you more presentation to the town council voted upon. You don't know the extent. Yeah, no, I do. The legal piece will be can be relatively quickly. I think it's just a matter of weeks prior to you monthly. So I think prior to your next meeting, certainly have something back to you. You know, I think that it we might be and then I think I think the town council is they're pretty much wrapping up for the year. Quite honestly, I think you're going to be doing this in early when the new council takes takes hold in this. So it'll probably be something we either present in December or present in January after it'll be up to the council president at that point. What they're putting there, they're sort of shedding things from their agenda at this point in time because they only have a certain number of meetings left this calendar year and then the new council has to form and take shape in January. That makes it. It'll be a few months. Yeah. Okay. All righty. Does anybody have any other questions around either the bylaw changes itself or any questions to Paul about the timeline? Okay. So on to our next agenda. Paul or Pamela? So I because I dashed into from the car, I don't have the agenda in front of me. So I'm, I don't know if you have you already addressed the the charge or is that next on the agenda? We have not addressed the charge. Okay. So somebody help me out with that. So the, is that next on the agenda, the charge? Well, next on the agenda is the HRC bylaws. Yes. And the budget discussion that we wanted to have with Paul and or Lynn, and I do believe Lynn said she could be here around seven. Yeah. We could just go ahead with the budget because I feel like Lynn's main role is really about representation to the town council. So if we have Paul here, why don't we just, I would suggest we jump into the budget without Lynn. Okay. I thought that maybe the latest part of that as well, because the town council is currently looking over the budget for upcoming years. Okay, let's move on then. So the next on the agenda was updates on the affordable housing trust specifically and DEI and Cress specifically. So my update on the affordable housing trust is that they are continuing to look at ways to make, um, to have affordable housing be a goal in the town of Amherst. They're looking into, and I know this has been on the agenda for a while is changing the East street school, which is the building that's across the street from Fort River into affordable housing that they're looking at, um, uh, Belcher Town Road properties and make having affordable housing there. They're also talking about a homelessness prevention program. And that's in the beginning stages. And they're also taking a look at some of the zoning policies that are folks are asking to change for the town. So those are the major agenda items on the affordable housing trust and anybody that wants to attend those meetings, um, second Thursday. But you can look at the, um, on the town website to get their meeting dates as well. Um, I also was able to attend a very, very long, um, CSSJC meeting last week. Where, um, Cress was the main topic of that discussion and there's some updates coming up from Pamela, but, um, the CSSJC was, um, not happy with, um, what's going on right now with Cress and the uncertainty of Cress and the, um, makeup of the leadership team as it is designed currently. I'll just leave it at that and let Pamela and anybody else who's going to update on, um, Cress. You're muted. You're muted. I'm tired. So tomorrow we'll mark like the one month in for the interim leadership team. So the interim leadership team is myself, Tim Nelson, who's the, um, I can't even talk at this point, fire chief of the fire department, uh, Sergeant Janet Griffin from the, um, police department and Kat Newman, who is, has the title of current title is implement grant implementation manager, but was previously the program assistant, which that position was sort of like the, um, the second in charge, like even though the title doesn't suggest, suggest that, um, the implementation team makeup was actually my suggestion because, um, when, um, through the executive team, um, leadership meeting with the town manager, it was suggested that I was the ideal person to take this on. I really insisted that we have a team approach because while I feel that I have many of the skills that are needed to help shore up the department and I don't have all of them and I don't have a lot of public safety, um, uh, background, although I do have some. So we prepared, uh, basically a chart that outlines the various skill sets that I think are needed in this transition period that looked at experience supervising, you know, um, a large department, you know, more than two people, um, experience with, um, with reorganizations, experience with human right with a HR experience with grant development and implementation just outlined a lot of the executive skill set. And, uh, if you were to look at that chart, you would see that the team basically has between 12 and 48 years on these various topics, like we all in various spots. So with chief Nelson having the, um, the most experience of us, but the others having, um, a variety of different, um, experiences. The, I think that the primary purpose of the team, which is transition, right, it's not to be their long term is to help shore up the department so that a new director can be appointed and the team can continue on with its journey towards being an, uh, an alternative response to some types of calls. And so if actually it's been a fascinating month, um, we started out with the leadership team meeting with the responders on September 19th. We had a full day retreat, um, starting with the restorative justice circle where our responders had an opportunity to discuss their hopes and fears for the department. Um, that was followed up with, uh, a discussion about mission and values. There, um, there is, are there, I would say at that point we're coming closer together now, but at that point there was really two different camps among the responders about what their work should look like with some leaning heavily into the social services space and others leaning heavily into the public, um, public safety space. And, and really this department is meant to be sort of a combination of the two. Like, um, it's got a very unique, uh, foothold in the work that they're trying, you know, that they're tasked with doing. So, um, that conversation with the responders were, were, it was really great. And, uh, we ended up re, um, looking at the previous mission statement, which I think really was more like a vision statement because it was like a page and a half and writing a very succinct mission statement that looks to what the purpose of the organization is and having that be, uh, a process where everyone, all of the responders were involved, um, so that we could come to some agreement about like what are, what are you tasked with doing in. And we have begun to make sure that we're following that mission. So we've instituted some practices that I think were, in my opinion, sort of slack around procedures. The responders are being asked to utilize their radios when they go out on the call and to call in just the standard procedure. We have, um, have set aside Tuesdays as an in-service day where responders will have an opportunity to get new training and refresh their training. And that's happening on a weekly basis. We've also identified some, uh, training opportunities outside of the department. So for example, uh, all the responders went down and met with, uh, Mike Curtin in Dispatch and had an opportunity to review their protocols around communications and the radios and working with Dispatch. Um, two, well, four responders at two different times have gone to, um, crisis intervention, um, team trainings in the, in Hampshire County. Um, Vanessa, one of the responders and Kat are scheduled to go to another CIT training, full day training tomorrow. We identified, uh, training opportunities that hadn't occurred for the, for the responders and we're putting those in place. So some of the responders had gone through the basic EMT training. Some had not. All of those things are, are really designed to shore up the department. And in addition to that, um, we've taken the leadership team and all of the responders met with the Department of Public Health, which is a primary funder for the work and have reviewed the initial grant that established the department. There is, there are some gaps between what was proposed in the grant and what has occurred operationally, um, as we work to, um, renew that grant by providing the, the grantors with an update. We're trying to bring operations and what was stated in the grant more aligned. So to bring those, those things, um, together, um, the, uh, grantors had an in-site visit with the department. They met with the town manager, the HR director, the leadership team and all of the responders and the, the, their meeting with the responders did not include the leadership team. So they were able to freely talk with them and discuss any concerns or raise questions. I, I think it's, I can safely say that they felt like we have positioned the, the department to, to move forward in a very positive way that's in line with what the grant stated it would do and, um, with the operations, um, that we have in place. The leadership team has been a part of the Harvard government performance lab cohort. So that's a non-fiscal grant that the department received under, um, um, the prior director's leadership that allows us to meet with other um, communities who are in the process of establishing similar, um, departments. And I say similar because each community as the more and more, we had our second meeting or I had my second meeting with the Harvard government, uh, performance lab cohort today and each community and state is approaching this work very differently. There is no one, you know, best practice. So, um, you know, locally, you know that Northampton has established their model in, uh, in the public health realm. In Amherst, the decision was made to have this as a standalone in public safety. We had extensive conversations today in our cohort with a gentleman from, um, Virginia, where as a state, they have decided to set up regional, um, responses. So, so that, that aligns with their five regional mental health, um, you know, service areas. So each department is doing, is really doing the work very differently. The, uh, the affiliation with Harvard, I think, is going to bear a lot of fruit because they are providing us with information about some of the challenges that have been presented to the department around dispatching calls. I mean, it's, it's one of the questions that I asked, uh, today in that Zoom meeting was, you know, what, uh, resources, what data do you have about the startup time from conception to dispatch and the response from Harvard, and they will send this data and I'll be happy to share it with you, was that on average, it takes a department a year and a half to two and a half years to get to the point where they're dispatching calls and we're just at that one and a half year mark, not quite there yet. So, so we, you know, I think we're, we're where we should be. The other bit of information from the Harvard Performance Lab was that most communities start with very few calls, um, call types. And so we're having that discussion about what the call type should be. And in fact, so, um, this will come up a, there's a little bit of, of course, overlap between DEI and CRAS because I'm wearing two hats. But, uh, so five, one, two, three, four, four of the responders participated in the Libertory Visioning Sessions that were conducted by Dr. Barbara Love. And as a follow-up to that session, there's a group of municipal staff employees who are in a group that we call the Core Equity Group. That group meets monthly for two hours and works on DEI initiatives, self-learning and with the goal that they're going to be seeds that are spread throughout the municipality. So that the Core Equity Group met on Tuesday, um, there were eight of us in the room and six of us had participated in the Libertory Visioning Sessions. The follow-up session that we did in Core Equity was to build on what are the skills and techniques that you use to build, um, coalitions and consensus building and, um, how do you have these very difficult conversations? So I led that workshop and then following the workshop, two of the responders who were, uh, who participated in the group thought, this is a great technique for us to use for discussion around call types. So actually, I said, I think that you guys should lead that next in service. You know, you've had some training, you can lead your colleagues in this process, I will support you, but they'll be leading the next in service, which is scheduled for Tuesday around call types using the techniques that they've learned both through Dr. Love's Libertory Visioning and through the Consensus and Coalition Building workshop that I did. So we're providing lots of opportunities for responders to have professional development. I met with each of them individually at the, um, at the inception and, and had, you know, a really in-depth conversation with them about their, their work in the department, their challenges, their goals, their, um, both long-term and, um, and short-term, uh, you know, I, I, um, actually before I headed home tonight, I sent them a note saying congratulations. We're one month in and I think we have done remarkable work for the last 30 days, given where we were on September 20th. Um, and I, um, you know, I, I, I am proud of the work that we're doing. I am very proud and, um, and I really think that the team approach was the right leadership approach. I know that there are members of the community who have concerns about it. Um, what I said to the CSSJC at their, I missed the October meeting, but, um, but at their prior meeting was that, you know, I did not take this task on to fail. I don't, I want to, I don't want to have this job forever. Like I'm very clear about that. I've said that publicly to everyone who's listening to me, but I didn't, it is my, it is my sincere hope that at the end of the, this interim period, this department will be in a better position for the next director. And I'm doing everything I can to ensure that. So I, um, I am, I, you know, I've discussed with the leadership team and with the town manager what the final report from our interim leadership team will look at, like all of the activities that we've done. I've, I've suggested that I think it's important that an audit be conducted, a financial audit, because if I were the person who was coming in with, I would want to know exactly everything that, um, that I'm taking on, not only the personnel issues, but also having assurance about where the finances are, where the grants, what's left of the grant, what can I do, what I can't do. And so I think we'll have a very comprehensive, um, perspective to give to the next director, along with a lot of recommendations, but they will be just that recommendations. It's not, um, our intention to decide some of the critical issues that I think has that have to be made about the, um, about the future of Cress. And, um, so, you know, I think that Cress is in really an excellent position for, for where we are. Well, thank you for that report. Um, I raised my hand, A, because I was going to tell you we needed to move on a little bit. Yeah, sorry. And also to just say that, um, because you missed the meeting with, uh, neither you or Paul were part of the discussion that the CSSJC had, um, specifically around Cress and where we are right now with them. I'm hoping that you all can reach back or at least attend the next meeting, um, because they had some very strong reactions and recommendations for what is and what is not going on with Cress right now. Yeah, so the leadership team, um, and then I'll move on to DEI, which I'll do very quickly and invite Jennifer to, um, to, um, to add as well. So the leadership team was scheduled to meet with Cress at their last meeting. However, that was also the evening of the candidate's information night. I reached out to the chair and informed her of the conflict and she decided to go ahead with their meeting. Um, but we, uh, we are scheduled to meet with them in November. Okay. Yes, they did mention all of that at the, at the meeting that I was at, um, president. Um, Deb, did you had something to add about Cress? Yeah, just a quick question. I really appreciate this update, but my burning question is what's happening with the director being on admin leave and how long is that going to take? And that was part of what the strong discussion was at the CSS JC meeting last week, but Pamela or Paul. Yeah, so I can address that. So, uh, Earl Miller has submitted his resignation. So he will be, he's employed by the town until November 30th. Um, and so after that, but that means we will begin looking for a new Cress director immediately. That's a relief. I mean, just, uh, there's a possibility. Agreed. Yeah. And, um, so last thing about Cress is that, um, the responders, you know, that we had two resignations, there was already one vacancy and we had two resignations. The responder position has been posted and yay, we've gotten the first application for that position. So we're on our way to filling that position. So, um, quickly for DEI, so we're off to a little bit of a slow start with youth programming, but Asa and Jennifer have a plan for the beginning of youth programming and an outline for how we're going to, going to tackle that. Um, we, as a department, I mentioned already the core equity team meeting that was on Tuesday. Um, the department is sponsoring, um, three workshops for internally for, um, for staff. The first of them happens on Friday around microaggressions and implicit bias. A second one on supervision through a DEI lens happens in November. Those two workshops were scheduled to be, um, facilitated by, uh, staff from Amherst College and for, unfortunately, Amherst College is not able to make, uh, the Friday workshop. So I'm stepped in to, to try to take that on, um, so that we are not canceling. We'll just go for it with me facilitating the third workshop that we'll have in December is a repeat of, um, of a workshop that we've done before. It's a light lift because there's a lot going on in the department. It is a diversity coffee house. So it's a, it is a self-guided, um, tour through a lot of different DEI topics where people have the ability to, um, to do self-reflection exercises, to have conversations with their colleagues, um, to ask questions of the DEI staff. Um, and then, um, the Festival of Lights, which HRC and DEI are doing together. And Jennifer, I'm sure I've forgotten something. So please jump in. So she may have stepped away from her computer for a moment. I see, Asa, if you're listening, if I've forgotten something in that you're aware of, please jump in as well. Oh, I didn't step away. I just, sometimes on the phone, it's so hard to taggle back and forth. And so I apologize for that. I was like trying to turn the camera on and so forth. Oh, yeah. There we are. Hello. So we, um, Asa and I worked on a timeline. So the bulk of the timeline I think has to do with outreach and, um, connecting with the youth so that a relationship can be built so that they can kind of inform us of what they would, what kind of activities they would like to see happen, um, since it is youth programming or what kind of programming. And then also, um, sorry, it's kind of only seeing my house. I don't know if you can hear all of the background noise, but I apologize. Um, it's dinner time. So, uh, we are also doing a workshop for Town Hall and the Amateur Recreation Department. So it's November 30th and I, I mean, October 30th and I believe, um, November 2nd. I don't, I haven't given it a full name, but I have some really creative ideas and activities to happen. So I'm very excited. Um, and what else are we doing? We're doing, I feel like we're doing a lot. No, that's, um, Aisa, do you want to, did we forget anything? No, I believe it's a good summary of our plan so far. Okay. Well, thank you for those updates. I am going to take a little liberty since I see that Lynn Grishmire is in our audience and asked Jennifer to move her into be a panelist so that we can talk to her about, um, the two other agenda items that we had before the updates. Yeah. You could be a now, I think. Yes. Lynn, are you there? I am. Hi. Hi. Sorry, I couldn't join you earlier, but it sounded like a rich discussion. We, uh, picked Paul's brain about some things before you got here mostly because of our bylaws and I'm sure you'll be getting, uh, wind of those things soon. Um, slim pickings there, Liz. We specifically asked you to come for two reasons. At our retreat, we were informed that we had a town council representative to the HRC. Is that true? And if it is, who is that person? And if it's not true, how do we get that information and do should we have one? And how do we then get that person on board with us? So because you shared this issue with me in advance, I was able to double check my notes with Athena O'Keefe, who's, uh, clerk to the town council and frankly has a brain that's, you know, focused on all of this. And you do not have a liaison. Uh, the liaisons are determined at the beginning of each year. Um, I have already at our meeting town council meeting on Monday, mentioned that you were interested in having a liaison. And at that time also said that that would be something that the next council who is sworn in on January 2nd would need to bring forward the council votes, if you will, on the slate of committees that will have liaisons. And then we bring that back and individual counselors, um, continue to perform in a liaison capacity. But let me also mention that liaisons, um, don't have to attend all your meetings, but they're there to answer questions, although they are not an official member of the, of the committee. Uh, so it's a very important role. And, um, but let me just offer that between now and the end of this term for the council, I am more than glad to be quote, act as a liaison, uh, to this committee. Okay. Um, if does that deserve, there's, are we supposed to vote on that? No, we don't have to vote on that. Well, I've already made note that you've asked for liaison. So I hope that, uh, I hope that that's, I mean, you can vote to see whether I'm acceptable as a liaison or not, whatever you want to do. But I offered to be, you know, provide that service. Thank you. I don't think we need to vote on that. Okay. Um, the second part of, um, as when we were discussing our, um, upcoming events and our past events, um, we had a list of all of the events that we sponsored or co-sponsored last year. And we, um, said if we would like to do some of these things and more in the future, we would need a budget. And given that the town council is in the process of taking a look at next year's budget, we wanted to put that on the table and wanted to know, do we need to come to a meeting to do a formal presentation? Um, when we took a look at, if we could have everything we wanted, it would be $22,000 for the year. Um, I think personally, and I'm sure you will agree, Lynn, because you attended most of the events that we sponsored, um, that that is a small tip in the bucket in order to bring some unity to this community, if you will. So, um, what is our next step? And how do we get a proposal or whatever on the town council budget request or, I don't know the right word to use? First of all, let me just say, I think that the service you have provided to the many different communities in Amherst by having the events that you have has been just phenomenal. I, um, the one I think I remember the best was the one that was at the middle school. And I arrived and basically Jennifer came up to me and said, can you go out and get more cups? Can you go get more juice? Et cetera, et cetera. And then she came back and she said, so do you have a slip? I said, don't worry. We covered it. And so Andy Steinberg and I got in a car, drove to Big Y, picked up all that stuff, came back. It was fantastic. And so I just want to say, yes, I have been at most of those events. I find those events to be one of the best ways to really understand the face and the thoughts and the cultures of our many communities in Amherst. And it's just fantastic. So what I would like you to do is send a letter or an email. Email is fine. It's a official document to me and to the town manager and CC Andy Steinberg who's chairing the finance committee and formalize your request. We start the budget process on the 13th of November with the financial indicators. We then move to actually having a budget hearing if you are public forum. You're welcome to come and ask for money. It always helps for other counselors to hear the request directly. That budget forum will be on the 20th of November. And it's a required part of the council. But it's actually a very important part too. And then the council through the finance committee begins to develop budget guidelines for the next year's budget. And we give those to the town manager along with his goals and basically the combination of those two documents become a message to the town manager. Here's what we want to see in your budget. So send us an email and have somebody please just one of you come or to the co-chairs whatever come on the 20th to the public forum and request your make your request and talk about the many different events you did and the numbers of people and the types of the populations in Amherst that you have been able to reach out to because it is so impressive. And please ask us to do proclamations or resolutions for those various events which helps draw counselors to the events because they have to read them. Okay. Does that help? That's that's very helpful. Okay. Thank you. I do believe that's all we actually had for you specifically. You're welcome to stay. I don't think I can kick to tell council president. And that's not true. You can kick me out if you want. You always can do that. Okay. So thank you. Does anybody have any other questions or statements to Lynn while she's here? And okay. So we're going to go back down to updates. The next I'm going to excuse me. Yes, sir. Is it okay if I have a family call to get on? Do you need me for anything else? I don't believe we do. Okay. No. Thank you all. And thank you for your attendance and talking to us today. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Bye. Bye. I want to skip down just a little bit to D on our agenda. At our retreat, we did ask all the council members to take a look at all the different governing bodies that the town has and be a listening ear, if you will, to some of those other committees. Again, I've been in meetings with the CSSJC, the affordable housing trust. And I was part of a mini committee last year with Philip with the CSSJC and with the Board of Health as we did an affordable housing forum. So did anybody or everybody, I'll say did everybody take a look at the different committees of the town and decide which ones they wanted to be a listening ear in so that we can report back and know what other members of our town government is doing and maybe figuring out how we can support them. And if you did, I'm going to ask you to just say it. And Jennifer, are you taking notes? Yes, you are. So if Jennifer can just write them down, so make sure you talk slow so that she knows who it is and which ones you're attending. I'm going to start, you know what, I'm going to start with who's in my, I'm going to start up top. And up top to me is Rishwana. If you didn't have a chance to do it, just say I didn't have a chance to do it yet, please. Okay. I will, I'm interested in affordable housing authority, but I haven't done it yet. I haven't looked at it yet. Okay. Thank you, Jacinta. I know that, I don't know, Jacinta and Retaila also have classes. So, but Jacinta? Yeah, I think if I can make any of the meetings, I would try to go to disability access advisory committee. Thank you. Thank you, Rishwana. I want to remind everyone quickly that the meetings are all recorded as well. So you don't necessarily have to attend it live, if that's helpful. Correct. Joy, you were not present. You had a conflict, so I'm not sure if you was able to take a look at things. No, I haven't had a chance to look at it. I will. Okay. Ronnie? I'm sorry, I have to say no, apart from the ones I had already mentioned at those three, but as far as making an actual commitment to follow one of these committees, I sort of feel like I have to go to a few of them, few of the meetings to decide, because I've been to several committees over the last year. And including the human rights commission, when I first came to Amherst, then I dismissed it because there wasn't much going on and there was no forum. And I think I came twice, but here I am. So I think it takes a little bit of time to get an idea of what the committees are doing. So I'm going to, I personally will need time. Okay, that's fair. Thank you. Deb, I know you've been busy doing other things, so. Yeah, I'm very much interested. I know I don't have the whole name, but the African American Heritage and Reparations, probably not correct, but I'm very interested in their work. I'm also interested in the school's committee work. And I don't know when I'm going to have enough time to start attending. But those are the two that I'm most interested in. Okay, thank you. And yes, Lynn. Yeah, I just want to mention that the AHRA just completed their task and reported to the council this past Monday. It's now in the hands of GOL to come back to the council to recommend whether there will be a successor committee. So. So I have a brief. Only on that one. I think you should sign her up for another one. Thank you. Tyler. I have not had a chance to and I don't think it's going to be possible for me this semester. I'm about to be overloaded on courses and research as is. And that's fair for you too. That's why I mentioned that earlier. Who am I missing? No. I think 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Asa. Did I miss somebody? Laverne is not here tonight and she sent an email that she was traveling and her flights were delayed. So she's the. I just wanted to make sure I got to all the council members that are present right now because there's two people under the bottom of my screen that I can't see who they are. I don't know. Alrighty. Oh Lord. My computer shuts off. I'm on my phone, but I'm on my computer so I can see the agenda. And you know, if you don't move the mouse every once in a while it shuts off. Ronnie, did you have a question or comment? I'm just remembering what the discussion was about in the retreat and the point of this committee thing was really that we felt that people were not aware of the human rights commission and there was really not much understanding of what exactly we did or what are human rights and so on. So I just wanted to bring that up, but that's the purpose. So one way we thought that we could form alliances was to go to these committee meetings, but there may be other ways as well. And it, you know, we can do whatever we want as long as we're out there making ourselves known both for what we do, but also as a place that people can go to in confidence and make experience violation. That was part of it. And the other part was that this, yeah, for other committees, how can the human rights committee also be supportive of them? So there's two fold. Then if that's okay, I'm going to move on to the next agenda item, which was the NYT framework to analyze HR. Not sure what that means. It wasn't meant to be an agenda item, I just provided it as a background document because we're going to have a discussion about statements and human rights and it provided one way to think about, I don't know, I tried one way to think about and analyze the situation from a human rights lens that I thought was helpful. So I provided it as an attachment to background reading for the commission. Okay. Any, is there any questions or discussion about that at this moment? I am not sure what Debra's hand is up and then there's another hand up. And I think the other hand is up from somebody in the audience. So I'm not sure. Deb, did you have something to add? I just want to say I really appreciated your including that, Ronnie. Thank you. And as folks might imagine, the facts on the ground change almost hourly regarding what's actually happened. Well, facts are also being maybe as a loose term thing. And so facts on the ground are changing hourly and specific instances are changing by the day. Like, there was an assertion that Israel bombed a hospital and now it's almost, I think it's almost been proven that it was not Hamas, but maybe a nice, some kind of a nice attack. So I just, just to say that while it's a beautiful lens that you presented and that in any specific situation, things change incredibly quickly. And thank you. Okay. Thank you. I see two hands up and for the person that's in the audience, I see that your hand up and I would love to acknowledge you, but I need for you to hold off until we have our next public comment, if you don't mind. Well, Tyler, your hand is up. Yeah. I thought that the reading was very interesting. I've been reading a lot of IHL centric stuff on the ongoing war. And I think that it's extremely useful to use international humanitarian law as a type of metric in these sorts of instances. But as Deborah said, the situation on the ground is changing constantly. I think it's very much an open question as to whether IHL can be easily applied in a live scenario like this, where we don't yet have all the facts. We have not heard crucial elements like witness testimony. We haven't had a chance to comb through news reports or do any sort of statistical analysis, which means that while IHL is an extremely useful metric, doing a complete application of IHL right now, especially from a local government thousands of miles away, it would be incredibly, incredibly difficult, if not impossible. So I guess what I kind of want to say is, well, it's my preferred metric for looking at instances like this. I think the factors that Deborah highlighted also make it extremely hard to apply, even though it is the probably the best option that we have right now. Any other comments or statements? I am going to then move on to 3e, supporting organizations and statements before we have a meeting. I know that Ronnie and I think Deb had a few debates, but going back and forth about this at our retreat, maybe the debate is not a good word, but we had a lot of discussion about that and who can make these statements and do they then deserve a meeting? We had a humanitarian statement that came out in support of our friends and neighbors over in Israel and those here in the United States and in our town, and that went up on our webpage, but I think we had some discussion about that at our retreat. Does anybody else want to wait in on that and why was that put on our agenda? Tyler, is your hand still up for something else or did you just not bring it down? No, it's up to this. Okay, go ahead. I had my concerns with the statement that we put up with regards to the Israel war in Gaza. While I agree with the gist of the statement, I think that it is problematic to fail to make a clear differentiation between Israel and Hamas. I think that our statement almost treated the two of them as if they were both legitimate actors or at least each actor's on the same playing field. I think that there is a degree of danger in doing that because Israel, while deeply flawed state, is still a state that does most of the time, respect most of its obligations under international law, Hamas is a terrorist organization. So I think that I felt at the time and I still feel that it is necessary for us to release a separate statement specifically condemning Hamas or at least making that differentiation between the two entities. I think as well that it would be nice to have a standardized procedure for putting out these sorts of statements. I think that there should be a way for us to circulate the statement at least a few hours in advance of voting on it so that members can make suggestions with regards to changes in language or such since it was sort of a difficult decision for me to decide whether or not I wanted to vote in favor of that statement knowing that it wasn't making as strong a condemnation of Hamas as I felt was necessary given the circumstances, especially the circumstances at that time which was prior to a lot of Israel's most problematic acts in this particular conflict and therefore would have made it a more appropriate time than now to take a position that at the time is a natural position specifically against Hamas whereas now obviously there's a little bit more discussion around Israel's ongoing conduct that makes it a little bit harder to produce that sort of exact temporal response to specifically Hamas' atrocities. So I think it would be very useful to have clearly outlined mechanisms to release these statements and release follow-up statements as well where multiple might be necessary so that that way we can have a bit more procedure surrounding this. Thank you, Tyler. Jacinta, you're the next hand I saw. Yeah, I think this is a really heavy topic and I guess I'm just looking at this in a historical perspective thinking about the word terrorism especially because it became more popularized and legitimated after the 9-11 attacks and used to stigmatize Middle Eastern peoples and for that reason I just kind of felt a little bit warm after that statement and I do agree that maybe multiple statements would be a good way to kind of share more specific insight into the situations happening but I do think it is worth just understanding that human loss in general is what is horrific about the situation and I do think just for that reason I'm not trying to put down anybody and the experiences and the specific relations that they have to the conflict happening right now but I do want to say on behalf of you know anybody else that is a little bit like I don't know I just wanted to say that historically that word and also the treatment of Middle Eastern people in general like we don't we want as the Human Rights Commission we want to make sure that we just acknowledge that in this conversation. Deb your hand was next what I saw. Yeah I'm curious about how much time we want to spend on this topic. I am heartened that people have prioritized it to the extent that a statement was made and I'm really heartened Tyler at your incredibly sophisticated understanding and analysis of what's happening in Israel and Palestine. I don't have a response to the concern about the use of the word terrorism but or terrorist organization but I do want to say that the Palestinians on the ground that I'm in relationship with don't see Hamas in a good light and don't see Hamas as representing them and Hamas has as part of its charter the annihilation of every Jew on the planet not just the annihilation of Israel this is part of their written constitution anyone can find discover that and they called for a jihad against every Jew in the world last week to be conducted on Friday which nothing came of it so when evaluating who actors are that's something to keep in mind and just so you know who I am I think that the occupation is horrific and Israel is a bad actor in a thousand ways and Netanyahu can have many labels attached to him I would call him a fascist and a Trumpian and all kinds of things so yeah there's a lot of really nasty things we can say about a lot of the players and I don't know how much time we want to spend as the Amherst town of Amherst human rights commission on this but I thank you for your care and Tyler I want to take you to coffee or something and have more conversation and find out what you're studying and who you are because I'm intrigued by your attention to this stuff thank you Deb Pamela so I think that the intention was to have further conversation about the process my suggestion would be that if it is your intention to end at eight that you perhaps table this discussion for another meeting and and then I think it's important to think about the discussion and the questions that are raised um without the context of the uh current situation because you're thinking about a process and so um my you know my suggestion is that you that you table the discussion for another meeting and that you limit the discussion to process because you're there's always going to be the possibility of these you know divergent perspectives so Jennifer I was really just going to echo what Pamela said um it was put on here because you know there's lots of things can happen in between between meetings but that has to do with human rights or violations of human rights and whether or not who's going to write a letter of support or a statement to that is needs to be needs to happen before if possible right so I was just really echoing what Pamela was saying and that's what I thought this was discussion was going to be about but as a human being and given what's going on right now I felt a little bit of liberty to allow people to express how they're feeling about what's going on and how we can better maybe address when there's um conflicting I don't want to say conflicting views because I think everybody's and of the understanding that what's going on is not good um and I don't I don't even have the words but um I appreciate everybody's input um we need to put this on the agenda for next meeting but we want to talk about the process of how we get um statements out and speaking of which we need to get a statement to email to Lynn and Paul about the budget and so um I'm probably going to try to draft something up and maybe run it by Pamela or Jennifer and Ronnie and then send it out but folks have to remember which I did not do is to not reply all if they have any feedback or if they have any suggestions for what goes into the proposal for a budget discussion or a budget please send them to Jennifer so that she can send it to me and Ronnie and we can take a look at it but I think if we want to be put on the agenda for uh the November 13th we don't meet before then so we're going to have to um get that out before our next meeting um Ronnie has her hand up yeah I'm sorry I'm trying to be quick but I felt I needed to own the statement that went out and that it was written very much in a hurry like in two minutes with the idea that there would be more feedback and I wanted to say very specifically Tyler that I know she froze I saw your response but I should have certainly would have made the change and certainly would have made the change you suggested um and I look forward to working out a process because it was very I felt a terrible responsibility because I could see what was going on and I felt like you know I'm a co-chair I should do something we need to say we don't like this this is wrong um but it was very um anyway I wanted to own that and say that I do agree that we should figure out the process that will work better next time and I'd like if I'm going to get way in um I'm kind of torn between what Tyler was saying and about the statement in general I think that any um any violation of women and children needs to be out there so I am not um I don't think that I I personally don't think that um we're supporting Hamas but there's been a lot of innocent people on both sides it started with Hamas um but just like you know when we talk about um Muslims and people are of the mindset that all Muslims are terrorists and I don't believe that and and so um we just need to be careful that um we're not supporting everybody that's been negatively affected by the acts of and I don't want to say a few because there's many but a few um it is currently by my watch 759 we have the hrc website facebook page events I think we need to quickly go over um upcoming events then we're going to go to public comment and then we may adjourn if that's may adjourn if that's okay with everybody if you if there's not um a negative reaction to that we'll proceed that way is everybody okay with that okay so um upcoming events um I know that Jennifer and I did meet with um Becky Demling and oh my Celene um today um more than than me because I was late because of a different meeting about our um festival of lights celebration that's going to be on november 19th um at crocker farm and we divvied up some responsibilities um Jennifer if you want to speak a little more about that you was there more than me no you're good it'll be another fabulous event I just hope those who are in the area um can put it in their calendar so that they may attend the event we have a since we are cosponsoring this event um we may be calling on you to uh be in the children's corner or help set up or whatever that we do as a commission okay Deb do you have your hand up yeah can we have a start time I'm sorry I didn't hear that uh let me go back Deb do you know off I mean Jennifer do you know off the top yet otherwise I can pull it up I have the I have I had the flyer up earlier and you know I just didn't even look at it because usually when stuff happened um it was on yeah I have so many emails from so many different people flyer okay that's not the one with the flyer was on okay go back someone could just find it out and maybe send an email that's fine yeah yeah we're gonna also announce it at the next meet oh wait a minute got it come on it's from noon to five there you go already on my calendar okay and you know what I just pulled up the flyer yep 12 p.m to 5 p.m a crocker from school there'll be dance poetry henna food art uh dj handicrafts yeah there it is all right so um do we have any other upcoming events that we need to discuss not at the moment okay so I am going to table 3 f and that was it 3 f for our next meeting which is hrc website and facebook page so that's going to be tabled make sure please make sure that's on our agenda jennifer for our next meeting our next meeting will be one the 15th unfortunately I will not be able to be at that meeting I have a conflict that day if I can come in and out I will be there so please mark your calendars for November 15th at 6 30 and last but not least now uh public comment but jennifer do you have your hand up before that I just wanted to announce um and Lynn spoke on this little bit that the hra did finalize the report and submit it to the commission it's on their website and so please take a look um it's very very good and I just wanted folks to know okay thank you so um let me see if that person was still there they're still there so during the public comment period the chair will recognize members of the public when called on please identify yourself by stating your full name preferred pronouns and residential address residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the chair based upon the number of people who wish to speak no speaker can see their time to another speaker the human rights committee will not engage in a dialogue or comment on the matter raised during public comment so I know that there was someone in the audience that had their hand up earlier if you would still like to speak and yes your hand is up so jennifer if you could pull that person in thank you I gave them permission to speak so here they are are you are you here taller here they are they're on in the as a panelist but they are muted can you unmute yourself please maybe they don't know who you're referring to I'm referring to whoever is at 857-247-1074 as the phone number and their person has their hand up and they are now in our you can go ahead and speak now collar how was that heather hello hello can you hear me are you still in dr I can't hear her may suggest that um it's possible that she could email or is it possible for you to email oh I can hear you a little bit you are not coming through so if you could hear me can you put your hand down so that I know you can hear me hello yes hello I'm trying to make all the comments I'm trying to see if you can hear me I can hear you okay thank you I'm not sure if you know who this is uh by my voice this is our mirror um I know many of you and and have you to make this you know I'm not working I will not be able um I just wanted to say a few things that one I really wish girl would have been able to do the test if I'm able to next level very hard but I want to reiterate that as a resident that came from um urban studies um from Boston that living in Antwerp for two years I was really loved to see um the the work of the DCI work um that's what I'm doing um involved more people um from the community like myself I do with people that I'm still um um the uh Board of Health and there's a lot of issues that um still are not being funded that seems to be addressed and funding and I know there's a process to be that but um as far as the programming um it would really be nice to to give a specific uh for like children and elementary and middle school to um be able to go to the camp in the summer you know and not parents not have to worry about you know what their kids are doing in summer but actual either the DCI department or the DCI programming um that you guys are planning to like have like you know specific um you know things for for you know families from your line on like you know making sure that they can you know are in good um also um there's like a big in essence I think of the funds that have been um given to the town whether it be aqua funding and other free funding that funding has not been used for public resources and so there needs to be like more experience to you about you know how office has been used and yeah I could go on but I just really want to continue to speak about um you know public resources and that there are some um initiatives that you know that there will have to be specific I think activities for um by talking to you that you guys keep in mind that there are you know specific needs for like office and you know maybe for me as a parent to make sure that my people are you know being able to to access um from through school and that would be a good thank you um Lauren I just want to say that I did get a I was able to understand a lot of what you said but there was um some static and background noises so I don't know how you would feel about sending an email as well if it's possible to the human rights commission so that we can fully hear everything or know everything that you said I was going to say the same thing okay keeping the track of the time we have four minutes to 8 15 is there any other reports that we did or any other topics that we did not get to that um we did not anticipate in the last 48 hours okay this has been a full meeting I appreciate everybody's time and attention um we again please um be available if you can I say that knowing that I'm not um November 15th at 6 30 um I will meet with Jennifer or I will take a stab at a letter or an email to Paul and Lynn about the budget um have Jennifer share it with everybody for any input before we send it off to Lynn and Paul and I have to take a look at my calendar because my calendar starts getting really crazy about now um November 13th oh I am not available that day I am available on the 20th so um I might have to change that and be available we'll see um if I can't I will ask um Ronnie and maybe somebody else to go with her to um the uh well the process begins on the 20th and Lynn we have to be there on the 20th or the 13th this 20th is the date of the public forum okay so I will definitely be there on the 20th yeah all right but we we need to get you that letter before the 13th okay thank you for clarifying that um are there any other I see somebody's hand up that was still the person that was in the audience um other if there's no other questions comments or concerns at this time I will call the meeting adjourned all right I will wait a minute do we need a motion for that or just I can't get to call it so I will call uh the meeting of the October 18th HRC meeting adjourned at 8 14 p.m everybody stay safe