 My name is Brianna Owen and I'm calling this meeting to order as vice chair. Governor Baker's March 12 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law allows us to hold this virtual meeting of the working group. Given that we have a quorum present. I'm calling the April 28 meeting of the community safety working group to order at 532pm. I will call upon each member of the working group by name. At that time you should unmute your mic and say present or here and this will indicate that they can hear me and we can hear them. Please remember to mute your mic after saying present. Miss Walker. Present. Mr. Vernon Jones. Here. Miss Rara. Yeah. Mr. Cage. Here. This meeting is being recorded. This is my first time sharing the meeting. So I ask for all of you guys's assistance and also Miss Moistens assistance so we can ensure this meeting runs smoothly. Before we get started, I think we should acknowledge the resignation of chair Paul Wiley. Mr. Wiley's letter of resignation. He was our chair and our leader. I respect his decision to resign from our working group and I want to say that I'll miss his leadership and I will also miss his moral leadership and him being our main spokesperson. Later in this meeting we will discuss the chair of the group, but we'll hold out on that discussion out of respect for our consultants. I open the floor now to other community safety working group members who would like to make comments. Miss Rara. You know, I send my email because when I, when I heard it, I was a little bit shocked. I was like, oh no, I feel this leader. So obviously it's a big loss. I did touch base with him and we talked and everything and he's a big loss. But I know I'll see him around the community and I'm sure he'll still be very supportive of our work. So, you know, I know we'll keep moving forward and Brianna you're doing a great job and I know you'll continue to do a good job. Thank you. Miss Pat. Hi, I'm I am new to. Oh no we can hear you. Hey, hi everyone. Um, so, as Miss Perala just said, it's a big loss I'm sad that Mr. Wally resigned. I really appreciated his leadership. And his calm the meal of running the meeting so I'll miss him. I wish I can change his mind that it is what it is. I do have a couple comments to make. I attended a reparation webinar yesterday, and I was very, very impressed with the panelists with the presentation and it made me think and I learned something that some stuff that I never knew in Amherst. So, like, naming some of the streets in Amherst from previous slave owners, and it's something that maybe not without group but something that the community need to think about, you know, in changing those names like the boat would. I never knew that it was named after a slave owner in Amherst. That's disgusting. Doesn't want to share that. So, anyway, that's it. Mr. Vernon Jones. I do want to express my deep appreciation of the work that Paul Wiley did with us. It's I think it's a real loss not to have him. I do understand from him that he continues to support us and our work and to be supportive of the recommendations that we've developed so far. So I want to make sure that the public is aware that there is not indicate any lack of enthusiasm for this group or its work for the forthcoming reports. Are there any more comments. So next, I want to take a couple of minutes to review the agenda. We'll first hear public comments that members of the public want to provide the working group. We will then respond to your comments, but we will listen carefully. We will then hear comments from the community safety working group members and review the minutes from 224 21 and vote to approve them. After that, we'll hear from our consultants, seventh gen movement collective as they present the substance of their report. After hearing from the consultants we need to review the deadlines we have to meet and talk about how we're going to meet those deadlines. We will then discuss the position of the chair of the working group and decide if we want to elect a chair tonight, or hold off until next week with the agenda outlined I want to move into public comment. If any member of the public would like to make a statement, please raise your hand, I will recognize you and ask Miss moist and to turn you to turn on your microphone. I asked that comments be limited to three minutes. The group will be will not be responding to your comments but we will be listening carefully. Thank you for that. Thank you. And I'm glad that Meg Gage is here. Anyone would like to say a few words? Thank you. Rihanna and Jennifer and everyone. My name is Meg Gage. I live in North Amherst. And first of all, thank you for the amazing work you've been doing. I'm really impressed with your recommendations and. Thank you. The particular thing I wanted to share was I recently had occasion to be involved with the Holyoke police and learned about a program there where a social worker is a co-respondent. And I've spoken with him. His position is entirely funded by the Massachusetts Department of Health. So it's something to think about in terms of funding for positions. It's not at all as comprehensive. A program is what you've been talking about. But the idea is that he responds with the police to certain calls that the 911 operator identifies as more appropriate to have a social worker. I guess they both show up. But he would be happy to speak with you about how it works, how the funding worked. I have his name and contact information. Again, this isn't a magic bullet, but it's just something I thought would be helpful to know about over and out. Thank you, Meg. Thank you, Jennifer. You're amazing. You're my heroine. Oh, thank you. You're good. Bye. Bye. Are there any hands up? I don't think there is. Just double checking. So I guess since there's no hands raised, we can now move into the members reports. This is time for members of the community safety working group to update us on any work that they've done in events that are coming up. Does anyone have an item they'd like to share? Ms. Ferrara. I mean, quickly, just again, with everything going on nationally, I don't know if you all have been looking at the news, but obviously there's been other kind of. There was another one with a Latino man in California, 21, who was killed by the police in Alameda, California, something similar to George Floyd with a neck to the knee. I mean, knee to the neck. So very disturbing. And there was another one, an older woman, about 73, had dementia. I don't think she was BIPOC, but was basically roughed around by the police. This was in Colorado, and they dislocated her shoulder. So this is someone with dementia. Dislocated her shoulder, and then they were joking about it afterwards. The police officers who did it, talking about, oh, did you hear the pop and so on? And so it's on a video. I mean, just terrible, you know? So a woman who was totally defenseless, and that was a treatment she received. Obviously there's more to it, but I'll spare the details. So again, keep on just saying the work that we're doing, so very important, so very key because even though we got the right verdict in the Chauvin trial, obviously this whole situation just keeps on continuing and repeating itself over and over again until a change occurs. Ms. Pat? So mine is more of a question rather than comment, and the question goes to the town manager. With the ADK that was allocated for equity work, I know substantially it's been spent. Whatever the remaining amount is, I'm wondering what you're planning to do with it. The reason why I ask is that after attending last night webinar that was organized by the founding members of reparation, I just feel that they had requested for 5K. And if it's something you will consider for them to have, because the document will benefit the entire community that people can reference, for example. I'm also thinking about the Junete celebration in the past is being the expectation of residents to come and eat free food. And because of COVID and slow business for some people, people that used to donate might not be able to do it this year. And Junete supposed to be a non-commercial event was wondering if some of the money left over could be used to pay entertainers and maybe food vendors. That's a long talk from the question. Oh, Mr. Backelman. Thank you. So yes, I think there's about 12,000 talkers left. I think our core equity team, which is our internal working group that's looking for additional training for town staff, have a proposal to utilize much of it. Ms. Moyston has been working like crazy on the Juneteenth event. And we have not actually connected exactly on the budget for that. I know there's a lot of work being done on multiple levels for Juneteenth. For reparations, the initial request came in to pay someone who had already performed services, which was not something we could do because it was retroactive and it wasn't follow any procurement method or anything like that. But the reparations for Amherst Group, I believe, is coming to meet with the town council on May 17. It might be the same evening you are. And so they will be talking about it with the town council at that point as well. So that money is still there. It has not been allocated, although I do look to support our core equity team and the work that they want to do is a very high priority. Thank you. Ms. Moyston? So in regards to Juneteenth, we do have it in the budget to pay for the entertainers or performers. So that's already included in our budget that we have prepared. And so while I don't know the best way to handle the food situation because some of these, they're not like the local businesses that we usually that are just here. There's a little more geared to the Black cultural foods. And so we will be giving vouchers to the performers and to the staff and to those who come and speak. And so that's in the budget for them too, so that they can give back to these businesses. Were there any more people that wanted to bring an item to our attention? OK. The next item on the agenda is the minutes. We have one set of minutes to approve. With that said, I move to approve the minutes of 224.21 as presented. Is there a second? Second. And we'll just do a roll call vote. Ms. Walker? Ms. Walker? Oh, you know what? Why don't we just we all just raise our hand if we approve to raise your hand if you move to approve the minutes from 224.21. OK. Ms. Bowman, is that a hand up? Oh, hand up. OK. So I guess from we can now move on to our consultants. I'd like to welcome Dr. Shabazz and her colleagues from the Seventh Gen Movement Collective. We have all received an early draft of their report and sent their comments back and sent comments back. Dr. Shabazz, please introduce your team and present the results of your research. Please take your time as we have prepped most of the meeting for your team. Hello. Thank you, Chair Brianna. And thank you to the committee and all the work that you have put into this project for the past few months. We're glad, of course, to be a part of it. And we are also I guess we're just overwhelmed in trying to present this information towards time. And I really have to give credit to my group, which I will introduce Dr. Katie Lesdowski and Dr. Sanji Johnson. Where are you? I don't see you on the screen. And Terri Mullen, the other person that has been working with us is Valencia Harvey, who has worked with us on looking at national trends in terms of alternatives to policing. There you are, Dr. Sanji Johnson Anderson. So again, I just want to give credit to them. We have gathered all of this information both in the community and through interviews, personal interviews, focus groups, et cetera, and that we'll talk about. And we're going to do a presentation now to sum up this work from both part A and part B. And then at the end of it, we will be making some recommendations based on particularly the input that you all have provided and based on your proposed plans to present to the town council. So we want to help to support your work in particular. That's what we were brought in to do. So with no further ado, I think am I able to share screen because we're going to show slides. And then we'll open up for questions afterwards. Let's see. It didn't go to it. There it is. Can you all see the slides? Yep. OK, great. All righty. OK, so we have had basically two months to do the research. And like I said, I think we've gotten quite a bit done within that period of time. We've been very productive. I first want to begin, however, when we were brought in, it was definitely to look at Amherst. But I think in looking at policing, as we discussed as a group, we had to look at the history of policing and how that shaped and influences, of course, our current policing practices that we have both nationally and in town. A lot of this information, you all know as well. And I just want to begin to shape our conversation here. As you know, policing began during colonial times, really. And even in the New England area, the colonists basically would hire Native Americans to surveil and police their own people as scouts. And so you have that history, but then you also, of course, have the history within the 1700s, early 1700s, where the first slave patrols, the early police forces, were created in the Carolinas to bring slaves and slave people back to the wealthy landowners. And it was to protect property. Of course, slaves then were considered property. So I just want to talk about that because here you have this song that was created during that period of time where enslaved Africans in their way to resist and to have a way in which to warn their brothers and sisters about what was called the patty roller, they were the slave patrols. And so they would sing this song in mocking the white patty rollers, but also to warn one another that the patty roller is following you. So try to get away. And as you could see as part of that history and legacy, here is something that would have been like a woodcut print from 1839. And you have the patty rollers catching someone who could have been a former slave and escaped slave. But as we know, they would also, for money, take freed people down south to be sold. And very much like our modern day police, you see that there is a badge that they wore to look official as the slave patrol. So I just wanted to begin our discussion in setting it within this historical context because now we're going to hear from Terry Mullin talk about what are the current policing practices that we inherited from the police, basically, which was created here in Amherst from a singular person, a night watchman, who was our first police here in Amherst, Fisk Thayer, what's his name? He was a night watchman in 1872. And really, the police stayed for three to four, maybe five people up until after World War II in the 1950s when it began to grow. And so Terry Mullin will now talk about current police methods. Terry. Thank you, Dr. Chavaz. Yeah, if you could head to the next slide, that would be great. So basically, the national policing trend has really evolved a lot in the past few decades and has really gone into a sector that they've not really been able to handle super well, as we probably all know. And so this is true in Amherst as well. So we have Chief Livingstone talking from your meeting. The evolution of policing has really changed a lot. The types of calls we're responding to are very different. And they're going into these social quality of life issues, such as homelessness, unemployment, mental health. And those weren't necessarily what police were asked to do. And then as we know in Amherst, there's very specific issues, such as landlord-tenant issues, substance abuse issues, drug and alcohol programs and problems. And these are all kind of problems and community issues that the police have been really asked to take on. And maybe that's not what they originally set out to do, and these types of things have really been criminalized and to be put under the ability of the police. So if you could head to the next slide. So in Amherst to kind of respond to that, and actually nationally, this is a very common philosophy and policing method is it's called community policing and specifically sector-based policing. And so this is the model that the APD is using. And so the description, there's a lot of different types of community policing. It's not a super well-defined phrase. Every agency employs it a little bit differently. And that's by design. So the Amherst, in a memo, Chief Livingson sent out from June 4th, said community-oriented and problem solving policing approach with sector-based policing focuses on crime and disorder with both traditional law enforcement actions, partnered with prevention, problem-solving, community engagement, and partnerships. This requires the police and community members slash stakeholders to join together as partners in the course of both identifying and effectively addressing these issues. And then he goes on to say that recognizing that we, the police, cannot solve all the problems in Amherst's vital. And also that the agency has to continually put the community on notice that we need their help in addressing crime, disorder, and quality of life issues. So the goal of community policing is to create some sort of partnership between different stakeholders and the police to somehow work together to solve these sort of quality of life or what might be considered like things like homelessness, drug and substance abuse, et cetera. Those types of problems to work together to try to solve them using the police. So in Amherst, they split the Amherst into sectors. So there's Northwest, Northeast, Center West, Center East, Southwest, and Southeast districts. And they actually assign officers consistently to the same district so they can try to build relationships or identify these stakeholders that they're referring to in the beginning. And if you go ahead to the next slide, the actual job description of these officers is to actually provide high visibility proactive patrols of the entire sector. So that means going into the neighborhoods, showing the police car, showing the uniform, being visible. And then there's this idea of that the police feel a sense of lack and need to be as efficient as possible to make up for that. So they actually try to identify problem areas, problem-oriented areas, areas susceptible to crime or disorder. So you can see that profiling start to build up in just the description of community policing. And this is a very standard, very universal Amherst isn't special in this regard. This is exactly the protocol that community policing asks of our police officers. So a regular officer would be asked to be visible, go to these problem-oriented areas directed by their supervisors, and really be looking for areas of concern. And then the directed patrol officers, their job is to really kind of get the data and try to figure out where the problems are. So they're looking to identify the specific problem-oriented areas, try to figure out who, where these quality of life issues might be happening. And then the other big thing is to Dr. Shabazz was talking about property and business. That's still very much a part of their protocol. It's not just the safety of citizens, the laws, the bylaws. It's also to protect business and residential property. And then also to look for and identify an apprehend offender. So there's a very proactive approach. And so if you head to the next slide, you can actually see kind of maybe some of the conclusions that they've made. So this is an image that I made using the call logs from May 2019 to May 2020. And what this says is on these streets, how many calls were sent there. And so now a call I want to be really specific. A police call isn't some resident picked up the phone and called the police. It's an officer initiating a police interaction. So a police call, this could be they're on patrol and they see someone speeding and they pull them over. That's a police, that's called the police call. That's the terminology. So those are also referenced on this as well. Traffic enforcement is also somewhat referenced on this. And so to highlight some areas, so the bright yellow, the most calls is North Pleasant. We can think about downtown. That's the main throughway there where there's a lot of activity there. Then you also have in kind of teal or blue, you can see Main Street that kind of cuts horizontally across. And then, yeah, thank you, Dr. Chavaz. And then kind of diagonally down, you have Route 9. And that's another big area. So you can see that these would be places of problem oriented or high policing. And that's where resources are going to. And then you can see all the purple in a lot of these residential neighborhoods, there's very few calls, very low police interactions that justify a call log being made. And if you head to the next slide, community policing requires a proactive approach. So 45% of calls are officer initiated. So they're not phoned in, they're not 911. They're follow ups or they are an officer initiating a response, things like that. And this is very in line with what the ask of community policing and their policy is. So if you head to the next slide. And so what this looks like for different areas of our town. So anecdotally, there's been a sense of the apartment complexes are heavily pleased. And you can see in all the apartment complexes that I've listed, Colonial Village, Village Park, Pufton, and the boulders, there's this high rate of initiated in red police calls. And actually these, I should have put the numbers on these, but most of these areas have over 100 calls throughout the year. And again, remember, call refers to a police interaction. And it's something that an officer needs to log. And then if you hit next slide, you can see that if you take a residential area where I pulled Larkspur, Treeberry, Woodlott, Wildflower, and William, these are all residential streets and Amherst kind of all in a neighborhood, you can see the percentage of initiated is actually a little lower, which is kind of interesting. And so you can see that that might not be what's considered a problem area to the police. Again, and this is part of community policing. The goal of community policing is to make resources efficient so you don't want to be looking places where there aren't crime happening, but this can really feel profiling. And we can hear from Katie and Sanji, Dr. Johnson-Anson, Dr. Ozdowski shortly about how it feels from the community perspective. But I also see someone jumped off mute. So I'm wondering if there's a question. Is that true? Or did someone just jump off? Can we just take questions afterwards though, Terry? Sure. OK, cool. Yeah, so that is kind of the status of the policy of the APD at the moment and kind of how it shakes out in the call log data. And now we'll hear from Dr. Ozdowski and Dr. Johnson-Anson about how it feels. Thank you so much, Terry. So I just want to again reiterate, it's within this context, the context of the history of policing in the United States, the current national context, which I know a lot of you were referencing in your discussion before we came on, and also within the context of how policing is structured in Amherst that we are conducting this research. And as we will show, this proactive patrol approach is experienced very differently than perhaps what it is intended by the BIPOC community. So we are starting with a quote, an excerpt from a community member. You're going to hear a lot of those as we present our research because that is really the data that we look at. And it's people's words and their stories. And so this is a statement from a community member from one of your community forums held in January. And this person notes that you're probably not going to hear from the most vulnerable communities who need to be heard because there are so many issues involved. It takes a lot of courage to speak about the police and even more courage to speak against the police. And it was this same thought that we had even prior to being awarded the bid, so to speak. It was the same thought that we knew our design when we put in for the bid needed to include participatory action research because we wanted to target those who are most vulnerable and those that need to be heard. Next slide, please. We have discussed participatory action research in previous sessions with you all. So I won't take too much time to explain it. And you've hopefully all referenced the report by now. But participatory action research positions people with lived experience as the experts of their own situations. So in that regard, it is important to incorporate people with lived experience in all stages of the research, which includes the design all the way through the data analysis. And we made a call for community ambassadors who would serve this role to be co-researchers, if you will, with Dr. Johnson Anderson and myself. We put out a call shortly after we were awarded the consultancy. And we were able, within a week's time, to select six community ambassadors. We worked with them in a rapid pace to workshop with them and to essentially teach them the fundamentals of and the values of participatory action research. We discussed in one session the limitations of this research. And I want to emphasize that participatory action research is generally conducted over a great length of time. A lot of deliberate attention is put towards building rapport with people and building trust, especially around talking about sensitive topics, such as people's experiencing the policing that is happening in their lives. So there were different limitations that then impacted the research design. And as we'll discuss, the community ambassadors, while we had thought maybe we would do more of focus groups, community ambassadors really helped to inform the research design and thought it would be best to do more one-on-one interviewing with folks so that we could ensure people's safety and security and not put them in groups where they might not feel as comfortable with unknown participants. And then towards the end, after they had collected their data, we looked at the data together. Next slide, please. So in general, we had these six community ambassadors that we were able to recruit. As we've discussed prior, they are for women and to people who identify as men, all representing either AAPI or BIPOC identities. And they also represent four different languages. And from there, they each reached out to a minimum of seven additional what we're calling community members. And some reached out to upwards of 10 people that they were able to conduct interviews with. So in total, we listened to Dr. Johnson Anderson and I listened to over 40 hours of recorded interviews, which happened primarily over Zoom and were transcribed with automatic Zoom technology. And we were able to take the data from those interviews and listen to the responses to the various questions that the community ambassadors had designed. If you can go to next slide again, please. Dr. Shabazz, thank you. So the majority of the findings come from the interview data or the focus groups. And then secondary, we also analyzed public comments made at your meetings, as well as the public forums that you held and the emails that were sent to CSWG members. The second through the fourth sources are more secondary sources because, again, our goal is really to prioritize the voices of the BIPOC community in this. And just to reiterate that quote that I opened with recruitment, as we've discussed before, recruitment was very difficult. To get seven interviewees, so to speak, seven community members, community member participants, people reached out to upwards of 17 people in some cases. So that just exemplifies the fear that a lot of people have in terms of speaking up about the police and in a lot of cases speaking against the police. From all of the data that we collected, we have six themes that emerged. And I'm going to pass it off to Dr. Johnson Anderson, who will discuss in greater depth what those themes are. Thank you, Dr. Lesdowski. And so in keeping with what Dr. Lesdowski just shared about the data that we got from our interviews, they came in these six themes, fear, dehumanization, distrust, incongruity of values, lack of diversity, and disrespect. Next slide, please. And so we found where fear is concerned, that there were different components to the fear that community members feared the police and feared them in many different ways. And so one fear was the fear of death at the hands of police officers. And because we want to privilege the voices, the words of our community members, just as we go through, maybe pick out one or two of the quotes that are here, there are many more that we could add. One says, as a black person in America, I have to debate whether I should call the police, because doing so may cause a situation to escalate and someone could end up dead, because I called the police. And also, Sergeant Such and Such sat me on the floor and said, I'll effing kill you if you effing move, eff your kids. Next slide, please. There is also the fear of unjust arrest and persecution. So one person said, don't ask me nothing. No, I can't get involved. They push your buttons till you react and to the jail cell you go. Someone else said, I stay away from them. My kids know if police don't have a warrant, they should not come inside my house. Next slide, please. Then there is fear of police violence and bodily harm. One person said, when police approach, especially males of color, the darker they are, the more police try to exert dominance. They do this before someone is given the benefit of the doubt. And or we never hear of white people getting choked out by white cops. So there are many, many, many levels of the fear that is expressed by our community participants. And there's also the fear of police retaliation and harassment. And we've heard this said time and again by our community members that police will harass you till they get you. I've seen them do this. My sister was harassed a lot by Amherst police. And one of the reasons she hardly comes to Amherst now. So next slide, please. And so dehumanization emerged as another theme. And by dehumanization we are speaking to the way members of the BIPOC community are treated and seen by police as non-human, as animal, and in some instances as super human. So that's what we're talking about when we talk about dehumanization. So being seen as animalistic, black community is viewed as threatening antagonistic in human. Animals to be tamed, to be brought down to the ground and kneeled on. Their training doesn't allow them to humanize people. So that is being seen as animalistic. Next slide, please. Then where aggression and being threatening is concerned, it says, I get to my house as the father of the minor who called the police because of a white intruder and the police officer approached me in an aggressive manner. An officer I had just interacted with the week before at my job in a professional capacity. Or we are viewed as a threat to white supremacy. Our very existence poses a problem for us. Next slide, please. Members of the BIPOC community also spoke about being seen, being viewed, being perceived as criminals by police. My loved one was arrested because he did not show up to jury duty. He had no priors. The first question he asked me upon approaching me after a traffic stop was if my car was mine or I was accused of fitting the description of someone who had stolen at the CVS. The pictures they showed us were all of white people. We were told to go with police nonetheless. Next slide, please. And of course, there is this issue of distrust that the community of color does not trust police officers and that they think that somehow with this over-policing that they are being surveilled constantly. Next slide, please. So the police escalate, then de-escalate and they do not protect and serve. So they always claim, police always claim to fear for their lives. And another person says, I can't remember any good experiences with Amherst PD. Everything I can think of. I can't recall a positive experience with Amherst PD or that the police, I view the police as disconnected from the community is what another person said. And of course, distrust is, it runs really deep. And so they continue, even when we aren't reaching out to police officers, they interject themselves into our lives. We don't initiate with them, they initiate with us. Or as an African-American man, they may misinterpret why I'm on the scene and I end up getting into trouble. Next slide, please. So the disparity and the disconnect that we're talking about here speaks of the cultural and social differences between the BIPOC community and what police officers view, I guess, as their sense of order. I think it speaks to the culture of whiteness. And so as we go to the next slide, please, and I'll elaborate a little bit. So the white police values, the disparity between white police values and BIPOC culture is that they don't deal with de-escalating a situation. For instance, at a party, they just shut down the event entirely. For instance, I was at a party on campus and something happened outside. Within 30 minutes, they had shut the event entirely, not so with majority white events. Look at Blarney. They de-escalate, but at the black event, they shut it down altogether. So again, sort of a different members of BIPOC community in their way of expressing themselves of getting together, socializing with each other is often seen as disturbance. And so they are treated in that manner. At a black party, they always impose curfew. They do this all the time with students of color events. Or I turn up to hear the owner of the establishment call the cops because he hated the way my son was sitting in a chair. Next slide, please. And then also they speak about the lack of diversity within the police force. So the police force is not diverse. I want to see action taken by police that shows equal respect for people of color as white people. Diversity trainings have not changed them. They cannot be reformed. They shouldn't exist as a system. And then there's also the notion that there needs to be more BIPOC representation in Amherst PD. And then again, the presence of bias. Whenever there's a huge presence of people of color, the police presence is strong, but not when the crowd is white. Why is there bias? And not because someone is not overtly racist does not mean they are not indoctrinated by black hatred. So the presence of bias in the way that police deal with the people of color in their communities. Next slide, please. So, and again, it continues about the disregard, the lack of respect that police routinely show to members of the BIPOC community. Next slide, please. They are disrespectful. They should behave with respect. They conduct unnecessary searches and always claim that I look like someone who shoplifted it at the CVS. They don't see serving and protecting us like they serve and protect white people. They think to keep us in line, but serve and protect white people. So again, members of the community continue to express themselves about the general disrespect that they receive. Then of course, then there's issue of surveillance, right? There is too much of a saturation of police in Amherst. There isn't really that need. Aside from students, the majority of the population is old white people. And then someone said, I was driving towards Pelham doing about 35 miles per hour. A cop stopped me. I tried to explain that I had a meeting and I was trying to make it on time. We argued back and forth for about 15 minutes. Then he told me to go on my way. They continue to stop us because they want to anger you by stopping you needlessly. And this one says police were called for a family member with mental health issue. There were about 10 cops surrounding my family member. They all had their hands on their guns. Just a sight of police holding their guns even before asking questions was beyond scary. Every time I would walk by the spot where this happened, it triggered me, it triggers me. And so Dr. Lesdowski will come back in again and talk about this graphic. You're muted. Thank you so much. So I just want to emphasize that the community participants were not prescreened in terms of what their feelings were about the police before they were asked to be interviewed. And in fact, the visual here shows that some people when asked to the first word that came to mind when Amherst police was mentioned, some people's responses were neutral, right? Such as in the case of someone said, all right, like they're all right. Others were positive. One person said, you know, they're understanding. But the vast majority, as you've heard from the various quotations, the vast majority have very negative experiences with the policing in Amherst. And so we just leave by reemphasizing that these are people with human beings with lived experience and not numbers in the case of a lot of quantitative data, right? There's, everyone has a different story and each story is meaningful, but from the different recurring themes that we heard, there were, you know, these themes that we just shared with you that stood out. And to conduct the interviews and to be part of those interviews, we have to thank our BIPOC community members who put themselves in that vulnerable situation who are willing to, in some cases, be retraumatized by sharing their story. And we hope that we don't just learn from them but that we're able to do something with the data that comes out of it. And so just as this interviewer suggests, I hope that these responses from these interviews actually like create a change and that they learn from this experience. They didn't just become a report, you know. So their hope is that the majority of the people want to see change. And I hope we've shared a glimpse into their experiences, the BIPOC community's experiences as to why they want to see change. So with that, I will pass the baton again to Terry who will share our recommendations. Thank you. Yeah, so our recommendations are kind of, can be viewed as kind of two parts. Changes to public safety, the current public safety model. So we support the community responder for equity, safety and services, your Crest model that you will put a lot of time and effort into. Also a civilian oversight board. And then in addition to bringing in the BIPOC community to reduce the number of police by half over the course of five years. And I'll just expand specifically on this one is, and we'll expand on that on the next slide. And then, and really these are specific, and you'll see this in the report supported by different research and different suggestions that we've seen around the country in other municipalities have had some success with these. But in addition to some of the successes, they've also had still a lot of police violence. And so that's why changing some of the policies and making a reduction in the police force and really being specific about what we want our police to do is very important. So even though CAHOOTS is a great program, they still have had multiple deaths by the hands of police in the last two years. And so adding things, it can't be the only recommendation. So while your recommendations are strong and good, there also needs to be a look at the change of policy on police and what that would mean for their staffing. If they don't need to be out in the sectors and doing this policing, there can be a reduction. And then on top of that is kind of these preventative recommendations, these community building recommendations. So the CSWD should be continued to ease the transition. You all are the experts of Amherst at this point of community safety of all the different nuances and this group alone can kind of guide this transition and really needs to be continued on and budgeted for. In addition, an office of diversity, equity, and inclusion for the town, someone who can, an office that can fully kind of watch over these issues and really center and care for the BIPOC community with BIPOC leadership and people who understand these things, understand the nuances and the difficulties based by our community. And then also a youth empowerment center and a multicultural center. These types of cultural focuses can be a lot more effective and you can see that in different mental health research and things of that nature. And that's all outlined in the Part B report, which you got the rough draft of, but that same link will lead you to a more filled out working draft that will be completed by April 30th, of course. And then on the next page, we talk about specifically reducing the size. So in the size reduction, it would be kind of moving away from this community policing, being really specific about that this really proactive initiative based policing model isn't what Amherst wants. And the research that you'll find in the Part B report really does back up that this model really can actually increase the violent police interactions. It's been linked and shown in different areas to really show that. And so part of the structure of the APD right now has a lot of this very hierarchical sector-based training and alignment. So slowly reducing not just the patrol officers, but also the supervisors, the lieutenants and the sergeants could be able to lower the initiative-based policing and focus more on what the police, what a lot of people anecdotally kind of view the police to do is just more of the reaction, something's happened, there needs to be an investigation. And so this is a five-year plan to reduce the police force by 50% over the next five years and not just cutting the patrol officers, but also starting to you see in the first and second and third year take away some of the supervisory that are making these kind of decisions about the problem-oriented areas and things like that and focusing and really moving away from that model, which we believe will allow for the reduction, but also with the bolstered Crest program and the bolstered social services and preventative measures, it would all have to be enacted at the same time or at the in parallel. Yeah, so that's what we have. I don't know, Dr. Shabazz, do you wanna wrap us up? Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Katie and thank you, Sanji. I think let's take questions at this point. This is what is a combined effort from part A and part B and we wanted to bring our recommendations together in a type of cohesive manner. So we would open up for any questions at this point. Ms. Pat, oh, you're on mute. Can people hear me now? Yes. Awesome. First of all, thank you, Seven-Jane, for the excellent presentation. I knew that you guys are not going to disappoint in doing this project. I would like to hear more about your thoughts around a civilian oversight board. Who should appoint or should they run for election or term limits? I did a national study that you guys drew upon to make the recommendation just curious. Thank you. Thank you. Terry, you want to talk a little bit about that because some of it is forming. I mean, it depends on the community but there is an oversight group for these types of civilian review boards. Do you want to talk about that a little bit, Terry? Yeah, so the NACOLE, which is discussed in the report at length, is the national agency that kind of oversees some of these oversight boards. So the key to oversight is similar to community policing and just policing in general is every individual board has its own specific goals. So it's not as in my findings and in some of the research, it's not so much about the different structures as much as it is about what you're asking them to do. So one recommendation that I believe in is this idea of being able to audit different things. So like we did with our partnership, the CSWG procured the policies of the APD and I was able to read through them and analyze them and compare that to the research and talk about the community policing. So that type of auditing is very important. So, but to your question, like who should be on it, it's really quite varied. There most are appointed by either the town council or a town manager style entity. And then they serve their term. To my memory, there was none that were voted on. But I think the key in the research done by the NACO, Ellie, is it's really about the goal and then are you giving them the resources to complete that goal? So if you want like the oversight board to be able to investigate a specific instance and fully research that specific instance for, say, or maybe a bias complaint or something like that and say there was some knowledge specific that none of the board members had, there are options for hiring like an external investigator and having funding so that the volunteer or the low stipend folks aren't charged with training themselves on a specific type of case and then becoming the experts, but rather they're the resident experts of the town and some of the structures, but when things get extra complicated or extra specific, they can reach out to other sources of knowledge. So I'll try to be specific to your question, Ms. Pat. The C, there are obviously many different models of choosing the members. In my opinion, that isn't and in the research opinion that isn't the kind of make or break. The make or break is like if you want the civilian oversight board to be able to say change the policy, like ask the APD to move away from community policing, you need to give them that power. So that means that they see the policy, they are working with the chief, they're working with the community, they're liaising, they have enough payment to justify spending those hours to do that. And that seems to be the key make or break of a civilian oversight board. Does that answer your question? Yes, thank you. Yes, absolutely. And just to reemphasize that if you go to the NACLE, it's the National Association for Civilian Oversight of law enforcement, many of the directors for these towns that have these oversight commissions, boards, groups or what have you, they will hire a director or as Terry mentioned when there are complicating factors such as they're investigating someone who has several complaints against them from town members or something like that on the police force, they will bring an outside person to work on that investigation. But the oversight group basically manages that whole operation. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Ms. Ferrara. So again, just like Ms. Pat said, obviously I wanna thank the seven gen group for all your hard work and obviously taking the time to just work with the deadlines, which we know was very short. Obviously the care you took, the sensitivity you took with everything to make sure to still recruit folks and to get a diverse group of people represented not only in the community ambassadors, but also within the group that you were interviewing. Obviously my hats off to you all, great, great work. And it made me think when I read the draft of the report and you all had obviously kind of noted that at different places, just how quick you had to work to get the people. And of course, that will impact too, how much you can actually get done when you have those types of deadlines. So it did make me think that with this work moving forward and the fact that these recommendations that we made and any others that we're gonna make that it's something that is gonna be continual. So possibly thinking about having a more in-depth study and talking to more people, really being able to have a three to six months type of assessment and going back into the community and really going out and talking to more people because I think this is very rich information. And I think, especially if, let's say a CSWG was to continue forward, that would be the information we would need to continue forward, to continue to do the work is to be in close communication and close conversation with the community and the most vulnerable marginalized community members. So that was one of the things that I wanted to say. And obviously, one of the things too is that with the CSWG, in terms of your recommendations CSWG to continue forward it would also have to be with resources because God knows all the work that we've put in and stuff like that. I don't know about being able to recruit people to continue doing this work for another five years with no resources, right? But that's something else I wanted to point out. Two things that I wanted to say is in terms of the reduction of police officers which I totally agree with, I guess my thing is, and maybe we need to kind of communicate it a little bit better because for me, for me kind of voting to make that recommendation to have the Crest, right, the community responders for me it automatically said to me that, yeah, which that meant that there would be a reduction in the police force, right? Because the community responders are gonna be doing a lot of the work that the police force would be doing. So therefore there wouldn't be a need for a lot of those police officers, right? And we'd have to obviously make a determination. So for me, I guess that goes hand in hand and obviously I'm glad that you all stated that but for me, I'm kind of like, I want that obviously the community responder group to go in sooner rather than later which would mean a reduction in the police force pretty quickly, that's the way I kind of understand. And then the other one that I wanted a little bit more information about because was in the draft, I know you didn't mention it in your presentation tonight but was in the draft in regards to the community saying they wanted to have more of a police presence out of uniform, right? In the community and things like that. I read that in the draft program. And so for me, I think that's a good thing but that could be complicated too, right? Because are they gonna be able to do that in a good way in a way that still is not intimidating still not gonna be a way that they're gonna feel kind of put out there. So I think that's where I wanted to kind of hear a little bit more about what the community was talking about in terms of that because that would have to be done in a right way. So what would be when come off intimidating? Oh, and one other point too with Terry, thank you so much for your report. It was really beneficial to me to hear about because you always hear, right? Community policing, community policing. And for me, before I started doing this work, right? For all these months that we've become immersed and we're researching and all of that. Before it was like when I would hear community policing and I've used the word community policing, I'm saying it in a way like, oh, the police are part of the community and they're being helpful, right? And you don't get a sense. And this is so educational, right? And it's so great that you're including it and their report because it educates to say that, no, as your community policing is sector-based policing and it's actually kind of like profiling policing, right? Profiling neighborhoods and being there to kind of see that, wait a minute. These are the neighborhoods that we have to keep an eye on because violence is gonna come up, which no, that's not necessarily the case, right? So I really appreciated that too, that you all brought that in and it's an important part to have in the report. But I know I said a lot, but I guess my question would just be in terms of the community policing or like the policing presence without them being in the form. So, Terry, you want to talk about that in Katie because I know it's in both part B and part A. So whoever wants to go first and to respond to Mr. Rarara. But I can start and just say, so community policing does have like, it's a tricky beast because like I said earlier, each individual community, the goal of community policing is to be flexible to each individual community. But a key component is to create community partnerships. And so when that happens well, it does work well. Like that is like when the police force lives in the community and that sort of thing, like there can be good relationships made and Dr. Shabazz, I know you talked to more kind of the stakeholders, like that can happen. But the key, in my opinion, and the key in what the research kind of elicits is, it needs to be intentional. And I think this is kind of what you were saying, Ms. Rarara. Like it needs to be intentional and also clear to both stakeholders. So if they're going into the community just like kind of plain clothes, like a sting, like we see like with like that type of like, Eric Gardner was a sting, like that type of policing isn't what doesn't build community relationships. But like when you have police involved in some other like community building things, it can form relationships, but it can be very informal and difficult to not, I don't want to say control, but like maintain. And I know like Ms. Bowman, like you said, like we have a fluctuating community. And so like to rely on an informal community-based thing like might not be, it is a working model in it. And I'm not like disregarding what the community member said. It's a very good model. Their intuition is well-based, but it might not be a model that's successful in Amherst because of our individual needs is kind of what the research brings up for me. Like with our kind of flexible, constantly changing community, is that something that we want to put resources into given that it can be kind of tricky to kind of oversee that and keep that up. But that's not to say that it can't not be done. It just needs to be done with care and intention. And I think Amherst needs to, as a community consider, do we have the resources, the people who can do that care and intentional work that the community member might be asking for? And that's kind of my question. Thank you, Terry. Katie, do you wanna pick up on that? And I will just highlight, again, the community voices. And I think our recommendation there was to counter the fear that they experienced, but also this idea that they really don't see how the police are serving and protecting. You know, their question is, who are they serving and protecting? How are they serving and protecting? One person said it, made it the comment, how difficult would it be to get on Zoom for a half an hour and make a statement about the most recent black body being killed in terms of where they stand on that, right? So there's a lot of this kind of like, who are they? What do they do? So the recommendation and some people reference that they grew up in town and that the police did have more of a presence in the community like playing ball or passing out helmets, I think was one comment in their childhood. But to make that recommendation, I think at this point, when you're hearing so many people who just don't want anything to do with the police and don't even feel threatened just by their presence, I think would be benign at this point. So our recommendation is that they are, we're able to see who they are and get to know them out of uniform and see them serving in, you know, someone mentioned, like do they even do community service? Like how are they, what are they doing like off the clock? You know, how are they contributing to our community? So I think just to bring in the participant's voices again, there's a lot of distrust to the extent where like keep them separate, don't bring them into our neighborhoods any more than they need to be. But there's also this desire to really better understand how are they serving and protecting? And who are they serving and protecting? Thank you. Just to pause on one moment. As a part of the research and just kind of anecdotally, what we can see is that we have a police department that doesn't necessarily have residency in Amherst. You know, whether they have been priced out like a lot of folks are public servants, our staff, you know, at town hall and within the government, they can't afford to live here. And that includes the police. And therefore you have a situation where the police are going to see us as a population, it's set up to other eyes us. And so I think that's really problematic because, you know, it's serving one part of the population, protecting property, et cetera. And then it is surveilling and controlling very much like the old historical notion of the patty roller. So it's set up in such a way as to undermine seeing people as humans and seeing one another, the police and the community as being part of the unified whole. And I find the whole structure problematic in that way. Is Pat, you had something, yes. Yes, I do. And I'll be very brief, I know I've spoken a lot tonight. So along the line of what Ms. Ferrara had asked in terms of community policing in plain clothes, I guess for me, the elephant in the room is APD, are mostly white people, okay, white officers. And then to have them get paid in plain clothes to do community policing, I don't know how I feel about that. I support, however, if they want to do community volunteering, I'm okay with that, but I am very hesitant to really endorse paying them to do that. They don't live in this town if, and I, you know, there are different reasons where people don't live where they work, that I, they shouldn't be paid for community policing unless if we have more diverse police force, then that's different story. So that's how I feel. I say where they can still be seen in the community beside being on the uniform, but they shouldn't be paid for that. Thank you. Yes, Russ. Yeah, well, first of all, we certainly hired the right consultants. I think we are indebted to you for an outstanding report. And I also just feel so grateful to the BIPOC community and its willingness to share what they shared with your community ambassadors. And, but also to understand that that's part of the way you built relationships and created safety for people to share. And I just, you know, so value that you did that. And I think the themes that you identified are tremendously helpful and really lay it out well. I think just a couple of comments and questions. Where you get into the themes, the findings and the themes, some of those quotes seem to be clearly about people's feelings and reaction to national events and the way that policing has affected the whole country. And we know that that's part of the reality of how people react to police officers, whether the local police have ever done anything wrong or not. I think the way the report is currently written, a lot of people are gonna wonder how many of these things are just about national events and how many of them actually are something about the Amherst Police Department? If I may, yeah, so the members of our community who were questioned were questioned about their own experiences. So even though much of our research has taken place within the larger context of what is going on, the George Floyd case was going on, for instance, at the time when people were sharing these experiences, but these are experiences of our participants that they have had with police. So the words that you hear them say, they may make reference to a larger context of what is going on with policing, but these are experiences that they've had or things that they have witnessed. You know, with other community members. So that is what they are expressing. So if it sounds like they are saying that they're talking about, you know, and to also understand that what obtains nationally also has its own impact upon the lives of people from the BIPOC community. What we could not share were the instances when we had community participants, grown men cry in retelling these stories. And some of the quotes we weren't able to share because they were of such a specific nature that we would run the risk of outing who our participants were. So if it sounds general, that's not to suggest that this is not their own lived experience that they are speaking about or the experience of others, their loved ones, for instance, are things that they have witnessed. But it was, I can tell you, it was triggering. It was doubly triggering and triple triggering because the George Floyd case was going on at the same time when our community ambassadors had to go through the training to do this and to recount their own experiences. And then again, to listen to several other people talk about all of the experiences that they had had. In our sessions, they even share that sometimes they had even forgotten some of the experiences that they had until other people talked about other experiences that they found that were similar to some that they'd had. So this really is about what they have lived through largely in our community. So I hear what you're saying. Thank you, Sanji, so much. I hear what you're saying, Russ, but what I think is important as Sanji is emphasizing is that there's a layering of pain and a layering of meaning when you talk about the police to AAPI and BIPOC folk locally. So that's not to mention all the things that people have experienced nationally, but just the word police and asking them a simple question, what has been your experience with policing in Amherst and do you feel safe? A very simple question. And so because of this moment in time in which we do this work, those layers are present. Yeah, and I think those... And so I think it's important to try to encapsulate that is all I'm trying to emphasize along with Sanji. Yeah, well, I think it's so valuable that your report does include both of those layers. And partly I'm trying to look at this from the perspective of skeptics and I don't want anybody to read this report and think, oh no, this isn't about the Amherst police. So what I'm asking is that we make sure that that's as explicit as it can be. Absolutely, and I just to that point, one of the things that I've requested and I'm sure it has been transmitted amongst your group is that again, for us to serve you all within our best capacity, I suggested that a subcommittee maybe, and it's however you all want to handle it. I'm not directing that, but it's simply a suggestion in order for us to maybe help develop a report when you all go in front of the town council from what I understand. So please let us know how we can best help with that and there's so many quotes Asanji alluded to much to which that would identify more specifically the participants and that's something that again, we're trying to protect. However, we can pull different quotes that might be more useful to talk about the Crest program for example or preventative models in creating community, that type of thing. So again, we can discuss that afterwards. Let's see two questions. One is, have you been able to review the police contract to see whether there are barriers to civilian oversight or in Amherst? And the other is that I wanted to ask while the town manager is here looking at your chart for the reduction is there a consensus that 40 is the accurate present number to start with? And I'm hoping the town manager and you folks can have a dialogue about that right now. Terry, how far have we gotten into the contract? So my understanding, I haven't reviewed the union contract with this question in mind but my understanding is that it's more based on reading other towns bylaws. It's more similar to like a committee being formed similar to the CSWG depending on the powers given. So things like hiring and disciplining would be, sorry, my cat wants to know, would need to be negotiated in discussions like that but things like auditing and advising, policy change in my understanding wouldn't be. And then as for the number of police, my understanding is they're based on the presentation last summer there was 44 and there have since been two retirees in the past year. And so I use the budget, the FY21 chart numbers. To start so and also the 2009 sector assignments as a basis for who to slowly reduce on the move away from the sector base please sign. If I could ask Mr. Bakerman, do you agree that 40 is the correct number of officers at the moment and will the police chief agree with that number? You mean in terms of how many officers are employed or how many positions are secured right now? Well, I guess we need to know if it's different or how many positions are authorized and how many people are actually employed. Yeah, those are two different numbers right now. I don't know that number off the top of my head, I should but I can get that for you. You know, in terms of what the size of the police department should look like, that's a, I, this is really a valuable rich discussion and talking about really important things. And it's an opportunity to think what is the right size of this police department? What is the right size? And especially if we start to develop the Cress program. Yeah, I'm just really taking it a lot in right now. So I really appreciate the work that everyone's done. I'm just asking that we not end up with a situation where people are discrediting the report because we have a disagreement about the... Oh, I can double check that and have it for you tomorrow. Yeah, absolutely. My understanding was there are 48 budgeted positions. As of July last year, there was 44 employed. We froze the two positions. There were two more retirees and now we're down to 42. It was my understanding based on my research, but yeah, I would love if Chief Livingston would confirm those numbers. We can do that tomorrow morning. You're right. No problem. Good question. Ms. Pat. I have a follow-up question with the town manager. Are we just only talking about the officers or does it include the administrators within the APD and also dispatchers? If you're going to get back to us this week about the numbers. We can give you all that information for sure. Thank you. Are there any more questions? Dr. Shabazz, I just want to say thank you to you and your team for all the amount of quality work that you all have done. I really appreciate you all doing the participatory action research just because I genuinely believe those closest to the problem should be developing the solutions. So I really appreciate that and admire the time and care that went into everything. And I look forward to, I think I hope that we're all on board with including you all on a subcommittee to create a presentation for the May 17th Town Council meeting. So thank you. Thank you, Brianna. I think it's a mutual fan club, us to you all. So we so appreciate the work and dedication in this town. I'm going to get emotional. Owns you a real debt of gratitude for the level of seriousness that you have approached these issues and that you're really committed to create a better place for us all. So thank you. Thank you, we'll head out. Thank you very much. So the next part of our agenda is deadlines. And there's three deadlines that really stand out to me the most. And I figured out a way that I think would be the most efficient to help us meet our charge. I'll throw it out to the group and you guys let me know what you think. The consultants are giving us their report by this Friday, April 30th. We have to then turn in our report on the first part of our charge two weeks later, which is May 15th, it's actually a Saturday. And then we have the presentation with the town council on May 17th. What I'm proposing is that we put together a subcommittee, one to prepare the draft, the first draft for our final report for next meeting, May 5th. And hopefully that can be a time where we can come together, review what we do and we don't like and agree on and also come up with more clarity on the civilian oversight board because I did work on the subcommittee and we only proposed numbers for the stipends. We didn't talk about the power and what we envisioned the board doing. And then second, I wanna propose that we put together a subcommittee of people willing to work on the presentation with me and the seventh gen collective movement or if I said that wrong. Just to make sure that we have a good presentation and we're prepared. So I guess we'll start with the first part. Is there anybody that would like to work on the subcommittee to prepare the first draft of our final report for part A of our charge? I'm happy to be part of that. I don't like being the only one with my hand up though. I can also work on that too, Mr. Vernon Jones. Okay. I was going to suggest Ross yourself and also Deborah, if you don't mind. I was gonna work on the presentation but if not, yeah, I'll do the draft and then I won't volunteer for the presentation because I can only do one. I can't do one. I can only do one. Yeah, so yeah, I'll work on the draft. Okay, awesome. And I think, I think Matt Hampton did their report already. I did briefly look over it and I think Summerville did too. So I will put together a list of like local places that I've put together something so we can kind of have like an outline or like an idea of how to put that type of thing together. Yeah. So then for the second part, is there anybody able and willing to work on the subcommittee with our consultants to put together that presentation? So Sheena, Ms. Bowman, are you raising your hand? Okay, so three and three, that sounds good. So our next steps, I guess we will meet and I think- Excuse me, excuse me. Before we move forward, first of all, thank you to all who volunteered to do different subcommittee work. I remain concerned that we're really running out of time that I'm feeling, I'm strongly feeling that we should invite a PD back. I just, you know, for our own credibility. We started last week due to a time constraint. We didn't finish everything. I am feeling unsettling, you know, for us to present at the town council without, you know, getting my input from, not in my input, but we had a list of questions that we submitted to our previous chair that wasn't, you know, we didn't have the chance to ask all of them. I'm concerned about that. The second thing is that, yes, I'm part of a reparation group, but there has been like talk of shared vision of CSWG and reparation. I see a lot of link to the work we're doing. You know, I would hope that I say where we can collaborate with them as we collaborate with seven gens. Something to think about because the, having the director of diversity, equity and inclusion, the community center for youth, the cultural center, they are all preventative and also reparation issues, something for us to think about. I don't think we, did we formulate, like do we even invite the legal voter women, women voter or something like that? I'm just feeling that there are some key groups that we have not, you know, get their input from and we're almost rounding up to present just, I'm feeling unsettling about the whole thing. So just, I don't know what our agenda is next week, but is there a way to bring the founding members for reparation to, you know, present to us like for 15 minutes at least, I'd like to hear from them. I think that's a really good point. And I think one way we could save time is for the subcommittee working on the rough draft. We could all try to give feedback to the people working on that and not reserve or not use our meeting time to talk about revisions we want in the draft. We can comment through Google Doc and it'll eliminate less meeting space so then we can invite reparations. And I also think that we should continue the conversation with the Amherst Police Department. Does anybody else have any comments on that? What about the legal voter women? Them too. Yeah, I just feel they have a lot of resources, a lot of information that could be useful for us and we didn't get to reach out to them. Ms. Rara? So I guess for me, because I know we have this report, we're presented at the town council. So I guess for me, I wanna have a little bit of clarity again and reminder in terms of like, since we're talking about deadlines and I guess, you know, June is around the corner in terms of when we're supposed to be kind of finishing up our work and things like that. So can someone provide me clarity in terms of, okay, because right now I thought the first draft was going to be on this kind of part A, part B type of thing. So it's not as if we're running out of time to do everything though, right? So I guess I'm confused, you know? So, well, in terms of reparation, this is some of the work we're doing as overlapping with this. I'd like to hear from them before we go, before we have our rep present for the town council. It's just my opinion. I'm feeling strongly in about that. Yeah, no, no, I hear you, but I'm just saying, I guess I'm trying to think like when though, right? Because we have this part A, part B work we need to do. But then don't we have another, you know, so there was in terms of our charge, it was that A charge and the B charge, right? So don't we have another part of work that we have? So yeah, so the B charge actually has to do with the police that is not going to be impacted with the 2022 fiscal year project presentation. So that could wait until after, you know, May 17th. At least we have a couple more weeks after that to work on that. That's not what I meant. Okay, so that's not what you mean. I mean, the part A that we're working on that we need to present. I'm just feeling that we need to invite reparation founders to come and, you know, talk to us. Even if we give them 15 or 20 minutes of our time. We could split up, Ms. Moisten. I just wanted to clarify who the third person was for the subcommittee to work with the presentations from seven Jen. I have Alicia Walker to Sheena Bowman and then I don't know who that third person was. Oh, that's you. Okay. And then Pat, are you saying that the reparations for Amherst, you would like their feedbacks for in regards to part A of the charge? Is that what am I understanding that correctly? Yeah, I'm not for them to send us email. I do want them to come and talk to us. Okay. That's okay with everybody. Thank you. Yeah. One way that I'm thinking about it, just thinking out loud is maybe we could split up our next meeting May 5th and we could dedicate time to reparations, maybe try to continue our conversations with the APD and then save the last 30 minutes to talk about a rough draft. And then for the May 12th meeting, we can invite the League of Women's Voters to see how they're feeling about our recommendations and to make sure that we align with them. Mr. Verna Jones, and then. I support hearing from these other folks, but as I've started thinking about drafting the report, there are things that we have not made decisions about that I think we need to decide for sure whether we're going to put them in the report. I think we're going to need more than a half an hour to work on the report on our next meeting. We do have a, you know, we have another report due the end of June. We have the second half of May and beginning of June. I don't know whether there's some of these groups that we could schedule now to have them come then so that they know that we're interested in their viewpoint. I mean, if we can do it all, that's great, but I don't want us not to have enough time to talk about a draft report. How's everyone feeling about that? Do you have a particular group in mind, Ross, that could wait? Maybe the League of Women Voters could wait? I don't know, maybe. I don't know. I think it would make more sense actually to split it up and do maybe if we met with reparations next week or maybe the Amherst Police Department just so we could finish that conversation before we finish our recommendations. Yeah, that's great, the police department. Yeah, and then the second half of our meeting, we can go over the rough draft and we can have a more in-depth conversation about our visions for the Civilian Oversight Board. Ms. Walker. So I agree with Brianna, your recommendation that you just made or your suggestion that you just made, but I also agree with Ms. Pat in terms of hearing from reparations for Amherst and I also attended the event that they had last night and it was amazing. And so I actually did see that they posted it and it is available to rewatch and I would actually just encourage everyone in the group to watch it if they can because it is a lot of information specific to Amherst and it is the entire history and racial history of Amherst itself and it mirrors a lot of the work that we are doing and that we have done and the things that have already been done here in the past and I think it is critical for everyone in our group to have this information. And so if we can't meet with them next week, I think that's okay, but I think if everyone can make some time or find some time to watch the presentation that they made yesterday, that it would be extremely informative. I agree. Given how informative that sounds, would the group be okay if we met with the APD next week, spent time on our rough draft next week and then for the May 12th meeting, if we dedicated time to meet with reparations and held off with Women's League of Voters? Is everybody okay with that? Okay. Sounds good. I'm good. Oh, Ms. Pat, sorry. So I have a request to make for the entire group. Yeah, Wednesday is becoming challenging for me to make it on time because of another new commitment that I have that is work related. And it's a lot to ask people to coach made into sex. Is there any other day in the week that works for everybody at 5.30 beside Wednesday? I really would like to be fully present in all deliberation at 5.30. Unfortunately, Wednesday, it's going to start being challenging, starting from today, I had to leave another engagement that I have and it's going to continue in the future. Is there any other day that works for people beside Wednesday at 5.30? I could do Thursday or Monday. Okay. Walker. So I was going to say that I could do Tuesday or Thursday. I can do Thursday. I appreciate you guys. I can meet later in the day on Wednesday. Mr. Vernon Jones. I can meet later in the day on Wednesday. I have conflicts on, I think, every other day. And I could clear those dates in probably in late May and June, but for the next two weeks. Would the group be able to meet later or is 7.32 late already? For the town staff, it's a long day for them. It's a long day for them. Oh, they said, no, look at that. They said, no, really? Six o'clock will be perfect for me on Wednesday. That's when my meeting ends. That's when my meeting ends. Six o'clock on Wednesday. I'm already pushing it with my kids and getting into bed late. I really don't want to push this meeting any later. I'd rather do it on another day if we could do it, but later it really doesn't work for me. Like, I mean, it's already hard. You see, I'm not on camera because most of the time I'm cooking or eating because I'm just, I'm literally just, I start the meeting at my son's jujitsu classroom, like while he's doing his class, I'm on the meeting and then I'm driving home and then I'm preparing dinner or picking up dinner on the way. So I'm already tapped out for Wednesday. So I'm like, yeah, if it goes any later, I don't think I would be able to participate. Deborah, what time do you get up from work? Five? For me, yeah, five o'clock. Could we make Thursday work or is that? Not for us. Oh, not for us. Russ, you said that maybe you can make it work in about two weeks. Yes. So in two weeks, you can do it. I can clear things. Yeah, once we get two weeks out, I can clear things there, but I, let's see. Maybe one solution is we have to do the next two. Yeah, so maybe like next two weeks, we do the Wednesday, I don't know though, and then starting in two weeks, like on the 20th, we would do the Thursday. That would work for me. Does that work for you? Yeah, I'm going to miss half an hour. That's a long, yeah. I'm going to be so lost. So would you want? Can we do 545? 545, so it could be a middle ground between you and us. Can we do 545 for the next two weeks? Is that okay, Tashina? Yeah, for the next two weeks, and then we go move to Thursday? Is that what we're saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. Thank you, my friend. I'm so sorry to do this. And 530 on Thursday? Yeah, 530 on Thursday, too. Is that okay, Ross? Yep. Thank you, guys. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. So now that we have that out of the way, with Mr. Wiley's resignation, the position for the chair is open. We can vote on it tonight, or we can schedule to do that at the beginning of our next meeting, and it's up to you guys. Mr. Vernon Jones and then Ms. Pat. I would like to propose that we ask Alicia Walker and Brianna Owen to be our co-chairs. I second that. I second that. Okay, that sounds actually really great. I think Alicia really compliments where I fall short. Facilitating the conversation is really not my strong suit, as you guys can see. You did very well tonight, young woman. Based on any complaint about you, Brianna. You did great. Ms. Walker, are you on board with that? Yeah, I would be honored. I feel honored that you guys think that I would be a fit for this role, and it would also be an honor to work more closely with Brianna, who I've worked with in subcommittees in the past, and I really value her opinion and the expertise that she already has coming into this. So I really appreciate everybody. Mr. Bachmann, is a co-chair situation okay, or do we need to formally vote on a chair and a vice chair? I mean, that's a perfect solution, and I think, but you should vote on having co-chairs, though. I like your idea of co-chair. Okay. So I moved that this committee moves to have a co-chair, Ms. Walker and myself. Do I have a second? And I guess we'll do a roll call just to make sure we're all in agreement. So Ms. Ferrera. Agreement, yes. Ms. Bowman. Yes. Mr. Vernon Jones. Aye. Ms. Pat. Definitely. Okay. I look forward to our next meeting. We actually... Oh, Ms. Moyston. Ms. Walker still gets a vote, doesn't she? Oh. Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry. Aye. It's okay. Ms. Moyston. Yeah. So I just want to say a couple of things. One, Meg Gage wanted me to tell you guys to be careful with the term civilian. If you just give me one second within that context of the civilian group, I think she emailed me a few more times than I realized. So you're saying the civilian oversight? Yeah. Okay. President. The police but strongly encourage you to avoid the word civilian. Civilian means not military. It's a word that suggests a binary concept, military versus not military. We need to use language that does not reinforce the idea that police are military and non-military people provide oversight. Let's not use the language that reinforces the idea that police are military. I suggest a resident oversight board. And then we just the subcommittees. We need to schedule meetings before you guys leave. Okay. So for the first subcommittee, it's Ms. Ferrara, Mr. Vernon Jones and myself. When are ideal times for you guys to meet? I can be flexible. So we're trying to have a draft by the fifth, you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. A Friday would be difficult for me. I mean, again, I can meet tomorrow. And then Saturday is going to be difficult for me because I'll be out of town, but a Sunday I could meet. Stuff like that. Mr. Vernon Jones, what does your schedule look like? Because I can do Thursday and Sunday as well. Frozen. Oh, no. Oh, it's frozen. Or we could try to do some stuff started up by email and then meet on Monday to kind of go over a draft, you know? I mean, we could do it that way. That actually might be better. Let me check my schedule for Monday. Because Monday, I'll be available. Monday, I'll be available too. Let's just check in with Russ. Sorry, my internet keeps cutting out tonight. Mr. Vernon Jones, welcome to my world. It's terrible. So I'm sorry, what did you propose? That we'd be in contact via email and start writing the rough draft and meet Monday. Would you be free on Monday to meet? I could do Monday after six o'clock. Yeah, I'm fine too. I can meet. That works for me too. Do we want to set a meeting for 6.30? Or is that too close for us? Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry. Let me, Monday, I've got a seven o'clock meeting. I've got a 7 to 8.30 meeting. I could do it before or after that. Yeah, you want to do it. I can do it at five also. Done with work. Yeah. Let's do five. So who's going to get something going first? Will you, Ms. Owen, kind of get something started? Okay. So I already started a little bit. I put together, like I started putting together lists of different final reports that other committees have put together. So I'll send that out to you guys. And then from there, we can sort of go and start making a draft. Unless Mr. Vernon Jones, did you start something? Yeah, I've got some initial text drafted for a few sections. But Okay, thanks. Well, maybe we can start with yours then, Mr. Vernon Jones. And then you can still share the samples though, Ms. Owen. Yeah, share the samples. And I'll try to get something in shape for people to look at before. For our Monday meeting. Monday meeting. And we said Monday at five? Yeah. The third. And so Ms. Moyston, you'll post that. And then Yes, I'll post it tomorrow. It has to be posted by the end of the day tomorrow. Is there a way we can, I mean, I always love having you with us, but is there a way we can free you up from having to zoom host that? Not be a subcommittee. I don't know. I, Paul. Can we just I understand the question. For a subcommittee, did we need to have Ms. Moyston there? Well, he has to be on a talent account. So it'd probably be best for her. Why is that? Because we used the webinar format. All right. For zoom. And you have to record it, right? We record it. Yeah. No, any, any, any account can record it. All right. I guess we should have checked with you. Are you able to meet with us? Of course. Oh boy. Thank you. Well, Paul, you're muted. Sorry. So Jen can get it started and then she can make someone a co-host. And then I think you're on your own. I think that's one way to do it. I'm happy to do the zoom hosting. If you need me. Question. Question. So when do we get to read your draft before the meeting on Wednesday? That's a good question. If we put it together for Tuesday afternoon with Tuesday afternoon between Tuesday and Wednesday be it long enough time aligned for everyone to take a look at it? Yes. Okay. And then Alicia, Miss Walker and Miss Bowman, what time works for you guys to connect about the presentation? Miss Moisten. No, go ahead, Alicia. I was just going to suggest the following Monday. I don't know if that's cutting it too close. But I think would we, would it be helpful for us to have the report before we do the presentation? I think that makes more sense and that way we can talk about the resident oversight board and have that ready for them. So I don't know if Katie, if you're still here, can you raise your hands? I'm just thinking that you're supposed to do this in collaboration with Seven Gen and so you'll need them to be available as well. So if you guys give me some dates, we can send out a doodle. I don't know any better way to include because you're supposed to have Seven Gen involved in that. It appears that Katie still logged in. Yeah, but I asked her to raise her hands. I don't and so I just didn't want to like move her over unless she was right. I think we'll need some dates from us and then some dates from them, I guess. Fine with next Monday. So next Monday the no Monday's are hard for me. Monday's actually Monday's and Wednesdays are usually hard for me. I prefer Sunday or Tuesday. Tuesdays are really busy for me but Sundays work good for me. But given that week, I think that that Sunday is Mother's Day. Is that okay? I expect nothing on Mother's Day. I already have my blessings. That's all I get. I don't know. If I have to do a meeting on Sunday evening, that's fine with me. Ms. Bowman, you deserve a day off on Sunday. That's the one day my kids can't bug me as on Mother's Day. You know, it's funny though because even though it's kind of the same thing with me, like the rest of my week, I'm like even if I'm not doing much, I'm still running around. It's kind of weird. And so Monday, the problem is Mondays is that I have, my son has Jujitsu on Mondays too. So it's like I'm literally sitting at the meeting at there. I wouldn't be able to focus on anything. I'm supposed to be helping to create a presentation and finalizing whatever presentation. I wouldn't be able to do it from where I'm at. I mean, I already, yeah. Would Tuesday morning be better or are mornings not a good time? Yeah, I'm going to be in Florida on Monday, so I can't do any meeting from Thursday till Monday. I'm going to be on a feature. All right. So what time are you going in? I can do nine to 10. Is that if that's not too early or I could do 11 to noon. But these are all times we'd probably have to run by the consultants too. 11 to noon. Could we do it noon to one? Yeah. Which day is that? Would that be Tuesday, May 11th? Yeah. That works for everyone? Yeah. Well, we just got to check with the consultant group. Okay. 11 to noon? No, noon to one. And nobody can, there's no availability for you guys for the sixth and the seventh? What's the sixth and the seventh? Thursday and Friday of next week, just that way you have the report, but that way it gives more options for seven gen? Well, so far, yeah. The seventh? The seventh works, too. Is there a specific time on Friday that works? That I can make some time. Oh, okay. I can't actually turn on Thursday, so it's fine. Okay. So yeah, the seventh, it doesn't... We have to do seventh on the evening because it would have to be the evening because I am... There's a good chance I'll be working until three and then I have to go pick up Benji and then I have to get settled here. So as soon as I could probably do it on Friday, the seventh would be six, between, yeah, six, six, 37, somewhere on the... And it can't be... Well, for me, it can be a little later on Friday because it's Friday and nobody has to get up the next day. Okay. That also works for me, too. So do we want to... So seven... Would seven to eight work by any chance? Because I'm looking at my calendar right now and I do have something from six to 645-ish. Seven to eight would work on Friday. Yeah. So... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. And if from that meeting set, would you let us all know when it is? Yes, of course. Thanks. Well, thank you guys all for everything. We really flew through everything so fast at 7.38 and we're... Oh, Ms. Pat, sorry. So I want to bring all of us to the fact that we have not voted on the resident oversight review board. I mean, we voted last week on the budget, but in our subcommittee report, we had recommended 10K by each member and that was input from 7 January, when the subcommittee was working on the budget, but it was not included in the budget. Do we want to do a separate voting tonight to make sure that the time manager considered that when he's working on the budget? Mr. Vernon Jones. Well, the earlier motion that we passed did call for funding for investigators as needed, research, training, and stipends. We didn't have a number to put with each of those, but each of those was specified in the motion that we did vote. And in the budget, I thought too, and wasn't there a budget that you all put together for that? No, it was actually, no, we did not. We included in our report, but we didn't put it in the budget. And that concerns me because I know we voted on stipend and research funding and everything, but we didn't put specific amounts. So if that's good enough for time manager, he's here, then we can just let it go. It was just run to my attention that we should make sure that we put it in the budget or somewhere. Or vote on that, yeah. Well, whether time manager, did you submit your budget already or? No, we're still working on it. So I understand the request. So your request? So in your charge, it says the resident oversight is that work needs to be done until June 30th. But this question is about making sure there's funding. There's money. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, I understand the request. And it includes stipends plus access to funds for independent investigations, things like that. So you don't need us to vote on anything? I understand what you're asking for, yeah. Okay, thank you. Okay, so now I think we can, well, I can declare the meeting adjourned, I guess. Thank you guys for everything. I thought this ran really smoothly and it's 741 knots, eight o'clock, nine o'clock. So we did. Thank you. We are an eight team. Good job, Brianna, our next generation. So Russ and I are here to support the coaches in a very African way for the elders to support the young ones. It's all planned out. Congratulations to both of you. Thank you. And I just want to say thank you, Mr. Backelman and Ms. Moisten for helping me run this so smoothly. I really, really appreciate it. I hope everyone has a great night and I will see you next Wednesday at 545. Thank you all. Great meeting. Bye. Bye. Great. Beautiful.