 All right, it is a 6 o'clock 5 p.m. July 27th 2021 and I call this meeting to order We have six to seven members here. So we have a quorum and If there's any additions or modifications to the agenda I'll take a motion for that now I'd actually like to do one quick Modification which is to have a discussion about Where future meetings will be as well as if we can have a hybrid model absolute my second that All in favor of the amendment to the agenda raise your hand to say aye. I Believe that passes unanimously That and we'll make that agenda item 5.06 and I motion that we Adopt the amended agenda as is I'll take a second second second by Susie All in favor raise your hand to say aye. I Passes unanimously Next on the agenda is approval of the minutes from 527 21 which is the first night call session my so-called Move to it You want a motion on all six? Do you want I'll move for all that we approve all six sets of minutes. I amend that up. So I Motion that we approve the amendments from all six previous meetings 527 610 615 617 622 and 7 7 seconded by Shireen All in favor raise your hand to say aye That passes unanimously Moves us on to agenda item 3.01 which is public forum at this point in time if there's anybody in the public that I'd like to Speak you're welcome to come to the table here and Speak Good evening. Hi. I'm Jeff Nick. I'm chair of the Church Street marketplace Commission I've joined some of your zoom meetings over the past a few months and I'm here because I And my fellow commissioners and many of them many most of the merchants and their employees are very concerned about public safety It is a great concern so much so that our staff conducted a survey amongst our members and The merchants and their employees 42% of those survey felt unsafe at night only only six percent felt safe These are shocking numbers 51% of those in the survey Was a victim of a crime? In the past 12 months whether that was shoplifting damage to the vehicle Rockstone through a window Sexual harassment things of those nature This these are shocking numbers and you know, we're very concerned So much so that the Burlington Business Association has rolled out a program an escort service for those who are Afraid to walk to their car after a shift at night. We've rolled out a service They're advertising and looking for donations They're gonna get $15,000 in about a week because all of us on Church Street are very very concerned about what's going on Our beautiful City Hall Park Is been inundated with bad behavior mean open alcohol containers all day long It is shocking what we're allowed to happen out there Kids are trying to enjoy this beautiful Pop jet fountain and the families look in shock at what they can see with just a beer Unbelievable amounts of beer out there and we let it happen We do have an open container Ordinance in effect. We could easily Ask our police force to do something about it. They used to they used to dump the alcohol out no longer For many reasons probably there's not enough political will not here But elsewhere in the city that they don't feel compelled to do it anymore plus they don't have the resources since they've been the cuts As simple as it is if you eliminate the alcohol in that park and on Church Street and in the alleyways and on the side streets the people who shouldn't be drinking and quite frankly many of them have Problems and we're enabling them by allowing them to drink to just drink theirself into oblivion sometimes I walked down a street and there's an ambulance on my way here and The guy who was intoxicated refused to get in the ambulance the officers couldn't do anything about it Meanwhile folks are trying to enjoy a dinner out there in a little rain in the cafe and there's arguments and Close to a fight going on around the corner of Bank Street and Church Street I mean this has happens on a regular basis and It's something we have to do something about And if you eliminate the alcohol, I believe that so many things will follow Such as the public urination and defecation. We see that sexual harassment of women reported a number of times Fighting the litter and debris that's left behind up and down Church Street out in the park. It's incredible Vomiting I mean we have shop owners have to clean this stuff up It's amazing and I've been in this city for a long time and this is the worst I've ever seen it So I'm shocked that there isn't a greater sense of urgency amongst all the city leaders I really am but something has to be done and I hope we figure it out soon. Thank you Thank you Anybody else from the public that like to speak for public forum you're welcome to do so now With that I close public forum and move on to agenda item 4.0 1 which is the introduction of the new data analyst I think I am Nancy Stetson. I am now the senior policy and data analyst at the office of city planning here and as for the past Three or so years. I have done the data analysis for the police department, but I am passing along those duties to John Ellarson who is here with us? We're really excited to have John on our team He just received his PhD in biostatistics from Harvard But he also grew up in Burlington. He went to VHS and he's now back here and he has a keen interest in policing We're excited to see what's next for this work Hi, I'm sorry John. Could you repeat your last name Larson? Thank you. Could you have to back your town? Thanks Not sure there's any questions at all for mr. Larson, but that would be the time So welcome mr. Larson excited to have you will you be? Nancy did a report for us a couple months ago I believe it was an annual report. Would you be doing any data analysis in the interim? Or will you be focusing on doing the annual report for us next April? I will be doing the annual report next April and in the interim I imagine I'll be doing lots of data analysis both for with regards to police data and then Other data analysis for the city my official title is city data analyst is city data analyst. Yeah, all right. Thank you That's great. Thanks Any further questions just to welcome. Thank you Awesome with that. Thank you for thank you very much. I look forward to working with you Thanks for everything you've done for us. Yeah And with that it moves just good points So we have a time-searching Agenda item 5.01 and that's six minutes away and I feel it do you I Don't think you have six minutes probably is not long enough for the chief's report. I assume it may be We need to try to keep it short until the point in that case Yeah, we'll move on to agenda item 4.0 to the chief's report All right, so as a summary of incidents from June 1st of June 30 of BPD handled 2070 incidents over that time period three aggravated assaults 13 burglaries 15 disorderly conduct incidents 125 disturbance incidents 52 domestic disturbance incidents Two domestic assault felonies two domestic assault misdemeanors one attempted homicide 55 intoxication incidents 20 larceny from the building incidents 41 larceny from motor vehicle incidents 38 larceny other for lute and lascivious Conduct incidents 92 mental health issues six missing persons 80 noise complaints nine overdose incidents 19 retail thefts one robbery To search warrants that were related to domestic violence our domestic violence prevention officer executed both little search warrants four sex assaults one stalking incident 10 stolen vehicles three suicide attempts 186 suspicious incident events 82 trespass incidents 10 TRO FRO violations, which are restraining order violations Six untimely deaths 21 vandals of incidents 112 welfare checks 66 total arrests so out of those arrests the majority of them are most likely citations I'm not sure exactly the breakdown between citations and lodgings Out of that number, but 66 total And that summarizes the the incidents that we dealt with over the course of June And I just briefly wanted to touch on our staffing level and where we were at a year ago and where we're headed In the future, and I would certainly welcome the police commission's Collaboration and trying to address some of these issues that we're facing So last year prior to chief Morrison leaving we were at 92 officers We are currently at 75 or negative 17 officers With that, I believe you're going to hear later this evening Or I should say in addition to that there are at least 10 to 11 that know who are planning on leaving within the next year. These are both retirements and resignations In addition to that the BPO a recently did a survey and my understanding is they're going to provide some more information on that later in this meeting That indicated and they did not include the deputy chiefs of the chief of police and this or the acting chief of police I should say But 31 officers are actively looking for employment elsewhere currently So where are we at right now? We are at again 75 officers on the books. That's 57 officers both in uniform and the detective bureau That is three deputy chiefs one who is a acting chief of police one acting deputy chief and myself We have five in tenants and ten sergeants now out of those 57 officers It's important to recognize that not all of them are available. We have I believe three on long-term injury right now and three on military Also by contract we have to have ten people assigned to the detective bureau, which is where we are currently at Additionally, we have one sergeant assigned to the airport and seven police officers and that is bare minimum staffing at the airport So out of those numbers out of the 75 that gives you the breakdown So where we are going if Let me add a little more context We looked back at staffing for the fall tour of 2019. We had 45 officers in uniform assigned to answer calls for service During that time period during the fall tour September through December We took 8,890 calls for service if you just divide the number of officers in those calls for service That's a hundred and ninety eight calls for service per officer over that time period For this coming fall September through December We are anticipating uniform officer staffing at 29 officers now if we take the number of incidents that we responded to in June and Apply that over four months. It would mean that we will respond to 8,280 calls for service over the course of the fall tour in 2021 This means that each of those officers will handle 286 incidents or an approximate increase of 44% In addition to that, we've looked at data recently that just that shows that Over the three years prior we were averaging around seven hours of overtime per day And over the last approximately 70 plus days we have averaged close to 15 hours per day in overtime And to drive this point home Officers are being ordered over on a regular basis. This is not always voluntary And for example one of our officers this morning who's held over ended up falling asleep behind the wheel and crashing His vehicle on his way home damn June's vehicle. Thankfully. He was not injured Where are we headed? Trying to project and it is difficult a year from now if we lose 10 officers Which I consider a best-case scenario given the fact that we have 10 to 11 who have definitely said that they are leaving or retiring We'll be at 49 officers a Total between detectives and uniform This will leave 31 officers In uniform to respond to calls we anticipate the structure will be more or less the same But we don't anticipate filling some of our supervisory positions. So we will have one active chief Or a new chief of police two deputy chiefs Five lieutenants and eight sergeants This leaves 65 total down from 75 where we're at currently Worst-case scenario at least I'd like to think it's the worst-case scenario as we lose 20 officers to retirement resignation This is not This is not outlandish seeing as we just lost 17 in the course of the last year If that happens, we will be at 55 total officers Which is a little a little less than a 50% decrease in staffing from what I've experienced over the last 20 years at 105 100 I think we average around 96 for the most part We will have 21 available for uniform Assuming we keep the detective bureau, which we feel is very important because they investigate the most serious crimes And we need to have the capacity to still do that and gain closure for victims Out of that number, that's 39 total officers for the detective bureau and the airport again and USB again 21 to answer the calls and at that point and Even coming into this fall tour I almost feel like we're at the point where we realistically should for the well-being of the agency Eliminate the midnight shift and we certainly will not be able to staff it if we were at 21 officers for the uniform service bureau Again, we'll have three DCs most likely five lieutenants although that number may get pared down also due to retirements and Eight sergeants and again because of our shift structure We need supervision to stay at a certain level as far as supervising both day shift evening shift and midnight shifts on both sides of the schedule So that's that's just a brief overview of where we're at where we're at and where we're possibly going It's definitely something that I've struggled with for the past year. I know that that I I forwarded to the chair using the old Formula that the Rutherford consultants used in 1990 and put real numbers to that at that formula applying that Formula that I that I forwarded to you and you can see the breakdown and see how that worked Said that we should have 84 officers assigned to uniform services bureau Responding to calls for service. We are much lower than I currently expect to be much lower than that in within a year That's all Thank you chief If I don't have any questions off the chief I ask you to put them on hold and we are going to Jump to agenda item 5.01 and then return to 4.02. So with that I would like to welcome Yeah, she taught and Vicki Crocker from She Vicki is from the Vermont family network and Shea is part of mental health first Burlington just to introduce this one of the Issues that has become clear with regard to the challenges for the Burlington Police Department is the sharp increase in the number of mental health calls and That those number that number of calls has increased doubled from 2012 to 2019 from like 450 a year to 900 a year as many of you know CNA a consulting firm is doing a functional assessment of the Police Department and We'll be reporting in September on what their recommendation is with regard to staffing levels But one of the things that they have been asked to consider is alternatives Especially with regard to mental health Shea and Vicki along with Robin Mcmuguire and others of course are Part of the effort to bring the cahoots model to Burlington and we felt it would be useful both for us as commissioners But also for the public to hear about the work that they're doing. So thank you so much for being here And being willing to share your time and your expertise with us on this important issue. Thanks Great. Well, thank thanks for having us Yeah, so we'll go we'll be able to reintroduce ourselves So my name is Shay Todd and I'm a resident of Ward 3 and I'm one of the parent volunteers with mental health mental health first of Burlington And I'll get a little bit more into the details of what we who we are so you understand that and then why we've sort of were Advocating for a cahoots model doesn't have to be cahoots program itself with a model Hi everybody, thanks for this opportunity. My name is Vicki Crocker and I'm from Vermont family network And I am a family support consultant for families with mental health Yeah, so mental health first Burlington It sort of got off the ground a couple of maybe a couple years ago Robin and I were talking about our experiences as parents in Burlington both through the school system and others Elsewhere just with the sort of gaps and sometimes in crisis services for for our kids now our Mike Mike kid is now an adult but still, you know having experienced that and sort of understanding some of the experiences that Robin and other families we knew So, you know, we're we're essentially a we're a family-led grassroots movement calling for You know immediate and sort of substantial change and how we serve children and young adults with mental health issues and disabilities And often these often the discussions that happen with system change often leave out the family and the and the youth perspective Because they sort of feel like the schools got it, right? Well, the schools don't got it I could tell you that for from experience So we're really really focused on more on an increased investment in sort of crisis response Prevention services to really comprehensively support health safety and well-being of children and young adults in the community But as you'll see from our discussion with the Coots model We believe it's a model that does it serves everybody, right? And as it should in fact the first question we had from some folks is like well Why isn't there that why isn't there an adult's version for Coots and we're like well It should be right so we just started from what our experience was in addressing is sort of a singular gap That we were seeing in the system You know and so whether we're a group of parent volunteers, but you know from our family network is one of the organizations That has been very supportive a spectrum has also been very very involved with this we have private practitioners folks who had worked at NFI Or the Howard Center As well as we've also been having some additional help sort of some systems help also from disability rights Vermont as well as The ACLU of Vermont so we've been really thinking about how we serve as we think about these systems How do we make sure that they're really capturing all of sort of the the needs that are out there and addressing everything So it's not coming at it so singularly so we really expanded our scope And when we just when we expanded that scope The the model that we really sort of kept coming up with which I think a lot of people have And if you start googling it, you know, you see a lot of cities around the country Big and small have settled on this rather remarkable model called cohoots Which for people who don't know because acronyms are confusing stands for crisis assistance helping out on the streets And they even admit it's kind of outdated and they should call it something else but it operates it's been around for 30 years it serves Eugene, Oregon and the neighboring town of Springfield and What they are is there a non-police trauma-informed mobile crisis response team that operates 24 7 right? So and they're not meant to replace the police What they're doing is they're serving a function of the in the community of a demonstrated need right and hearing the chief's report I didn't list all the numbers, but it sounds like mental health was the top number right 92 I think it was so mine or so if we're talking about that that is where sort of there's a gap And I think any of us living in Burlington for any extended period of time, and I've been here for over 30 years knows right that mental health response has always been a struggle and not just in Burlington, right? So what we're looking at with cohoots is that we feel as if this model if Done right in Burlington could actually serve as a model if it's partnered right with other Providers in the area as a model for the rest of the state because we're not unique And we know that the state is actually looking at a somewhat of a juvenile model That's actually based in Rutland County because there's a need there, right? So this would be something different and unique here, but cohoots the one thing I want to mention about because who's so The cohoots team and I sent some materials around to all the commissioners and for those Members of the public who are watching online if you go to board docs the document that I shared also has links to a couple of things But one of the things we learned about cohoots during our presentation that we had Virtual presentation back in February where we had Tim black from the white bird clinic Which actually is the clinic that operates the cohoots program in Eugene, Oregon We had about a hundred people and it was elected officials. It was private practitioners. It was members of the public It was parents And maybe some of you were on there I don't know because it was hard to sort of keep track of everybody was on there It was kind of it was a little overwhelming But one of the things we really learned out there is sort of how cohoots worked And I think if you watch that video we feel it's pretty instructive because Tim explains it But I'll give you a quick overview So cohoots is a team and they have like a little mobile crisis van and each team has a medic So that's a nurse or an EMT and a crisis worker, right? And they're the ones who respond and I will say that out of 20 and They operate independently and they and they also work through police dispatch, right? So they are connected. They are connected to police dispatch at all times. In fact, they work. They operate on the same frequencies So they can always be in constant communication and sometimes police serve as backup and in fact out of the 24,000 calls in 2019 Police backup was actually only requested three hundred and eleven times, right? So they're very skilled at what they do because they do each member of that team has five hundred hours of training Largely in de-escalation largely in trauma-informed response and in 31 years Right. No staff member has been injured No client respondent has died as a result of their interaction and I think that's a pretty remarkable statistic one that we can't claim here in Burlington so One of the things that I think and I'm happy to take questions after this I want Vicki to talk and there's because there's lots of stuff here So I'm gonna try to give a quick other overview because the other thing is like, well, how's it funded? Well Cahoots is funded through state federal and local funds as well as private donations So they do pull down money from Medicaid because they are they are a clinic There's also a federal grants available in fact There's a federal money right now in one of the more recent COVID bills that actually is to out there to help fund COVID style responses And then there's usually some state funds and some local match, right? And Overall, it's about two point one million dollars is the total program cost for Eugene in Springfield. That's for 24,000 calls, right? So They estimate that they actually save time from the police department to respond to these In the neighborhood of about eight and a half million dollars annually on staffing costs for to respond to the same types of incidents Because they're probably have lower overhead And then also but they also more also importantly they also save about 14 million dollars annually in money that would have been spent on like emergency response and ambulance services because they They're mobile van is actually can transport people, right? and so I'm a turn over to Vicki, but I think one of the things is You know do we need Cahoots in Burlington and I think our our perfect and simple response is yes because We have seen in our and some of our families including mine have seen From both negative to traumatic experiences when police respond to youth and our children in crisis and so We believe that Those individuals deserve better care And we don't believe it should be on the burden and on the shoulders of police officers to respond to a mental health crisis You know because largely if you look at the training I don't know if some of you have seen some of the training that the state police officers get or even BPD and our estimation is completely It is not enough right is not enough trauma informed It is not enough focus on de-escalation Awareness isn't enough. It has to be actually modeled And one of the one of the upsides of cahoots is that they're trying to do is they actually do a couple of Two or three times a year. They do joint trainings with the police department on de-escalation tactics that they have really perfected obviously so We because we really feel like this is something that The cahoots model on having social workers is not really social workers. These are trained sort of clinicians Really help people direct services. They stick with them And they're they're known right and in fact, I think in some cases in some cities even they have their own version of a 911 Well, they can call direct but in Eugene they'd go direct So because we really feel like that's that's where we feel like and With a cahoots model in Burlington Making sure that there is a sort of more of a seamless sort of focus on families and children Which is something Vicki will talk to I think it's increased is also something that we want to make sure that all Folks who are moving in this direction keep that in mind because that too often is often left Off the table when we talk about these kind of services So I'm gonna leave it there for now and then answer questions after because I'd really like to hear questions from the commissioners Well, again, I'm Vicki from Vermont family network and part of my job is to help see people navigate the systems of mental health So the families that I'm working with usually have a pretty extensive team So they have schools involvement They have mental health involvement and then we're really look at that crisis intervention because things are not working And that is where we usually have the we set up a nice plan at school We set up a nice plan in the community We set up a safety plan So families are told if something happens what you need to do is call first call You call 9-1-1 if it's a safety and health issue. We would call the police So I just wanted to share like a story of a seven eight-year-old child who has a mental health crisis Also may have a co-occurring Diagnose of maybe autism parents are really struggling and then the police of the intervention that needs to come So it's a very traumatic situation for a child to come when there's police coming and there It's not even that they're they're doing anything wrong. It's just they're wearing a uniform They're wearing again. They're they're very intimidating for some families and then when the child needs to be restrained It's a really difficult situation if they're transported to the ED It's this whole process that we have the system is not family friendly and it's certainly not child friendly So we're looking at systems of care. Is this prevention? Helping moving this family forward or is this in fact making them kind of fall behind in their prevention or adding more trauma to their already complicated Life right so oftentimes when we're looking at these interventions and trying to guide families They don't feel like they're being heard and they also know that they're not going to call the police the next time Because my child spent 10 days in that the ED right and we are really trying every time they see a police Officer which really should be part of our community and we should be fostering those relationships because they've had that experience Even though it was well intended for them at their mental health Crisis at that point has been trauma for them. So when we're looking at that I'm always looking for what the families that I work with this. Where's the gaps and disconnects when the system? How can we come together as community partners and fill those gaps and disconnects what is working? And how do we move this family forward? So when Shay and Robin came up with a community model it met those things. Is it helping them in the community? Absolutely, it's getting the right services to the needs of that child and that family and then is it helping them in the home Is it is it the gentlest approach to meet that need for that child? Coot seems to match that that need right now. Is it supporting the family? Is it moving that family forward giving them the experience that is a positive experience? They feel comfortable calling for an intervention and they're going to work with their team Absolutely, so and then schools so if this becomes through like the designated agency There is honestly the social workers in the Chittenden County school systems embedded in there So if that child has a crisis intervention, we can follow up with the school as well. So it's meeting home It's meeting school. It's meeting community. That's a wrap service. That's a wrap service That's what we need to do with our families to move them forward That's pretty much all I have as far as the you know the Intervention plan that I'm always looking for I will say that families are frustrated and they're concerned and they feel helpless And it really we're not doing a service to our families I'm moving them forward if we keep them in that cycle of crisis because we can't move past it and people are feeling very stuck Thank you If any commissioners have any questions now would be the time to ask my guest. I have a couple of questions Thank you very much for coming and speaking to us tonight I've read a lot about this model Especially when you look at the amount of money that's being spent there a fraction of the police budget yet They're taking if I remember correctly was like 18 to 20 percent of the of the calls. They were able to do that so there is In addition to just social and humane value there. There's a real cost incentive Speaking to I'm sorry. Mr. Nick had to leave early but speaking to some of the concerns that he had and I recently took a stroll with him downtown and there are Are some issues that I didn't feel Were appropriate for police intervention. I mean because we're not really like You know doing a minority report, right? We okay. We could see you're kind of hanging out. You drink it now But you're not really doing anything But how do we really know what you're gonna do like four hours from now when and do we involve a police officer to try to move you or Interfer with some of your activities Even though there is that open container law all around them Other people are engaging in these activities legitimately how would that model assist with some of those types of activities and Take the burden of having to involve Police in those situations in theory since I don't Do it for a living, but yeah, but no, I And I appreciate that because I think the Kahoot's model is not it's not a pre-crime division. It's a prevention division Right, so this is really about getting to people You know, and I think it's important what I don't think I really touched upon this, you know earlier, which I think is And I will say especially for for those of us who have had who have family, you know kids, right? You know Who had to absorb? You know a lot of trauma because we were terrified of the trauma that would be induced if we brought police in and lost control And I will just say that's a real thing and when Vicki said that I mean I would just say like I can still feel it like, you know, and it's been years But the way that I sort of see the Kahoot's model working is that Because we are putting more resources Right directed back to the areas that social constructs have like stripped money away and put Undo burdens on systems that don't have the funding anymore really to sort of do their job Right and support people where they're at and Kahoot's is a step in that direction It's not a panacea and it's not the total solution because we have many other things, right? But in order for it to leap from someone in mental health crisis to criminality is a massive leap Right and in terms of just as a society. I mean, that's my personal opinion on that And so I feel like, you know the Kahoot's model I mean, that's a lot of what they're dealing with they're dealing with people who often have co-occurring substance substance misuse You know co-occurring mental health diagnoses Homelessness or home and security like they're that those are the folks that they're most Dealing with you know and we've attempted to do this in other ways And you know in Burlington by sort of addressing some of like, you know the frequent callers Right the people who really sort of need support because other support systems have broken down Or that money has been funneled away from them to not apply for those 24 seven wraparound services that many people need Right so I see the Kahoot's model is being the one where those folks it's not just about like, you know like People can respond to those folks and they're more addressing what they need in the moment So it's it's about looking at and telling their meeting them where they're at rather than sort of telling them what not to do Or where to go right and so I think the direction is that that they're treating them as a human being in need of help and I think that's where the system kind of breaks down and You know and I do feel like it's really You know, we've pushed a lot of this stuff as a society off under the police departments that were have been always Underfunded and under trained to deal with this and Vermont is is no different Anybody who has watched the mental health system a road for decades knows that starting in the 90s We pushed all the stuff out Left communities to deal with it underfunded designated agencies underfunded community health programs So people were left. Where do they go right people call the cops because I think that's the only helper that's left Right and you know, we never we never provided the training the support to them You know to provide to do that and now this is where we're at we're spending in You know too much money and not and not giving the right supports to people in need So for the stuff that mr. Nick was talking about I mean that's largely, you know a lot of that Not a lot of it but would be Kahoot's Right because it would be people who would be called in the Kahoot's program It's what the street outreach program if properly funded and staffed could probably do if the city of Burlington stepped up and put more Money into it and not just sort of nickel and diamond, you know, we could have it funded more And the Kahoot's program is essentially the street outreach team model, you know writ large, you know with some modifications And just so folks know to the Kahoot's model is actually not even unique to Chittenden County Quite frankly the Howard Center does something relatively similar in concert with other police departments within this county Right so this is not unique even to this area, you know It would be unique to Burlington and the way the modeling that Burlington could do could actually prove a much more Significant model that the rest of the state could follow Does that answer all your questions? Yeah, no, that is great. Thank you I fully support this model. What I'm wondering is what the path forward is for you in bringing this to Burlington Yeah, so the mayor's office, I mean the mayor's the budget did include $400,000 to do a pilot program so You know the mayor's office has reached out to Robin and myself to sort of have some input on our on a draft RFP And I think that's that's sort of moving like through Whatever the process is hard right now. I don't know what other departments are getting involved police I Think see doh CJC. I think I think the commissioner was going to be reached out So I think there might be some others who are going to be instructed to kind of our AIP I think it was going to be brought in as well. I'm not sure where that is right now I know that you know, they reached out to us early on to kind of help Sort of at least sort of think through like what an RFP could look like and we were actually trying to put The mayor's office in touch with Tim black from the cahoots program But given all the national attention and the NPR and the Washington Post and everything else like he doesn't have a lot of time He's really hard to get a hold of because we felt like he was really the best person to kind of help with that. So What we're hoping for is at least this to sort of start put it out to bid and see, you know see what community agencies can kind of come up with in terms of What type of services that they could provide based on that model and based on some very, you know Simple directives out of an RFP to serve kind of a little bit about what the cahoots does and some of those basic needs that we have You know, because I think one of the other things I didn't mention Which I think is probably evident to people in this on this commission of all commissions, you know Is that statistically right someone in mental health crisis nationally is is Well, they represent like 25% of all police officer involved shootings, right or deaths really not just shootings. They actually die Vermont stats. I'm a little bit unclear like because they don't really track them that way and I was looking at some Some are Alan Gilbert former chair of the former executive director of the ACLU tracks all this stuff In the last decade was like the most deadly, but I would say like more than 25%. It wasn't maybe half But it was more than that. I will say like I would argue that all three of the deaths in the past What eight years all three? That's a hundred percent. We're in mental health crisis So I think when we come to when it comes to Burlington I think we have sort of responsibility to sort of take a look at that and where we sit nationally and And how we're responding on how we're falling short Because I think those those are important and it's not just numbers, right? Those are people Thank you. That's all of that has been really helpful So you're saying that there is a process in which they'll be issuing an RFP and local agencies will essentially respond to that RFP by developing a model and With a budget that the city would then vote on as a model that we would adopt around mental health Yeah, it's my basic understanding is how the RFP would work is Would be just to sort of lay out the problem, right and lay out the basic parameters You know and you know part of our well at least the part of like for mental health first Burlington like Wanted to make sure that part of that is also making sure that these whoever bids Is also demonstrating two things one a knowledge of the service providers already existing in the area So we're not creating new things that don't need to be created, right? So they really responding to sort of the targeted need But being able to understand the landscape so they can integrate with other agencies that are already doing the work and may be Already supporting these individuals in some other way The other part we really wanted to have as part of the pilot program was also something That would allow for maybe some of those representative agencies, but also folks who have who who have Who have lived experience to actually be part of really a review panel not really like oversight It's not really that sort of strict But having them be part of an evaluative model like for this pilot year to allow them to look at data to look at Services to look how things are being provided as a way to kind of help inform going forward because You know, I mean who knows I mean does the city need to have its own little health department that does this kind of stuff You know, I mean does it have its own response team? Does it does it get merged into something else or is it just you know third-party? Like a public-private partnership, which is what kahoots is So that's so that's sort of where I don't know how soon it's gonna go out And I don't know how long it's gonna take for the RFP to get fully vetted And finalized and I just did want to mention that when we are looking at these systems of care for the family voice It's super important to remember that bringing more People or into their their life is difficult. It's hard. They're telling their stories again and again to different people They're having to navigate new providers new systems of care and they're already in crisis So when whatever people are doing these proposals, I really hope that really thinks about the family first How are they gonna navigate the system? What is the best way to wrap that family in our community partners that they already know? Why are we recreating new wheels all the time when we have systems that just need to be fine-tuned? And we need to identify those gaps and disconnects and can we fill them so that the families can move forward? Because half the battle is navigating the systems Can I just ask one follow-up question and that as you mentioned that Howard Center is working with some other Towns in Chinden County with a kahoots type model already. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I don't know as much about that. I mean, I know Robin had talked to him a little bit And I don't remember which sounds I thought it was Heinzberg and maybe Shelburne, but they sort of it's sort of it's sort of based on their No, I'm totally blanking on it They're their normal sort of response line But they just but they will often respond They will be divert calls we diverted to them to respond if they come through police dispatch So I don't know much more about it than that But I do know that they do send out Howard It is how it's in our crisis workers should go out sort of similar to what the Community outreach community outreach. Sorry I totally like all those I appreciate very much personal stories, but also the historical Presentation of the changes that have happened over time where both the schools and the police have had to absorb Issues that the community is facing Without the skill in some cases and also the funding that's necessary So I really appreciate you putting that out very boldly and clearly. I'm interested to know You've talked about a model that would have a clinician and a medical person What are the medical people in in the city? How are they responding to this proposal? I? Don't I don't know. I don't know if it's if they've been I Don't know if the mayor's office has reached out to the fire department yet in terms of EMTs and And how that would work and I mean I think that's some of the details that I think are still kind of Fuzzy and that's why it's a pilot project right because it could be you know Maybe it is something that gets hot that gets housed there and there's just your clinicians that are brought on staff of the city I mean I don't you know You know, I mean I think it's sort of so I don't know if I don't know if we haven't talked to them Because we sort of started with like this sort of more of like an awareness campaign and then really we're sort of The mayor kind of heard it loud and clear and and and seemed to sort of be picking up on the kahoots model as well as some city counselors I mean I will say You know Karen Paul Brian Pine have been very you know were Reached out to us and you know really sort of listened to some of the things we were trying to say as well as Well as some of you know some of the councils we've talked with so Every all the councils we've talked with so far have been very supportive at least and been very Intrigued in trying to sort of figure out as the council tries to figure out what it needs to wrestle with and as it was put in Together a budget should it earmark some of this money that's coming in for this kind of a program and You know there is sort of some sort of savings. I guess you know that could be directed toward this as well So so thank you for your your presentation I've worked in the mental health field for I don't know 12 years So I understand a lot about what you were talking about tonight One of the questions I had is if we put this all together, and I think it's a great idea what kind of What kind of load is that going to be for the hospital? I mean because it seems like you know We're talking about 25 percent of the calls or mental health The number was 92 Month so 92 calls and I should say this too is that those are the only ones that are They're classified as Yeah So yeah, so I'm just thinking you know, you know we're gonna have to start looking at the hospital See, you know what kind of you know care they're gonna get these are you know these People yeah, no, thank you for mentioning that and it's a great point And I wish Robin freedom or a wire here We're here to answer that for you because Robin has been actually talking with in doing some work with With with UVM especially specifically around Emergency treatment and emergency care and emergency ports especially for youth and families So there is still there is still kind of a gap there as well. And so Everyone has these sort of gaps like that's one of the reasons why all the stuff we're working on But I know that there is some I think you might have more information But like that's as much as I know from our end And I'm just really curious if we had the right intervention at the start, you know Coming through would we be going to the hospitals, right? So if we have that and the coup model they're embedded in the community, right? So it's not just the first time that they're gonna meet they're gonna follow up They're gonna build those relationships Are we gonna are the parents gonna reach out before this actual crisis and get those interventions is that team solid? Is that team working cohesively? That's what we're looking for. We're not looking for that crisis cycle We're looking to move them out of it So the right interventions with the right people that are skilled in that area is really what we're looking for Thank you for being here again just over After hearing your presentation, I Said someone was about 2.1 million dollars was the budget for it But what's what's the size of the people that covers of like the Eugene area? It's bigger than Burlington. I Assumed that much. I couldn't google that real quick. I don't remember. I don't remember Eugene Oregon has about a hundred and seventy thousand people There we go. So, yeah That's about a quarter three where one quarter of their population Thank you. I Just want to if I can follow that thought so I'm gonna think out loud with you a moment So 2.1 million for a town four times the size of Burlington So half a million dollars essentially would be the equivalent for Burlington Yeah, and I mean and that falls in line roughly with the you know, the mayor Has set aside for I mean least according to the budget I think was finalized it was like 400,000 was in the budget toward this and I don't think that includes some of the additional Money, which was under a hundred. I think like maybe 60,000 that was going to be additional money for street outreach If I remember that correctly that could be totally wrong But I know there was some additional money going to street street outreach as well. So that would be about right Are there any further questions for our guest? Just a thank you for pursuing this for as long as you have and for standing up for people who need Solidarity and support our children. Thank you. Thank you Thanks so much for taking the time to present to us. This is really helpful Yeah, yeah, thanks very much and you know, feel free to reach out if you have other, you know, other questions You know or we can follow up with anything any information you might need and that concludes a gen item 5.01 We will go back to a gen item 4.02 the chiefs report if any commissioners have any questions with regards to the chiefs report Now would be the time You know going to be embedded with Lacey, where are we on that? Okay, so so those new positions are the CSL positions. I believe one was actually allocated to the police department I know there were interviews one interview So that would be the first In the original idea behind the CSL model was similar to the cahoots program idea It was what we had envisioned and modeled it after although it would be an officer Assigned with the CSL with the CSL taking the lead in dealing with a lot of these mental health issues And the officer that just there to provide support So that was originally our idea behind the CSL program. I believe we wanted six Initially and we're allocated one and then two others. I believe are supposed to reside some So, okay, so one one gets allocated to the police department Correct, do you know the status of the other two if they you might not know this but if the other two might be hired And that when is the one start in did you say I'm sorry I'm not sure that we have a start date because we just completed the interviews. I want to say last week So we're still in the process of making a decision as to the candidates I'm not involved in that directly, but but Lacey is and how much I know when you hire officers There's a huge start, you know the training, but what's the training time for this position do you? Okay, so on the job If I might it where would the other two be It's so one position would be paid out of the police department's budget and then Do we know where the other two would be located? I do not know where the other two will technically reside under what department they will reside in perhaps CEDO Maybe was was part of the conversation, but I'm not sure. I don't have definitive answer on that They just allocated us the one position Was there a reason given why all three weren't allocated to the police department? No, I'm not sure I think there was some discussion with the city council Whether or not the police department was the proper place for those individuals because their focus is mental health and And the idea of separating these people from the police department itself So that's my understanding of where the city council was but again, that's that's just my own perception What the city council was thinking Discussing these positions that's interesting. All right. I think I'll look into that because I remember when Lacey did her presentation She spoke in my mind it cleared up a lot of confusion, right? For lack of a better word, I know that some people in the community were worried about control, right? She made it very clear that She's very independent And what she does How she can go about helping people the successes that she's had and Very frank that sometimes, you know resources were needed to be used in terms of making sure She was heading into a situation. Would it be physically safe and making those determinations as well because unfortunately some some instances Do require the assistance of an officer? So okay. Thank you DC Sullivan, can you tell us when the Vermont Police Academy will be having its next session and when They would need to be alerted should the Burlington Police Department be able to hire more officers. What's the timeline? The next definitive Academy is February of 2022 and they have already released essentially the ability to secure spots my understanding is that the way the process is set up that essentially a candidate has to be pretty far through the Multiple-step process in order to secure a seat. I believe that we will be able to assuming that we can get candidates Move through that process. We had three tests at the Academy today I want to say or was it yesterday yesterday and and all three passed the physical test The Academy has done away with the written test So that was not part of this testing process Can you describe the testing process given that the written part has gone away? The the initial test consists of a physical test, so I don't know exactly all of the criteria I mean when I when I was a participant in that it was a mile and a half run It was a number of push-ups. It was a bench press. It was a body fat calculation. It was a Reach basically a stretch test a sit-in reach test And so that was generally what it was sit-ups also They gauge and so it was based on Cooper standards And then the second part of that was the written test and then the third part of that was the MMPI test And so that information was then collected and sent out to the examiner who then makes an assessment based on the MMPI And then would forward that to a police department eventually as far as where the candidate fell in the MMPI But the it's that three-part process is the initial part of the process Once they pass that my understanding is that they would be given a personal history information packet to complete once they've completed that packet they They would then be given an interview and if they pass the interview that packet would then go for background And then one of the final steps would be a polygraph examination So I'm just trying to understand kind of the timeline should the City Council make a decision to raise the cap Can you help me understand what your timeline would need to be to have people attend the Academy in February and If I might just say just for those who are not familiar we have a functional functional assessment of BPD being done by Consulting firm CNA who's going to make a recommendation with regard to staffing levels in September So with that can you give me a sense of what you would need for? Timeline I'm optimistic I mean one of the biggest issues for us is well one schedule being able to schedule a polygraph because there are so few polygraphers in the state of Vermont Occasionally we use polygraphers outside the state of Vermont But that's one of the sticking points the other sticking point is the background itself Because it it relies on other people to respond to the inquiries from a detective so that we can complete the background Investigation and compile all that information. So that usually takes maybe three weeks as far as background investigation would go and then and then it comes down to our capacity as well because it is usually assigned to a detective Occasionally we will assign them to other officers in the police department again depending on capacity But it does take a couple months in general to move somebody through that background process I feel like we have enough time at this point certainly to be able to put a few candidates in the 2022 February of 2022 Academy. I would just keep in mind that those officers Assuming we've only had around a 50% success rate Because once they go through that initial hiring step that those initial hiring steps They go through the police academy and then they're in a field training process, which is extensive and we about 50% tend to succeed in actual completion We would not have those officers out on the street as what we call a serial officer being able to respond to calls themselves Until the fall of 2022 So it is a process normally there are two police academies per year This year because of COVID They only had one police academy So I believe they were only able to put 22 officers through the Vermont police academy this past year for 2020 But the whole state right and usually we're only allocated six seats is the maximum Historically, we've only ever put four or five into an academy class and at a 50% success rate You know best case scenario where we're gaining six solo officers per year Thank you. Thanks I just want to say moving forward if you're please talk about close into the mic Just so time meeting TV can pick it up. Thank you And are there any further questions for the chief with regards to his report? I'm not seeing any So we'll close out agenda item and move to agenda item 5.02 which is the inner report of the board of police commission and For those that are at home if you go to our board docs, you can see the report listed there and Basically what the report? Covers is a summary, so I'm gonna get to the beginning here basically summary of our police question activities for FY 21 summary of complaints that were logged in to the online portal in addition to policies that we worked on accommodations the word to the BPD and And No, just a few other things we we reported on the trainings that we underwent the work that we did with the Joint committee and two reports that we issued this year So that is what is in the annual report. Sorry And with that I would I'd like to make a motion that we accept this report and for submission to To the mayor and not to the city I need discussion all in favor raise your hand or say aye aye That passes unanimously And that moves us on to agenda item 5.03 which is a city Treasury update with regards to the commission Five years ago Yes, please just so they can pick it up on town meeting TV. Thank you So I had the pleasure of speaking with you all five years ago, and I don't see many familiar faces from that time and at that point the capital plan was adopted in September of 2016 and in that fall we went to the voters for a bond for twenty seven and a half million dollars Which we were successful at and five years has gone by we have spent all of that money But the city's capital plan Continues on and our infrastructure needs continue on as well and So this is just a little Hopefully I can move through it quickly. It does have some pertinence to the police Commission in that one of the things that we added as We evolved in the capital plan is public safety infrastructure And so when we first came up with our capital plan We spent 18 months developing it, but we didn't get everything And so it's an evolving process and one area that we were short in was our public safety infrastructure And so we have been working with both the police and fire over this time and have Expanded it and in this next request that we hope to go to the voters for there is five point seven million dollars for public safety infrastructure Which covers replacing the overall radio infrastructure for the city For all of public safety and it is at end of life and we would very much like to replace that It also includes items such as the axon body cameras and The annual radios that need to be replaced It's about a hundred thousand dollars a year of radios that we replace It also includes on the fireside some defibrillators and things of that sort as well So I'll just run through this But that's my key critical takeout for you all is that we have now involved both the police and fire capital into the capital plan and I think it's really important that the public and you understand That we feel it's important to take care of this item and the police and fire Departments as we move forward so So over this five years, what have what have we accomplished? We've improved 14 miles of sidewalks on average prior to this we covered one mile sidewalk a year We're now covering three miles of sidewalks a year We've doubled our street maintenance So we were spending one million dollars a year. We're spending two million dollars a year and with Climates change and the use of our streets. We're still having trouble keeping up with taking care of our streets I Sort of always use the joke that our capital needs will go away when our potholes go away And they don't seem to ever go away. There's always one that somebody can find We rehabilitated seven miles of the bike path We created a new parks facility maintenance building at Letty at that time We also in Implemented a fueling station there where I believe the majority of the police vehicles are refueled It saved them having to drive to 645 pine to refuel at the end of each of their shifts So it allows them to Have less time on the road fueling and more time doing their job We've improved a number of city buildings with their envelopes their Insulation new roofs new HVAC. We put in two new HVAC units into the police department This improves the efficiency the comfort of the employees and Reduces costs operating costs that works us towards our net zero energy goal We improved our IT infrastructure We implemented a number of security Items DC Sullivan has been very been very helpful as we have looked at security in our various buildings and We improved both 645 pine and this building with security improvements that make both the public safer and the employee safer and At the same time we put in some electronic door system So most of the buildings now have an electronic door system and if there is an emergency in the building It can be locked down. It can also unlock it for every every policeman can get into any building via this way Consolidated all of our video security systems and it used to be each building had their own security system And somebody in that building could look at it But nobody else could we put them all together into one large system that system resides in dispatch so if there is a call and someone is Will use city hall park as an example since it's outside here if there's an event there and someone calls 911 the dispatch can pull up those cameras and They can speak with the responding officer and they can say hey There's a gentleman in a blue hoodie as you go around the quarter to your left And he can be aware of where the danger points are and can respond better We created an asset management Committee which right now we're implementing a software system that holds all of our Inventory of our assets and this helps us make our capital plan down the road better by giving us good data on What is at risk of failing and what we need to replace first and what's doing well And maybe it should be at end of life, but it's doing well, so we don't have to replace it So we spend our money better And again, we improved this plan to put in public safety And We have also two other committees a capital committee So for the general fund there is a capital committee that meets and it's made up of Public works parks and CEDO, but we bring in other Entities as we have needs and they look at the overall requests for projects and then Help prioritize and approve those rather than when I first started it was just me And so it's really hard to be the only person that says yay or nay to something So a committee is very helpful creates a nice group of people that are making good decisions for the city and We set up a fleet committee and pulled again all of our vehicles were being bought by department We pulled them all together We have a fleet manager who manages it and makes those decisions and works with each department and helps us Get the vehicles that we need so we have financing both through a master lease and Part of it is in this in this bonding. So there's fire trucks in the bond Snow plows and sidewalk tractors So all of those have a life of more than 10 years And it is more efficient and more cost-effective for us to bond for those rather than to go for a lease Just some pictures of some line striping for crosswalks and the bike path What did we learn It's evolving so a capital plan is a picture and it's In time but it's really evolving and you have different events that Make it change day-to-day. We had last week a huge rainstorm That creates a washout that creates a capital project And so those things change every single day you have a an HVAC unit that fails or a vehicle that fails it has to be replaced and it isn't necessarily one that you knew about and as I said, we didn't know that What all of our assets are We're still learning that I expect that we will continue to learn that over time We have decades of deferred maintenance and it's going to take decades for us to take care of it Our capital needs are never going to go away and they're probably not going to get a lot smaller Especially as the city continues to evolve and grow We really want to pull it together The purpose has been to pull everything together and have a good understanding and be able to have an overall strategy for the whole city and Prioritize and make good decisions across board And so there aren't silos that one person is doing one thing and another person doing another When I first started they had a road that they paved in the next year the water department dug it up because they had to put A new pipe in it that really it double cost to the city. That's what we're trying to avoid Our fiscal year 22 budget survey that went up that the administration put out showed that there was good support for this infrastructure I Would say capital planning is like a car You have an investment when you buy your car And then you got to change the oil every year and sometimes you're going to have to replace the brakes And that's a little bit more of an expense Capital and operations go hand in hand So there's repairs that come through the operational budget that DC Sullivan manages And then there is the capital project that comes when you have to replace that vehicle at the end of the time And so it really takes all of us collaborating together to make it work to the best to save the most money and be the most Efficient for the city. I'm here to give you this next three-year capital plan. I'm meeting with all of the commissions all of the NPAs I'm working on meeting with any group that I can meet with that we can educate about what the needs are Why it's important what it will do for the public for the commissions for each group of people Because we truly want to meet everybody's We can't meet all the needs, but we can hear all of them and accommodate as much as we possibly can We are going to the board of finance and city council on August 9th for the first informational Conversation they will get this same presentation probably tweaked a little bit between now and then From input from folks such as yourselves And then we are hoping that between that and the meetings with all the commissions and NPAs that we will have support at the council on in September to be able to go for a bond in November for a special election on November 9th, that's our goal and During that timeframe we will refine and educate more on our needs and what those priorities are We're lucky this year. I guess if you want to say that COVID is a lucky thing But through the pandemic there's federal funding that has come available and more opportunities The state and also has some new dollars that have never been available before for climate change for Infrastructure, there's the new federal bill that is coming out For infrastructure we want to use our money as smart as we possibly can and so we are looking at all of these opportunities and how we can use these different funding opportunities to fulfill all of the need and We need much more than we're asking for at this point. It is a continuing need so Having these other areas is going to help us Hopefully prioritize that and make some good decisions So on an annual basis we want to continue the investment that we've been doing over the last five years So on the left is What we have been investing every year on these different parts and On the right hand side is what we have for a three-year need Now for the public safety you'll go down and there's no Number over on the right hand side. We're still learning what that annual need is But we do know that we need to replace your radio infrastructure and that it is Sorley and needed replacement. We know that we need to get the radios We know that we need to get the body cameras those are there and so It's hard to break that into an annual number For facilities and parks projects It fluctuates somewhat depending on which plan they're doing so Facilities we spent two point six million dollars on this building if and we just scratch the surface of it there's probably another five million that could be put into this building if To bring it up to where it should be and every single one of our buildings has a need and so to Four and a half million will get us somewhere, but it's not going to get us to the end our parks has a wonderful master plan that they have done and They are trying to prioritize on those projects, which will help bring revenues to the city So they are one of our largest revenue earners for the city And so as they look at their master plan and their strategy, we're trying to prioritize those programs Which will help bring tourists and money to the city So we are looking to ask for 30 million dollars in November There are a number of other those are talking about our annual needs. There are a number of their grant projects and other areas that it's We are leveraging our dollars on so There's the rail yard enterprise that the council approved this past spring Champlain Parkway Shelburne Street round about rail Realignment those projects are about 64 million dollars worth of projects The city's match on that is around five to six million dollars So we're leveraging our dollars to be able to do larger projects We have our master plans that we're implementing and then there are a number of other Large projects that we're considering but we don't have funding for at this point The library has revisioned what should the library of the 21st century look like what should it do? How does it help our community? They had a consultant come in do designs look at that and it's about 22 million dollars The fire stations had they had them come and do an assessment of them And it was found that they could consolidate one station and still have the same response times that they have currently That's about 16 million dollars Memorial auditorium is always discussed the last time it was close to having something happen. It was about 34 million dollars The public works group have been talking about a consolidated collection to be more efficient on our trash and recycling That's about six point seven million dollars So there are a lot of other big projects out there Our needs are not going to be met solely by this 30 million dollars Our goal is to come up with a sustainable level over time so that we don't continually come back for large groupings and Say that it's seven million dollars a year that right now we get two million For capital and that was approved in 2012. So we've gotten no increase since 2012 We believe seven million is a reasonably sustainable number if the voters were to approve that on an annual basis Then the only time we would have to come back to the voters is when we wanted to do a large project such as the library or the fire stations and that would I think be an easier method in which to capital plan It always ties into our operational side. So there's pavement markings. There's landscaping There's facilities management. We have to work hand-in-hand on all of this What's holding us back from asking for more than 30 million dollars? We have a debt cap Policy that was set three years ago It's around 209 million dollars and Right now 110 million of that have been utilized and And 70 more has been obligated to the school. So this is split between the schools and the general fund So really there's only 30 million dollars left on this cap in order to ask for anything And it will be a discussion as we go forward is you know What do the schools need to do is it a compromise between one or the other? And that's a conversation that will continue to happen We're looking at all the other funding opportunities We would like to ask the voters to approve a New bond in November and at the same time I'm working to come up with what is the strategy and how do we? Create the sustainable level of investment on an annual basis in our capital plan And the longer we defer it the more it's going to cost us This is my schedule of meetings and I added two more tonight. So I found There we're particularly or another area that we're trying to reach is the BIPOC communities And so trusting communities is one area and there's a group out of UVM That also works with those communities and so I'm trying to make presentations and have it translated as well but Those are our goals Have a question at a curiosity. Do you know how many cameras there are in the city? There is around 300 cameras around the city 300. Okay. Thank you What consolidation of the fire departments are you are they considering the city considering? so they did an analysis of the location and whether they could consolidate and the Assessment came back with that. They could consolidate fire station one on north Winooski and fire station five which is on it's in the south and and It's going to be affected by the Champlain Parkway should it go in so those two could be consolidated In a location in between the two and it would maintain those response times Thank you Any further questions? I don't have a question as much as a statement. I have a Kind of love for what Memorial auditorium used to be and right now for all intents of purposes It's an abandoned building and I think that You know, I'd ask the mayor of the any of the opera funds could be used toward that Building, you know, as you just said the longer you wait the more it's going to cost And that's where we are with this particular building that I think could return as a community center and You know, I remember the rock camp being there and just other activities for young people because we've we've lost a lot of that especially during COVID And that has led to some of the For lack of a better word mischief that is going on in the community. So I just want to give a shout out to Memorial auditorium if you can get some of that art for money But I think that would be a great thing for our downtown to have that building back in the public interest. Thank you Not seeing it for the questions. So I would say thank you very much for this. I'm very much appreciate it Good luck moving forward Thank you for letting me speak. I appreciate it absolutely and That closes that agenda item 5.03 moving on to 5.04 which is Naco training for BPD and with that, I'll give it up for you Stephanie So one of the things that we learned in the Naco training is that Naco actually Recommends training of the police department about civilian oversight I think there's a sense that it the civilian oversight can really benefit the police department and community trust and so this would be This is you know would be perhaps useful for BPD to engage in with Naco And we thought it would be useful just to present this idea at a commission meeting Perhaps to ask DC Sullivan if he wants to comment on that I realize it's sort of on short notice, but just to put it out there to think about whether It you might consider a training from Naco for the BPD on the role of civilian oversight Yes, I think I think we would be open to that Certainly we I I did audit some of the Naco training that was provided to the police commission And I thought there was a lot of valuable information in that training. I think it would be a valuable Collaboration to to learn more about civilian oversight certainly So if it would be helpful, I can certainly connect you with Cameron McKell McEllani from Naco that did our trainings and leave it to the two of you To you and the the leadership of the department to work with Naco Sounds great. All right Not any further comment on that close agenda item 5.04 and we want to agenda item 5.05, which is a Presentation from the BPO a so with that I invite you to the podium Sorry table Good evening commissioners. My name is Joseph Coral. I'm with the police office association. I'm the vice president This is Megan O'Leary. She's our secretary We work in the executive board pretty much day and night So what we have for you today? I sent you I put in board docs Actually is the data that I was able to obtain or we were able to obtain Over the course of three or four weeks. I left the survey open for the union as well as for the supervisors So this is everybody that works the department right now. That's a sworn officer except for the chiefs That's responded to this. Obviously not everyone responded, but the majority did I did not give you the 50 responses for that some of the open-ended questions. I did give you the graphs I do want to read you some of the open-ended questions responses I'm just kind of the themes that I'm seeing and that we're seeing as a union So the first question which you do not have in front of you is why are you still working at BPD? Because that's a legitimate question that most of us are curious at curious for right now because we have had a lot of people leave So I'm just gonna read through about ten of them for you The first one is I personally had the opportunities to fill different positions within the department and I've had more senior officers Guide me into other positions to take over the schedule Well, what was our schedule before we got screwed due to staffing was another perk? Ironically the good amount of overtime available was also a perk But it's starting to lose its appeal as is because more of it's more of a forced option than voluntary I'm just reading these verbatim. I'm keeping out any swears that were put in there Obviously, these are people that were venting and they're giving their opinions anonymously The next thing is why are you still working BPD number one the co-workers number two the schedule number three a source of income The next one is multiple years on but they are currently looking for another position somewhere else outside of Burlington The next one is at this point I am essentially a hostage policing skills will highly sought-after and somewhat rare do not translate well to occupations outside of law enforcement Especially in a state as occupationally destitute as Vermont the union previously did a good job in negotiating a well-paying contract Unfortunately, that pays the only thing keeping me in the building in parentheses which goes against everything I was taught about not getting a job just for the money I did not start this job for pay It was garbage at the time when I started but now it is my only reason for staying the job used to be fun Incasionally satisfying rewarding, but now it's constantly miserable most of that misery is being generated by the city make a city administration Slash council the council in the city is the most dishonest state filled people I've ever encountered in my entire profession. I Have given the best years of my life this job getting kicked punched and spit on only to be rewarded with a group of people intentionally spreading lies and hatred about Me and my co-workers to further their misguided ideologies I do have a lot of close close friends here, but we will still be friends after I move on to better things Why are you still working at VPD? I do not know last summer my daughter was terrorized at Burlington Parks and Rec summer camp by other children when she mentioned I'm a police officer They threatened to light our car on fire and kill me and my wife my daughter is at difficulties processing this and still will not Talk to me about it The next one I am held hostage by the pension plan if I leave now I receive a fraction of what I will receive if I stay the full 20 years This is the one and only reason I'm still working for the city of Burlington The next one currently looking to leave I cannot work for a city that does not support its officers Burlington was the place all Vermont officers wanted to work now Unfortunately, the city council has ruined our reputation and will be lucky to have good qualified candidates apply here and next Co-workers schedule and to some extent the pay keeps me here, but that is quickly becoming insufficient in the face of the mounting hurdles The only reason I'm still at BPD is provide for my family while I love the work I do I could do it for another city that respects its employees prioritizes officer safety and support and doesn't play games with people's lives But I won't relocate my family. I have never worked for a city that feels more openly hostile to those who risk their lives for them So question to I think you can pull it up on board docs or you should be able to is are you actively seeking new employment? this was Unfortunately not shocking to the union. I think it's gonna be shocking to some people But 46% of the union is currently looking for employment somewhere else So that's 28 of the 50 that responded to my survey for the union specifically not for the supervisors The next one is ranked the below reasons from most the least importance while you're still considered staying at BPD The top currently from what I can see if I'm reading the survey right because I actually struggled with the graph itself But is the schedule the next is the salary wages and then the next one after that is friends and Then the current their current position that they are in right now Whatever that assignment might be and then the last is the policing profession Question four is what are the three things you would want to see changed in the city and the department currently? This one's a little bit long But the city council and the police commission have shown a lack of understanding of the police profession Their decisions and rhetoric against the Burlington Police Department harm this agency and made not only the officers But the community as a whole left safe This is also emboldened anti-police activists academics and local media to carry a consistent anti-police activities Then make our profession substantially more difficult with the consistent Misinformation campaign I would like to see our elected elected officials showcase the phenomenal police department We are and help shift the negative image that has been portrayed We are a small community and need to pull through the situation in a unified manner I firmly believe that with the professionals professionalism of our agency and little help from the community a little help from the community we can show The rest of our great union that a city police department can work in harmony with its people Keep Vermont weird in quotes for the police department We need more staffing so we can lessen the burden on our officers the work life balance is not present right now And it is not safe or healthy, especially long term Officers need to be cultivated and supported in seeking career growth Currently this agency is not able to provide the dynamic career paths It once did being able to mix it up with bearing assignments and schools helps make more capable officers while making for a more sustainable long-term career Last the internal pressure needs to stop Next is number one increase staffing within the apartment number two increase opportunities within the department number three Have city leaders be educated on the details of police work in Burlington and understand what we do and why we do it Have leaders that do not focus on flashy headlines and progressive trends without proper analysis of practical application Have leaders that have integrity in the courage to support good police work even when it is unpopular We number one we desperately need to retain officers and hire new officers We are losing the most marketable people that means smartest most talented and experienced are leaving due to bad conditions BPD is experience a talent and experience drain that needs to be remedied immediately It will take decades to make up for this loss number two support from the city There are good people working here and they are being attacked from the inside With the ultimate cost being the most vulnerable people in the city We have been made villains for political game number three paying benefits primarily guaranteed time off better pay improve pension and benefits Just going back to where this person points out. You're losing the most marketable people Recently we lost somebody who had 10 plus years of experience and had a masters And a couple things so we are losing we aren't just losing like newer people We aren't just losing people that can retire. We're losing people right in the middle Who would have served the city for 10 to 15 more years? And they're you know, that's a ton of experience. You're losing right there So the next one is I'm leaving but I can say the following Lacking or weak vocal written and consistent support in public and in the press from city police administration for police officers Any public official including members of the police commission and city council who stated factually incorrect and slander statements about the departments Members should have at worst been publicly censored, but realistically suspended or moved from their positions Last I checked due process and thorough real investigations were still a thing to loss of officers and positions and easily forecast What ongoing losses has eliminated BPD's ability to provide incentives and ongoing professional development for those who remain We are no longer professional well-run or premier law enforcement agency in New England call volume and officer Responsibility volume has not changed staff calls and shifting the contractual schedules a smoke and mirrors approach that is clearly designed To make the public happy and only adds to the stress of the employees including dispatch This approach pushes the subtle and not so subtle underlying message that the city only grudgingly knows its police officers Acknowledged its police officers, but certainly does not care about their personal well-being beyond the level that they have to as an official employer To answer this eliminate a menu of calls that police currently go to The next one no idea maybe a good start would be for city counselors and police commissioners to actually have a knowledge base On how to police before tearing the department apart Number the next one is number one if the city wants a better police department They should invest in that department not to fund it I would like to see police officers not vilified for the purpose of achieving racial equity It's just driving away our better and more motivated cops also You're not going to change officers hearts and minds that way our police commission is out of touch with the needs and realities being Police officer for an example when a black man punched the female officer in the face and strangled another officer and police officer states Them in the police were then criticized same black man also tried to break into a family's home with terrified children and damaged their car That same man later car jack the car jack the woman It is appalling that police commission is identifying this person as a victim when he was assaulted He has assaulted and terrified so many people in our community Next is one more money for profession that nobody wants number two support from city council and police commission And then number three says let's just start with these two Number one actual dialogue amongst all people instead of one-sided discussions under the guise of supposed listening referring to the city Increased paid compensate for the increased workload demanded by the reduction in the police force Higher wages less police involvement in non-police issues plus adequate substitutes to take the place of a police response And less of a hostile environment towards police fostered by those in charge of the city The next question is if you are seeking to implement what could the city do to keep you here? As said in number four this agency's use used to be able to provide more career options for a long-term career Right now we reasonably cannot a properly staffed agency is able to have a dynamic set of opportunities for officers If you're working for the Queen City of the state, it's reasonable to assume you have access to such a career The anti-police rhetoric from the city needs to stop and should showcase how brave an MC We actually are with appropriate numbers and funding coupled with the change in this information campaign I would consider staying seeking life elsewhere is not a decision I take lightly and I had planned on a long career of service to this great city Right now that plan does not seem feasible with the current direction the city is taking with this agency number two Response was maintain a decent schedule increase pay create a healthier more positive working environment Next is refund police and numbers of officers to increase city The city is creating an officer safety issue and is causing a lack of appropriate resources to adequately police the city This person said if I were seeking new employment Which is a real option depending on the city council and mayors actions after consult after the consulting firm concludes its recommendations for the police department The schedule would have to remain as close to possible as what we currently have Considerably more paid to be able to live in a more comfortable life In this disproportionately expensive area and the administrative staff would have to stand up the city council and the mayor When it's clear their actions and words are inappropriate and affecting the well-being and all employees Next is while i'm not actively seeking employment I am keeping my options open and I would not hesitate to leave if a better opportunity presented itself The job is getting worse This all being said the truth is that the pay pension and benefits are the only thing that really keeps me here at bpd currently I am more open to a career change uvm medical center is offering 100 differential for nurses to work overtime this summer In parentheses. Yes, that's double pay with two years of school I could make better base pay work fewer hours make good overtime pay At my own choosing and stay in the area Next I would be willing to take a pay cut to be offered a different position somewhere else due to the work environment in this city If I was offered another job I would believe that I would need a substantial monetary incentive to stay most likely more than 20 000 or 30 000 per year Secondly, I believe the city should be releasing positive messages to the community about the police department And all the good work that is accomplished and the professionally caring officers that are employed at bpd This person said at this point nothing It will take 10 years at best to reverse the damage done in the last year The numbers will continue to dwindle and the city will continue to become more and more unsafe Why would anyone want to be a police officer in the city if they do they are not a reasonable person In the not so distant past bpd was a pinnacle of law enforcement in this state Officers and detectives from agencies all over the state would come to us for help advice and guidance Now we are a laughing stock laughing stock and the other cops just feel sorry for us The city namely city officials must be willing to openly accept their responsibility for the current state of bpd Inspiring negative morale These issues are a direct result of the actions and decisions of a handful of people who have no real knowledge Real world knowledge about bpd or police as a social construct operates interacts with actual burlington residents and visitors Nor have they been willing to educate themselves about policing by participating in ride-along They've been coming to speak with any actual bpd officers in a setting Which would allow them to get to know the officers and understand who we are and how we are trained Increase the number of police officers. Also if tier three retirement was changed to tier one, I would heavily consider staying We should also be paid at least 50 to 20k more in our base salary Pay me more less than the workload hire more officers keep the schedule bring back speciality units provide and support your police officers And support your community All right, and the last question which you should have as well says would you encourage your friends or family to apply to bpd currently That is 96 percent said no This sticks out to me because when I started at this department The majority of people referred their friends and family to work at our department I referred one of my family members that actually works here currently And I wouldn't anymore either. I'm one of those knows So I'll go over the supervisor it's a lot shorter There's not you know, I'm not going to read off 10 because there's only a few nine or 10 surprises that responded anyway Which is the majority of them anyway But going back to why are you still working at bpd bpd used to be an agency with career potential Through various different assignments those assignments have dwindled to nothing due to staffing levels I'm still here because of the excellent officers I work with the pension and the reliable paycheck if I were to some find something with decent compensation I would likely leave. I also have active applications out to other agencies to explore other options Uh for the supervisors you have 33 of them of them are currently actively seeking new employment and they There are reasons for staying are a little bit different Uh their top was salary and wages Then its schedule, then its friends, then its current position Actually, I think it's almost exactly the same and then the policing profession and then the Reasons that would keep people here go back to a little bit more pay some type of retention bonus retirement or health care after retiring um retention bonus again As well as possibly a health care option similar to what the state police does And then would you encourage your friends or family to apply to bpd currently all off all supervisors responded this said no 100% No, I I'm not here to I read those verbatim. I'm not here to say that you are doing a terrible job I'm not here to blame you. I'm not here to do any of that I'm just here to make you aware of what the officers that currently work at the department are thinking As well as how many of them are actually looking to work somewhere else It's almost every day that I hear that somebody somebody I didn't know was looking is looking for employment somewhere else And I'm not talking about just looking for employment in a different field I'm talking about like going to south brown june police department or pollchester police department or Vermont state police this Just from I've worked here seven years now I've been while I've worked here seven years as police officer. I've been I've been here for nine It's crazy to me that there was a time when the people that are saying this are actually right We were the pinnacle of enforcement of the state We were like people wanted to come here. It did not matter where you worked in this in this state Unless you didn't want to work in a busy department You wanted to come here for the opportunities and you wanted to come here because you were busy And there was actually things to do and you could make change and actually affect change People do not feel that way anymore. They're holding on to friends pension and salary That's that's scary because every day their friends are so that's one thing that's gone Salary only lasts so long money's not going to keep you anywhere money does not keep you happy forever So once that's gone That's all there is and pension all they have to do is do some digging and actually if they're under 15 years They can make this work. They can take their pension or leave it and let it grow And they'll be fine. They can go somewhere else If those are the only three things they're keeping me that that scares me Because that's that's not a lot that's holding people here And I just hope that I know I know september is when cna is finishing its assessment I can tell you right now that is if that's what that's what the city council and everybody's Waiting on to make the decision if we need to increase the cap or not You're too late. You will be too late by that time And as you know if that number is not what people expect at the department you probably lose more people Because right now there's very few opportunities That's not that's not hidden either. That's that's very clear So You know, I just wanted to pass this along. I don't mean to be all doom and gloom But I also need to give you the reality of the situation Um, I know very few people the department that currently aren't looking for jobs elsewhere And I hate that because I I planned on spending my entire career Even I'm I've looked and I have my feelers at different places and I'm not afraid to admit that because I've been through enough at this place but The biggest thing is is I was planning on serving this this city for 20 years of my life 28 years of my life It's a 25 year career here, but I started on 21. So for me to collect I would have been 50 Which would be 28 years ish And now I don't know if that's feasible on a lot of officers feel that way And I just hope that we can do something to show the officers In the union and the supervisors that we want them to stay here You all we also have to make it so that we people want to come I'm not trying to get too many solutions because obviously it's not really my job, but I'm going to point out What's the fastest thing you can get in here for police officers to fill empty spots? It's waivers from this own state if you can convince people from this state that work at other departments to come here That is the fastest you can get somebody on patrol Helping us out But that means that you have to convince somebody who works at Colchester South Burlington BSP anywhere else in the state that they should come here because it's worth it Whether that's incentives or whatever whatever that may be you have to be able to convince them of that And I can tell you right now that as somebody I teach at the police academy I don't know of anybody I've I've gotten a lot of I'm sorry you work there and I'm sorry you're going through this But I have not got hey can I apply there and we used to get that when we go down You know how how long's your process? You know, what do I have to go through? What's the expectation that's what we used to get and now we get I'm sorry. I would never want to work there I would love to see that change And I know right now we're speaking like this But as I said before I would love to meet with you We would love to meet with you To talk about that some more And we hope to keep this communication open as an open line of communication So we can actually work through some of this stuff I also think it's very important that you all do ride-alongs to get an actual first hand view of what we do Because it's easy to you know sit there and say well you could have done this But you weren't there nor do you have our training nor do you have the full details as much as we think this has everything It does not So ride-alongs are crucial whether you believe that or not. So I'm more than happy to take anybody. I'm currently the recruiter, but Take a time and I'll be there So also one thing I want to point out and I I brought the chair. We talked about it a little bit If you are interested as a patrol teacher instructor myself Um, you know, there's a community we've done in the past We would be more interested in doing a more detailed thorough academy with you Or we could go into more detail and more depth into a lot of the Topics that are covering the community academy But more geared to what you're dealing with. So it's not just like an overview. You actually get a little more Experience out of it. Can you repeat that? I didn't quite hear what you just said The community academy is what we normally do but we did not do it last year due to covet I'm talking about setting up a program That you can all attend that's even more in depth than the community academy Just to get you more experience more exposure and understanding of things that you may not have had a chance to sit through yet But also I'll go off of what Meg just said I also will take you on a ride along anytime you want to go So once your stuff's in I already told them that the eboard executive board would be willing to take you on ride along So Whenever you want to come in we can have this conversation in the car and we can ride all around and see some of the calls that we're going to And also be aware that the last thing i'm going to add and then i'll stop The last thing i'm going to add is be aware that because we have so fewer officers You now have an officer that was taking 100 calls is now taking, you know, 200 250 calls for service So now you're that officer's burning out faster and they're working 60 hours a week because they're trying to cover other holes So that's a lot of burnout on one person And we can only do that for so long If you have any questions i'm happy to answer I just want to acknowledge that how hard a talk this is for The bpoa and the officers and I really appreciate you sharing that information with us. It's very sobering We have in several meetings that you've mentioned the idea of meeting with the police commission I think that would be important to do and chair gommash I hope that we can arrange that as you know issues around public meetings and so forth constrain How we do that, but I think that would be Um really important to do i've done several ride-alongs with bpd But i'm really interested in doing and tonight in fact i'm going to try to sign up for one with all of you So, um, thank you for that. I really appreciate the information Of course, and if you've done them before realize that we're in a much different time now So you may see some things you didn't see last time Um, and depending on when you've done as I said in the last the last meeting I spoke at You know five or ten ride-alongs is going to give you a good view of what we do compared to one or two Because if you come on a night that you know, we have nights where we're slow that we didn't expect it And then we have nights that are crazy busy. So it just depends on the night you come You may see something one night and you wouldn't have seen the other night Hi, I had a couple of questions. Um, we had a discussion before And I think it was Frank open honest Little difficult, but those are quite frankly during these times the best kind of conversations to have So I definitely, um, would like to have more of those One question I had I was curious if you could Give I mean I'm mindful of respecting people's confidentiality and Privacy, but in general what do you mean by internal pressures? So when they speak to internal pressures, they're speaking to their the administration like the city administration as a whole Okay, yeah, okay The and this is something I've talked about publicly because I've been very concerned about the rhetoric People vote we have a representative democracy people vote for people, you know the people that represent them What do we need to do to have better community engagement, right so that Um our officers understand Where the community is at And then the community can understand where the officers are coming from And I I think it's a difficult time for policing nationally I think that the grass isn't always greener. We've seen incidents in multiple Vermont communities That have led to a lot of negative reactions within those communities And there's some of the same issues that have occurred here And I would also just respectfully say that I have learned a lot And I will continue to learn more. I mean I know enough to know that I don't know enough But at the same time I do feel there is a legitimate conversation about certain things that do need to change in terms of Things that are considered to be systematic And issues of racial inequities, especially given the population These are hard things to look at but they do need to be looked at and they do need to be discussed And I think going back to community engagement finding a way to make sure that whether People like the discussions or not. They're part of the discussions Because I feel at times there were certain conversations going on in the community And they were disregarded because they didn't like those discussions Didn't think they would go a certain way But then they did and maybe they didn't go full on the right way, right? I think there is a some argument For that as well. But the point is if if everyone's not part of the discussion You can't really say How do I want to put it? Can't necessarily be surprised at the outcome because When certain things were passed on the city council, there's a whole segment of the community That wasn't surprised by the outcome, but yet there was a whole nother set Part of the community that was very surprised by the outcome Because they weren't part of those Conversations, right? So we all need to be part of the conversations We discussed some ideas about community engagement. I still have them I'm back from my now there's pulley vax. I've been visiting my family using some of my pto The restrictions are lifted. I'm happy and looking forward to doing some ride-alongs And also some roll calls Frankly as many as you all let me because I'm I'm very interested in those But thank you very much for your time and thank you very much for your your frank and open Information. I think it's important I've certainly been listening to it and Oh, I had a question if you Gave that because I know the officers were interviewed for cna, but I think this Information would be helpful As part of their overall review. So you brought that up in our last last discussion we had at that other meeting I immediately reached out to cna and they have that information now. They have the entire survey not just parts of it Okay, great. Thank you Not a question but a comment that I appreciate Sorry, could I just be closer to mike, please? I just want to say that I appreciate the complexity of the job that you're doing In a rapidly changing environment Thank you. Um, I also want to thank you for being here. Um, uh, as a bartender I think sobering is the proper word for uh, we just heard and um In uh, I mean while I do work on the weekends and I wouldn't say I necessarily need a ride-alongs I see what happens out out there. Um, I will make some time on the weekends to do a ride-alongs as well And um, I And I fully foresee us keep uh Keep this dialogue moving forward and um, I really appreciate you guys coming here and not speaking Thank you commissioners That closes out that agenda item 5.05 which moves us on to the amended agenda 5.06 which is a discussion on future meetings and locations I I can answer I can give a quick answer for this We have this room scheduled for our next two meetings. Um And with regards to hybrid um, what I heard from the clerk's office was That they are currently trying to implement that. Um They haven't worked out all the kinks yet, but um With that being said it would probably in our best interest of to keep our meetings here. Um In for the future moving forward due to capabilities For due to the it capabilities here and I know they're going to try to get hybrid up and running for the city council meetings Which happened here, so I would move to keep our meetings here moving forward Due to that, um I guess I would like us to see I thought one of the interesting things that naco has said was about the concept of Trying to move the meetings in different parts of the city to give Residents who live in different areas the opportunity to attend I mean, this is a great space we have the technology but downtown can be difficult for parking and things like that so I guess maybe Long term and I know in some of the The spaces where they have Now that the npa's have returned live You know, so I know in some of those spaces they have the They're doing hybrid meetings So I don't know if we can utilize some of those spaces But just um, I guess I'd like to see us be open to it because I thought that was a very interesting comment that they had made I mean with that being said, I'm absolutely open to it. So I mean as I think more information about it I'm okay a hundred percent open to that but I do know for the next two meetings. So I do have this space Um a reserve for us. Okay. Very good. Thank you I don't know if there's any uh, I look for the questions or comments on this um, I I appreciate commissioner grant's comment, especially with regard to the input we've had from nicole When I was on the school board We experimented with rotating meetings and one of the issues is that people don't know where it is all the time So there's a benefit to having it in the same place And I wonder if perhaps it might be useful to ask one of the commissioners to look into this further And one possibility is that we have most of our meetings here But have one a year let's say in the north end of the city and one in the south end of the city So, uh, 10 meetings here and one each of the north and south But I think it might just be something that you want to ask somebody to look into further Because I I do think that we use obviously for the schools at school board We use the schools and schools have good it. They have all of the capabilities here So the schools might be a place to do that. There may be some other options so I think, you know, again, I I want to harken back to You know what we learned from nicole, which is that part of our job is community engagement And this is a space that I think is seen as part of city administration It is not necessarily welcoming to a lot of people who don't feel comfortable in these kinds of spaces And that we want to be to participate So I think it's worth looking a little bit more in detail So you mentioned we have this for the next few months And just one other thing that one of the things that happened to us on the school board is likely to happen to us As commissioners is that we hold our meetings on tuesday nights But every once in a while the city council will have special meetings and need this space and we will be We'll need another space so Again, I think it's good for us to think of some other alternatives and A plan that puts us out into the community on occasion I second Stephanie's comments, but I also think it's very important for us to be present in the communities when we can be I think that sends a really important message that needs to be sent right now in this context in this time So if anyone's willing to I guess explore other options like Like I said, I'm completely open. Um, I was just you know me. I'm no dictator. So I'm more I'm very much open to anything so and what I want to Look into securing other locations. I'd be more than Are you seeking volunteer right now? Yes, I am Milo it is Thank you Would would you be giving us a report on that at the next meeting commissioner grant? Yes, I will Thank you City mark itself has a big meeting room, which might be a possibility in this Just one consideration and looking to do this for previous Sorry to me the microphone, please One consideration is that we generally need two spaces if we're looking for executive Committee executive sessions Sorry microphone again The Miller center Awesome. So we have a milo looking into that For next meeting Or sorry for update for next meeting. Um, are there any further questions or comments regarding this agenda item? I'm not hearing any so That concludes the amended agenda of 5.06 and uh next is Gen item 6.01, which is the use of force incident report. Sorry Shannon I'm not giving the report, but I think there was comment last time about not reading it And so I don't know that deputy chief lebrek is I'm sure he can read it if you prefer, but if you have questions I think maybe he was going to talk more to that and the reports are posted Inboard and I was just about to say that uh, I sent out an email To the commission and to dc lebrek saying that he did not need to read these force reports seeing how it's posted on board docs But for us for the commissioners to prepare any questions that we might have I have a couple And if so, I think with that, uh Welcome dc lebrek awesome, um Let me pull this up I guess we'll start with the first one I don't have one for the first one, but if anyone else has a question regarding the Incident number one on the use of force report. This would be a time to ask I have a question You know, I'm new to the tool this so I'm trying to find my way through but I noted that the The number or the statistical proportion of the use of force cases Seems to be like higher for close persons of color than white persons given the percentage of population That people of color are in the community I was wondering if you could speak to that because it was confusing to me I I guess why you're asking why? Well, we respond to people's behaviors when use of forces happen as you can see in the report. So It these were all officers called to A complaint they weren't officers that were just out driving around and came in contact with a person So they responded to an incident and then they responded to the behavior during it Is there a specific one? You know, I guess, you know, I think a lot about implicit bias and those kinds of things and I'm just wondering. Okay, because I'm very new to all this and It just really struck me, you know that this seemed like a much higher proportion than it ought to be in our community And I was wondering what meaning you make of that The only answer I can give you is the one that I just said is that officers were called to these by someone else community member You know stating whatever was occurring the officers responded when they were on scene They encountered the person that they encountered at that time and You know they I was hopefully it explained in there why the force came about that that was used in this the summary like Unfortunately, you know, I don't want to put the entire incident there. I mean we can start attaching the entire thing if you like It'll be many more pages for each incident But I tried to give a synapse the synopsis of the force that was used the reason why the officers were there Why the force was used and you know the outcome at the end of it But the officer had no idea the the race of the person when they responded to that to that call I guess it might personally it might be helpful for me to have the whole report for well I don't know if anybody else wants that or not, but just to sort of get a Bigger lay of the land Okay, that's that's not a problem Depending on you know, this was a relatively month where there wasn't a lot of Incidents but the month before was 16 pages alone for this just I'd be more than happy to Are there any questions with regards to incident number one on this use of force report I have some overall questions. So I'll just wait In that case, uh, we'll go through them Um per Per incident and then at the end of that we can ask general questions Not hearing any for incident one for incident two. I do have one question Um, and this is just a clarifying question What is non-compliant handcuffing and escorting? So non-compliant handcuffing would be Um, when the person doesn't want to put their arms behind their back and the officers actually have to Put their arms behind the person's back for them And then an escort like if someone doesn't want to I think this one they were They didn't want to go to the car. So they had to kind of they had to push them along They usually hold them by handcuffs are and like had to like basically work their way walk them to the car A lot of times people will push back Or they'll drop their weight and they have to be carried I thought that would be like thank you. Yep Any further anybody have any questions with with regards to Is in number two I guess if I might Um, I wanted to make an overall comment, but I'll ask this question with regard to several incidents So there were nine use of force incidents and six of them involved mental health as per your report and that's 66.6 percent and it really just feeds into the discussion We had this evening about mental health and For each of these I wonder if you could let us know whether you Reached out to professional resources like first call or the Howard center or street outreach To support you in these calls Yeah, the ones especially with the emergency Evaluation ones usually has first call. We actually make first call a company a company us now Before they would come in and drop the warrant off like all right go get them And we're we don't do that anymore. We make them go with us, especially if they know the client so they can try to contact the client A lot of times when the client is in a house and they're you know, not answering the door We'll we'll just come we come back. We tell them like we're not kicking in a door We're not going to create an exigent circumstance where we're going to put that person in harm's way or ourselves in harm's way and create that That incident where someone has to get hurt and it's not always the most popular answer I'll tell you with with these agencies. They expect us to kick door in and get this person And we are refusing to do that. We will wait until they are out on the street where we can you know I don't mean surprise them but approach them when they're already outside Or if the fire department goes out with them And we know that the emergency evaluation order is still in effect that we can have contact with them Where we can two officers can walk up and each grab an arm Maybe like okay need to come with us if we know they're going to be resistant Or at least we can see them face to face and de-escalate It depends on you know once first call has gotten much better With this and they let us know and we try to have them negotiate with with their clients so that we can Come along and bring them up to the hospital or sometimes if they'll If they're compliant enough their worker will drive them up to the hospital And we'll just follow just in case they feel like that might go Badly some of these you know we do call the fire department because quite honestly they can transport the person More safely than we can but once we have them And maybe have to put them in handcuffs we can at least put them on a stretcher And they can be transported much better than if in the back of the cruiser where sometimes they'll try to hit themselves in the head or You know, you know inside the vehicle inside the cruiser like try to harm themselves So we So I've definitely shifted and gone we go out of our way now not to create those egg I can't state that enough not to create those eggs in circumstances where we Yeah, when I first started when you had a e warrant, you know, it was treated almost like any other warrant, but we have learned That this is not the answer and I'll be honest with you It's not a popular answer with some of the mental health professionals Especially if we they have a warrant in hand and like that person is right behind the door And we're like we're not going to kick the door in or make entry into that place and the person feels You know, we don't know what exactly what their mental state is But certainly leaves them access to whatever weapons and stuff they have in the house And then we are putting ourselves into making that exigent circumstance and putting ourselves in harm's way creating that And we just we don't do that anymore and the supervisors and myself are very aware of those situations Thanks So you mentioned that that refers to the case where there were these emergency warrants. How about in the second complaint? Did you Given that this was a person who was um, you've had some interaction with before around mental health issues Were you able to call in Howard or first call or street outreach? Um that female That was actually the fifth time we've dealt with that female during the day. Um and quite honestly That she's very well known to us. In fact, you know years ago She had crashed into the Burlington police department In a stolen car and fled up the street and crashed The officers are very aware of she just when she's in that state That is probably the Um Quickest and safest method to take her into custody because she'd been escalating all day We had actually dealt with her four other times street outreach had gone out with her with no luck those four to five other previous incidents She didn't want any services. She had refused the outreach workers who had gone. We had basically gone around downtown Um getting calls about her actions and she was escalating and Tammy and her and her folks were out with her trying to get her services and she refused it all so finally we had um the assault that occurred And at that point it was easiest for us just to take her into custody So that would that would be that situation it took me a second. I'm sorry reading through it because I don't have the names there either Um, they're not in the document, but yeah, she's very well known Thanks, can I just one quick question? Sorry, um Can you remind me where e area is? Oh, I'm sorry. That's the south end of the city. Uh, okay. I think area The area or dea. I'm sorry. D is indeed. E is the south end of the city. Yes That's what we call I think you call it and D is D is downtown. Okay Thanks. I just just as an observational point. I noticed that the majority of Of these happened in the south end So in e area Yeah, it you know and having done quite a few of these it's It changes it. I wish there You could say it happens always here or happens there, but it really does it It's always interesting every month when I do them like to see like, you know I mean a lot of us would probably expect it would be downtown would be like the focal point, but No, I don't think in this case the most when we were in e area Um, but that's just kind of the way it it turned out Thanks. I have no further questions for Uh, incident two Oh, are we still going through the individual incidents? Uh, correct. Okay, then I am going to wait till the end I had a couple questions for three, but uh I don't think it's probably for public so I'll say that for executive session Moving on to number four Moving on to number five Moving on to number six I had a question on this one And this is a clarifying question Was this called, uh, I didn't see here. Was this called in a dispatch? How was uh, how was this brought to? That was first call when I said the complaint in this case was first call. Okay. Yeah, they they saw her downtown We tried to You know, we tried to negotiate where their Deescalator she was ramping up to the state that she was going to go home and we're like, okay Well, maybe when she gets home, it'd be a much better placement. We should be in a better place As well. So that's why the officers actually literally even kind of followed quietly until she got home and then reengaged with her Thank you. Any further questions on number six number seven number eight And finally number nine, uh floors over for general questions Did you want to? Oh, okay so it's um not Necessarily a question but rather a very deep concern that I have over a particular term that was used in Number three And I've seen this term before In one of the policies or directives And I was concerned about it before but there were so many other things going on. It was a kind of In terms of the priorities that were being set At the time for the committee on to review policing policies it It wasn't followed up in the way that I would have liked to have seen it be followed up followed up on And the term that I'm talking about is excited the lyrium I think As a police commission As a police department And if the police department has it in policies and is using it in reports, it's probably Finding its way. I would actually be interested in talking to the fire department You know, is it finding its way in any of the um reporting that they need to do or if they Are in a position where they have to Take someone to the hospital. Are they using it in any reports excited the lyrium? is Is not recognized by a lot of formal Medical and psychiatric Associations it's actually A very controversial term It's really being scrutinized as many other aspects of policing are It has been considered to be something that has been made up Not implying in any way that it was made up by the burlington police department It's made up in other places and used by police departments nationally to um with some might see as Being used as an excuse to use certain use of forces Is in certain situations um Is something that comes up a lot in incidents nationally where There have been deaths that have occurred because of use of force The term was supported by You know major company that manufactures tasers So I would like you know not to start to go into a big conversation about it right now But really put it on our radar I would like to see it as a future agenda item I would like to invite the the fire department To one of our meetings and I I really want to see us have a deep conversation About this term recognize the controversy Around the use of this term The fact that this term nationally has been used um in a higher proportion against BIPOC people and The Actually is it that is incident three the only time it's used that was the only time I so is in eight two Okay, because I noticed it right off in in three But I I feel that we should um I just think it's a very damaging term And I think it's a term that our police department at our fire department if they're using it as well Shouldn't be using can I provide some context? So yes, please this my understanding is that this term is a technical medical term There may very well be controversy surrounding the term But it is the and it's interesting because We began training on what you're referring to as excited excited delirium probably In the mid two thousands there is a long history with What can be classified as excited delirium right as far as going back? 100 plus years With people who are institutionalized And then getting to the point where they work themselves up into such a frenzy and then they would experience sudden death and there are documented cases of that over a very very long period of time It's interesting that historically law enforcement started to see an uptick in similar situations Where in the 80s when cocaine was very popular and it was used quite a bit And that's also referred to cocaine psychosis But it was a drug induced almost excited delirium that created a lot of problems for law enforcement in the 80s When we initially started training officers on this We were using the term excited delirium There was controversy admittedly over the term some physicians said In my understanding of it was this is the physician said it is a technical medical term And you are not medical professionals. You should not be using this term to describe people Okay, and so we changed it in the last use of force policy We changed it to agitated chaotic event But you are absolutely correct that there is a much higher likelihood for a subject Who encounters police and they're in circumstances like this to to experience sudden death Right, so a lot of times they can work themselves up if it is chemical based or chemical induced They would work themselves up long past We're a normal person say for example if you were on a treadmill running as hard as you can Your brain chemistry will tell you to shut off that you've had enough You can't take anymore. That is not the case for some of these people They're at very high risk for sudden death That is exactly what we were training our officers that they needed to step back and contain the situation Not immediately engage Stage medical professionals to try to take the person into custody and treat it as a medical event Where they receive treatment as soon as possible officers were trained to contain it set up You know again like a perimeter and then take custody of the person using the least amount of force possible But as quickly as possible and then get them transported to medical professionals Our previous policy we changed that terminology to agitated chaotic event I want to say chief murad changed it back to excited delirium Because of its use as a technical medical term And so I would have to look at that a little further But there certainly is controversy surrounding that term and unfortunately we do encounter occasionally people Who are in this condition? Either either it's chemically induced or it's just a symptom of a mental health crisis that they find themselves in Okay, thank you for that feedback. Um, I would just offer that It When when taking a look at a lot of systemic issues negative systemic issues In policing, uh, yes, definitely. I acknowledge it's been used for a very long time and but there's a lot of things that have been happening in policing for a very long time that people are trying to change now and Use of terms like this it It is better to use the terms that that are um I think what I would like to do in exploring this Is to look at the description of this term how this term has been used because there's things that are happening nationally Where berlington is a small enough place where we can make a change Right, we can we can say that this is something that we don't have to participate in and eliminating um Such a controversial term and it and it is controversial. I mean, there's certainly articles that Say it's acceptable, but I I'm not aware of um, you know I'm gonna look that up because one of the things is it's I don't think it's It's not recognized by the american medical association. I don't believe um, I don't It's also not a term in the dsm Which is the psychology part. I think it's I think it's worth the discussion and some more research together I just like to point out that in both the times that it was used in the reports where I took them from It was the reasoning why the officer called for the fire department and had that person transported Immediately to the hospital and when in both those cases the person was actively like going after somebody else So there really wasn't that time to set up a perimeter and try to they were in the Yeah, uh, the guy who stripped down um in number eight, um, they were trying to do that when He fixated on one of our female officers and one after her and they And the other female And the first one was going after a male continuously going they were concerned at that point. It was already warm out And i'm not Questioning that per se Pushing back against you. I just wanted to just note in here like right Right, and it could be a better term Right, and it would be best. I believe to describe the behaviors that they saw because you know in Excited delirium is really looked at as being manufactured manufactured for a very specific purpose to um You know when we go and look at the racial disparities of the term, especially when deaths occur it's And the way some medical examiners use it. It's it's just been used really inappropriately And I just think it's something that our city doesn't have to participate in and that there are other words other terms That are more Accurate That is the concern that was a simple term Thank you, but I would add that there is value in coming up with some sort of terminology to train officers to recognize this condition So there are symptoms. I mean you mentioned speaking to specific symptoms. So I agree it's a valuable conversation to have as far as whether whether or not we want to use this term Again, I wouldn't certainly would not be opposed to going back to the terminology Agitated chaotic event because it's just a general description of what the officer is encountering But there are very specific symptoms that are presented with this right it's it's Disrobing when it's inappropriate. It's profuse sweating. It's pressured speech It's really open eyes very very open They use the term in training eight ball eyes because the eyes are so open You can see the whites of the eyes and then and then the pupils So there are any number of symptoms that are associated with this You know speaking incoherently and so we train those to officers, but it's it's It has value in being captured in some sort of description depending You know, whatever that terminology is so that for for training value for the officer So they learned this is a medical condition and to treat it like a medical condition um So then we get back to it's not really It's not why it's it's not accepted as a medical term, right? It is very controversial and well, it's Considered a medical term in some areas, but in areas where people are trying to make change and see that term as being abused And there's many instances of abuse and there's certain statistics that back up that abuse It's just something we want to stay away from and you can certainly You know train officers have to train officers because of all the issues that we were talking about with the drug abuse in the community The opioid crisis the mental health issues They have to learn to recognize Certain behaviors, right and they have to learn to recognize Certain responses You know when people Are abusing drugs. Yes, their body's going to act in a certain way. They have all those things are valid, but we don't want to Rely on this controversial term that has not always been used equitably Just because it's it's short sweet and convenient, right? Uh, so that that's my concern. Thank you Conversation to have and I can bring in some documentation on the DSM and how they kind of present it and talk about it So that we're all getting educated together and kind of thinking through How do we make sure that we take care of people who are actually in that if net state Without using it as a as a larger shield for other things So I appreciate what you had to say Uh, I wanted to if I could make a few comments about the point that commissioner cumberford made And I realize I wouldn't just acknowledge once again that conversations about race are very difficult And there's tension here in burlington about that. I think it we would be remiss as commissioners However, if we didn't note that in this use of force report 56 of the people on whom force Was used were black When they represent roughly six to seven percent of the city's population and I think it's important for us to figure that out dc lebrick, I appreciated your comment that you're your point that officers are Spawning to behavior the issue around racial disparities is however The way that there is a differential response to the same behavior And I don't think that we can mind that from this one month's of data But what we have seen is when the first use of force report was done on 2016 17 percent of use of force subjects were black In the report that nancy Stetson reported gave to us in april. I believe it was 31 percent with black So how do we make sense of that? I personally would appreciate the commitment and investment of the police department in understanding that And digging deeper into what that might be and to what extent Might there be implicit bias in how people are responded to based on their race who are however exhibiting the same behavior And I I would welcome a partnership in that I think we're left with if we if we simply leave that un interrogated What we're saying is that black people are becoming more and more criminal in burlington Much more so than white people in burlington And I'm not sure that that is an accurate assessment And I think the numbers are deeply deeply disturbing whatever is behind it. I think it is incumbent upon us There is such extraordinary Disproportionality I have not seen this level of disproportionality and use of force in any of the studies in any other cities I've done seen in the united states And so I think it's incumbent upon us to figure it out And uh whether it is mental health induced I'm I'm pleased to see that a number of these u.s. Of course incidents now Are recorded as having a mental health component in the use of force report that nancy stentz stesson gave us And that comes from your own data In half of all Use of force incidents officers identify the subject If the subject is white is having a mental health episode Which would then call for certain kinds of resources and professional Support and so forth whereas only roughly 25 percent of those who are black are identified as having a mental health episode And yet several of the incidents that we have discussed in complaints that have been very controversial In fact the black subject later on was in fact identified as having a mental health episode So i'm hopeful we move more in that direction But I I wanted to say that I once again this is I know I take no pleasure in this discussion And uh it is a hard discussion at many different levels around race especially since You know a number of us here that are are having this discussion are white But I I also feel like it is we it is morally incumbent upon us To not to to to not ignore this to dig into this and see what is is driving this disparity And what we can do about it Thank you for everyone's comments Thank you DC DC LeBreck Thank you chief selton that concludes agenda item 6.01 Next is agenda item 7.01 Accommodations for that i'll give it give the floor to uh shenman There were several that were received so this is for the month of june and i'll just read A couple of them some ranged from which i'm doing a better job at tracking Some ranged from just exceptional service This gentleman says when his wife called for assistance with a medical issue and he expressed expressed his A gratitude for the support another family writes that they had an incident with their son earlier this week and that they live out of state They were able to Drive up to see him and he seems to be in a much better place And so they're thanking the officer For the extra effort that she made in helping their family out and then Another one that was received was someone's actually thinking the department on behalf of themselves That they had called the department a few times It says last week and was intoxicated and suicidal Um the provided an update that they went to treatment And have since met with therapists and recovery coaches And he's also I say he but i'm actually not sure if it is fortunate that To be in recovery and back on track and to most importantly To thank the officer for their help and for the department and that Was treated in both situations With care and respect and for that i'm very grateful Thank you. Yes Do you guys ever publicize those kinds of things? anywhere for the general community Just in this meeting and some in the annual report now I'm just thinking you know the The north end news or something there should be some kind of a There should be some positive Of course publicly and this is a public meeting, but there's not a thousand characters here Or there are 35 or 40 thousand that live in the city and I think people should hear some of that the positive stuff too I agree. Um, I would welcome suggestions and ideas because it does seem like every time we cannot Like toot our own horn so to say and every time we do try to do some stuff like that It does come across in that manner and it ends up actually being negative. So I don't Unfortunately know the answer To that we would love to be able to do something like that. Um, Just I don't know if you have some suggestions. Maybe I'm just wondering I wonder if we can just put it on board dogs and make it public I can I can do perhaps maybe like a synopsis some of these people don't want to I can't just post them Some of them want to stand say anonymous and so if If if you think that that's feasible to do to just summarize or Caption what I can I don't um, I guess up for that as well It's a small thing On the other hand things can grow across time and it might help some of the morale issues in small tiny ways, which Sometimes are important As always I'd like to take opportunities to promote positive public engagement our Departments for a variety of reasons Doesn't have ongoing public engagement And ongoing public engagement includes The good the bad and the ugly um I have had someone tell me that some of my ideas are copaganda You know that's going to happen right because we talk about some people all the way over here Some people all the way over here, but in fact most people are here, right? So At some point that has to start and it includes How do we tell stories? That talk about the good things that are going on in the community With regards to the police department um How do we tell stories about some of the bad things that are going on but go into more detail as opposed to Oh my goodness, uh Some of the negativity that was referred to earlier, right? But how do we also Tell stories and give information to the community That educates the community in terms of how they can help the police department because we're we know wherever we end up with public safety We are going to have Some number of police officers I'm so supportive of the idea of a cahoots model I am supportive of the two other positions that we're looking at. I think that this hybrid Model is really important, but at the same time we still will need to improve How we talk to the community I was really just dumbfounded by someone who was recently Carjacked and I guess I it didn't meet mind a new york city definition of carjacking because they weren't actually in the car But they left their car running with their keys in the car it I don't think a lot of people really understand the crimes of opportunity that we could Could really cut down in our community because people unfortunately are careless at times I think if people had certain numbers and I think also what People in the community being the eyes and ears. I know there was a house in my neighborhood where people reported on There was a lot of drug activity and it took time for people to Report what was going on in order for officers to build a case to you know, move into the people that were in that particular house, so There's just none of that going on and it's really important. So I just want to bring that up again And hopefully now that we are getting past these covid restrictions and I can continue to hold on to that But we can start to make some steps and there are definitely some steps that can be taken That don't involve money. They'll involve time but and and volunteers But they don't involve money and if we can show that they can work then maybe we can go and we can get something in the budget, but um, I think the Burlington is a city that really needs to have A position that's managing websites. Um, we need our own web page um, I think the police department's web page can be Improved and be more user friendly and I think that public relations is is important and um It's just it's just lacking all the way around and um, We need to promote more communication is the bottom line And thank you for listening to my rant again about public engagement I have a dream Not a rant at all that concludes agenda item 7.01. We'll be on to agenda item 8.01 commissioner updates or comments and this is the point part of the meeting where If you have uh any comments updates you want to give about things you're doing whatever uh commission relevant This is uh your time Not hearing any um Sorry, uh for our next meeting agenda. I could I just uh make a comment? It may not fall into the category that you want, but um in working on the annual report this year I realized there are a couple of things. I think it would be beneficial to address One is tracking commendations and shan and I've talked about that and that's great Complaint tracking. Um, I think we're working on it But one of the areas that hopefully we can um talk to you about dc. Sullivan is Telephone complaints that are received by telephone and being able to get the written transcript of those and so um Maybe that's something that we could work on having the written Submitted form for complaints is really beneficial for capturing all the information But we seem to miss someone. It's a telephone complaint moving on to 9.01 next meeting agenda items and um, I don't have the work plan pulled up, but um I was going to see how we worked on that. Uh, I have to post that for next meeting. So we'll talk about that and uh commissioners just Be in contact with me about things, uh We want to add to uh in addition to the the work plan I will say the week the week going into our meeting. I will not be available So my hope is to have the agenda out a week and a half earlier than usual. So I'll be in contact about that Would you like some agenda items? Yes, please One would be a commissioner grants update on Where the commission meetings might be held? another is that States attorney, sarah george will be giving us a presentation on alternatives to arrest and Professor neil gross who's a former police officer Who now is a professor at sociology at colby college? We'll be giving a presentation presentation on racial disparities and how to reduce those in policing Could you repeat the the name of that person again neil gross? Thank you motion that we go into executive session to discuss complaints and disciplinary matters The conclusion of the executive session. Um, there'll be no actual items and we'll in the meeting will be adjourned afterwards So, so I uh, yeah, so I make that motion if I can get a second seconded by kevin All in favor raise your hand or say aye all right That passes unanimously