 Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Wednesday, February 24th meeting of the Community Safety Working Group. And I'm calling this meeting to order at 531 p.m. It appears we have a quorum, so I would like to take our roll call, please. Ms. Ferreira. Yeah. Welcome, Ms. Pat. Yeah. Welcome, Ms. Owen. Here. Welcome, Mr. Vernon Jones. Here. Welcome, Ms. Walker. Here. Welcome, thank you, and Mr. Cage. Here. Welcome. Thank you all for being here. And we're going to go right to it because we have a lot of work to do this evening. Just my opening remarks are, I want to just thank everyone for their ongoing hard work, in some cases, over and beyond of what needs to happen. At this point, certainly, there's been a lot of research and thought going into this work. And so I just want to, as a chair, acknowledge that and respond to it. I also want to reiterate my thanks to Ms. Moisten, Mr. Lainey, and Mr. Backelman, as their ongoing support, most recently, has been invaluable to us as well. So thank you all. And quick agenda review, we're going to look over and review and prove the notes of February 3. Those are the ones that are in our packet. And I hope you all have had a chance to look at it and be able to comment on it because we are going to refrain from putting it up on the screen and scrolling down and reading every page. Some of these notes are voluminous and it's a little time consuming for us. So hopefully, you've had time to read those and be prepared to comment. We're going to go very quickly. We left it in this meeting to see if there are any community service safety working group members have anything to say before we enter the actual agenda where action and discussion items are. And then following that, we're going to do some follow-up work on the bid process. We're going to take a very quick look at our community safety working group charge, which I think is important to review periodically, but certainly in this case, important because it impacts the next two items, which are the discussion of some preliminary and alternative recommendations and considerations that we may be looking at right now. And that too is an important consideration. And then the fourth item is a discussion of the Denver Support Team Assistance Response Program. This is their STAR program, which has been in operation enough time to gain some valuable information about their initiative, which might inform our work as well going forward. And then upcoming events, our next meeting date and any other topics that haven't come before the chair in the last 48 hours and then we will adjourn. So that said, I'd like to go to the February 3rd meeting notes and I just want to ask have all of you had a chance to read that? I'll take that as a yes. Thank you. Are there any comments, additions, corrections, edits that you want to put forward right now and Ms. Moyson I'd ask you to note those and make those corrections if any appear. So this is your time to make any comments on that. Mr. Vernon Jones. I move we approve the minutes of February 3rd. There's a motion to approve the minutes of February 3rd of the Community Safety Working Group. Do I hear a second? I second it. Thank you, Ms. Ferreira, it's been moved and seconded. All those in favor can just give me a thumbs up so I can see it. Thank you all, it's unanimous. Thank you for your work. Thank you, Ms. Moyson for getting those to us. I know those things have been voluminous lately. So I appreciate all of that work you're putting in on that. So Tashina was recently added and I just want to check to make sure that she was okay with the minutes as well. Let's do that now, please. Ms. Bowman, welcome. Yeah, hi, let me answer fine. Thank you very much, Ms. Bowman. Glad you're here, welcome. And so that is unanimous, thank you very much. And we're going to move right now into public comment. If there are any members of our community who are joining us this evening, welcome. And if you have a comment you'd like to make to the community safety working group, this is the time to be acknowledged by Ms. Moyson, by a hand raised and the group is ready to listen to what you have to say. Yep, and so Mr. Vince O'Connor has some comments to make. So I'm just going to move him in. Hi, Mr. O'Connor, can you hear us? That's his number, he's muted. Right, but it's like on the phone, it's star six, I believe. Mr. O'Connor, can you hit star six? Yep, fantastic, thank you. Hello and welcome. Yep, thank you. I can proceed if this is the proper time for me to do so. Yes, please, feel free. Okay, so I have spent speaking with Ms. Moyson, I have a fairly busy schedule and I have not been able to attend your meetings in this manner, I'm not online. I don't have access to the internet at home. But I do have some comments about what I think would be helpful for the committee to be perceived as having really thoroughly examined the Amherst situation. One, I really would encourage the committee and I'm going to do something quite longer and either in writing, if I can get access to a, a computer or orally with Ms. Moyson's assistance. Both, I think to look at the, not just the formal history of policing in the United States, but its actual history and the legal history. I think that if the committee had an understanding of the history of policing in the United States, I think that if the committee had an understanding of the history, they would understand some of the reasons that people have problems with the current structure of policing. The second thing I think, you know, I would encourage the committee to do whether, whether or not it's in charge given the revelations about the content of the training, police training facility in Kentucky. I think it would be very wise for the committee to review any and all materials related to police training for the training facilities that the Amherst department uses from in Massachusetts. I think that what, you know, if you train people in a certain way, you will get a certain thing coming out. And I think the committee should be able to say that they have reviewed the material and are thoroughly aware of the nature of the training facilities. And if they have recommendations for changes to do so. The third thing I think is that there should be a thorough view of three to five years of Amherst's actual police interactions with the public and try to compare it to a comparable community. Not as, we're not as large as Eugene Orgen, but they seem to be the model for how you can police the community respond to the, issues in the community effectively without having each interaction involving an armed individual. And I think it's essential that we compare, we categorize all the interactions that the police have with the public and whether those interactions could be, you know, whether it's dealing with the homeless or domestic disputes and so forth, whether those could be better dealt with and more efficiently and less expensively dealt with by individuals who don't carry guns and mace and other things. Fourth, I think it may be an illusion to consider that we're going to save money by changing the way a public safety department would interact with the individuals in the community. I think if the armed police forces reduced, there are gonna be people who should be allowed to retire early with certain conditions and so forth. And it's, I think it's not, and there's training for a new way of interacting with the public. And I think it may be an illusion to think there's gonna be a lot of savings. This is not Chicago where half of the municipal budget is spent on the police, far from it. And I think we have to be realistic about the fact that we, you know, we may save some money and insurance and so forth, but there's not going to be an enormous savings compared to other communities. And finally, I think I'd like to, you know, I'll provide, retell some incidents that I'm personally aware of that I think are illustrative of bad police behavior in Amherst and recent bad police behavior in Amherst that needs to be corrected and why, and how, why and how this needs to be done. I think even though Supreme Court has said that it's okay for the police to lie to suspects and so forth, I think it is terribly unwise for the police to interact with the public on that basis across the board. And there are enough incidents that I'm aware of that say to me that this is a endemic problem with literally, I think every police department in the United States, which goes back to the history of policing in this country. So thank you very much for your time. Hopefully I'll be able to find some time with Ms. Moisten to record something that you can listen to on your own at your convenience. And hopefully it'll help you to get back to the point and hopefully it'll be helpful to each individual member of the committee. Thank you and I'll try to stay on and listen to the committee's activities this evening. Great, thank you Mr. O'Connor very much. And I'm gonna pull you back into the, as an attendee. That's fine. And then Lauren Mills has her hand raised as well. Hi Lauren, can you hear us? You're speaking to me, that's O'Connor. I can't, I don't know, I haven't heard her speak. Am I unmuted now? Yes. Okay, I usually try to write my comments down, but I didn't have a chance to. So I'll try to be brief and as clear as possible. I was able to watch one of the recorded meetings before but I haven't attended all of the working groups meetings but some of the questions and some of the comments that I had was the funding of the safety working group. And from my understanding it was the charge is to work with figuring out how to improve policing and alternative ways for mental health and other social problems that deal with mental health and domestic health to not use the police in those circumstances. I also, so I wanna be clear of what the charges of the working group and how it's going to continue with funding and is that funding going to be from a policing budget that is currently standing in the town. Also, I wanted to let the working group know why it's so important and why I continue to try to be involved in the town affairs is because I have young children and I know the connection between the education system and the policing system and how our children are at a young age, they're profiled in school or tracked in school. So I think it's very important to realize that connection and the importance of that and why that can continue into adulthood or young adulthood because it starts so early. Also, I wanna just to make the point that from my personal experience of like seeing the police come into the complex where I live, there's been several experiences, but one that comes to mind is the police just using a blank pad of paper. And I just, with all those things that we have to keep in our heads and to me it just was kind of shocking that it was just a blank pad and I just, he was trying to take down information but I don't really know how that is like a proper, I wouldn't even say proper but just the best way to like take people's information of what happened in an incident is just some blank pad of paper. I don't think you can really get a clear when you look back on it, how can you really have a clear understanding of what the incident was really about? And so to me it's very easy to get misinformation the way that police seems to just use a pad of paper and a pen. And I guess I'll just last to say that I just think the working group for the work that they're doing and the community is looking forward to hearing the improvements and just thank you for your work. Thank you so much, Ms. Lauren. Any other comments? And Lauren I'm gonna move you back over to the attendees. Ms. Moyston, if I may, just part of my role is to keep us on track for our agenda which is always a very busy and intense one in terms of discussion. So I just wanna acknowledge that we're already a couple of minutes into our action, I just said if there is another comment, I would ask the, our committee to indulge us for maybe another couple of minutes. Or if there is one, if not, we should move on. Yeah, there's no one else has their hand raised. Thank you. So we thank you for the public for moving forward with your comments as you said in previous meetings our role is to listen and listen very respectfully and deeply to what you've said. We do not interact but the messages that you send to us do inform our thinking and educate us as to what is going on in our community. So appreciate your attendance and I hope you can stay on and listen to the balance of the meeting. Any community safety working group members have anything they want to comment on before we go right into our agenda? Ms. Moyston, am I able to see hands for people who are not on screen? Have you? I don't see any hands raised. Okay, and I'm just wondering if I can see them too because sometimes I haven't been able to when I see two people on our committee off screen. So again, hopefully that little yellow hands will show up but I don't see. I don't see the hands, that's why I'm asking so. Yeah. Okay, so given that, let's move forward and let's see, our first order of business is to look at the bid process. For those of you who are just attending this meeting for maybe the first time or are back again since the last meeting, we have sent out a request for bids. We've had a response, we've had a public opening of those bids and a selection has been made. We do have with us Anthony Delaney from the town to help walk us through this. And some discussion about that process and including reference checks, et cetera is something we're gonna engage in right now. I would like to open this up to the folks who were involved most directly in this process, especially as it results to reference checks. And also beyond that, Mr. Delaney, I would like to have you comment if you will as needed on what our options are at this point. So for the bulk of the group, we have not heard the deliberation at all around the reference checks. So I'd like to open up with that. So for Mr. Vernon Jones, Ms. Pat and who else was on that? Actually, it was me, it was me, it was me, it was me. Ms. Bowman, yes, thank you. I would not agree with that. I would like to have a reference check. So if we could open that up please, I welcome your opening comments. So on Monday, Mr. Delaney emailed us Delaney emailed us the lowest bidder, which is, what is the name again? Boston Mantra. Boston Mantra. And then he arranged the conference call yesterday for 4 p.m. and 4.15 p.m. And we checked out the references and at this point the skill set of the lowest bidder, the consultant, doesn't match what we are looking for. Did I say that well, Tashina? Yep, that was perfect. So there were four people that listened then. Myself, Ms. Bowman, Mr. Delaney and Ms. Moisten. And we started the initial conversation but I would leave that to Mr. Delaney. So walk everybody through. So Ms. Pat, just to clarify, so you were saying that the references did not check out, right? Did not go along with the bidder had stated? The skill set of the consultant, it's not what we're looking for. He's physically on healthcare field. Oh, okay. Even though he has lived experience as, he's an Indian-American. So yeah, some of his activities work, yeah. So I'll just leave it like that. Also, I believe if you didn't see his original bid that I'm assuming it's available. But from what I understand, I think this is gonna, if you've reviewed it yourself and then now we're just telling you that he really didn't fit what we were looking for, that do we all go to, we have to bring this to vote, correct? Yeah. So, no. We don't. I think Mr. Delaney is going to walk us through. Oh, okay. Let me before Mr. Delaney begins, I just wanna see if, you know, I wanna just clear the decks for him to comment on this, to look at what our options are based on what's happened over the last couple of days and that'll inform our ability to have a discussion and make some decisions going forward. So just for the folks who were in this last couple of days, if there are not any more comments, I'll move forward, but I just wanted to just do a last check there. I actually have an additional comment. So when I received the packet on Monday, I quickly looked at what he's proposing to do for us and the numbers just didn't match out. For example, he was going to have three ambassadors for nine hours each, 27 hours. But when I looked at what he put down, he put down 18 hours. There's no budget for translation. I'm assuming the ambassadors will come from Boston, no travel costs, just the budget didn't make any sense. So yeah. Thank you. To me. Mr. Delaney, thank you for joining us this evening and thank you for your work on the front end of getting this started and following us through on this process till now. If you could, you know, let me pick up from there and tell us what we need to consider and what our options are as a community service, a community safety working group going forward. Thank you. So as stated, we received three bids on Monday. The low bid was Boston mantra. We have, for the reasons outlined, determined that they are not qualified and we will not, we are not interested in awarding them. So the next step will be to evaluate our second lowest bidder, which is seven generations. We have started reading that bid. I have not formally confirmed this with Ms. Pat and Ms. Bowman, but I imagine we'll be confirming their references tomorrow, or as soon as possible anyway. Seven generations bid is a fair bit higher than our low bidder, although not, I think, outside of what we were expecting. They did $30,749 for part A, $27,597 for part B and $11,352.49 for part C. The third bidder, canopy equity, bid $59,000 for part A and did not bid on parts B or C. So next steps, we will evaluate seven generations and make sure that we're happy with their qualifications for the committee and for the town manager. The decision then is, we had talked in general way about what we were looking to spend, but if we were to proceed to an award, would we be looking to award all three parts, just part A? We want to get a contract in place quickly, so I would just need direction on if we are awarding seven generations, how much are we awarding seven generations? Mr. Baucherman, thank you. Yeah, so municipal or public procurement's a complicated thing. That's why I'm so happy that Anthony is here. And just as he said, the lowest bidder is the first one, and this is a invitation for bid, it's not an RFP. So if the invitation forbid, the first bidder, if they meet the threshold, we give them, you have the option to give into them. The two references are referees from the committee checked on, so they don't meet that threshold. And Anthony will sort of draft up the statement, the formal statement, because there is the opportunity for that bidder to say, hey, wait a minute, I did and challenge us on this. But I think in talking with Anthony, he felt in pretty secure ground that the references did not support that bid moving forward. So that moves us to the second bidder, as he said. And so the question, ultimately it's the town manager has to sign the contract, but it will depend heavily on what the advice is from the community safety working group. And so we have to do the same process we did for the first bidder with the second bidder. And because, as Anthony explained it to me, no matter how you slice it, the third bidder isn't lower than the second bidder because they only bid on part A. And so we cannot go to the third bidder in any situation. So we have the second bidder. The question for the committee, as Anthony said, is to award part A, part B, part C, part A, B, and C, or any combination of that, or not to take any action at all and to reconsider. So those are the things that are before you as you discuss it tonight. Did I get that right, Anthony? And that covers it. Hi, so thank you both for bringing that information forward. And let me go back and thank Ms. Patton, Ms. Bowman for really taking a very careful and deep look at this and acting in our best interest as a community safety working group. So thank you for that. Ms. Bowman has her hand raised. Yes, see, I can't see that. So I can't see hand raising on there. So I apologize, Ms. Bowman. So I just, after being there and kind of like experiencing the whole review process or whatever, interview process, I mean, I want to put out there that I'm concerned if we go forward. I feel like we really need certain things cannot be rushed. And if they're rushed, then we're dealing with a situation where, we might be getting sloppy work and not even really know it until we've already spent money. I really think that it would be in our best interest to relook at what kinds of programs can be implicated without the help of a consulting group because there are things we can do actively now without the consulting group. And think about pushing it, pushing the bids off until we one, have more money and two, like so we could push it off to the next, to the next budget with the budgets being distributed or whatever. And then the other idea is to just start all over with the bid and allow people more time because it seems like there's a lot of people who would have bid that didn't bid because the timeframe is not realistic. So that's just, I wanted to put that out there now because I'm on my way home, so I don't know if I'll have the moment later. Thank you, other comments, Ms. Pat? If I may, I was part of the subgroup that worked on the part A of the bid. And we got feedback from Mr. Delaney that some folks didn't want to even try to apply because of the timeframe, that this is a budget that would take six months. So to me, and I'm just speaking for myself that I was actually pleased and surprised that we have up to three bidders. And my take on the thing is, I'm leaning towards us looking seriously at the southern generation because this is a multi-racial, also black-led organization, Q, whatever, yeah, organization, they have the experience, they have everything that we're looking for. And I know some of you have not had time to read the document because you just got it last night, but I feel very comfortable for us to move forward so that we can get something done. I just want to caution all of us to remember what Dr. Barbara Love told us last week, that now that we have the momentum to take advantage of it to, because if we don't, it might just slip away from us. So I'm interested to hear what other people have to say, but I'm very comfortable with this group, with southern generations. Thank you, Ms. Pat, Ms. Forever. Yeah, I mean, of course, thank you to all of you that looked at this more closely, Ms. Pat, Ms. Bowman and Mr. Delaney, and obviously explaining it to us and sharing the information. I've had more of a chance to kind of look through the information that was shared. And I definitely hear what Ms. Bowman's saying. We don't want to rush through things and we want to make sure that we get the consulting group that's going to actually do the work and do excellent work because this is critical work that we need is very important. We need to make sure that we have people that's going to follow through, because we've all been in situations where we think we're hiring, something looks really good on paper and then they don't turn out to be that good. So we have to be very careful about this because we have a product that we need to give at the end and obviously the community is counting on us. But also I hear what Ms. Pat's saying, we don't want to lose the momentum. So I guess for me, I'd like to kind of take the best of both worlds which is really kind of say, let's continue going through this process, right? What Mr. Delaney said, look at the next bidder. Let's see, because the next bidder is the seventh generation and I do see that they're a multicultural group. I know some of the references that are there that provided references, I know some of them because I've run across them at UMass and things like that. And they're people that have our upstanding people in the UMass community and in the community in general. So I'd be interested to hear when you all look at their references, things like that, what pans out, right? So I think that's the thing, like for us to kind of go through to the next one and then if we need to go through to the third one, but yeah, but not make any rushed decisions, right? If they pan out and they're good and we think that they can give us the work we need then let's continue forward. But if they don't, then let's not feel any pressure to just go with anyone because we need to get this from them. Mr. Delaney, I have a, oh, go ahead Ms. Walker, I'm sorry, I'll wait. I'm sorry about that, Mr. Riley, thank you. No problem, go ahead. I also just agree with Ms. Ferrara pretty much everything that she just said. For myself though, before I can figure out which way I'm leaning, I am still a little bit confused about what would happen if we do decide to move forward in terms of awarding the different parts of the bid. And so do we also have the option to move forward with only certain sections or if we do move forward, we move forward with all three? If you could please just clarify a little bit, Mr. Delaney, that would be helpful for me. You have the option of awarding all or part of the contracts. You could choose to award all three parts. You could choose A and B, A and C, B and C, just one. You do have those options. Thank you, Mr. Delaney. Thank you, Ms. Walker. That was actually my question, Ms. Walker. So save us some time then. Mr. Byrne-Joan. Well, again, thank you to the people who have done the work and evaluated some of the references so far. And I just say, I haven't read every word but I did read over some of the seven generations proposal and we know some of these folks, I think we're very fortunate to have them put in a bid. And I would like us tonight to see if we can decide which parts we would award if their references check out. If the committee says their references don't check out, then it's another whole thing. But we've got a meeting, we've got some time here. And I can just say, I mean, in terms of my own thinking, I would propose that we not award part C even though I helped write the bid specs. I don't think we particularly have a great need for part C. I mean, if we had a lot of time with, you know, but I think we've got our plate full without getting more training and webinars for ourselves. And I think we have a good capacity to find those on our own. And whether we should abort both parts A and B, I don't know, I'm leaning towards awarding part A and part B, I think, you know, we maybe need to have more discussion about whether that's exactly what we need right now or whether our needs are a little different since we're further along in our thinking about some parts of the project. Thank you. Other comments, I'm going to make a comment but I want to leave the floor open for folks. I guess the thing I want to say probably dovetails with what Mr. Vernon Jones is saying. And there are a couple of things that are on my mind. We had taken a pretty fast track on looking at this invitation for bid process. It was a really tight window to get people in to take a look at their work, to make some recommendations. And we're coming back to a point where we say actually the low bidder in this case does not meet the qualifications that we need as a working group to advance our work and support the work going forward. It does seem from what I look that the seventh generation may have what would be I think important to us right now in terms of part A. One of the things that we've been trying to do most recently is really start to focus in on our community and get us actively involved with our community in whatever ways possible. And I think the acceleration of that work might be very important. So I'm interested in looking at that from the point of view of some efficiency and taking an intercontinental with full respect to Mr. Vomins' comment that we don't want to do anything sloppy. But we do want to take a look at seventh generation I think at least for part A because of their credentialing. They have a number of skills and knowledge and experience bases that fit into what we might wanna do as a community safety working group or a community. And I think if we take a look at it as Mr. Vernon Jones and probably some others have said we take a careful look at this and it's sort of a second look if you will at this and take a moment to evaluate it to see if this is possible. I think it would serve us well to come to an understanding that this is one is an important thing we wanna do and two, that this may be the actual group that can help us to do that. I think Mr. Vernon Jones, I agree with you. I'm not down there with C just yet and I'm not even sure I'm with B but certainly the first part given the community forms we've had given the comments we've received from the public and the time is ripe to really connect with these folks and this may be our opportunity to do it. So if we do have this discussion going forward my sense is to also take this next step taking into account Ms. Bowman's comments about being very cautious and not to get into an area where we're doing sloppy work but certainly evaluate our situation in a way that says we can move forward with confidence in whatever our next step is. This is gonna be a long process. This is not gonna be something that ends with a consultant's tenure as a consultant. When you get into this kind of work if this is ongoing work for our community it could be years if it's done right. So that's what I wanted to put out there and someone had their hand up. I think with Ms. Bowman did you have your hand up? I thought I saw a hand raised in there a minute ago. I'll go. Yeah, but never mind. Hang on a second. I'll go. Okay, hang on a second. You said never mind Ms. Bowman. Yeah, it's never mind. Thank you, Ms. Pat. So I appreciate everybody's comments and opinion and they all make sense. So a couple of things I want us to think about is that we should also think that other communities is discussing them way more than what we have for the current consulting firm that we're discussing. We have like muting more than $100,000 to do the project. So I just want clarity. Are people hesitant about BNC because of the cost or are people hesitant that our group wouldn't benefit getting consultant to do BNC? I'm not understanding why C is not important. Perhaps maybe not everybody are on the same level in terms of understanding or on doing racism. But for us to just feel that certain parts are not important. I'm not getting that. If people are saying that from financial perspective, let's discuss it. But just to say that we're not going to have consultant do some work for us, I'm just worried about burnout, our group, to take on too much on ourselves. If the town is really serious about reforming policing, public safety, it's not going to be cheap. We need to do it right. And this impacts marginalized folks in this community. So I just want to have a sense of why, why that is hesitancy about BNC. Thank you. Ms. Alwyn and then Ms. Freira. So the big office is a little bit confusing to me. And I was wondering if we awarded seven, seven generations or the organization for part A, what was the impact of the BNC? And how would that affect our recommendations for the budget? Or for the, yeah, for the budget for fiscal year 22. Mr. Backelman, perhaps, or Mr. Lane, Mr. Lane, Mr. Backelman, you had your hand up, probably answer that question for Ms. Alwyn. Sure. So if you recall the charge of the committee, it's the initial charges about alternative forms of policing for the community. And I think that's a good point. I think the big part of the charge of the committee, it's the initial charges about alternative forms of policing. And the timeframe is very short for that piece. We're like a month or so away from that, from making those decisions. And that's what we're going to put in FY 23 budget. The bigger pieces are about the oversight commission for it, for it, for the police department. And then I also would be looking to this group for, what are the next steps? I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's the guidance on the type of funding that we've got to need for next fiscal year. So. Cause we know that this is not going to be a one-shot thing. I think everybody has recognized that this is a multi-year effort. That we need to carve out. Funds to make sure that we can do this on an ongoing basis, or at least funds to. At two levels. One is for consulting support and then ongoing support for just a few years. I think that's a good point. I think that is something that we need to be investing in. So I think. You know, the, the, the, my immediate concern is getting, and I think you guys talked about, you're going to have it on your agenda tonight to talk about the star program. Give, give me some guidance on what you think we need to be doing on that front. And then I think it's the deeper work. That Ms. Bowman talked about and others about moving. You know, what has to happen going forward. I think you can have some more. Breathing room because I think we're all learning a whole lot about this. And we've learned a lot since you got started in December to where we are now. And I think this bid process really educated us. And so I think. It's an iterative process. I hope that I'm not sure if that answers your question, but I hope so. No, I'm dead. Yeah. And Ms. Farera, I think you had your hand up as well. Yeah. So, I mean, for me, I guess what I'm looking at is, you know, in terms of posing that question about whether we, we go to also award B and C. I think, I think Ms. Pat, in terms of what you were asking, I think for me anyway, I can only speak for myself is that, I guess I do have that, that concern, right? Do we have enough funding for everything? And I think that would be a question for Mr. Parkman. I think that's a good question. Because we still have a part B in terms of for the second, a part of our charge that we still need to find bidders for too. You know, and from what I was told, we were told from Mr. Parkman, we have 80,000 to do the consulting, to do the gift cards, to do stipends, to do all of this stuff, you know, and to pay the ambassadors and stuff like that. So, you know, money gets tight unless there's going to be to be, to kind of, you know, put into the funds to help us out with this. So, when I was looking at part B and, and part C, I get what, you know, what some of the other members are talking about, because part C is basically around the, the, the, you know, more trainings for us and things like that. And I think we've been doing that pretty well on our own. And even part B, even though part B, I think it would be helpful, but I guess part B is a lot of what we've been doing too. And we're going to have discussion about today, which was the alternative services and alternative ideas for public safety, even though I'm assuming the, you know, the consulting group could help us out a little bit more with that, but part A is really the main, you know, bulk that we definitely need assistance with. So, so for me, unless, you know, we're going to be adding more money and stuff like that, I think we do have to have a conversation about part B and part C. Mr. Vernon Jones and then Ms. Walker. Yeah, I had a couple of questions from Mr. Delaney, if I may. Could we, if we wanted to vote tonight to award part A, assuming the references check out and defer a decision on part B for another week or even two weeks. Is that a possibility? I believe that's a possibility. I'd have to, I'd have to double check the statute for how long a bid is considered good, but it should, it should be less than two weeks. I think you would be, I think you would be okay. It would mean executing more than one contract, which would be awkward, but not impossible. And given the way part A is, is written. Well, since we wrote this bid, we had a presentation by Dr. Barbara Love about the value of envisioning what our town will be like without systemic racism. And I don't know that this would work, but it seems like if we're going to be doing a lot of out, or our consultants are going to be doing a lot of outreach to the community, could we negotiate with them the possibility of not just asking people what's wrong with the police department, but actually inviting people right from the beginning to give their thoughts about what they'd like to see, what might the town look like, what changes would we make if we were going to be a more racist town overall. And I asked this based on the fact that it says outreach will include, but not limited to. So on first blush, I don't think what you're asking represents any kind of significant change in scope. It sounds more like a direction you would want the questions and research of the of the vendor to go in. It doesn't sound like something that would affect their costs or anything. So I think, yes, you could provide that kind of guidance, I think to the vendor in that case. Well, let me, let me just say, I don't think we want part C because it really is about more training for us. And frankly, with the work we have ahead of us, I'm not sure we have time to engage in a whole lot more. If we're about the community, it'd be something different, but this was really about us. And with regard to part B, we may know more after we have our discussion about alternative services that we're going to have later tonight. We may be in a different position and we may, I just think part B needs some more thought. So I'm not sure we have the discussion about alternative services. So I just want us to also prepare ourselves. There's no guarantee that seven generation will even accept to do part A. So we just have to make sure that we, you know, discuss tonight what our next step is. If we vote to move forward with part A, and then we check out references sometime this week. And the seven generation is contacted and they, they decide to decline. So I think it would be very helpful tonight to discuss our next step in case they refuse. If they, you know, since the idea run, you know, nobody else, you know, date on B and C. So we need to discuss what our next step is. So Mr. Mr. Delaney, if we were to, you know, tonight decide that we want to. Deep in the assessment of the ability of seven generation to, to deliver a part A services. And we went back to them in a similar way as we did initially with our, with Boston mantra. And we did a reference check. What would be the turnaround time for that? Do you think? So if we, so if we, if we were to decide tonight to move forward, we'll do the timeframe. Yes. Yeah. So I assume if I, if we get the reference checked on tomorrow. And they check out, then I would proceed immediately to write up a contract, send it to them on Friday. And then it's basically. Kind of up to them how quickly they turn it around. They could sign right away if they want to have their lawyer look at it. It could be a couple of days. Then it comes back to us and we will sign it within one work day. So realistically, I think midweek next week, we could have it in place. Could be even faster, but, but I think realistically. A week. And I'm going back to Ms. Pat's comment to, if that's, let's say it's a week, let's say it's next Wednesday, we're able to come back to this. If, you know, we get back to that point and we say that's a no. Then, you know, our contingency plans would have to be made in advance of that. So let's assume for the moment. That. That doesn't pan out. That's a broad assumption and I'm not putting anything into this. There's no intentionality here. But let's just say if it didn't. We would know sooner than later. And what might we be considering as a, as a working group in terms of next step, what might be in front of us to think about his next steps. You're still asking me. Yes. So. On paper, the next step would be to look at our third bidder. Our third bidder's bid is very high. So. I, my gut is that this, this committee would not be interested in spending nearly $60,000 just on part. Right. In which case the discussion would be. Frankly doing. We could go out for another IFB. I think it is probably not realistic to do that and get your recommendations. In time for the council's first deadline. Because it would be. It would be at least another two weeks. Right. We wouldn't have someone in place until the very end of March. So then I. Then the decision would be, are we looking for to revise and do this on a longer timeframe? Yeah. Are we comfortable going without the consultants and making recommendations on our own? It would be. Basically all options would be before you. I guess it would be. It would be wide open. Other than we could not have another bid under the original, in the original timeframe. Right. We just do another one on a different timeframe or we'd go without. Okay. So what Ms. Pat. Said made me have another question. Mr. Delaney. When someone submits a bid. For an IFB. The structure of ours. Is there any obligation of the bidder to. Do the work if they're. It is accepted. And is it any different because it's in three parts here. Not in any practical way. They may. Sign that the bid is submitted in good faith. For some, for some bids, I do require that they submit a bond. So that if they decide not to take advantage of it, we can recoup some of our lost costs. We did not require a bond on this bid. It would be fairly unusual to bond a bid. Of this low a dollar value. That's normally something for. Construction. I will say. I find it. I imagine it is unlikely that having gone through the bid process and gone through the. Frankly, very strong effort of putting the bid together. That they would decline. That's, that doesn't usually happen barring some. Incredible change in circumstance on, on their side. In between submitting the bid and getting the notice. So. I'm not terribly worried about that. I mean, I, I'm not, I'm not concerned about that. And we were quite clear in preparing the bid that. We might not award all three parts. And as you saw, they submitted actually three separate packages. So I, I think they understand. I'm not terribly concerned about that. Mr Walker. I'm backtracking a little bit just because what I wanted to speak to, we've kind of way past. But I wanted to comment on Mrs. Walker. I think that's the only reason that we're right at this minute making the decision that part a. Is more important. I think because. We're trying to figure out like, we're trying to prioritize right now because of the budget. I don't think it's the timeline because we already decided that the timeline was already really short before we did this process. I think if the budget wasn't in question that we wouldn't have any hesitation just awarding all three parts right now. And so then my question to the group is, and something that I'm a little bit confused about why we would hold off on parts B and C. If we intend to award them at all, because then we're shortening the timeline for that. And we already have bids. For those parts. So I'm not understanding why we would look for more bids. If we intend to move forward with those parts. At any time, why we wouldn't just do it now. If that would also be because of the budget. I'm sorry. No, I guess like to clarify. So we wouldn't be, even if we were holding off on making a decisions around B and C, we wouldn't be looking for any other bids for B and C. This would be like. We would just be awarding. Right. And then deciding on whether to award B and C. To this bitter. Right. That's my understanding. And I didn't think we were going to be. Asking for any other bids for B and C. Just Walker. Okay. Thank you, Mr. And then so my question would still be then. So the reason we would hold off. At this time is what? No, I don't think we need to hold off. I think we can make decisions if people are ready to make decisions. Or I think what Mr. Vernon Jones was saying, but Mr. Vernon Jones, you can speak for yourself. But how I understood it was that if we need more time to think about it. And I think that's why I think that's why we're going to be at this time to think about it. And I think that's why you asked Mr. Delaney that if we could hold off. B and C. And then just make a decision on a, if the references check out, but I'm, you know, I think if we've ready to make decisions, let's go for it too. Yeah. I'd like to move this forward and I'll come to you, Ms. Pat, in a second. I'd like to move this forward in thinking about this too, because we could, we could sit here and, and, you know, we could sit here and think about this. And I think that's why we're going to be at this time to think about this. And I think that's why we're going to be rolling this over and over and over. I guess my question related to the timeframe around it is. If the, if part a was able to be awarded. Could part B. Be awarded at any time. Going forward. Within that part a process. And I guess that's to Mr. Delaney. Not at any time. The, the, I, I believe I'll double check it, but I don't think it's going to be. I don't think it's going to be. I don't think it's going to be. I don't think it's going to be able to understand you to award within 30 days. So. We, we would have a few weeks, but. We couldn't, we couldn't kind of hold it in the air indefinitely. But that ostensibly could give us some time to. Examine this part B a little bit better relative to the work that's going on in part a. You could. Ms. Yeah, I guess for me, though, it is confusing for us to kind of wait. For part B, I think we need to. Part B, because part B goes to the first part of our charge that we're on the deadline to be like, you know, the next couple of weeks, you know, by April 9th or whatever. So, I mean, it doesn't make too much sense for us to wait. I mean, if we're going to wait to award part B, let's say. You'd have to go by next week or something like that. You know, we couldn't wait longer than that. And for me, really, we need to, you know, I guess we need, you know, we need to, you know, we need to, you know, we need to, you know, we need to be kind of sounded out and see where people are at in terms of things. Cause maybe we might be ready to move. Or not, you know, but I mean, we need to, I'm saying, like in terms of, cause I know we still need to check reference, but I'm just saying in terms. Okay. Ms. Would you all raise your hands again? Cause I know Mr. Yeah, Miss, Miss Pat was, and then Mr. Mr. Delaney. And then I don't know who was after that. Cause a lot of hands went up at one. Okay. So, you know, I'm in the business of negotiation, negotiation all the time as a business woman. So what is wrong with us? As in the town council that the $80,000 budget isn't going to cut it. If we're really going to get this right. It's what I'm putting out on the table for us to think about as we make decisions tonight. I've been biting my tongue for a while. So I just spit it out. That's, that's got to hurt. Don't do that. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Pat. And who did I say was that Mr. Delaney? And then I think Ms. Walker was after Mr. Delaney. Yes. So I, I do want to point out while we can wait to award part B. From the vendors perspective. I'm imagining there are some efficiencies to them for ramping up both parts at once. And in the interest of fairness to the vendor, I would not want to wait terribly long to make that decision. I'm imagining they'll do better work if they know that they're going to commence work on both or, or know that they're only getting one part of the pie. Thank you. I'll go for two. Miss Walker. Miss Walker. I just wanted to speak to her because she was asking the group, like she wanted to see if we were ready to move forward. And I think for me to be able to feel confident in making a decision right now, I need to know more about our budget. And I don't know if that's, that's like other people are wondering that, but I want to move forward with all parts of research that needs to be done. And I want them to all start as soon as possible because I want our consultants to have as much time as possible. And I also want to know how much money we have. And we're even able to award all three parts. And I think we need to know that before we decide. Budgets. What is it? Okay. Mr. Mr. Backelman. I think Ms. moison is able to answer this as well. So we, there is $80,000 appropriated for this project. And for this fiscal year. Next, a new fiscal year. We're finalizing that budget right now. So again, I think that's something to be looked at for next fiscal year as well. As I said earlier, we see this as a multiple year project and we'll have to, you know, this group can help form what should the next steps be. And I think that also, I know the time constraints are driving a lot of this and we don't want to lose the momentum. So I think that, you know, we can look at cadence, cadencing the work so it gets done in efficient way. In terms of where we are in the budget, there's a lot of work to be done. So we're looking at, you know, some of the appropriated stipends for the working group. We're, we're budging that around $10,000. There's some money that the working group has talked about in terms of. Incentives and. Honorary for people participating in some of the outreach efforts that the working group wants to do. And those are the only things. You know, I've only, I've been paying attention to what the working group, there are outside people who have asked for funds out of the budget. And I've been paying attention to what the working group has asked for funds. And there's likely, you know, we have not advertised that this, these funds are available. There's not a grant making process for this, because I've really felt strongly that your work has been, has been established by, by me to answer the goal of the council. And so I need to support your work first. And then if there are funds left over, we'll look at other things. That's sort of the numbers, right? Yes. Okay. I'm sorry, I wasn't just, this is going back real quick and then going forward. I wasn't too much worried about the budget part of it because looking at, you know, looking at seventh generation, for example, they're coming in short of that $80,000. To the, the tune of about 20, 22,000 dollars. So if they were awarded. A and B, we're still under. And if that has anything to do with the, you know, with us moving forward on a decision, then, you know, that needs to be thought about as well, especially given what you said, Mr. Bachman about, there's some other things, but even with those other things. You know, if some additional costs come on, they could be probably put into the next budget process. Okay. Mr. Vernon Jones and then Ms. Farera. Well, we have a draft of a second. Invitation for bid. Has a lot of things on it that we were hoping a consultant would do for us before our final report is due at the end of June. If we award both A and B now. We will not have funds. We're going to invite a bid for the. For everything that we had in the second one. And maybe that's what we want to do. I don't know, but I think we need to face the fact that if we award. I'm assuming we're going to award part A. If we award part B tonight. We probably are making a decision that we will not be able to go out to bid. Until next July. So I think we need to think about that. I think we need to think about that. I think we need to think about that. For anything that's in the draft, we have of a second. By B. Ms. Farera and then Ms. Bowman. Yeah. And I, you know, and I'm in total agreement, Mr. Vernon Jones. That was my understanding too. You know, so that's where we need to kind of, you know, think about because there is a budget. Connection here, because if we award A and B. We're basically staying, we're not going to be doing part. Part two. The other, the other. That we were going to go out for and that one I know is for our second part of the chart. So. You need to really think about that. Ms. Bowman and then Ms. Ms. Pat. So, I mean, I just feel like I'm just going to go. Like, okay, before I even go there. Okay. When is our fiscal, when is the fiscal. Year off or whatever. And the June. Okay. So basically what we're doing is we're saying. Are we going to use this? Are we going to allocate this money out? And basically from this point on be broken till June. And have no, no room to wiggle. We're not going to be able to do that. Are we going to allocate one part and then we'll have some room to wiggle as things come up, because things are going to come up. Or are we going to just push it all and look for another alternative? That's what I'm hearing are our options. Because it looks like, like, I just, I don't. I don't think it's a good idea to bankrupt the committee. But I think we should be able to do that. I think we should, we should be able to do that. But like, with so much time, like in having a wiggle room. That's just wrong. Okay. Let me just that, that's a question. And I think maybe. I'm going to come to you, Miss Pat right now, but I want to just, maybe you can, you can put that in your tree. Your question bank, Mr. Delaney and maybe Mr. and there were several hands going up at the same time. I didn't get the sequence, but Ms. Pat, why don't you go ahead? Yeah, so I just want, Mr. Ross, thank you for raising that. I just want to remind our subcommittee, Ms. Alicia and Mr. Ross. We have mentioned that the budget we currently have would not be able to support part B, but part two, and that was a suggestion that the funds should come from the police budget or maybe the two police officers that we have freeze on. And I remember we discussed it at the regular meeting in one of the meetings that we had. I just want to refresh everybody's memory that the budget we're talking about is for part one. Because I love numbers, I don't forget numbers at all. So that's my real collection that I don't want to repeat myself that basically part two shall come from police funds budget. Thank you. So Ms. Walker and then Mr. Delaney and then Mr. Bachman, I want to go jointly to you after to maybe go back about Ms. Bowman's question around budgeting, if you can remember that. Ms. Walker. Yeah, so I was actually just going to say a very similar thing to Mrs. Pat, that we were hoping that for part two because it was dealing with the police department directly that we would be able to find funds within the frozen police positions to fund the consulting group for that part, but we don't have an answer to that. So I think that's something we would need to know sooner than later. So if we can look into that now, I would urge the group to start looking into that. And then also, I think we need to just ask the town council for more money and see what they say. I think we should just do it as soon as possible or see if there's any possibility because I also agree with Ms. Bowman that, if we do have enough money to award, but then that leaves us with no money left and we have to keep in mind that we still haven't given the gift cards to any of our participants. What if there's more participants? What if we get so many participants? We don't even have enough money to give gift cards to all of the people who participate. We don't want to put ourselves in that position, but also the community engagement work to me is the most important part of this. And so like, I don't want to not invest the time and money into that part that it deserves. So I think we need to do a little bit of figuring out about the funds that we can use for those two things. So let me allow me to go back to Mr. Delaney and maybe Mr. Bachmann as well to kind of give us some insights into what our budgetary options or opportunities may be here. If I can put it that way, given Ms. Bowman's comment about really saturating our funds this year and others not being able to go on to part two with this and also considering accessing police budget funds. Any comments that you can help us with in terms of, because we really need to move on this and make some kind of decision. I just want to say too, I was recognizing, I think it was you, Mr. Delaney or I'm not sure, Mr. Delaney or Mr. Bachmann about the efficiencies of awarding both A and B to a consultant because it just, the two pieces kind of merge for them as in terms of optimizing and delivery. So let me stop there and go to either one of you whoever wants to raise their hand first and comment on the budget management. I'll defer to Mr. Bachmann on budget questions. So what we know we have is the $80,000. We know that we've allocated funds for the stipends for the working group. We know that the working group and we don't have a budget for the honoraria and the gift cards and all those things. So we would need a number for that. We know what the bidding price is for the vendor who's put forward the bid. And those are all capable of being accomplished in this budget. And I think that, if you're looking at this, I think there's also the committee needs, the working group has to think about and sort of the town staff, what are we capable of taking on? What can we accomplish? What is, you have to be able to manage and the consultants need to be able to manage their time as well. So I think that's all been factored into the bid that has been presented to you. The funds, you mentioned the two police positions. So those positions, those are dollars that are in the police budget. We have to talk to our finance people to see how that gets reallocated if it can be reallocated into a different purpose because when the monies are appropriated, it's appropriate for a purpose. So I'd have to see what actions need to be taken to do that. We can't just sort of move money around freely. They are voted specifically for things. And so if we, I can't take this $80,000 and hire a police officer with it. For instance, I can't just move it around like that. So there are specific reasons that people that the council votes to budget. So I'd have to look at what it would take to make, to accomplish that. But what I get, I think what I was referencing though is my mind is looking at FY23 and what is our work plan for FY23? And I think that's, we are spending a lot of time on this. I think, you know, if you want to move forward with, you know, just to initiate the work and get something going, I think that's a valuable effort. But I also would like the working group to be thinking about what's our longer term job here? Because you spent a lot of time thinking about these things. It's very helpful. I think having consultants helping us guide that was the intent to help think about those, the other steps that need to have, that have to happen going forward. So I don't have a clear answer for you other than, I know what we have with the $80,000 and what is before us with the $80,000. For myself, I'd like to have this, you know, get going. I mean, I think we, you know, we have to capitalize on some energy right now. And if the best option right now for us in terms of advancing the work is to award A and B, then, you know, let's do that and take some time to plan further around that. You know, from the discussion, I'm a little worried about just A, if that puts some restraints on, you know, the ability of consultants to fully deliver what has to happen, you know, with both pieces. So, you know, my thinking on it right now, as, you know, I've been changed a little bit here in part A, part A definitely. But if we can award part B with the understanding that we're going to invest our money in A and B and then take some time to really, you know, you know, look at budget, other budget options that might fund the remaining work of our charge, then that's what I'm thinking about right now. I'm just curious to hear from Mr. Cage and Ms. Owen. I can go first. So I'm really interested in moving forward with A and B. While I understand the budget constraints, and I do agree that we do need more money, the second part of our charge to me, it doesn't feel like it's more worthy of more of our budget. The oversight of the Amherst Police Department on paper, reading through their presentations, they look amazing. But we all know that that's not the work that's actually being executed. So I'd like to focus more of the consulting budgets on alternative services and ways to engage with the community and strengthen the community through like implementing things like mental health, through thinking about like stuff like mental health, social services, that type of thing. But that's, I can only speak for myself. I agree that we should move forward on A and B and what Ms. Owen said, like how we need to get like the community involved in like the outreach and stuff that's very important in our work. And that's pretty much all I have to say. Thank you. So given that and given also the time and energy we're putting into this, are we at a point as a working group to entertain a motion for going forward to award parts A and B to seventh generation with the understanding that it does involve a reference checking process that could take us into next week. We haven't talked about necessarily contingency planning, but there seems to be some assurance, if I'm misspeaking Mr. Laney, please tell me, that there would probably not be any difficulty in this particular organization meeting that not only the qualifications, but also meeting the demand since they have a clear understanding what this process is about. I think it does allow us to move forward and we probably would have some work going forward. Certainly on budgetary matters, but also it seems that Mr. Bachman, that's something that could be investigated a little bit more. And so I guess my question is, my statement would be, I'd like to make a motion and get it seconded and see if there's any more discussion on moving forward with awarding A and B to seventh generation with the understanding that we would follow through as required to secure their services. So Mr. Bachman. Just to be clear, the working group is not the awarding authority. The motion would be recommend to the town manager to award what you just said, and I'm part of this, obviously. Yeah, so the wishful thinking wasn't it, no? Yeah, so the motion would be to move this recommendation to the town manager in that case. Can I get a second to that motion? Seconded. OK, is there any discussion of that motion? Ms. Walker. I apologize. My computer died for a minute, so I popped out and missed the very beginning, and so I just wanted to confirm that we're asking them to move forward, but that's pending the check of references and all of those things. That's correct. Mr. Vernon Jones. I'm in support of this motion, but when it comes to this amount of money and voting, I'd like to know that we have it worded correctly. Can we hear a statement of the motion? Sure, I'll try to restate it that I guess the motion would be to recommend to the town manager, Mr. Bachman, the town manager to pursue, awarding this contract with parts A and B to seventh generation with the understanding that they would have to fulfill the requirements of reference checks and that this will be done in a manner as timely as possible to get information back to the community safety working group, looking at it as probably within a week. Mr. Bachman. So what I'm understanding is you're recommending parts A and B be awarded to the vendor who's currently being discussed. Subject to, I assume it'll be Ms. Pat and Ms. Bowman checking references, just like we did the first one. And if that prance out, we can move forward with contracting. We don't have to come back to it. You don't expect us to come back to the committee next week. We're going to keep moving. Yeah. OK. So is that articulated well enough as a motion? So given that that was just restated, Ms. Pat, you seconded the first. Yes. In addition to that, would you like to second this as well? Yes. OK. Is there any further discussion on the motion? OK. All those in favor of the motion, give your hands up. I reckon we can see them. Or say I, if I can't see you. All those opposed? Fashion up. Hang on. All those opposed? Can just speak out if I can't see. I don't see hands on Ms. Bowman's. So I can't see it in this voice. I can't see if she's raising her hand or not. She doesn't have her hand up. OK. So Ms. Bowman, are you able to vote verbally on this? I don't hear her. And I don't see her. Ms. Bowman, we would really want to have your vote on this as a complete vote of the working group. If you're able to respond to that motion voting yay or nay. Am I abstained? Abstain. Thank you. So we have one, two, three, four, five, six. Am I correct in saying we have eight? Four. Eight yeas and one abstention? No. It's seven. Seven and one. I'm sorry. Seven and one abstention. Yeah. OK. Mr. Vernon Jones. I'd like to move that we ask the town manager to seek to access additional funding to make it possible for us to go forward with a phase two process of procuring consultant services. I'd like to second that motion. Any discussion of the motion? Any discussion, Mr. Vernon Jones? Yeah, if I may, with permission of the seconder, I'd like to rephrase it and specifically ask that it be to seek funds that were previously earmarked for the police department, perhaps including the positions currently held in reserve. OK, I still like to second that motion. Thank you for that clarification. Any discussion of the motion? If not, all in favor, raise of hands. Thank you, Ms. Bowman. I actually stopped to wait for my computer, so I have no idea what we were just talking about. OK, we had a motion that was moved and seconded that Mr. Backelman would, if I'm stating this right, Mr. Vernon Jones, please correct me. Mr. Backelman would. We would ask Mr. Backelman. Yeah, well, he would if he asked. We asked him to. We asked Mr. Backelman to. Why don't you stay? You stay there. I don't want to speak for you. Well, to Sheena, the basic, the motion is that we would ask Mr. Backelman to seek to access additional funding for a phase two consultant for phase two and seek funding from sources allocated to the police department, perhaps including the two positions currently on hold. OK, yay. OK, so I believe that was unanimous. Thank you, Ms. Morrison, to record that. So we've completed part A of our business for the moment. And we have about two seconds left to do all the rest of it. Let me just say thank you for all that deliberation. Thank you again, Mr. Delaney, for joining us tonight and offering your information clarification. Appreciate it. Um, I think, you know, we talked a bit about our hard. A bit about our charge. About our charge. Are you hearing a reverberation? I don't know where that came from. There's an echo, though. Echo. Do you hear it now? OK, I don't know where that came from. We talked intermittently about our charge. And I wanted to, and I think people are well versed in that right now. One of the things I wanted to do was remind us of our charge. And I don't think there's any reason right now to put it up and start discussing it. But our charge is what is actually dictating that our path and scope of work for this particular group. So in the interest of time and also into to see how much of this discussion we can move forward, I'd like for us to consider, and I guess in the future, have this charge in front of us as well. Whether it's on our desk or somewhere on your screen is really because I think we're going to be coming back to this more and more, which is going to guide the work going forward. And we have two items on our action and discussion list this evening. One is the discussion of alternative recommendations and considerations for policing and community safety in Amherst. And another was a discussion of the Denver Support Team, the STAR program, that has some really great information in it and could inform our work looking back at Part C, actually in terms of recommendations. So given that, I want to just check in with folks. We can probably put two of these together. I don't think we're going to have a sufficient amount of time to discuss both of these. So would it be the group's pleasure to start with either one and go from there, Mr. Vernon Jones? Why don't we see if we can talk about both at once? We could, because one is actually, let's just dive in. I know people sent in documents. They're in our packet, which talks about a particular aspects of what we were thinking of the preliminary recommendations. So let's just go right to this. And I guess I'd like to think about this as more of a brainstorming. And I'm borrowing those words from Mr. Vernon Jones. I think he mentioned this before, so that's not original. But that we at least are creating a picture, and painting a picture of where we stand as a group in terms of what's important to us right now. So that said, let's put some time into that. And as you need to incorporate the work of the Denver city of Denver regarding policing, and anyone feel free to start in on what they would like to have us consider or listen to as a group. Ms. Ferreira? It's just of time. I guess I'll jump in, because I want to keep this plane moving. So I think I read at least not intently everything to everyone role, but it seemed like everyone had pretty much a reoccurring theme in terms of at least providing some type of crisis service. I know for me, I really looked at like Cahoots and Denver and some other ones out in California, like Sacramento and Oakland, area in the New York program that was out there, too, to really look at and model something that would be providing services not only for mental health, but domestic violence, healthlessness, homelessness, youth, anything that's response to a school or youth issue, really looking at anything that was nonviolent. I would go so far as to put in noise complaint, trespass, those types of things, to have it be to a mobile service, crisis unit that would have a medic person there, but then social workers that were here, peer-informed, and also with folks that have lived experiences to be able to provide the service. It'd be 24-7 and not be connected to the police. It'd be a separate entity. But be fully resourced and fully funded. I wouldn't want something because I know some of these models that I looked at, because they don't have the sacramental model, even though they look really great, they don't have enough funding. They only run like two days during the weekend because they don't have enough funding. So if we're going to do something like this, we can't create a program and have them be on crutches. Because then what's going to happen is that they're going to be doomed to fail, easier, you know what I'm saying? And then we'll say, hey, it didn't work, so on and so forth. So if we're going to be recommending this, we need to know that there's budget and staffing that's going to come with it. And it was interesting. When I was doing my research into this, I came across the fact that, and I didn't even know this. I don't know if you all knew this, that back in the days, there were some police stations that ran ambulances and that they were the ones that would be in ambulances and were the ones that would respond to anyone that had a health issue. And obviously that was done away with because people were like, no, we don't want police showing up when people have a health concern. So that was done away with. So there's already precedent for what it is that we're doing here in terms of removing some of these services from the police. You know, and for me though, I went beyond and I know that, you know, Ms. Pat did too, kind of looking at also like, you know, a youth center, you know, possibility in terms of, you know, within Amherst or also kind of enhancing. I know we already have the Boys and Girls Club, you know, out here. So I don't know what that would mean, maybe enhance to what they do, but really looking at that, because we don't have a place for a youth, especially bicoct youth, that could really be something, you know, that could enhance and help out. For me, I looked at Ms. Pat and even you, Ms. Wiley, that looked at like training for the police and Ms. Pat, I know you were looking at other things for a welfare and African center and stuff like that. So more data system for the police too. So I didn't look at any of those things. I really want to focus in more so kind of alternative services that that's really my priority. And like I used that. And thank you, Ms. Ferreira and Ms. Pat and Mr. Vernon Jones and Mr. Cage. I mean, I'll submit it, some things in writing for us. I can't remember if anybody else did. I did an overview letter, but Ms. Owen, thank you. I think we're giving us a lot of thought. And so thank you for that. Let me go on Ms. Pat, you're on mute. So basically what I did was I reached out to my networks and asked them what they would like to see different. And so that's what I put together. And the theme was more around families, around people, low income and having a space, a safe space for BIPOC community. So like Black Cultural Center, Youth Center, having inclusion, equity, I'm saying the wrong way, diversity, equity, inclusion, director in the town, actually even going on a limb that we already have somebody who's already doing it while reinventing the wheel, that would be Ms. Moisten. And so just, I will just focus it on what feedback I was getting from my network and what I would like to see myself too. And then in terms of low income, the voucher system of helping people with rent that isn't working right now, the town contracted with an agency that is not very efficient. It's a long story, but people are not getting the help, the resources that the town has made available to people to help with their rent. It's not working for some people because of language barrier, because of immigration status, because of cultural competency issues. The town has the resources and I'm very appreciative that that is available to people, but some people are not accessing it. Sorry, Ms. Wally. Thank you Ms. Ferrer, Ms. Ferrer. Can I just interject real quick? I just, I forgot when I was saying that. The other part too is just in terms of funding, I really do think that, we shouldn't be taking the funding or trying to go fundraise. We need to kind of take the funding from like whatever the police have, because they have too, too big a funding and we need to kind of parcel that out. It shouldn't be, it should be looking at what the police have in terms of removing those services from them. So therefore use their funding. And then if it's not enough, then get extra funding. But I wanted to be clear about that. Okay. Ms. Owen, Mr. K, Mr. Vernon Jones, you all worked on some stuff. I remember Ms. Owen. I'll go next. I agree completely with Ms. Ferrerra. And when I started doing the research on the Denver Star program, that's where I was thinking like, if we do this, we need to do it right. I was thinking of it just, when I started looking into it more, I was reading about dispatch and I was thinking like, okay, if this is gonna happen in Amherst, like we might need to consider having a separate dispatch for that service just because our dispatch are used to working with the police. So how will they be able to differentiate the different systems? I also was interested in creating a center to support BIPOC families. It's no surprise that DCF police's BIPOC families more than white families. And I think there needs to be support in our community for that. And I think there's a lot of nonprofits doing amazing work and amazing things, but they're ran by white women. And maybe this center could be the center to connect all of the resources and mobilize it in one place for families that could need case management and don't have to get case management by being involved with the department. Following that, I'm also interested in a place for young people, especially high school students to be after school. That was one of the biggest things that I heard at the forum. It spoke to me a lot just because I was, I am an Amherst high school alum. And I know that I got into trouble as an alum too after school. And a lot of it stemmed from my mom always working and I didn't really have a place to go after school. So I think that's something that's really important to me. And I'd like to hear Mr. Cage's feedback on that. And then the last thing that I wanna bring it to the group is creating some sort of system or data system for the police to be more transparent. One thing that really stood out to me was that the arrest logs are posted monthly on the town website. And I don't know how the group would feel about this, but I would feel more comfortable if the same data, the same racial data we requested as like for the year could be on a month to month basis. I think that community trust can start with community transparency. And if it was on a month to month basis, it would hold them more accountable. Mr. Cage. Yeah, like having a center for like the youth, that would be like very important to me because like after like, like I say after middle school, like there would only be like the boys and girls club, but I don't think that's longer there. And just having like a center like that, I feel like that would benefit us a lot. Like it would keep us out of trouble. And it doesn't only just have to be hanging out with friends, like we can be doing like different activities to like help the community and like give back. And not anything just for the youth, like there can also be a center for like, just like people of color in general, like who needs help with like, like what you guys mentioned before, like or just like basic needs. And I think that's very important. Thank you. Other comments, I have a comment. I'm gonna defer to the rest of the group before I speak. I'll maybe speak toward the end, Ms. Owen. I guess one last comment that I wanted to make is I'm really interested in learning more about the ambassadors and getting them more involved because I think part of our charge should also be to think about racial equity for the town in general. And there is a huge lack of diversity on the town council. And I mean, I think getting the ambassadors more involved or learning about what that position is and what it entails. And I hope it's not a volunteer position, but I'm interested to learn more about that. Thank you, Ms. Bowman. So I really actually really appreciated and liked what Mr. Cage had to say. I think that in doing something like that for the youth, we are definitely gonna need to talk to the youth and talk about what's going to get them to show up. There's been so many boys and girls clubs. There's been so many like little things. Like they've moved the boys and girls clubs so many times in Amherst. Like I remember when it was in the big yellow houses by the women's club. I remember when it was over Murphy's Tavern. I remember when it was where basically where Kendrick place is right now, they used to have this big glass building and that was the youth center. So I mean, the town is completely, completely, how do I say? Kind of like disregard these because they just like, oh, we can just move them. Oh, we can just move them. Oh, we can just move them. And then what happens when you're doing things like that is that the youth can't trust because there's always a gap between the time that they closed down one location and open another. So there ends up being a lack of trust. So I really want to like, if we're coming from the youth aspect and especially because the youth aspect is so important, we really need to like tap in and really talk to all different types of youth to figure out what their needs are. Cause we've got the gamers and we've got the, the this and the that. You know what I'm saying? I don't even know where everybody is at this point. So much, but thanks COVID. But so yeah, I just want, I just wanted to really like put some support behind that. Part of it is because I don't know if you guys know this, but I do work with youth. I just work with them in a different capacity than, you know, general every day. But the people I talk to mostly are young people. And I can tell you from being a student in Amherst and from watching my kids grow up in Amherst, Amherst slacks when it comes to the high school, especially high school, but also middle school youth, it's like they jump from the elementary school to the college, you know? And it's really, that's really frustrating and upsetting because, yeah, we could have these young kids out there doing stuff that's, you know, helpful, you know, for our community. The other thing I just wanted to quick mention and then I'm done, but college, middle school, college age and elderly go really good together. And so that would be some play, that like a center that could have even both in there or like have like a place where they, like we have a day of a week where there's both there because you'll see the compassion in your children when you see them interact with the elderly and elderly just be snippy. So, you know I'm there. All right, I'm done. Thank you. Mr. Vernon Jones. Well, I think it's quite exciting how much, how similar our visions are of what we'd like to see happen. And, you know, I mean, there are all sorts of details to work out. Seems like there are two sorts of things that are before us most immediately. One is, what are we gonna recommend to the town manager about budget requests for the coming budget? And two is what are we gonna try to set up, you know, within the next couple of months with the money we have with these two held positions of the pilot project, similar, it seems like similar to the STAR program. And I wanted to make two specific suggestions or requests and maybe these are both of the town manager. I guess Paul, what I was hoping is that you could look at what the things that we wrote that are in the packet for today and maybe give us back a list of questions. What else, what do you need to know from us to begin to set up a pilot program? I mean, you know, what, either because you don't think we're in a, can't tell whether we're in agreement on it or whether there are other things you need to know. And if you could generate a list of questions, maybe that could focus our work to get something started more quickly. And the other thing is I want- Paul, what are you talking to? Oh, Mr. Bachemar. Okay. And the other is I wondered if we, I was reading that report from, I forget the name of that, but the one that Jennifer just sent out the link to us, it has the whole rationale for these community responders and alternatives and reports on a lot of different cities. And one of the things that suggests is that before you institute anything, you have an analysis done of your 911 calls to see how many of them would be sent to an alternative community responder program. And I wondered if we could begin that right away, whether it was either with town staff or with some extra stipends for people who already know the 911. I don't know if it's better to go back and do a month or two of the history or whether it's better to start now trying to code them as they come in, but it'd be so helpful to know how many of these, given the kinds of things we're talking about referring to all community responders, how many of the calls that come in would that be? And what times and days of the week do they come in? Since we want 24-7, we're probably gonna have to, I mean, this year we'll have to start with less than 24-7. We wanna know when the best time to do it is. Thank you. Mr. Backelman, any immediate response to that comment and request? Yeah, well, I was hoping that you were gonna do all that work, but... As I said, which call? Because I'm just trying to be a little more personal about it. Yeah. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. Analyzing the 911 calls, we'd have to know parameters and that's something I think that can be a very large task. We sort of do some of this already through our ambassadors program. They are paid, they are employed by the town, and we receive funding from the state and additional $50,000 to support them through the spring, which I'm really excited about. Most of this work has been done through CARES funds, so it's not built into our budget. So that's a great benefit to us and we're able to build a pretty robust program. And that is a model for how we can deliver alternative services. These are not folks that are dispatched by the police. They call our COVID hotline that Jennifer has to answer and Angela Mills and other people in our office. And then we record it and give this information to the COVID ambassadors. So I think that's where we would look towards, developing a cahoots-like or star-like program. I think we would have to figure out how to do it, how to build it over time, hitting the sweet spots on when those people need to be available. And trying to attract people who would want to work in those jobs as well. So try and come up with a more developed process for you. Okay, and I think too, yeah, I mean, I think that that would be great help to us, certainly, and I think that we can take those questions, Mr. Vernon Jones, in hand, if we have some other comments or things that might help inform that process, we can probably get those to Ms. Moisten to put forward to you. Ms. Owen, and then I have a comment and if there are no other comments after that, I'd like to move on with some suggestions. About how I might- Mr. Bachman, okay. Mr. Bachman, out of curiosity, how many ambassadors are there? In Amherst, not in Amherst, but obviously like in our town. I don't know off the top of my head. They all work part-time. They come from all segments of our community. It's not just students, it's others as well, primarily students though. So I don't really know the number. Do you happen to know, Jen? At some point, I want to say that we had over 50. I don't know if that changed or not. It went down where I only see the same one. So in the fall, it seems like we had more than what we have now in the spring. So we have had them- I don't say about like 25 maybe now. So we've had them staffing the vaccination centers as being support for people getting in and helping to space the lines there. As the weather warms up, there'll be more on the streets. As people get out on the streets more during the winter, there weren't many people on the streets. And they also respond to noise complaints and other- Not noise complaints, but other complaints other than noise complaints that don't fall to the police. We're getting a lot of calls right now of people saying there's a group of people who are unmasked or they're playing, you know, a game in their front line and they're not obeying the COVID constraint. So that's not a police call. It doesn't generate a police response, but we can send COVID ambassadors to have a conversation if that's something deemed that they have the capacity to do. I like, we're actually at the end of our meeting time and I want to take some liberty, one to thank everyone for all this thought and input that's going forward. And what has already happened here, and I know we ran short of time to discuss this more fully, is that I think right now we're trying to harvest whatever knowledge we've gained over these almost three months of working together now and put it together in some form, which sort of begins to funnel down where our essential interest is in assuring that we have all the community safety ducks in line, if you will, but also that this is, all of this work is relating to racial equity. And I think this is part of what our in charge was. And that was to look at all these complex issues around community safety services. Already you can hear from this discussion, it's going, while it's integrated and connected, it's going well into community services and to some degree away from police work, which suggests to me like they're still very highly, they're very strongly connected. And so how do we take this complex picture? People are taking a systemic look at it certainly because you can't divorce homelessness from the work of the police. You can't divorce the issues of young folks like Mr. Cage and other folks who are interacting with the police on a regular basis and what their needs are. So this is not just, it's not just the police and then just this or just that, it's systemically connected. And it's clearly we're gonna need more conversation about this. I think one of the things going forward is we have to take a really close look at and with some precision as to what's going to arrive with policing here in the town of Amherst and keep that in our focus because that's our central purpose. It's not that we're divorcing it from anything else, but that's what we're looking at and that's what we're trying to make recommendations out for the most part in our charge and it's not exclusive. And I think we see how all these things are connected. What I'd like to do as we're ending here is suggest we, Mr. Backelman, if you're willing to follow up as was requested, then we bring this first and foremost up to our next meeting and have a fuller discussion. I think we're seeing some themes as Mr. Vernon Jones said that they're very common among us. And so if there are some things we can pull together to say these are the essential pieces of what we're talking about to make community safety a priority and something that works in Amherst, then if we can hone in on that, that's gonna help us a lot. And so I would like to put this forward on next agenda and give it ample time for some follow-up discussion and to be able to have us all absorb more of what you all have put forward. And I have some things as well. So Ms. Moisten and then Mr. Delaney. I mean, I'm sorry, Mr. Backelman. Yes, I just wanted to recognize and Lauren Milt has her hand up. I don't know if you wanted to take comment from her at the end of the meeting. At the end of the meeting. Sure, Mr. Backelman. Yeah, so I do not have the capacity to get something to you within a week. The level of detail or the information that I need to assemble. I would ask if the committee is interested in listening to what the police department offers now because it's going to be, what services are they providing? They shouldn't be providing. Where are the gaps in services? And I think it's important for the working group to be open to all voices. And wonder if you wanted to hear from the chief or whoever and how they are delivering the services that concern us the most right now. Well, that was actually the last thing I was going to mention. Because I think it's the time is right to have a conversation with the chief and to explore those kinds of questions. So I don't know if that's possible and then at the next meeting and I don't know what his schedule is, certainly. But I do think that's another piece of having a conversation rather than just simply going back and forth with questions and written answers. I think it would gain a lot from a conversation with him in more free flowing atmosphere. So I can't speak for him or can't speak for this group as to whether or not that could take a fair amount of time. And we do have the bid process to still deal with. So yes, Mr. Bachmann. Yeah, and I think what would be interesting if there was to bring in the ambassador program as well to the person who runs that and talk a little bit about how that has been developed and the frameworks that they've developed. I think that would be helpful to hear as well. Because that's in support of, but also in contrast to the police department. At the expense of, I don't want to get over ambitious around the next meeting, but I do know we're going to be coming back to this important matter of the bid award. If you will, that has to be in place. I would like to see this conversation continue in some fashion in our next meeting. And, you know, I don't know if there's room or availability for the chief to come. And if we had some questions prior to him coming in, he could spend some time with us. I just don't know what his availability might be. But those are three things that if we were to focus on, we might be able to get those kinds of things done. And I would like to hear from other folks your thoughts on that too. Ms. Pat has her hand up. I can't see, there she is. Hi Ms. Pat, sorry, I didn't see you right away. I agree that, you know, from me, I can't speak for everybody else. I think I'm so ready to hear from the chief. I think the time is right. If everybody's agree, I agree about that. I just want to ask a quick question. Are we meeting tomorrow or now? Thursday. But is that a meeting tomorrow? No, okay. Okay, Mr. Baucherman and then Ms. Moyston. So I do think that you mentioned the consultant. So assuming that we get everything in order, you might want to have that on your agenda. That might take priority over the police because you want them to get, I think it's important for you to have a framing conversation with them so you understand, they understand what your interests are. They understand what their admission is and they start to lay out a plan. And I think there's that, I would suggest that that be a high priority for next Wednesday's meeting. And that's what I was saying. I want to get too ambitious with this. So Ms. Farera. Yeah, I mean, that went out, can't hear you. Can you hear me? Now we can, yeah. Okay, sorry. Yeah, my internet is getting funky. Can you hear me now? Yes, we're good. All right. No, I was saying I am in agreement with Mr. Baucherman. I think we should have the consultants be our priority for next Wednesday. And then with the chief, I think I do want to talk to him, but I think maybe we should have him for the meeting after next so we can have some questions and really talk about what we're gonna be asking him and focus on. And then maybe we could schedule the ambassadors, like as the backup, like maybe the other person after we do the consultant, you know? Would there be any, I'm all for that, Ms. Farera and Mr. Baucherman and others. I mean, would it be probably to our advantage to have that as our singular agenda item for next Wednesday? So that we're not trying to have the bid matter before us to give us ample time to fully discuss this. So we're not trying to, you know, go back and forth. And that could be well worth our time, I think. Fine with that too. Any other thoughts on that? Because we could just put that as our agenda. Mr. Werner Jones. Well, I do think most of our time should be coming, you know, working with our, what hopefully our new consultants, but maybe we could still have framing some questions for the chiefs so we could have him the next week. Yeah, definitely. So we could do that in the meeting. Yeah. Certainly. Okay. Well, let's do that then. Let's do that. Those will be the two things we'll talk about, preparing preparation for a meeting with chief Scott Livingstone and the follow up on the bid process, those two items. And that way we won't feel like we're, you know, getting constrained by time. We should have plenty of opportunity to do that. And in the interim, what I would encourage folks to do is submit questions to you, Ms. Moisten, if we could. That might sort of set the stage for some of the things we might be putting in place to ask Mr., to ask the chief. I didn't receive recommendations from everybody. So if others still have recommendations that they want to send in, that'd be great. Great. Thank you. Okay, Ms. Pat. So we are assuming that the consulting firm would be available on Wednesday. Right. So if they're not, do we have contingency meeting agenda? If they're not available that day. I guess the only other thing is if they don't have, if they're not available, if that's not gonna happen, then I would suggest continuing this discussion. We're having about recommendations. I can include just all of it on the agenda because we have to have what we're gonna speak about on the agenda. So if I just include it all, and if for whatever reason they're unable to, if they're not available, we still have a full agenda. Okay. So we'll maybe make that last. Thank you. Okay. I think we're all good with that. Thank you. Thank you all. A little bit over time, but we're going into upcoming events. And Ms. Moisten, I see everybody looking right at you right now. Zoom, I can tell they're looking at you. But does anyone have any upcoming events that they'd like to announce? If not, thank you. Next meeting date, next Wednesday, the third of March, is that correct? 5.30. Okay. I would remind folks that if they have any things they wanna include in the packet, that's some things came in today. Thank you all for submitting those. Let's get those to Ms. Moisten so she can start compiling those in a way that gets into us in a timely manner. And if, are there any other topics that we need to talk about right now or put on the agenda for next time? Okay. If not, I'd welcome a motion to adjourn. So move. That's your fourth one in a row too, Mr. Burns. I mean, nobody's counting, but I'm just saying. Yeah. I'm just ready to get out of here and we're done. So Mr. Cays, did you have your hand up as a second? I thought you did. Thank you. So thank you. We are now adjourning this meeting at 7.44. Thank you all for your hard work and let's get ready for our next meeting and wish us all luck on the next steps with our bid process. Thank you all. Thank you everybody. Good work everybody. Good job everyone. Yeah. Really.