 Thank you. Good evening everyone. We are here again doing our work. Glad to see all of you and as I do each week and sincerely mean thank you for all the hard work people are putting in the extra hours on this and really keeping a keeping us on track. I'm going to call the meeting to order now it's 532 p.m. and I'm going to take our roll call. Start with you, Ms Walker. You're muted Alicia. Yeah. Here. There you go. You're really you're officially here now. Welcome. Ms. Ferreira. Here. Mr. Vernon Jones. Here. Ms. Pat. Yeah. Mr. Cage. Here. Ms. Owen. Here. Good to see you all. Thank you, Mr. Bachleman and as every week, Ms. Moisten for being with us and supporting us. And let's see. I'm going to very quickly go through our agenda review. And I didn't see our, our two 17 minutes yet. Is that correct? Ms. Moisten. It is. I just finished some. Okay. We should be receiving them shortly, but not next. Yes. We'll do it next week. Thank you. And we will go right into public comment and also check in with our members to see if there are any comments. Any other members want to make before we begin our action and discussion items, which include tonight a, an update from our, our consultant group, seven generations movement collective. They will be here to give us an update and we will also take a look at as part of that discussion. And we will also take a look at our timeline to be checking in to see what path we're going to be taking to, to get things done in a timely manner. In addition to that, we had a discussion over several weeks or a couple of weeks, I should say about the community resource proposals. And then we'll take a look at our, our thoughts and opinions and sort of a straw poll and just like to come back and look at that again, since this is a critical part of what we're seeing as the CSWG for our work going forward. And then the item of planning for the meeting with chief Livingstone, which we'll get into when we get to that moment. As always, our next meeting date and any other items that did not come before us in a timely manner to work on this evening and then we will adjourn. So, given that welcome again everyone I'd like to go straight to public comment. Any folks in our audience from the community who would like to make a comment at this point. This is the time to do so and Miss Moisten will will recognize you. Good evening. This is a Vincent O'Connor. And I missed the last few words of the chair's comments. Now time that I can speak or someone else been recognized. Now's the time. Okay. So I don't know if I've in the past made it clear what my thoughts are about the, the division of labor that that should be instituted between the, the use of armed police officers and unarmed police officers who don't enforce warrants and arrest people on the spot if they see marijuana plants in their homes and so forth. But I, I, I want to think today's Supreme Court argument about a fourth amendment issue that involved a wellness check. And I think is the perfect example of why there needs to be a very serious division between the, the use of armed police officers, which tragically was required in Boulder, Colorado, and the use of unarmed individuals who don't enforce warrants or arrest people. And, and so forth. I've, I've, you know, I don't know how extensive the evaluation of calls to 911 or to just to the police business line has been, but I really think that that there ought to be as there was a subcommittee for evaluating the applicants to be consultants. I think there should be a very serious evaluation of three to five years of police activities and some determination by the committee recommendation as to which activities belong in one sphere, which belong in another unarmed force, which is where both of which are controlled by somebody who is not a member of either and directed by somebody who's not a member of either. And I, I think it's I just would encourage members of the committee to listen to the to the report on the the oral argument at the Supreme Court and understand why it was, for example, that I told somebody who's who's parent lives in town who had called me out of concern because they couldn't reach their parent. Why they should not call the police to ask for a wellness check. The parent is black. And we know how some of the wellness checks have gone quite badly in the past. And I'm each and every one of these the Supreme Court case today and other situations provide insight into why there has to be two separate organizations of individuals controlled by somebody who is not a member of either and directed by somebody who's not a member of either to provide for community safety. And I just I would urge the committee to be extremely thorough in evaluating the police incidents and which things belong in which category and which should be assigned to each group. I think that the vast majority of police calls really belong in the hands of people who are not armed who don't arrest people who don't carry tasers and Billy clubs and so forth. Thank you very much. Thank you. This moist and are there. Others in the queue. No, there are not. Thank you. Let me quickly go to to our argument. Thank you. Mr. O'Connor. You're welcome. We will just just move to our membership to see if there are any opening comments insights want to share before we get into our, our own plan agenda. So I wanted to say something. Yes, I'm just fixing my screen here. Yes, go right ahead. Thank you. There you go. Sorry. Okay, great. So, yeah, I just wanted to kind of talk a little bit about the racial equity conversation that the women's League of what League of Women voters put on yesterday. It was very well attended. I think probably they had a close to 200 people on. I know I saw some of our folks on there. Mr. Wiley Mr. Vernon Jones and I wasn't able to see everybody because it was quite extensive number of people on there. So I'm sure this might have been on. You know, very good conversation. I want to give a shout out to, you know, Monica cage and my son Phoenix for our Ford for representing the young people on there they were I have to say the best out of everybody, you know, obviously the bias was young people in that way, but they were wonderful in terms of their points and very clear and, you know, brought up some very strong parts, especially in terms of us just, especially adults and everybody else just standing up, you know, standing up to hate and standing up to doing what they do, not to just count on people of color to point out the things that need to be done. Right. We all need to do it. I also appreciated these these shabazz point because it was it was, you know, it's in it. I think as a person of color, sometimes it does get frustrating to me when I hear, you know, white people say so what can I do. You know, I mean, that's a very frustrating question to ask, especially during these times when, you know, people are color being killed left and right by, you know, either the, you know, different police departments or just, you know, people out there, you know, white people that are, you know, take up arms and kill people and target people because of their color. But I appreciate these shabazz is a response when she said, you know, if you are in your circles right and you look around and in your circles that you you you live every day, you look around and you just see white faces. There's the problem. That's it. Point blank, right. You need to start diversifying and making sure that all the circles right and boards obviously that extends to boards that extends to organizations extends to employment places where you work at it extends to where you go recreationally it extends to everything every part of life, right. To then make sure that you are diversifying and the other part to you know like that that I thought about because obviously folks that were on it's not like we could come, you know, on top of me I'm talking about things that made me think about about the work that we're doing. The other part is about education right the part that we always feel as as as people of color by pop people that we always have to educate or you know and educate white folks in terms of what's going on. It's also that part of like you know white allies that are out there, you need to make sure to educate other white people. Sometimes they need to step up and educate other white people and really let them know what, you know, that, you know, in terms of what what's happening, you know what I'm saying because sometimes it is very easy to kind of just sit back and and say hey I don't know, you know, I don't know what's going on or what to do and so on so forth. And for me, you know my part in it was just listening to see how it can inform the work that we're doing right on CSWG, because obviously it's very relevant. And, you know, again, I know there was some comments that stated when folks were saying what can I do is just like hey listen into what is happening here you know give your feedback. And make sure you're sharing, you know, ideas and different ways to improve, you know, our town. Also, you know one of the comments that Melka Shabazz also made which I even put in, and I'm sure we'll be talking about later, just the fact that, you know, the town of Amherst is called Amherst. You know what I'm saying, I mean, you know, if we don't change a ton of Amherst and I don't even know what we're doing in terms of inclusivity, you know, we talk about inclusivity and our town is named after Jeffrey Amherst, and who committed to becoming a Native American and, you know, so Melka Shabazz brought that up and that was a very good point. So, so I know there was a lot of comments on there in terms of like making sure people get involved, involved in terms of the work that we're doing. And also I made a point and it was shared about making sure that our recommendations when our recommendations come out, that they're actually going to be implemented and put into place, and it's not just going to be another thing to say that hey, we did this right spent all these months doing this, and then nothing comes out of it. So, those are my points. Thank you Ms for others of committee. I just want to welcome, by the way, Ms. Bowen, Mr. Cage, I don't think I now is at the beginning. They're here at the meeting. Thank you all for being here and being a part of this as well. Okay, just moving forward. We were scheduled to have a conversation with Dr. D. Shabazz, the seventh generation. I don't know, Ms. Moisin, if she's in the audience or not. I wasn't informed she was going to be here. I'm promoting them all to panelists now. Yeah, we're all here. I was waiting to see some, oh there they are. Yeah, we're all here. So, thank you. Yes. You want us to begin now? I want us to welcome you first. And thank you for being here. And this is our first opportunity to get some feedback from you, certainly on what's been going on. You know, we know we started pretty abruptly in last week. And so we're in the queue now. So thank you for being here, all of you to give us an update on where you are. And as I mentioned, I don't know if you heard earlier, there is a need for us to really monitor and track our timeline for what needs to happen within the work and make sure we do what needs to be done. At some point, I don't know. I know Dr. Shabazz's time is sometimes limited in terms of, you know, your opportunity and the group's opportunity to be here. But if there's some part of that that we can have while you're here, that would be great. I appreciate it. So let me stop and welcome you all again. Thank you. And I'll let you roll ahead. All right. Well, thank you all. And once again, thank you for the hard work that you all are doing because I know firsthand what it is to put in time and energy and intellect and creativity in serving others and serving your community. So thank you for doing so. I agree, Deborah, the young people, they shall lead us, you know, I'm ready to follow them at any point. So to get down to business, we have been busy. I want to speak about the timeline and that next week we can have, we can flesh out more of the timeline. But we have been busy on the part a side in particular in doing the participatory action research in the community engagement, I'll let Katie speak to that because she's over that part. And Terry, Terry Mullen will then speak to part B, and particularly what we're doing and looking at many of the programs that are out there regarding alternatives to policing. So I'm going to really let them have at it. I just want to say on my end and trying to keep things together and keep my foot on both part A and B or my foot in there. I have been working on recruiting. We got a flyer out in particular to help recruit focus group members. We have our ambassadors, I'm happy to say. And I've been out in the community talking to folk, sometimes in person with masks, talking to folks, generating some, some interest and excitement and folks so much want to be a part of sharing their story. I have really experienced that with people firsthand, they want to share their story, good and bad. They also, they want something for their youth so that there's not a problem or an issue where the youth have nowhere to go and then they're stopped by police for whatever reason are targeted by police. They want something in their communities that they know that their youth can be there that it's particularly culturally. It has some cultural component as well as an educational component so I was glad to hear that and I'm always happy to help. You know, I've offered, you know, I'm part of Amherst media so I've offered to bring folks there to get them started as producers, you know we always need content so I love getting content from the youth so lots of stuff going on. So what we'll further do because we actually have a workshop to attend with our community ambassadors at 630 so Katie, take it away. Thank you G hello team it's great to see everybody. We have done a lot since we last saw you. We have disseminated or made people aware of an application for the community ambassador position we've since recruited six community ambassadors who are to who identify as male and for who identify as female. Collectively they speak for additional languages in addition to English. I think that's all the identifying informational give you at this point. I have had the honor to work with Dr Johnson Anderson to create a curriculum that we are using with them in terms of developing for different workshops to move them through the participatory action of our research. What do I want to say approach to tonight we will have our second workshop with them we started with our eager group on Sunday, and we are reconvening this evening. Very insightful, very enthusiastic and eager to help with this initiative. Tonight we'll have our second and then by the end of tonight's workshop they will be ready to head off into the community and start to gather the data, so to speak. In about a week's time or a little bit before then we will start to work them through. You know some data analysis workshops so that they are ready to work with the data by April 5 or so so we are in the timeline the proposed timeline of collecting and doing the community outreach by April 6. It is fast and furious but we are, you know, eager to collect the stories which have already been started and they are actively the community ambassadors are actively recruiting their community members to with with whom they'll meet and collect stories. I am happy to answer any questions but as Dr Shabazz said we do have a 630 so I want to be able to maybe eat something prior to that. Any questions about the community outreach piece. Thank you both I don't. Do you have other information coming from you, Terry. I just didn't want to leave them out. Yes, most definitely in the clouds. Yeah, they're there. I see they're there in the clouds that's that's really good. I'm going to jump off if that's all right before though I just want to thank Miss Moisten for all your help with getting the form for community ambassadors on on your web on the web page so thank you. Thanks folks because they've been translated so my pleasure. I think there might be a question. No just to say that for Katie, thank you for that information that's all great news really excited to hear that. Thank you it's exciting to be doing it. And Katie, are these are these ambassadors. BIPOC community. Indeed. Okay. I heard that and I thought it was the case but just wanted to be sure. Exactly. Thank you, Dr. Kate. Thank you all. Thank you. Have a good rest of your evening. Okay. Good luck in your workshop. Thank you. Yes, I got a bunch of data that you all have been working on and I've gotten all email correspondence and all resources and. I haven't been working quite quite yet but I've sorted it and have a good sense of where y'all have at are at and it's very impressive and so what I spent time doing this week was to try to narrow down some municipalities based on what I heard through Jennifer Moisten and your group, some interest in a few. That I've been researching and looking into. I may have missed one or two but I can definitely submit that later this week if that's needed. I have a short presentation if you'd like to go through that just on the municipalities that I looked into and kind of where they're at and how they stack up against Amherst. So if I'm allowed to share my screen I can do that at this point. Yep, go ahead. So, yes, no, you should be able to appreciate it too. Thank you. So, I can be a pretty fast speaker so if at any point to say, Hey, I have a question. So, I'm the first one I want to show was Newton. You all had been following their their consulting group and their town halls. So it seems really important to get them on the board. So you can see that they're a bit bigger than we are just gonna make this smaller so I can see my whole screen. But the racial statistics are comparable for sure. I'm a statistician so I'm not going to say they're similar or anything to defining, but so the biggest thing is their population is about double ours. And then their budgets a lot bigger and their police department is a lot bigger. So the interesting thing about Newton is they also hired a consulting group strategy matters. They published their recommendations already. And they seem to be heading down into reforms things like more training more DLSD escalation training, things along those lines. The one rather interesting thing about Newton is that it has one of the lowest crime rates in the country yet in the past 18 months to people have been killed by police. So that's I think we can all draw our own confused conclusions from that and how that might be viewed and why that might happen and things along those lines. And then the other kind of parallel that I wanted to draw is that Newton also had a strong D fun chapter presence in their town hall meetings. And that was of interest. So I'll take a pause. Do you have folks to ask question here Terry or wait till the end. Um, probably as we go I think they'll be this for me. Yeah. I'll tell you I have question for you. Yes. Can I hang on this for just I was going to recognize him as forever than Miss Pat. Yeah, no, I was just going to say that this is good information. Terry, I really appreciate you, you know, kind of breaking it down that this way Newton was one of the municipalities that I've been following. Since we began doing this work, even though like you said, you know, even though it has larger population and the fund their budget is bigger, but statistically. Like you said, you know, comparable obviously you can't say apples to apples oranges to oranges but comparable especially around the ethnic, you know, the composition, ethnically, and no one is an area that I do know of because that's where I went to law school, the law school, Boston The law school is in Newton. So I'm familiar with the area. And, and it's very much kind of like you know it's very academically focused, very affluent in certain respects, but also other, you know in terms of people of color not as much you know so a lot kind of like here in Amherst. So that's why I think Newton even though it's, it's populations bigger the budget bigger but I still think we could utilize a lot of what Newton is doing to kind of look at our work. And just to say that I remember when I was in law school I remember, you know, my then boyfriend but then became my husband, you know black male he had gotten accosted by the police once, you know, you know, in Newton basically saying what what are you doing here why are you here. He was like, I'm a student, but they thought he was a criminal. So, you know, Julius Julius for which a lot of you obviously knew my late husband. And, but anyway, so just wanted to share that because I think this is a good one to follow. I grew up in need of myself so around that area as well. Yeah, I want to go back if I made to miss that she had her hand up after Miss Rara. Terry, thanks for doing this. My question is for the honest population I'm assuming does this include student population as well. So this is from the census. So I believe it's only if they hold residency in Amherst so largely it would be no, unless they've transferred their residency is my understanding. I'd like to know what we're comparing to. Thank you. Yeah, and I did include it's a New York, which also is a fairly large college town that's that's working on this as a bit. Some of their statistics are quite similar. So I'll get to that at the end since it wasn't one of the ones you all had identified. But I did wind up including it. So Cambridge was another one. Again, population is a lot bigger. Here there's a bit more diversity again. This is just eyeballing the breakdown. And I pulled this I should have put citations in this but I'm, I pulled this directly from the census government site. So, yeah, so you can see a little bit more diversity as we know Cambridge is almost in Boston and a lot more city traffic he asked, I would say personally. Yeah, for where their police budget is that significantly higher budget. The interesting thing about Cambridge is that they've actually had a police review board since the 80s with some investigative power, which is I believe why your group identified it as of interest. I think this is also very interesting. It is nice to have a Massachusetts town with this. It's really easy to compare Massachusetts budgets not so much to other states. As you'll see my, my wording gets a little different as we go forth into other states because they don't report using quite the same phrases. But yeah, the review board ranks kind of midline for power in terms of review boards. There are other review boards that can actually fire the chief police with cause, the police chief with cause. And considering when it started and the amount of data that they had that they have using a review board, I think it's, it's a very interesting case study, but I'm interested to hear what y'all have to say. Thank you. One, one question I have related to this is that, you know, you referred to this as there's a review review board. And, you know, from, from my reading, there are a number of different titles, let's call it given and to these different group review boards oversight committees that, you know, whatever you want to call them. There's an array of different levels of authority and responsibility and power across the board. So, I'm wondering if, as you're going forward, looking, looking at these, if we were to go down a similar route in Amherst, what might be the type of review board if you will, that might best suit us. And I think you would learn that from, you know, certainly from talking with people in the community and certainly from understanding, you know, our Amherst context, because there are municipalities and towns who have different ways of overseeing, if you will, in the police department. And they have different lines of authority and responsibility associated with that so just, you know, at some point maybe, you know, us looking at the array of different possibilities might be useful to all of us. And I think the other thing that we, Amherst, if Amherst does decide to recommend this, if you all decide to recommend this, there is an organization that governs the review boards, which I'm sure if you've looked into it you've, you've seen the thing it's C-O-L-E, and I can't, I'm so bad at translating acronyms into their words, but basically they kind of document review boards, they've been hosting seminars all year long, so there's plenty of YouTube content on classes on how to qualify review boards, how to, so like you said, there's a vast array, there's like the auditor type, which looks for patterns, tries to anticipate problems, tries to get all the data full, subpoena power, often these ones can fire, fire, chief of police's, sorry, keep doing that, please, chiefs. And so like some big examples of those are like Oakland, California, Albuquerque, which I know was on your list, I didn't have time to get it up here to get, since their, their, their system is one of the more complicated ones and I didn't feel like I could do it justice in the short amount of time. They have their own agency, things like that. Then there's other more reactionary police boards. And this will all be kind of laid out in the report for you in this comparison. So I think especially with police review boards or commissions or like you said there's a plenty of names throughout the municipalities in America. So for these units, it will be important to kind of reference more than just one specific kind, and I'm aware of that and will be kind of laying out the different kinds, not just specifically with review board since there is more data than other alternatives, like police reforms. We'll want to kind of see the pitfalls that other municipalities have faced with this and then also just like how to fit it into the structure, how does it fit with the charter, how does it work with our current APD, how to, how do the laws, like what are the pitfalls, do you make it a separate thing. So yeah, those are all questions that will need to be written out in the, in the review in the report. Mr. Vernon Jones. And then Miss Walker. I just wanted to check so it sounds like you're planning to really give us some information about the view boards of different types and some samples, and what might best fit Amherst. Does this is this dependent on which municipalities we pick, or is this something we can expect from you regardless of which municipalities we ask for otherwise. Most of the municipalities are either considering a review board in their reforms and or already have one and want to up the power that it has. So I would mathematically of this presentation there's not a subset where you wouldn't get stuff about review boards. Okay, I'm not. I think I mentioned Cambridge because it was a review board that had both investigatory and subpoena power, and the track record. I'm not attached to Cambridge other than that. But I want to make sure we get a picture of, you know, relatively powerful board and what what its operation has looked like, not just somebody's aspiration because they're thinking about doing one. So Russ, I'm going to ask Terry to share a conversation we had about the research and Terry, kind of, if we leave it at the level of the comparisons to make have to do with towns. So we might miss something. You know, we do need a finite number, but the comparison could be made differently Terry you want to share that. Yeah, so as I may just interrupt, I don't want to just go back circle back because I did recognize this Walker I think she had her. Oh I'm so sorry. It's, but it had to do with what Russ was saying but we can come back to it. Yeah. So it's okay to move forward because my comment kind of is a little bit of a different track. So it's okay to finish this complete thought and come back to me. Thank you okay. Thank you. Sorry, Terry go right ahead. Yeah, so one thing I was considering as I was doing this preparation for this meeting was that maybe I was misguided in the in choosing municipalities as the comparison metric that maybe it would be better service to immerse if I sort of the vehicle of alternate are reform so from my understanding y'all have research reforms of police and also separately alternate services so the reform being review boards, possibly more trainings, things like that. Alternate service being things like cohoots dasher, which is under stars, and those types of models, and then even further there was interest in more individualized services such as peer peer specialist models and how could a government support a peer specialist model and things like that. So I was, I was having some curiosity around if it would be better to shift to stay like a report on comparing review boards the pitfalls, comparing responder models like cohoots the pitfalls and comparing peer specialist models. If that would be of more interest. So what you're what you're talking about from, and I'm trying to remember our conversation is that you're limited then by the scope of what that municipality, right, has envisioned and what they have done. And if you're actually interested in the services and finding out how effective those services are within those towns and municipalities, then you look at the programs and the services. And of course you identify the, the, the location where it's being used and how it's being used and how it's affecting the population in some way. So, it's just something to think about we could definitely do it by town but then you have a limitation of towns, whereas the literature we're going through anyway, and the things we're researching anyway, has to do with the importance of these particular programs and services so that may be more, you know, that may be much more helpful and reveal a lot more information, going that route. Thank you, I want to recognize Miss Ferrera and then I think Mr Vernon Jones had his hand up after. Yeah, I'm just going to talk about what we're doing here because I know this walk wanted to talk about something different. But just to say that, but just to say that, yeah, I think I would be more interested in kind of like the services alternative services, you know, like alternative kind of programs that are successful out there you know the pros and the cons and what has been successful. I think for me anyway I can only speak for myself I know when when we first started on the municipalities, it was more so to kind of see okay what what's around right what's around especially around Massachusetts. That could be similar, but I would be more interested in that, especially around, you know, not only just like the community response like the cohoots and stuff, but also kind of like the escalation experts conflict folks that deal with conflicts mediators or those that are like a civilian group that deal with like kind of nonviolent type of responses, things like that. You know, I think those would be interesting as we're looking at alternative services. Let me just me circle back because I want to be sure that I hope that I skip over you miss Walker because I thought you'd be on a different track that's why I went to Mr Vernon Jones but is this a good time for you to speak. Okay yeah because it actually turned into exactly what I was going to talk about. So, at first I wanted to thank you Terry for putting this together in such a short time this is great. My question was more about like process and content and that I'm wondering, like, how the places were going to be compared so basically what we were just discussing, because I was thinking if we want to know the effectiveness of services that are being implemented like how can we get that from this data and I'm not really a data analyst so I don't know but what I'm thinking about right now is that like some of the recommendations that we've already been anticipating like youth centers or multicultural centers like you know Cambridge already have these things. And if so since these things have been implemented does that actually lessen the interactions of the police with the youth in the community. Has it actually been been improving do people utilize these services. And I think those things are going to be quite different for places that are closer to the city because someone from Cambridge can utilize a youth center that's just in a town right over, whereas Amherst is not like that, but I think that it would be helpful to measure it I guess then in terms of alternative services, because I want to see how our recommendations are going to tie into community safety. And before before you answer that I'm wondering, Mr. Vernon knows this, some of you can piggyback on top of Miss Walker's comment that Mr. that Terry can can respond to, because I'm also trying to manage the time I know that, you know, Andy has a workshop coming up in about 10 minutes so why don't you go ahead Mr. Vernon. Well, I just say I would very happily have us agree to focus on programs and services, rather than specifically on municipalities. And I want to echo the comment that I hope it's more than just, you know, also alternative community responders and civilian review boards, the kind of programs that Alicia was just mentioning, but also police policies around use the force and, and other places where policy makes a difference. But yes, I, I would happily have us agree to do programs and services rather than strictly municipalities. Miss Walker, you. Yes. Yes, I just wanted to add one other thing because I actually did look up the Cambridge review board, and I didn't notice that, like, the seats aren't filled there are like three people and all of the seats are vacant. And I would be interested in that information like the actual use of the things that are being implemented and if, if they're being utilized at all because I don't really know what that means. So Terry I'm going to ask if you can respond collectively to those questions and comments and perhaps D maybe give you the last word I know you have to do this workshop coming up so we're approaching that time. So Terry. Yeah, so I think from what I'm hearing is that we're we're kind of in synchronous city here that going by services I think would give you a more broader picture I think the So we won't be able to do probably every service that was just listed in the past five minutes. Yeah. But so for my for my knowledge, so far. So this is where there is government oversight government charters ordinances that are governing these things so far are the review board that's very clear that's very understandable from like the government like you're suggesting something to the town type thing. I don't want to in any way limit it to that because so but like for ease of understanding. That's my sense. And then on top of that. The responder models have been kind of built into the budget and the funding. Now there is some more funding debates and things like that, like, so like new and for example has a very large budget item of schools, like they fund their schools like no one else and for example, and then Somerville, they just moved $750,000 to racial justice equity so so they haven't quite fully fleshed out exactly what that means super publicly yet I'm sure with conversation we could look into that. But I am also really interested in more of like that outside organizations organizations that aren't directly funded by their town government aren't under an ordinance like. What are they doing are those models something that the Amherst government Amherstown could look into things like that so how and how would that work with our current charter like would things need to be changed, etc. Would it fit right in. In talking about Oakland as the example. Yeah, so Oakland, I wasn't able to put it in just because of, but yes, so Oakland was one of the towns was one of the cities that I looked into they have a very strong overview review board. And they also have a, an amazing community there, like their communities, extraordinarily active they have abolition groups they have a youth uprising that is a giant coalition actually with their police department and things like that. So they're kind of whenever I read about policing Oakland almost always comes up either sometimes in a negative connotation that really carry and horrible things do happen there but also in a really amazing kind of like community racism connotation that the grassroots organizations there are extraordinarily powerful and getting a lot done outside of the structure of the government so I also think part of this report should include that, and ideas of how the government could support that without getting in the, in the way of that also. So, those are my thoughts, but I see hand so I'm going to stop. Okay, I went up there first and moving around here. So, Miss Bowman has her hand up and then but miss on a bug miss Pat had something to say a while ago as well I don't know if she still wants to speak. Go ahead miss Pat. It's okay. Miss Bowman. Hi. Um, so the one thing that I that kind of when hearing about the Oakland report, kind of like immediately shots in my head is that is the history of Oakland and the history of trauma towards people of color by the police force in Oakland. And I feel like you can't really present the data of what they're doing now without without also presenting the data of the trauma that they came from, like Amherst has not come from that kind of trauma. If that I don't know if that makes any sense. Um, so I mean I'm not saying that they're not doing good stuff and I think it's very important that we could look to them as like a goal, but at the same time we got to recognize that we got to recognize that their history is very different from the history of Amherst. Yeah, absolutely. So I so to Sheena, you bring up a really good point. But it's it's again going, trying to depart from the model of looking at the town and the municipality and look at the services and the programs. So it's not like those services and programs didn't emerge from that trauma and and therefore people got activated in and tried to create alternative services, particularly outside of the mainstream government. But if we are doing some work and looking at what has been effective in other communities. And it could be whether it's Oakland or whether it's another community, then we're simply looking at the service and the program and we're not trying to look at, you know, comparing, because that that would be comparing apples and oranges Oakland in terms of the size and the history. So that's all I'm saying is that you're looking at the service in the program and not the city and not the town. I understand I still I get that like I totally get that but even still looking at the services. Like, like I'm going to be I'm just going to be honest, like with with my feelings about this situation. The biggest issue, which is a really, really big issue with Amherst is that because there are so many people that are transit transient and they're coming in and out and then on top of it. You know, um, there's a lot of students here that affects what's happening in the community that something happens and we get momentum and it happens and it's going really good for a while but then the people who are like, kind of in charge of doing it or taking it, it just doesn't get passed down. So my concern is that whatever we implement whatever it comes out to be that somehow there needs to be something implemented as part of it to be like, look, this gets passed. This is stuff that is getting passed down. This does not change. Like, I don't know, like, I'm sorry, I'm just I don't know if I'm really explaining it well but I just feel like I'm really concerned that we're going to implement the program and then we're all going to be gone in one time. So you're going you're going in and out. Yeah, we can't. I can't really hear you but what I did hear was really important in the sense that you're talking about how do we implement whatever the service whatever the program is going to be. We can't implement that into the town structure to make sure it's sustainable so our job is of course to make recommendations. The town's job and the people's job within the community is to then make those recommendations it sounds like from the CSWG to the town manager to the town council, whatever recommendations are made and budgeted for that the town's feet is held to the fire. So our job is to make the recommendation so what I'm proposing, and it doesn't have to be the only path, but that we might get more out of the research that's been hired to do is to look at the services and the programs, instead of just the town itself. Right, so like what's what is available that's not being utilized. Yeah, and and what can I just do you mind. So, and one of my biggest questions with this work is how will it fit into Amherst, like Oakland, and that sort of style. I mean Oakland's kind of like the biggest one, but is kind of. So in the, in the bid, there was a line on on defunding and abolition and if we could bring in some research on that and how, like what happens and why it happens and how could we envision it here etc, or if that's even a route to take here. But with that, so sorry I lost my train of thought but basically what I'm trying to say is like one of my biggest questions and in my outline that I sent to the subcommittee when we were talking about the bid is not only do we have to evaluate the effectiveness but we have to evaluate how it will fit in. And what structures will it run into. And if it's running into structures, is it worth trying to change them or is it worth doing something smaller and with an ion change so that's kind of always going to be a big part of where my work is as well. In this, and so I really but I really do appreciate you bring that up because I agree that that's a bigger hurdle that Amherst has to has to face. I just wanted to say that I don't think that we should recommend anything small like I think that everything that we do should should be big like we should be trying to do the biggest things that we can do for our community right now. So I'm going to go back here to Sheena's frustration. And I think that, well for me what my idea of how this is work is that that Terry will bring us this information so that we can have ideas, not that we're going to take this exact model and just move it into that we will put our heads together and reimagine what that can look like for Amherst, and we can create our own system with the information that we're getting from these other places, because I don't think anything that's been implemented anywhere is just going to work here. Sorry. I'm going to go to bed. Miss Pat, anyone. I'm looking. Okay, I can say something. Go right ahead because I would skip over you before I think I didn't see you then Miss forever and then we'll move forward. Actually you didn't I didn't raise my hand before. Terry and the other two seven generation for their presentation. I think also for our group to be thinking about whatever recommendation that is brought before us to think about pilot program. So that we see how we, you know, like maybe for a year and evaluated and see if it will work, because we can just say we can come up with something that will work right away. I've been in Amherst for more than 30 something years and yesterday, there was a vision meeting that was done and I was looking at some of the participants great meeting that some of the players are the people who don't support by poor community, who don't support some of our people of color who run for offices, and I saw them yesterday. So I think my point I'm trying to make is that we will come up with something that let's keep open mind, it might be a one year pilot and then we come back and we evaluate is this working for Amherst or not. We don't get disappointed, if it didn't work out, we just have to keep open mind. So, Miss Ferreira. Yeah, I mean just to kind of like reiterate what Miss Walker was saying I mean for me, I think what would be important just to kind of bring us this information like what you know what you're saying Terry in terms of like just different services and different programs that are out there and for me like cutting edge right I want to see what's out there was out out of the box, not just the cookie cutter same old same old out of the box cutting edge programs that are out there and then yeah and then we'd have to see okay how could if this fit Amherst but I want to see the ideas I want to see what's out there. That's exciting that successful that's sufficient the efficacy of it too, but cutting edge and out of the box. Yeah. Um, so it seems like since Dean I have to go the next step that's coming out is I should come back with a list of services. Probably I should send that to you by Friday. So y'all can look at them this weekend and maybe just kind of like a broad overview not a ton of detail yet. It seems because the other thing. Yeah, so a list of services. What I'm hearing is more out of the box and more innovative than just kind of what you can find in a Google search for police reform. And yeah, I think does that sound like a good next step to y'all and party. You are muted Mr Wiley. Thank you. Yeah, I think that's that that's a good beginning. We also, you know, when when you all are leaving us we're going to be having containing discussions about our own internal thoughts on recommendations so what I will say this while you're here. Certainly, but our, our committee may come up with some other thoughts that we'd like to throw your way. You know, prior to Friday, let's say so you can put that in the hopper as you're thinking about the work and formulating your, your, your next update to us. I think initially this has been very helpful. And I, you had a chance to hear some of our sentiment and we're hoping to have these weekly exchanges so that we can stay in tune with each other and, you know, stay on point. As far as our work is done so I know, do you have to go and Tara you have to go and want to thank you all very much for being here and making the time. Have a great workshop. If you'd like me to forward this to y'all. This slides. Yeah, you sent it to Ms. moist. Awesome. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Be in touch. So much. Bye. Thank you. Okay, that was, that was good. Very helpful. I did. I spoke with these Shabazz last week and mentioned that we do have this space we've carved out in our, our meetings, meeting format each week for them. So it's an expectation that they're going to come weekly with stuff so we can inform their work on a weekly basis as long as we get information to them we can ask questions. They certainly can come back and forth. I, I'm, I'm serving as point person, along with Miss Owen. So, you know, we can get that exchange going right away, you know, after this meeting Thursday, Friday, and have some things and ready to go for Monday for our agenda. So appreciate all the questions you're asking to in the comments and sentiment around this was all of it has great meaning for us. The next item on our agenda was the, the crests feedback we did a couple weeks ago. We was a couple weeks ago last week, we, we, we started this work, and then we, you know, we did a straw poll. I know we we gave Mr Vernon Johnson feedback we collected some numbers. And then there was a request that we, you know, go and for those who didn't have a chance to respond. Respond in particular with a concentrated effort to, to pull, pull in your narrative comments. So I want to just, you know, keep this come this alive. We, we, we have a lot of information in there. What, what I, I did in this case was take all the narrative comments and just put them in a, in a, in an essay, if you will. By question so that people can see what each other is thinking about. And I'm not sure exactly how we want to proceed with this where we know we took this as a straw poll. We're still trying to sort of vet what it is that's important and how we're going to narrow this down. So I want to open the discussion up at this point and then lead to what might be our next steps around this as a community safety working group. So Miss Walker and then Miss Owen. I just wanted to say I didn't contribute to this document. I had a very busy week, but I did review the chart. So I do have like ideas in my head to contribute now. But I just wanted to suggest that we just go through it one by one and have a full discussion on each point so that we can just see where we are. And yeah, that's just my suggestion. Okay, that's fine. We have to have the conversation so I know and Miss Miss Owen, did you get your hand up. Yeah, so my, my comment was actually to the first part of the chart in regards to staffing. Prior to this meeting I did do a little bit of research on sort of a similar program to what we're trying to develop in Olympia Washington. And what I found through just like mild research was that they have a population about 10,000 people more than us, but they have a very similar program in place and it has six full time staff members and an additional peer resource for deescalating conflicts. So I know that in the original chart it said to two or four I could be wrong for two full time positions for this program. But I think with our recommendations we should make sure we're thorough and I just don't want to implement a pilot program that's not well funded. If that makes sense. Yes, definitely. I'm so I'm trying to take minutes at the same time. Can you just repeat the town that you Brianna that you were speaking of. Yeah, of course, Olympia Washington. So if this is, if this is the track we want to want to take to go over these questions one by one. I'd be happy to do that. Hopefully we can, we can get through it we may have more discussion then, or maybe more time, depending on how we discuss this certainly. But, and there are some people who haven't had a chance to contribute just yet so perhaps we can, we can dive in and try to be as efficient as possible. You know, one thing I'd like to say is that, you know, for those of us who've made comments and those have been thinking about it certainly. I see us pulling all this information in and all of it being useful. It's this is where we're not trying to, you know, eliminate commentary but I try to think we're trying to see how we can pull us together so that in some way we can these comments in a way that has meaning for all of us. In the stuff that I saw. I mean, there are some pieces that that overlap there's some very similar kinds of thinking and thoughts so hopefully we can, we can merge these things in a way that have a come out on the other end where we're we have some general consensus certainly about what we're trying to do with respect to community responders, etc. Why don't we dive in and just see how far we get. And Russ, I don't have the, the first that that collated the numbers that that you took the last time I don't have that print out in front of me or not don't have it on my screen. I was wondering if you might have it available. Well, you know, I think Ms Walker suggested we have sort of have a fresh discussion on each number I, I'm not, I can find the numbers here somewhere. It's more important that we get everybody's thinking. Okay, let's go for it then. So the first, the first question was the transfer of two police. Well, these are these are all combined by the transfer. The two police positions currently on permanent on hold permanently in the Crest program. Transfer to additional positions. From the APD to Crest. Do you have this chart by the way, I'm as moist and because my reading is not going to be efficient at all I don't think not not this not these comments necessarily but the grid itself. I don't know. I can probably get it in a few moments if you want to start your discussion. Yeah, because I think that's going to be if we're going to have a discussion about it people looking at it might be a little, a little better than me reading. Oh, but I will need to stop sharing my screen for a moment. Okay. Yes. Yes. No, I just want to say in the meantime, could we just start discussing so that we because I know time is of the essence. Yeah, sure. I just, I didn't know was going to take how long. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I noticed that. I mean, what the chart says is transfer to police positions currently on hold permanently to the Crest program and I thought Breanna made a good point that maybe what we really want is the full salary of those positions. Not just the, the authorization to hire two people but that that amount of money. And then the proposal in the chart was then to get up to four during the 2021 2022 year. And, you know, Ms. Ferris talked about wanting this as a 24 seven program. Breanna mentioned Olympia as six full time employees. Breanna, do you happen to know whether they started with six or whether they worked up to it gradually. So what from what I read they did start with six but in addition to their crisis response unit they also had a team of peer not peer mentors but peer specialists to help with conflict resolution in the community, and both of these programs were well funded so in the beginning. There was town funding a separate grant. And there was also significant funding for the peer specialists. Yeah, like, Mr. Vernon Jones already alluded and I had it in my in the comments beforehand. Yeah, me. I mean, I don't think you know how can we just say okay well to positions it has to be obviously has to be the full salary of the positions right the full salary of the positions but I can't say okay two positions now and then two positions later to implement a program when we don't you know we have to really make an assessment or they have to make an assessment. So what I'm trying to do is make a remedy. You know, will it take to to fully fund that this Cress program alternative. So that's fully funded fully resourced to be what you're going to do is going to you're going to set it up to fail. Right. And then to what you're going to do is you're going to have police still responding, which was something that's later on in the grid. Please still respond. So you know, Ms. Frere, you're, you're, you're freezing up and where we're not able to hear. Okay, sorry. Okay, let me let me say it again, then can you hear me now. Yes. All right, so what else. How many, how many people are in place without doing an assessment, you know, my thing is to make a recommendation we've seen that this Cress alternative is a good alternative for us to have in place. So how can I say whether it's going to be two or three or four or six. Right. It's going to be dependent on that, but it needs to be fully resourced and it needs to be fully staffed. Because one, I don't want it to be just halfway staffed or halfway resource because we're going to be setting it up to fail. And I don't want the police responding to these types of incidents. Again, I don't want them to be, you know, just because the crest of people are tied up now the police are going to be responding to them. It's not a good idea for them to respond to it in the first place. They shouldn't be responding it to it because there's not enough staff to be handling the incident. So an assessment needs to be made. I don't know if it's two three or four. So, you know, so those are some of the things that we need to consider. So, I believe I made a comment on this particular section. And that is, if we're saying to a full rest staff. What does that really mean. I was talking about one shift. I was talking about 24 seven. What does that mean to me. Mr Ross thank you you did a great job putting this together for us but I just feel that the program will be created to fail right away because I don't think the personnel that is being recommended here is sufficient. Somebody calls out. What if somebody quit what if that a lot of ifs that we should consider as we discuss this issue so I just feel that we need way more personnel in order not to side, you know, few people up and have the police doing the job that the crest people are supposed to be doing so. It's just not enough staffing in a similar in a similar vein and one of the comments I made is, is that, you know, first I was just in terms of the first question depending on what positions you're talking about, even in the first place, two positions what two positions are we talking about what's the weight of the amount of money associated with those could be one thing. But the bigger thing for me was similar to what we're talking about now is that to say we're going to take this amount of money and apply it to crest before we know what crest looks like. I think we should be designing the ideal program and and putting a putting a price tag on it and seeing what it actually would look like if we were to create it to be useful to and and then come up with that particular number and then look at other funding sources whether it's police whether it's town money, new town money, whatever it's going to be. But I, you know, having this as a reference certainly is is a good start. But I, I don't want to miss an opportunity as someone may have just said I may be repeating it just to create a program that's going to have some utility some sustainability using to Sheena's comment earlier, Miss Bowman to start there to really make a strong statement right there and Miss Walker. I agree. And sorry, I lost my train of thought there. I agree, but I, and I think that this is a good basis for like, we want something like this to happen I also was uncomfortable with specifying to as the number of positions. I don't know exactly how it's supposed to work in conjunction with our consultants but my idea was that we would get a more specific idea of what we need from our community. So when we hear back from what from our community and what's happening in our community I think that will give us a more clear idea of how fun how staffed this program needs to be. Because I think the world that was my idea of how it would work but I'm not really sure. I'm being and I think Mr Wiley, you kind of made that comment already can you hear me. Now I can it goes in and out so we. I think you're out now. Can you hear me now. I'm sounding like the horizon. Yeah. No, I'm saying like, I think we need to, when we're looking at these recommendations is to really think about and I think Ms Pat has said that before Mr Wiley you've said it too, is to really think about where we need to get this, this budget from whether it be from the police budget or whether it be from the town. I think we just really need to look at what's the best for our town and particularly by park populations, and then, you know, think about the budget afterwards because I'm not I'm okay with with taking the, you know the money from the police or wherever else it needs to be taken from in order to create what we need to create that's going to be successful and it's going to be sustainable. When I first developed this chart I was, frankly, envisioning this more as a pilot program that would start small sort of in the way Denver started theirs, you know, on a very limited basis and then expand it over time. I'm not attached to this at all and I would gladly endorse, you know, starting with six or eight positions right from the get go. So, you know, don't what's in the chart doesn't have to have any particular sway if, if the sentiment is that we want to really begin this program. So that it takes over this function. You know it's almost completely. You know I think not not knowing yet fully what what degree and to what level of functionality this this program would have if it were to be created in Amherst, which is embedded in the whole whole conversation. And I want, I want to say to, you know, we're talking about taking money from, you know, the police department or moving it or whatever we're doing. We're also talking about, in parallel, a rethinking of the police department itself, not just a crest program but now we're talking about the police program because the police program will change. It'll change to something as a crest program would come into play. So, because things will be very different it won't be the same anymore so what is it going to look like on both sides. I think our responsibility is more right now on the on the crest side, certainly to say that you know let's let's put this in there we see it as essential important. So if we can get that moving, then, you know, if it means major overhaul in the police department. Maybe it does. Maybe the town decides, you know, we also want to put more money into this outside of just drawing off from the police department maybe there needs to be some other money coming in here so that's that's the point I'm making. So I, I mean I also support like moving money from the police department if need be or from anywhere if need be, but I just have a question for clarity because I don't really know too much about exactly how the town budget process works for Mr. So if a town is like given X amount of money for a fiscal year and they make a budget with that money, and at some point they decide they don't have enough money or they don't or they need more funding for whatever reason. Is there a way that a town can petition for more money or apply for more grants or find other sources of funding even after they're given a certain budget for the fiscal year. So that's a really good question. So when the town that we begin with the revenue that we know we are coming this coming into the town most of our revenue comes in through taxation from property taxes and other sources. So we sort of we know what that's going to be. And then from there, with that revenue base we decide how we are going to spend the funds. And so we're in the process of building that budget. Now we start with the steady state we look at what the schools need, the regional school district and the elementary schools we look at the library and then we look at the town's needs during the course. So that sort of expands all the income that's coming in, we meet all of our obligations and then, and, you know, pay the salaries of people pay our health insurance for everybody all that kind of stuff. And then that gets presented to the town council and they vote that number with it. That's our budget for the year. If we get more money to come if we get a grant or something like that we're able to expend that. If there's a need for additional funding. They, the town council could look at a, we could go to and seek additional funding but typically they don't do that very often because that's basically taken it out of free cash is it's a it's our savings account in essence. So it's a, it's a, we tend not to do that for any operations unless there's a real catastrophe. Sorry, I'm just walking. If there is one can you give me an example of a time that we have utilized asking for more money and what that would have been for. I don't think I've done it since I've been here I don't know. It hasn't happened. It doesn't happen very often. I don't remember it ever happening here. Okay, thank you. What's that. So, um, when I was looking at this actually last week, again, I was thinking in my head, three shifts, morning shift, like the time shift, evening shift overnight shift, three three personnel, and one or two supervisor so I'm looking at 10 to 12 personnel for that section. I'm not attached to it, but to begin this walker. I think that sounds good but also just wondering about dispatch like how would they receive calls like would we have to have other employees for dispatch would dispatch would they go to the 911, like what they call 911 or would they have a different number and who would answer those calls. So, I also have my hand up. My yellow hand. So, um, well, I guess I wanted to respond to Mr. Backelman. I mean, I think that, you know, this is going to have to be something that, you know, might have to be one of those times where things are going to be different and budget is going to have to be something that we looked at and taken from from somewhere else because obviously when the town council took this on, they couldn't think that whatever ideas were going to come are going to neatly fit into the budget that's already been thought of. You see what I'm saying. I mean if we're really true about making some real changes here if we come out with a program that is, you know, a program. to address these issues that's been going on in our community for ages, right. Then it's going to take some money. You're a bit of a way Ms. Ms. Rower there for a second. Yeah, but money. That's what I heard last. Well, what can you hear me. Yes. Now I can't. I want to go beyond what we had what the town had traditionally looked at before we have to really kind of think, you know, like I said if we're trying to think outside of box for programs you need to think about a box for budget, you know, because then what are we doing here. You know, is this a waste of time on my part, you know, because I don't want to just be here, you know, thinking of things that are going to fit into the town's budget right now. I just want to think something else and I guess I want to hear from Mr. Bachman, whether you know that that is the case because it's not, you know, I'm wasting my time. Well you will because he just raises me. So there there is the financial reality of our budget we have to I have to deliver a balanced budget to the town council, the town council has to have a balanced budget. We only have so much money and revenue coming in right now at this moment in time I'm about a quarter of a million dollars short and balancing that budget and that's that's with adding no new positions or anything that's just steady state. So we're looking at cutting to maintain existing services. So, you know, I think, you know, thinking about 10 new positions, which is about a million dollars. There's a lot of money there for that, you know, I think, you know, but I know what some folks are saying like, well let's look at the police department budget. And then that would be the proposed a funding mechanism for this, you know, I've been listening of course with the two positions or four positions, whatever it is that the working group is thinking about so that would be the range of recommendations I would think. To me and then ultimately the town council to determine how much we can afford to put into this so I think that the sort of finance the fiscal realities of our budget we there's just no place to pull money from, we have to have a balanced budget. Unless there's grants or something else that's out there. And then in just a different. So anyway, that's up there. But Ms Walker Ms Owen and Ms Pat in that order. Yeah, my question was going to be from Mr. Bachman and it was just going to be, then can we apply for grants in anticipation because we know right now that we're not going to have enough money to fund what we want to do. And then we start thinking of what our realistic options will be to get more funding because like yes, I just want to say again I'm totally into defunding the police and taking that some of that money and moving it over. But if you're saying it's going to be one million million dollars and we already know that the town council isn't that interested in defunding the police to that extent because they already had that option and chose not to. So where else would we get the money from. That I would want to know. I don't know. I don't know if grant programs out there that are supporting this work. Okay. Thank you miss on your next name is Pat. So I actually had the same question and I was wondering more so, has the town ever applied for grants for any programs that programs or anything like our town council members familiar with that process or. So we do apply for grants and we like we get a domestic violence grant every year and that funds the police department secures that grant for someone who's dedicated to addressing domestic violence and they get a number of other grants for opioid and intervention and things like that. I don't know all of them. We can I can get that report, you know, everything that they get for you. But there aren't a lot of programs out there. That I'm aware of that funds this kind of work unless someone else knows we will apply for it in a heartbeat. So, Mr. Bachman. So the property taxes. The major revenue. What about marijuana. Revenue. Is that included when you do your budget. Well, the mayor, there's two sources from marijuana revenue. It's a very good point, Miss Pat. So there's a there's a tax that comes in and that goes into the sort of into the mix as we're trying to build our budget, but there's also community. There's their fees that come in the community impact fees. So that's money that is not been allocated for anything. So that would be a logical thing to identify. The council has not decided how it wants to allocate those funds. This would be a very good thing for that for us to look at for that. I have one more question. So the mail tax and lodging tax is that also do you consider that when you do your budget. Yes, we do. So you're considered as considered income. Yes. Okay, so I will try to be thankful about this. I'm feeling that what is the point of creating this group. If the harsh reality is, we will not be able to fund them. Are we just wasting our time doing this? This is just another exercise. Is it, you know, it's the community, some community members prediction coming to fruition, because people have been skeptical about this group all along. And I keep telling people like give us a chance. Let's just do this. Let's, let's present this to the town council and people. I have heard people say good luck back and your group. Where do we go from here if, you know, we're not going to have funding to do some of this work. I mean, I'm throwing this question to everybody and anybody is free to respond. Let me let me just get back in the queue here. I think it is Miss Walker and then Miss Bowman and then Mr. Backelman. I also have my little hand up to those two. Yeah, I call them miss Bowman. You're after miss Bowman. I was just wondering, so because Mr. Backelman did reference a grant that grant that goes to the police department to deal with domestic violence but if we were to determine that an alternative service should handle domestic violence, then could we apply that grant to an alternative service. Okay, let me let me just keep going I want to make sure I get all the questions in because maybe there's a joint way to do this, respond to it. Miss Bowman, and then miss forever. I agree with Pat. In that. Okay, so if we're doing this work right. We're trying to defund the police. Then that directly means that we're defunding the police that directly means that we are taking funds from the police so that means I'm sorry officers you might have to find another job you might have to find you know we maybe we can offer you some training and you can do something else with your time like. Oh well. Honestly, it's a corrupt system, no matter how you look at it. If we look towards other countries there are other countries I walk around without guns. They don't have guns because they don't need them because they're their system was set not set up the way ours is. We have to be serious about this. Or like, again, I feel like I, you know, what is the point of me being here. Like I'm here because I want there to be actual reform. So that means that as our town manager, you have, you are going to have to be ready to let the police chief know look you might lose half your staff. And it's because of the fact that this needs to change. It's not personal, but this is what it needs to happen in order to fund and make sure that the people that can be helpful, rather than hurtful can be, can attend to, you know, these, these calls, you know what I'm saying like it just. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Mr error, and then miss Pat. You know, I know that I've been going in and out so if you can hear me, let me know, and I will repeat myself. But again, yeah, I mean obviously everybody said my sentiment about that. And I want to hear more from Mr Bachman because, you know, that's, that's the thing is like if there's no money in the budget to fund this program or any other programs that will be recommending, then that it needs to come from somewhere right so it needs to come from the police departments budget it needs to come from any other budget and so what I want to get from Mr Bachman is, okay so what does that amount. You know what what's that amount that all right that we're playing with, you know that we need to, we need to know because again, if we don't know, you know what the budget is, then, you know, how, you know, what are these recommendations going to be for right. I mean, I'm still going to be making these these recommendations or nonetheless, because what I'm going to do is just showcase. We need to we need to make these recommendations because I'm just going to showcase again that this is again a situation where we were given a charge. We're kind of coming up with with what exactly you all asked us to do. And now, you know, they're going to say there's no budget for it. What is this about, you know, so I want to know where what money we have right that we can budget from, and then yet and still let it be known that yes, I will be at least in my part you know, making the recommendations and saying my opinion in terms of these things because this this seems really kind of, you know, not. I want to say ridiculous but I don't want to say ridiculous, because then we should have known right from the beginning that there was no budget. Let me go to miss Pat and then Mr. Bachman had his hand up and then Miss Allen. I'll pass. Mr. Bachman deferred to Miss Allen. I guess also to kind of kind of piggyback off of what everyone else is saying. I'm interested to know more about how invested the council members are in our charge, because, like, I understand the budget concerns but if the council members are truly invested in this work they will start helping us applying for national grants so that we can make this work happen and so that it happens well funded. I want a couple of comments related to this is I recall a conversation we had with with Mr. Bachman very early on when we were saying we needed more resources to do this work. And the response we got was that you can have a resource you have to tell us what we what we need we have to be very explicit about what we need is going to say we need resources to do something what are these resources going to be. How are they going to be used when we're going to need them. And we put we put our heads together to make that happen. And at the same time we knew there was funding for that so it was sitting there we just had to describe what it was. It sounds like we're not sure right now. But it is a funding source on the other end. What what I'm asking myself and I guess I'm asking and probably would ask seven generation movement collective as well is if other municipalities are doing this, especially other municipalities that look like us. And I don't know how many of those other municipalities municipalities have budgetary restrictions and restraints around them that they can't do anything but where are they getting the money from how are they doing it. And how are they creating a program because one of the if we create a program let's say we create a program that costs a million dollars. But we say it's needed. And we put that forth our job is to put forth a recommendation recommendation and we do that. And then it doesn't go anywhere. That's a very different story. They're just saying, you know, to me, we need to pull X amount of money out of wherever to create a program, because we could underfund ourselves in that way. We could just say we're going to take money from somewhere I said we're going to take these positions from the police or this money from that grant or whatever. And then all of a sudden we say okay we have, we have 150, maybe we have $300,000. And that doesn't even come close to what an adequate crest program would look like so we in a way kind of shout ourselves in the foot. And our, you know, our challenge to me is, can we say what the structure of the program is, and how is it going to work most effectively with Amherst. If we were able to do that, then I think we're living up to our charge. One, we're coming up with recommendation as doable, it's attainable and probably sustainable. So we get support on it or not is another whole question. But I think part of our responsibility is to create the program, create the structure for show how it works, and push to make it happen. That's, that's our, that's our work, I believe. And some of the other hands are going up there I don't, I don't even know who's for you guys. You can't come in as a tie all the time I can't figure out what's going up here. You know, raising hands at the same time. So let me let me go back because Mr Bach, when you pass the first I'm going to go to you that miss Owen and then miss Walker police. I wanted to answer some of the questions so on the domestic violent grant violence grant I don't know if that can be reallocated. It's a joint grant that's done with other communities and whether it's restricted to police departments or not that's something we could look into for sure. In terms of, you know, I think, Mr Wiley, you're right to say here's what we want. And then I think we'd look at it implementation plan, because it doesn't just happen overnight we have to sort of build the program and see how it works and I think that's some of the vein of Mr Vernon Jones's questions like how did they build their how did they get to where they were how did Cambridge get to where they were. They know it wasn't just a snap of the fingers and you were there. And then and I think you're as wise for the working group to say here's where we think we need to be. How quickly can we get there. I think one thing you might want to consider is like what is what is the need what how many calls are we going to be responding to are we, you know, is it a thousand a day is a 10 a day is it to a day I don't know what what that answer is that's a piece of information you're you may want to be seeking out in terms of funding sort of what the question was how committed is the town council. This is one of their goals for me in terms of my performance so it is a value to them in terms of how they will vote I can't I would never predict how the council is going to vote on anything. But their expectation and my expectations, something like this will be included in the budget for FY 22. And that's what we're planning for. In terms of well what's the scale of funds, should we be expecting, you know, what I've been here I've come into almost every one of your meetings. I've always heard, I mean, nobody's ever said anything except the, is it to, we talked about the two positions, you know, maybe for that type of thing. And that's sort of what I've been, that's what I've been processing this at the first I've heard of 10 position request but if that's where the working group says we need to get to that's you can articulate that. And the last thing is I think it would be fair for you to ask me, well tell me about that marijuana money, how much is there, what's it, what can we use it for, who else has has has dibs on who else is seeking it there are other people who are saying, you know, the school department is looking would say hey we would like some of that for some of the things that we need. So, but I think it's totally fair for you to ask me, we would like to know about that money. And I think, and I would get you that information. And I think it's a several hundred thousand dollars in that range. So, Miss all and I, I think you were, were next. You have muted. Mr. Bachman answered part of my question, but I guess going forward just to make sure that our recommendations are effective I would want to know more about the budget that's left for our recommendations. So we would not have a rough estimate of how much money we would need from outside grants to make this vision of Amherst, the realistic and have a possibility of being reality, because I think these are really big recommendations but that doesn't mean that they're too big if that makes sense. So I mean, I hear all that Mr. Bachman, but for the record, I've always been saying that we need to do an assessment I've never said two or four positions or anything. I've always said that there needs to be an assessment to see, and I've always said 24 seven, you know, program, I had not said anything about two or four positions or anything. So that's for the record but but to my thing is this, I get it right I get it that this budget constraints I get it that can't hear you. Can you hear me in and out. All right, let me wait a little bit. Can you all hear me now. Yes. So my thing is that we were given a charge because our community, you know, has been hurting. You know, it has it has a mistrust. He went out again. I can't hear you. Then or something. No, there's no chat function. So, can you hear me now. Yeah, well, last time to kind of try to attempt this. My thing is that we need change now. So now what are we supposed to do in terms of that right when we are you going out again. And we can't hear you. I mean, hang on, hang on there for a minute. Who was saying just move on to the next person just and I'll come back to you. Yeah, so I forget who was next. Miss. Miss Freire. Do you want to email me what you want to say and then I can read it. I'm not sure if that works for you or not. Yeah, I'll do that. Thanks. Okay. Miss Walker. Mr. Brandon Jones after that. I'm sorry. I just wanted to piggyback on what Brianna said a little bit earlier and that I'm interested in finding out. The town council is to our work because I know that they say they have a commitment but you know saying that and actually having the commitment are two very different things and what that looks like. And I feel like this process is being really slowed down and if there's a real commitment that people would be acting with urgency. And that urgency can look a lot different than what this is looking like right now. And I think that's because I know like the town, this is our specific charge and the town council has other things they're working on, but they can work in collaboration with us to make this happen. And I think that that's like what needs to happen. So I don't know, like, I think, yes, we can make a pilot program and start off small and say this is the dream and this is where we want to be. I think that's almost doing a disservice to our community because then how many people are going to still fall through the cracks and like there's it's still going to be a system where people who need to get help are not going to get help. And, and those people are going to fall back on to the police again and they're going to be in the same position they were in in the first place. And so I think that we need to be a little bit more proactive rather than put out a little and see what happens and reevaluate and meet with the town council now like can we give them a presentation. Again, this is what we've been working on. We're hitting a roadblock here because we need to know about our funding. We need to know what's available like if they're really committed they could say you know what we'll look for grants with you we'll see what else we could do or we know how much money we have, or for something like they can offer us something that will help us work through this process of just being at a roadblock or making hypothetical suggestions that maybe if we have money we can do this, like, what can we really do really right now, and how can they help us get there. So I think we need to be in more direct communication than with the town council if that's possible because I think sending Mr. Bachman back and forth isn't really that effective and I think they need to hear it from us that this is what we need and this is the work we've done so far and where we're at because I feel like we're hitting a blocker here and I don't want to spend a whole bunch of more time coming up with a robust idea that's going to be thrown in the trash for a pilot program that's going to fall off and that people are still going to be out being harmed when we put in so much hard work. And so I just want to see if there's if there's a different way we can do this then just put out a little bit a little bit and keep waiting because we also don't have that much time. I think Mr. Vernon Jones then Miss Pat, and then Miss Moisten. We, I think we need to know get some better data right as quickly as we can about the number of calls and what time of day they come in that would be fielded by a Crest program. We're not in a position to fully advocate publicly for this program until we have that data. And I'm not sure we can do the best possible job of designing the program without some of that data. If you know if we already have two police salaries, if there's several thousand hundred thousand dollars in the community impact fees, and there's presumably the potential of an additional reduction in the police budget. That's the only reason why we can't move forward with a pretty full implementation, even if we don't get everything in the first year we should get a, you know, be able to get a very significant program. You know if Olympia is bigger and is doing it with six positions we should at least be able to get six positions in the first year. And if we need to grow it beyond that, that'd be fine. We could make, I think we want to go for big, big changes. And I think we want some more data right away. Excuse me, Ms. Pat. A couple of things. I think we need to be careful about wanting to collect data. I know that some BIPOC community, and I can speak for everybody will rather not call the police because of experiences they've had in the past so we have to be careful not to rely on data. That is available. The second thing is that I want to remind all of us that the APD budget is the highest in this town because of overtime, pay and everything. So to hear that we may not be able to fund some of our recommendation just doesn't sit in well with me because the police are supposed to serve farmers. It's not serving BIPOC community very well. And we're here, here we are trying to recommend alternative services that will actually benefit BIPOC community. And we're saying we don't have money. Let's take that money from the police. They have too much budget and they are not benefiting a segment of this community. And so we just have to make it happen by taking money away. I don't have any problem with using a police budget significantly. One thing in response to that, yes, and we talk all the time about this group making a statement and being very proactive, if you will, about this. The best thing we can do and whatever data we can collect and find. But our best statement would be to describe in very clear language to the town of Amherst that this is what the structure of this program looks like. This is what it needs to function properly and effectively for our people, especially our BIPOC people. And this is what it's going to take. And here's the estimated cost of it. That's where I think we establish ourselves as a credible group. We talk about exactly what we need. We describe exactly how it should be working. And then we put that out there. That's our, I think, our responsibility. And what, you know, I, there could be positions that we can take money from. They're very well could be. But I think we based it on what we feel we need, rather than what somebody else has or doesn't have. So that's, that's my own sense of it. I miss Walker and then miss, miss Bowman, and then miss some miss someone. Um, so I just wanted to say two things one to Mr. Vernon Jones. I think, though, although I agree with Pat that the data doesn't tell the true story I think we have that data from Defund 413 they had the call log and they did send us that data. Um, so I think we just need a more thorough review of it, but I do think that data is already available to us. And then also to just go off of what miss Pat said, like I'm thinking about like if we can't get budget from anywhere else and our option is only to work within the parameters that already exist in our budget like, would you rather have an overfunded, overfunded police department with no social services or an overfunded social services program with an underfunded police department. That is better. And I think that's clear here. So like I don't really know what the hesitation is there like who even cares underfund the police department. They are clearly doing harm in our community, they will be there, and they can be underfunded. Our community needs to be overfunded right now. That is what needs to happen. So we need to figure out how to make that happen. And if there needs to be some convincing to the town council, can we do a presentation to them like, I'm trying to figure out what we need to do, because I don't think, like, like I'm going to say again if we create a small pilot program who is going to fall through the cracks, the same people that are falling through the cracks right now, the people who don't speak the language, the people who are afraid of the police and afraid of contacting services, or people, you know if there's high response like the white white affluent people with mental health issues are going to get attended to before the BIPOC community and they're still going to be suffering. They're still going to see this work and I'm really afraid that we're going to create something that still allows the people we're trying to reach to fall through the cracks. Miss Owen, were you next. Yeah. Oh, maybe Miss Bowen was before me. Miss Bowen, then Miss Owen, then Miss Moisten. I wholeheartedly agree with Alicia. Um, and I go back to saying, like, what are we doing, like, we, the schools need this money, and we need this money. Like I said, we take the money, we dump it into social services, and then, you know, those officers have an opportunity to go and learn something about social services. And maybe if they want to be a cop in another time they can do that and they can utilize information that they got training, you know, because we changed the tone of what we're doing in this, in this area. So, the other thing that I haven't heard about are the students, because they do you master Amherst students directly affect the town of Amherst in a way that Amherst College and Hampshire College don't affect the town. So, we should be asking you master money to we should be going and being like you guys need to give us money to because we, this needs to happen. You know, you know, your students who are getting drunk, you know, out here, they also are going to need social services so it's tapping into more of our our community. We need this needs to happen yesterday, you know I'm saying like this is like, say much, because I get so frustrated because what I see is a lot of tiptoeing around a ridiculous subject. It's the results of police in these communities. They are the whole system was built on racism, it was built on keeping people of color down in particular black people. And we're tiptoeing around the subject, like it's like oh we have all week we have all this we have all that we don't have time for all of this. We need we need to make some real change now, and we need to really like, like for me, I'm at a point where I'm like, I don't know if I should do this anymore because I'm starting to have anxiety coming because I don't see it like I don't, there's no steps being made. There's just no steps being made and it's so frustrating I'm taking time away from my family I'm taking time because I believe that Amherst has a chance to be on the forefront of this movement. And to be really successful in Amherst, and hopefully get a lot of people to put action into their Black Lives Matter signs that they have on their lawn, but they're not really doing anything. We need to hold this community to attack. That's it. Okay, let me let me move forward here we got we're hitting the wall with time here but there's more comments that need to be made Miss Owen and then Miss moisten I think you had your hand up for a while. I really agree with Miss Walker and Miss Bowman. And also I do think communicating with the town council would be really effective to make sure our recommendations do become reality. And I just want to say defunding the police and Amherst is not unrealistic given the funding that you must the you must police department receives, and how they openly talk about how they work with local police departments. Every time I go on a drive out of my house in North Amherst I always see police this is a town that is way over policed, and that money could be poured back into the community. Miss moisten. Sorry about that a couple of things one, I want to read Miss Ferrera's email that she sent, which is, we were given a charge our community has communicated time and time again that they want change now. So how can we tell our community to wait the recommendations that we are making need to be put into place now. And for me for her, I had always stated that we need to fund this program fully not just as a pilot program. Time is waiting. The time for waiting is over the town needs to find the money and take the money from the police department. So, did I capture that right Miss Ferrera. I don't know if she'll be able to tease muted. Yep muted. So the other pieces to is I won't comment on the police department and that piece of the funding. But what I will say is that there are other ways that not that it would fully fund it but we have to come up with some creative ways of finding as well. And when I say we I don't really know who I'm talking about somebody needs to find creative ways whether it's the community safety working group the town council collaboration, or whatever the those purposes are and there are already programs that I don't know. I don't know how it will work if you can get grants that to work with already existing programs and to implement them into to this program, but also Miss Glaser just sent over an email stating that the Medicaid or Medicare has been been able to be charged this bill. There's a bill called the Cahoots Bill in Congress, and Congress that would enable Medicare to be used for some responder fees. So it's really about doing the research also to, I'm not, and again I'm not making any comment on the police department and their budget because I can't but what I'm saying is, there are still other ways that we can still make this happen, or that you guys can still make this happen and I think it's very important that you guys know exactly what it is that you want to present to the council so that it's taken seriously. That's it. That's the point I think I was trying to get to where we, you know, it's like you walk into a car deal and you say I want a new car. You're going to describe the car you want, you're going to say what's in it, and you're going to, and you're going to put a price on it. And I think that's what we have to do. We have to create this, this, this story, we have to present this thing in really clear terms to people who have not seen this before. We have to present it the way it is, the way it is for Amherst, the way we think it needs and that is going to be the message. Because at some point you say, you know, we can, we can meet with the town council. We can talk to them, we can tell them, hey, you want you to follow our recommendations. And at one point that somebody might ask it what kind of car do you want. We'll be able to answer that before I get in the door. But to have them see something have us see something that said this is exactly what we're talking about this is what we need this is what we were, we're putting together this is the structure we need for Amherst. And make make make that clear. I think if we're not clear, we're not clear with what we're supposed to be doing, then it's going to be hard to get anybody else clear on what we're doing. Ms Walker. Um, I mean I also agree Mr Riley but I also feel like when you go to buy a car you know what your budget is. So like we what what are we going to do here if we if they're offering us $10,000 or if they're offering us $10 million those are two completely different visions we can have for our community. And so I think we need a realistic idea before we continue this work we can't just go all the way to the end and then meet the town council and have them tell us oh nope sorry. We don't have the funds for that at all and that's never going to happen like I think we should do it now meet with them now so that we can direct or we can have some more direction for our work moving forward. And I also think that it's not supposed to be our job to look for grants and that we should meet with the town council because if they're invested in this work. It can be something that they can look into and should start looking into now. And so like time is of the essence and I think if we're going to meet with the town council we should just say it and do it. And I don't think we should really like. I don't know I feel like we need to just do something and get more options here because we're just going to talk about this over and over again and not actually get anywhere and just waste time because their whole weeks pass in between every meeting that we have and we're just pushing further and closer to the date for the budget. So I think we should meet with the town council I think we should ask them or somebody else to be looking into grants for us immediately, because we don't get paid for that. And that's extra work and it needs to happen I think because if it's like I just don't know we were going to need more money so we need to utilize all of our options right now. There's going to be an option at some point to talk about defunding the police but we're not at that point right now, we should start looking for grants or other ways to get the money. Miss Pat. So just, I want to thank Miss Glaser for the email that she sent. I am aware of this but I didn't want to raise it all along. I don't want to. I'm sorry, I was actually after Alicia. Okay. Can I finish up do you mind. I really go ahead. I'm sorry I didn't see your hand. Go ahead. So here, here's, there's a couple of there's a I am really frustrated because I what I what I am hearing again and again and again as we are going to tip toe through this. This is not a situation to tip toe through. And I'm going to say it is honestly in a straightforward as I can. Part of our charge is to offer recommendations regarding defunding the police. That is part of that is part of what like what we are looking at here. So, if we're, if we're trying to fund other programs, the first thing that we need to do is defund the police and decide how much we need for these programs that we're trying to push through how much money we need and then we get to look to the police department first and be like, Okay, so this is what we want from you guys. If you're not going to be willing to do that then we're not defunding the police and we're just being here. This is a joke. This is ridiculous. First people we need to address this issue with aside from the town council who needs to be part of it because they do not represent my community. We need to be looking at situations we need to be talking with them and be like, look, this is what's going to happen. I don't know if that can be on board and helping that happen, or this is like, but this is a recommendation that's coming way and you need you, they already know it they know it, like any, I'm sure there's people watching it right now. So, please, can we be like seriously stop going stop saying oh we're going to find grants here, we're going to find grants there, the police have money. They're way overfunded. Let you mass conduct deal with the police money, or whatever we need to get money from them to. But the point is, is that we're looking for money, first, at the police department, everywhere else that bonus, but we were deep funding the police that's why that's part of the reason why I'm here. That is important to ask, and that money should be regeared towards our program, whatever those recommendations come down to be, but please stop tiptoeing over this. I feel like it's what we do as a community constantly to save people from getting their feelings hurt. Start hurting some feeling because he's caring about the community, they don't care. And I'm just so frustrated with this town just like, oh, let's not make everybody upset. No, I want people upset with me. I want people not to like me, because that means my community going to be a better community. So that's all I have to say, and I'm actually getting off the call because I'm exhausted. So, um, thank you all. Hi, Miss Bowman. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Bowman. Okay. Miss Pat, thank you. Thank you. Yes, please. So I'm glad that Mr. Glacier is a her name that sent email to us. I am aware about Medicare and Medicaid funding. I deal with Medicaid must help all the time in my job, almost every single. I must have a single day. I just want to caution the programs and services we're recommending. If you are not quote unquote clinically licensed, you don't get funded by this public insurance. It's the point I want to make. You have to be a licensed social worker, a licensed psychologist, a licensed nurse. And that's how my company is able to get funding. For example, you have to have a licensed clinical worker to get funding. And I just want to put that out so that we don't just say, oh, we're just going to get money from Medicaid mass health. It doesn't work like that. That's all I have to say. Who, who was next. I had wrote a note then I took my hand off the screen was it miss Walker or was miss Walker, miss Walker. And I think Mr. Vernon Jones and then Miss Owen. So it's ahead of me. Miss Owen, go ahead. Miss Walker. Yep, I just wanted to add to what miss and on a bucket was just saying I also agree and also access to healthcare as a barrier. So we're just missing a huge population there if people don't have healthcare then they can't get service that shouldn't be. That shouldn't be the way. Yeah. Thank you. Miss Owen. Mr. Bachman I'm sure you know that I mean, you know the town council more than I do. Do you genuinely believe the best way to make the things that we're envisioning happen our recommendations or what do you think the best way to make this happen. Looks like. Mr. Bachman. So, so the process, the way our charter is set up which governs how we operate is that the town manager makes the budget presentation to the count to the council. I think the town council would welcome your presentation directly I think that they would expect that I think they totally expected once you're at a point where you feel like you're ready to make a presentation on your work. You know, I think the work that you have outlined in charge are two stages one is the alternative forms which is what we're really talking about now. And then the other is the next the next phase after we get through this, you know, what's this alternative form of services community safety services that we're going to look at. The sort of the sort of blunt budget realities that we face is that we don't have enough money to, to basically do what we're doing now, and that's the challenge with all the with everything that's happening you know the schools are making cuts in their budget and. And but I think what you're saying what I'm hearing from members not all the members but many members is that no there is money it just happens to be in the wrong department. It's in the police department not in the department we want. And I think it's totally legitimate for you to make that recommendation to say this is what we think you need should be doing and set that as a priority. So, you know, I think, you know, I think I think you do need to focus on data like how many calls are we talking about how you know if we want coverage coverage 2477 days a week, how many people does that entail because you have vacations that you have to plug into that thing so if we suppose we want 2477 days a week for X number of people out on a shift, but and then the follow up question and hopefully we do have this I haven't seen the information on the call analysis but it'd be wise. And then, and I think you've made a really good point that not all the calls that come in 911 is the total universe of calls you have another subset of those that won't call 911 and maybe there's. No matter how many that is, is it 10% 20% 30 I don't know, but make some assumptions about that so I think, you know, is, again, I would say, here's, here's the calls we think could be addressed. And, you know, again, figure out like how many people we would, if you if you say say we want it 24 hours a day. Let's let's move in that direction and I think you should just be saying what you think should happen. Mr Vernon Jones was next and then this moisture. Yeah, I think we've made an important decision tonight, we've decided we do not want to start small we do not want to start with a pilot program we want to start with a program that meets the needs. And I think our job is to describe that program, and then asked Mr Bachman and the town staff to figure out what would it cost to do that program. And where could the money come from. And Mr Bachman will have to decide whether he's going to recommend all the money in the first year or not. But we get to ask for the program we want. And ask him, I mean, where, where can the money come from grants are great if you can get them but this is this kind of program, a lot of towns are all trying to start this at once. And that's not the kind of thing that usually gets a lot of grant funding. And if the program is based on grant funding, the grant may only last a year or two and then, then you don't have it built into the budget so you haven't really built a permanent program. So I'd much rather build this program around money that's in the budget. And go forward in the biggest way we can. I agree. And I think that that was my point. We have to state our case. We have to state our case it's got to be clear to everybody. They're telling exactly what we need. And, you know, and how and what how it how it how it looks and how it's supposed to be performing. I think that's going to be the message. And, you know, in terms of what Mr Vernon Jones is saying that's, that's, if we don't do that. We're not going to be talking to the air, you know, because we won't have anything that you won't have anything to show or describe. I'm as moist and was next and then I think Miss Walker. Yeah, so I'm going to read another statement from Deb Ferrera again and so she, we cannot curtail our recommendations because of the budget if we did that then we would be doing a disservice to our town in short change this working when we were charged the charge wasn't to make sure we made make recommendations that fit the budget. Then we should have been told that initially does this town actually want change just this town wants to address their issues that are residents have, especially BIPOC residents. Can we get a clear message that we can make our full recommendations and that we will be getting the funding, wherever we can starting with getting the funding from the police and going from there because if not, then what are we doing here. Thank you. Miss Walker. Thank you. Thank you, Deborah. I think that was like I have the same question here. But what I'm wondering, so I also think Mr. Bernie Jones for bringing a summary I think that was a great summary of everything that we've been talking about tonight but that I'm just still confused and wondering why we can't do this in collaboration with the town council because I still think that we're going to be doing a disservice like just going all the way to the end and then presenting our full list of recommendations, because then we're at the end of the budget and the deadline and then we'll be met with whatever the town council says, instead of meeting with them now with anticipation so that they can know that we're going to need a large budget for this because I'm not sure if we've met, we met with them a while back, but that was in the very beginning of our work and I don't think we had as nearly as an expectation as we have now. And I don't know if they have a realistic even idea to anticipate what we're going to be asking for. And if they don't they're not even anticipating it and we don't present it until like a day before the budget has to be approved, then I don't get how we're going to realistically expect for that to happen. And then we're, we're, we're looking at this being pushed off realistically a whole nother year. Doing the whole process putting out the recommendations and not doing this in collaboration with the people who will be funding it. Like I just don't really understand why we can't be meeting with them simultaneously or getting feedback from them during this process. Miss moisture. Thank you miss Walker. So Miss Freyja also adds that grants can drive and funding needs to be built into the budget. Clear. So Mr Bachman and I want to kind of bring this to a close too because I think we're we're at a point thank you Mr Vernon Jones for offering that summary. But um, would it breach our charge. If we were to make a pre recommendation statement to the town council and I'm going back to what Miss Walker was making the point about to say we're moving in this direction. Kind of thing. Does that serve any purpose? Is there any utility doing that? Does it. Does it. Does it help or hinder our cause? If you will. What, what, what would you say about that and just in general. So there are 2 meetings of the council prior to when you need to complete the work that the consulting. I mean, assuming you have the consulting group to support to help you give you information to make your decisions. So there, there, there are council meetings on the 5th and the 12th of April. And so, I mean, I think the chair could reach out to the council president said, we'd like to make it just, you know, we'd like to give you an update on where we are. You could do that in writing. You could put to get something in writing to alert. I think it's, it's probably, I don't know if the council, I mean, some counselors have attended your meetings, but to, and. I'm not sure what they, I don't know if they've thought about what the scope of the request or the recommendation is going to be. Technically, the recommendation is to the town manager, the town manager, the budget, then the budget, then the budgets approved or not approved by the council. So, but I think it, I don't think anything would hinder you're I think being out there and saying what you want is the right thing to do and. And if you want to do that at a council meeting or if you want to do that in writing, I would that would be something you want to consult with the town council president on. I think certainly so the council has to approve the budget, they, I give them the budget on May 1. They have to prove it by June 30th they have a two month window there. So there's room in there they have to have required public hearings and stuff like that too. So. Well, in response to all the commentary that that we've had tonight and sharing of information. I would like to put something in writing to the town beforehand. And, you know, get that to the town chair. In some fashion, what I would, what I'd like to ask is if a couple of members of the of our group might want to collaborate and draft a statement to the, the town council chair that, you know, we could do that internally and then get it off to them in a timely manner. I could be a part of it certainly because I'm going to be the one that's going to contact. Ms Walker. I would be happy to be a part of it but I also just have a question on what exactly the content of that message would be. I think it's something that you and whoever you're working with is going to come up with. We don't have like a general idea as a group because I think like are we going to be specific about the stuff that we've been doing are we just going to talk about the fact that we want more money like do we want it to be a full inclusive thing or do we want it to be an ask do we want it to be an update. Like I just don't really have a clear idea of where we're, where exactly we're going with the message. Honestly, and I don't mean to be slight on this, it could incorporate all of those things in some fashion. I think you know we're clearly not in the we're clearly not in the point where we want to recommend make a recommendation to the town for a program yet. But we do even if you're listening to this conversation we just had tonight. We're feeling some trepidation on our part you know we're worried that this is a lot of work going into this and we are talking about you know getting money from the town to fund this. I don't know exactly the words that would go into it right at this particular moment. But certainly I you know I could see having this conversation with several of us and seeing if we can come up with something that would say to them look. Something big is coming and it's important and it fits into the town's mission fits into the town manager's mission it fits into our mission as a community. I don't know I'm just saying I but I'd like to make sure if we have an opportunity and it's not going to hinder or hurt us certainly that we be able to get them something. So, this moisture. So Miss for ever says that she agrees and that we should put something in writing to the town council and that she is willing to collaborate on a draft with Mr Wiley and anyone else. Well what what I would ask is this and if, first of all, it is. Is this something that the group wants to do by show thumbs up or something, hands up or something. My hands up for Miss for error or she's got it. Yeah. Okay. Oh she's there she is. And Miss Pat you had a question. Well, I'm thinking about the timing. I feel that they, they, the stuff that Mr Ross put together for us we didn't have chance to look at all of them only did 123. We didn't even complete everything so what is it that we're going to be, you know, writing to town council. I feel that we didn't complete what we're supposed to do tonight in terms of. So I'm not sure if we're ready to write something to the town council. Yes, I want us to do it but I think we need to have a bigger picture of what the whole program and services is going is going to cost and not just the press, because there are other programs that I'm hearing that people really want our teenagers one community center, we haven't even discussed that so I'm hesitant that is too early for us to write to the town council is my point. Okay, well if we don't then then we're we're back to creating the actual document that we want to start putting together and they will not hear they won't hear from us. And we'll be working on that for a while I'm sure because we're working with our consultants as well. Miss Miss Owen. Do you guys think it would be a better idea if the town council gave us the space to put together a small presentation on the ideas that we're thinking and what we're hearing from the community and what the community wants, or is that to premature until we finish out until we have more concrete ideas. Ms Walker. I don't have like a direct answer to you Brianna but more of like a follow up to what Miss Pat said, and that I'm just thinking because I, I want I do think it's a good idea to get something to the town council because I want them to have anticipation to what we're doing and not for it to just like blindside them if they have no idea as to what we're thinking, but I also do see the value in waiting to include other topics because we may come up with something very similar. As to a different portion of our recommendations, where we might need some follow up or feedback or communication with the town council in regards to. But I'm wondering if we can just send them some type of line and leave it as an open line of communication like we had a meeting tonight. And this is where we're at we anticipate having more follow up to this message because as we continue discussing our discussion but it's clear at this time that we're having concerns about the budget or something along those lines, because I do also agree with Miss Pat that as we continue to talk about this we may have other things that we're going to miss if we just write to them right now. Great idea. My only concern is that if we do this have sadly and I'm talking from somebody who have created business created programs, if we're not very thoughtful in sending something to the town council, we will just, you know, make fun of. I don't want to use the word fun, but I want us to do this deliberately. I'm a budget woman. I'm a light numbers to work with numbers. And I think if we can come up with, you know, rough, you know, bulk of what we're talking about. Then I'll be comfortable for comfortable for us to send something to the town council. I kind of want to be part of the subcommittee but I don't want to, but I'm happy to send something to the subcommittee as to my suggestion about what I think. You know, some of the services or programs my cost. It's not, it's not, you know, it's not too hard. You can get, you know, to figure out that with health benefit with vacation time, you know, look at what other towns are paying comparatively what the police are getting for pay for certain positions. So I can put those numbers together for whoever subcommittee are going to do, you know, the youth program. I would like that included as well. So, I'm not into the writing aspect that I could provide numbers for the subgroup is what I'm trying to say. So what if we, what if we do this because we, you know, we do need to communicate with the town. And I don't think we should be too concerned necessarily about how much or what the content. I don't want to undermine this but not fully what the content is but the urgency around this for us is important for the town to know because we're feeling the urgency of it as we begin working forward. And I would suggest that if the entire committee, the entire working group, anyone on the working group could submit their thoughts on what would go into a commentary at this point to the town. I don't know when we would do it. But we get that to whoever's work would like to work with me and others. Who said they would work on this. Miss Walker. And Miss Ferrera, the three of us could put a draft something together and run it back by you all and say does this make sense to say at this point is it inclusive enough for the sentiment. And the comments that we wanted and is it going to have this going to be a stepping stone for us to build a closer relationship with them in a very short period of time to build this program. Because right now we, we don't know what this is going to cost. We really don't miss Walker. Yes, so I think that's a good idea I just, we only have two meetings before I think the sixth of April also so I just think we should do that as quickly as possible because the time, and then. Sorry. I lost my train of thought there. I'll raise my hand again if it comes back to me. It's getting late. We're all getting fatigued. I think a little bit brain dead here. He thought of it. Okay, go ahead. In our data collection at some point did we get, did we collect the budget line by line what is our budget currently somewhere do we have that document. Because I think that will be helpful also for me to see and look at just to be mindful of everything but also to write to the town council. Our budget. Yeah, like our current budget line by line like what our current budget is right now for the town. Oh, town budget. Oh, yeah, yeah, not us, the CSG. Yeah, I can. What do you think Paul budget books from FY 21. It's all on the on the website. I can send you the link for it. Okay, Mr. Vernon Jones. Yeah, I was just thinking we, if we communicate with the town council, we should remember that they're not in a position. To make the budget. For the most part they're not in a position to make budget larger. Most of their decisions are going to be about how much money goes where and how it gets allocated. And they're going to be, they already know it's a problem that they don't have enough money to keep everything going the way they'd like to. And they're going to be wondering how's the town manager going to do this. How's he going to make all this fit. So I think it's great to, to let them know that we're talking about some significant changes that are going to require reallocation of funds in a very significant way. But I don't think we need to come up with, with numbers. You know, before we, we don't think we can. Yeah, Miss moisture. Yeah. So the mayor says we need to say a buy when to get commentary from our group and then when the subcommittee can share a draft with our group for them to review prior to sharing with the town council. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I would say, you know, it, while it's fresh on our mind, if, if folks can send some information through Miss moistin to Miss Walker. And, and me. If, if the group doesn't mind, I'll, I'll start, I'll start a working draft and the three of us can start working on it together. And incorporate what you're saying to us and see if it, see if it makes sense. So I'm just going back to we, we have to submit this budget to, to Mr. Bach, ultimately. So we also want to be real clear that our, you know, this is this is our responsibility. We want to get the town, certainly hearing hearing the, the, the sentiments early if we can, in our community, you know, we're going to hear from our community. So we're going to learn more as we said this pattern in a short time. That's Walker. And then Miss Pat. Sorry, I just wanted to say because I actually have to hop off the call now my kids are having conflict upstairs but I just wanted to thank everybody for this call tonight because I think this was really important and we had a very good conversation and I just wanted to remind everybody in the group that it's also very important to take care of yourself and that this is hard and can be harmful. And so I just want to remind everybody to be mindful of that and to make time for like happy and healing spaces for yourself, especially when you're doing this kind of work because there's a lot of really deep emotion and feeling that goes into this work, especially when it's like really something that is so connected to your personal identity so I just wanted to offer the call tonight and goodbye. Thank you for the advice. Thank you. Oh, also sorry because I do want to be a part of the subcommittee if possible if you guys can just send me an email update as to what you decide to do with it that would be awesome. Yes. Thank you. We'll communicate. Yeah. Okay, so just say. Yes, Miss Pat. I want to be clear. So we're saying no, not to add any data, no, no money budget yet, right. Is that what I heard from Mr Ross that we shouldn't be putting money to any of the services right now when we send the letter to the town council. Is that what I heard from you, Mr. That was, that was my suggestion. One, I'm not, as you said earlier, I'm not sure we're ready with numbers. But what they really need to know are they're going to need to make some significant reallocations and take money from one place and put it to what we're doing. Okay, so I'm okay with that. I would like to see everything that everybody has suggested in terms of services included in the letter that will be sent to town council. I'm okay with that. If we don't put in money right now, like what we think it was going to cost, I'm okay with that right now. But as long as we put everything, including youth youth center, all that stuff. And when we send the letter to the town council, we shouldn't leave any program out, then I'll be okay with it. There's two that will, when we get to a draft of this thing, Ms. Pat, we'll send it out to the whole group and say, is this it? Is this where we need to be? You know, and we can do some fine tuning if we need to, but that's, that will be, that will be our responsibility to do that. So that was lively and important for sure. So thank you all for that. And I think we're going to end, we're going to end the meeting very shortly. I'm going to ask that we, I'm going to ask the committee with respect to the planning for the meeting with the Chief Livingstone that if you haven't done so already, you know, please comment on the document that I sent out earlier, which talked about a potential format for a meeting with the Chief. Please make some commentary on that. That's clearly something that can happen at any time when we decide Chief Livingstone has said he's available whenever we want him to come. So right now we've got a lot of irons in the fire right now and, but the sooner I get that information back, the quicker we can come to something that we could send to him in the event that we meet with him in the future. So that's the only thing I would ask. So on that I'm just going to move forward. Are there any upcoming events. You don't have any Miss Moisten tonight. Um, so I just, I know for 100% sure that Juneteenth is going to be a very big event this year so if you know BIPOC vendors as in food or entertainment or folks who are artists or who just have products or items to sell let me know please I'd greatly appreciate it. So the Civil War plaques will be out on display that day for Juneteenth and you know it's a for location event so it's going to be pretty fantastic. Miss Pat can cook. Yes, she can. Yes, I can. I can still cook. That I heard yeah. Thank you. Thank you all. Our next meeting next Wednesday, same time. 530. And please send any agenda items to Miss Moisten by one o'clock on Monday. If you have anything you want to bring up, have us discuss at that time we will have an update again from our consultant group, right at the top of the actions and discussions item segment. Uh, other topics that we need to bring forward and probably put on the agenda right now. Okay, motion to adjourn. Move. Thank you. Miss Pat seconded. Thank you all very much. We're meeting is adjourned at 810. Thank you for the extra time you all put in very meaningful discussion and discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your hard work. So let's just keep some energy. Let's take Miss Walker's, uh, advice on the way out of the door is as, um, as important to take care of ourselves as hard work. I will bring in the healing bow so that we can take a deep breath and exhale before and after our meetings. Yeah. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.