 Right. So now, seeing a presence of a quorum, I will call the Amherst Human Rights Commission to order at 635 on October 19, 2022. I'll read my little blurb here. So pursuant to chapter 20 of acts of 2021 this meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone, see instructions below. No in person attendance members of the public. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that public public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological needs. Sorry for stumbling through that. And just as a point of order, I'm going to point out that we will be putting a comment down to three so that we can give it proper time it'll be so three. I guess it'll be F right under membership quorum. So we'll start off with up I'm sorry about him. Oh, I was just asking Jen to make me a panelist so that you guys can see me. Thank you your hand is that Pamela. Good to go so we'll start off are there any human rights Commission member reports, anyone have anything to report. I do have a report but I'll save mine for when member reports come up for CSS JC. Oh, yep. All right, so we'll start with. Start with the heavy will go to the DEI and the police report regarding July 5. Again, I think, I don't know if we need a motion on this, but I come only needs to leave early so we can get through all of her agenda items first then we can move forward with police report. So if we could push the police report. Yeah. Yeah, we'll push that to the last of section three here. So I have reports to just to give about the retreat. The lot next heritage month, press update and DEI update, and then I was going to stick around for the police report if you had questions of me, based on that police report so I'll actually start with press, and we'll say at the end of the day that Earl's not with us tonight, the press director but he gave a very extensive report about the press operations at the last CSS JC meeting which is recorded so these are highlights from his report, but if individuals don't want additional information they should reach out to him or listen to that report so in the time period between nine six which is when press started their operations and 930 Earl reported that they had 1788 engagements and those engagements included engagements with individuals in towns with the colleges at the town block party at at UMass and at the high school. He talked about some notable engagements with individuals where the press responders were able to be of assistance at the biz so the bid the business improvement district at the survival center. They also responded to the fire at the Amherst high school, and have made responses to Jones library. There's just a wide variety of different types of calls so mental health trespass senior citizen services, in addition to a lots of other different types of calls that they've been able to engage in the press responders have been in communication with other like departments from around this, the country, in particular they're thinking about modeling data collection method after the city of Minneapolis there. The press responders have basically a tablet which allows them to record their interactions record down data about the individual that they read that they interact with but also protect the privacy of the individual so he's looking to see if there's a way in which they might be able to use similar devices. They're also thinking that they might want to have an exchange program with other press communities so that our responders could spend some time in another community and another communities. Responder could spend time in Amherst as a way of you know having a learning exchange. The press department has started holding social services meetings so on a monthly basis, they're meeting with other social service agencies to review how the responders are interacting and what you know services can be provided by those social services. Interactions so I believe those are sort of the highlights but I would really encourage everyone to listen to the CSJC meeting, because I'll did a very presented a very comprehensive report about the response and we'll try to make an effort to perhaps bring him to the next HRC meeting so that he could also provide you with more detailed information. Great family if he could come to the next meeting. Awesome. So as the DEI department report I just want to say I'm very happy to have Jen back because I felt like I was treading water and barely keeping my head above water. So since she's been back, we have returned our attention to completing our strategic plan, working on finishing the document that we would use for DEI assessment with the various departments. That self assessment document we hope to have help from the core equity team to serve as a group of trying to I guess the best work that I can come up with now is support but that's not the best word to use, but basically members of the core equity team would be available to provide support to department heads help answer questions as they are completing the self assessments for their departments. And I think that there could be a real benefit to having someone to spreading the workload around so it's not just Jen and I answering questions. And also as departments are trying to do the self assessment. Sometimes people feel uncomfortable raising a question to the DEI director, you know, or to the department so having another group available that they could ask questions to might feel a little bit of a lower risk. And so that the core equity team has been reviewing the assessment tool with us has made suggestions about things that we could add. And we'll be sending it back to them for further review so that we hope to be able to have the assessment tool go out to the departments on November 1. So Ben and Phillip and I were part of an interview team to look at additional applicants to join the HRC so that those interviews I think went well and hopefully we will have some additional people to join the commission from that. Jen and I were able to meet with Dr Sheila Lord she is the Vice President of Diversity, Justice and Belonging and Hampshire College. So she's very interested in the work of this commission as well as the other boards on town and is looking for ways to connect the students in Hampshire with initiatives that we have, you know, in town so that was a nice meeting and we hope to be able to meet with her again and also connect her to other resources in town. So, most of us, well, I guess, yeah, most of us on this call were able to attend the Latinx heritage event on Saturday and that I think went very well it was a very good turnout we had a beautiful day the weather was really perfect, and it was great entertainment and great food so, you know, as with every event there are some lessons that we learned, but for the most part I think things went really pretty much very well and we very should feel that it was a very successful event. And on the lines of cultural events and Jen may mention this again later. One of the town's counselors and others in the community are sponsoring a Southeast Asian day on, I believe it's November 5. And there's more information to come about that. So, I think that that's the gist of things for the DEI update. So, in the retreat, you, I had sent out to the group sort of a summary of the retreat, I think that that was time well spent that we were able to really think I'll spend some time sort of gelling as a group having an opportunity to get to know on a more personal level. And also that it was a great opportunity for us to think about how the Human Rights Commission can continue to grow and develop. So we did set some short term goals long term goals and discussed a legacy project. The short term goal is really just, well I shouldn't say just because I think this would be a major accomplishment. The short term goal is for the Human Rights Commission to complete the review of its bylaws, make some changes around procedure and have that approved by town council, by the end of this fiscal fiscal year. I think we have a very good start on that there are some things that I'll need to follow up on based on our conversation with at the retreat but that that was time well spent. So I think I'd love for the commission to invite one of the town counselors to perhaps the next meeting or an upcoming meeting. I've had several people reach out to me about different projects in the town that would sort of mirror what we have as a legacy project. So the legacy project that we discussed was an international movement called Welcoming America has obviously different names at different parts of the globe but basically communities commit themselves to being welcoming individuals in the community on a variety of different platforms so in the California and the Southwest a lot of the communities are based around immigration refugees and those types of issues that could be part of the platform but it can be expansive and include lots of other issues. What I proposed was that as a commission we might think about that as a legacy project and take some time to really develop what we would want the welcoming part of that title to mean for the town of Amherst and that would be a project that would hopefully grow in time and I'm thinking my thought was that in many communities they have a welcoming week so there's a week long series of various events so sort of a know your rights event like the one that the students and sunset created as well as events specifically to immigrant populations or refugee populations as well as other types of human rights issues so it could be housing could be food insecurity and then anyway so a series of events throughout the week and then a one major event and so my suggestion was to have the welcoming week sort of culminate with the block party that the town does because there's already a big sort of celebration in town that's planned and so the days before there might be a series of events that the HRC would sponsor. Since then I have received from an email from one town counselor who had looked into a similar program that's that's titled I think it's titled compassionate cities so again sort of a national international program that looks around issues and holding events around compassion and kindness and what does it take to be a good neighbor a kind neighbor to how do you engage with people in the community. And so it's it you know it may be that we might be able to borrow from both of those types of programs to develop something that is more specifically designed to meet the needs of the town of Amherst so overall I think I felt like the retreat went very well and you know others obviously can speak to that. I think those were the key issues that I wanted to present on those issues. I'll turn now to the addendum to the police report. So, I don't know if all of you or any of you were able to be in the audience on Monday but there had been an agreement between town council and the CSJC, that the town council would invite the CSJC back to a town council meeting, and the meeting was supposed to be limited to one hour so that they could address some specific issues. The town council president invited Chief Livingstone and myself to be back to prevent present additional information that we had obtained from since the August 15 meeting that occurred. And so both the chief and I gave remarks and had already submitted a written reports that were included in the town council packet. The addendum that I attached was based on information that I received from the police department, the anonymous letters that had come in to both this body and to the CSJC and then a letter from one parent that sort of stated that parent's objections are few points to the actions that occurred on July 5. By coincidence, Chief Livingstone and I both chose not to read our reports. I had decided earlier that I felt like it was more important for me to just highlight the key points that I felt were important to address, which were to speak to really my inability to do some of the things that I think people thought that I as a DEI director might be able to do in this situation. So, you know, the police department, both officers and supervisors are governed by a collective bargaining agreement that agreement predates me and predates the creation of this position. And I don't really have the authority to investigate, discipline the department or any officers in the department. And so, you know, start with that limitation. Having said that, I felt like this role could be a role and has tried to be a role to sort of provide some advice and influence to what is happening in the police department, but they are independent and I can't, you know, dictate or speak for the chief or direct what they do. The other key points that I felt were important to bring out was that all of the families have been contacted by the police department. They chose not to have any interaction, any interaction with the police department only. And this is reported from the police department because I don't have the identity of any of the individuals like I don't know them by name or who they are. All of that information is protected. But reported from the police department that one family felt that they had, I guess, no objections or didn't disapprove of what occurred. We know at least one letter came into me that did challenge the way in which the actions of the police have been reported. And those were presented in a side by side table with sort of a summary of the objections of the of the family and a what I received from information from the police as a response. And then I, I spoke very personally about how I am feeling about the situation because, and I hadn't done that before but I, at this point in time, I felt like it was really necessary for me to say that, you know, I take my job very seriously. That these issues are personal to me. But they are emotional and that it is ongoing work. I don't have an expectation that things will be done to correct, you know, bad feelings, hardships, mistakes overnight. But I have done my best to do my job with integrity. And with that, I mean you have the reports so you have you have them I'm happy to answer any questions about my role to date, how I reached the conclusions that I made any questions that you might have. Feel free to raise a hand and jump right in bar anyone from family work. Anyone can speak right now this week. I don't have much, I guess to speak on I think a lot of what I said on Monday and the CSSJC meeting, Pamela but I did have a clarifying question on your report, or it says summary of disputed facts. Is that from the family member or the individual that you spoke to that those are their words or those your words in there. So there. So in both of those charts, they are summaries of the information so none of that none of those things are verbatim, but that was a question that was also asked on Monday. And I did that my summary with the family that spoke to so the family that I spoke to agree that I could summarize, or I knew that I was going to summarize the contents in that way, so they Okay, I just, yeah, I guess that's just clarifying for me because when I like read like the language discrimination occurred, either of the police officers, or neither of the police officers spoke on the scene so that's like the family member then stating that and then the police officers response. Okay. Thank you. Okay, for me there's the section says late language discrimination occurred because neither of the officers at on the scene, spoke Spanish and responses that one of the officers communicated with the parent that spoke Spanish the officer did not perceive a language barrier. Did the parent perceive a language barrier. You know, I don't know if the parent. Oh, so I would say, I think the parent who reported that to me. I think they there that parents answer would be yes, but I did not speak with the parent with whom the officer spoke so the parent that spoke with me spoke English. Exactly because I was going to say like, I mean, technically speaking, I mean, two people could speak English, and still have a language right yeah, like if I'm speaking legally with someone who does not necessarily understand. And not to put anyone on the spot but we have a couple folks from the same generation is these folks. I don't want to old man talk this right like I don't want to bring my baggage. You also don't necessarily have to talk. Yeah, you can go ahead. I've already explained, you know to this commission kind of what I've gone through in the past with the cops. So already just starting off with that I've never really held that kind of sweet hand for them, or like held those types of expectations when it comes to it. I don't think I've ever been impressed when it comes to how the police handles a bunch of things. So, when it comes down to this, my application to the Human Rights Commission was speaking about what I wanted to do, the change I wanted to create as a youth. So when I see this it kind of just bars what I try to do in my community what I tried to do, coming to this commission. And I don't want to like, I'm trying to put this in like the most professional manner, but I just honestly am outraged with the action, how long it's been how there's almost kind of just really nothing done. To me, it kind of just breaks my morals to what I stand on why I, I like, I like speak out for the things that I am passionate about and when it comes to this. I just feel ashamed. I'm embarrassed of the town when we say that the police are supposed to protect us. I don't think I hear anyone saying in my school that the police are someone that they can count on. I think it's the complete opposite now. And I don't really blame anybody. And it's just something that I've gotten used to since July but it's also been something I've kind of lived with. To me it's this feeling of, of not being, or being disappointed it's not new, but it also is, is something that I feel like shouldn't come from this town because of our reputation of being so outspoken to help people that aren't represented it kind of just deters our movements as a town. So, I think the only thing that I can say in response to that is that, you know, my, what I am able to do in my role is very limited. Right, it's just doesn't exist. And I think the one thing that I would say that I wish the chief had said on Monday is that progressive discipline has been followed so he did say that the town, or I don't know if he said it but it's in his report. And I think also in mind that all of the post requirements have been met by the town as and post is a new peace officer safety training so it's basically state legislation which requires that all municipalities train their officers in the same way. So if there are, there are three categories where towns and municipalities are required to submit information where there's a serious bodily harm where there's a death, where there are allegations of discrimination to the post commission, and the municipalities have the obligation to submit the information and any individual in the community, you know in the municipality in the town could also submit so anyone could submit information to post. Well, he didn't say it. I do know that that the post commission regulations have been adhered to and that progressive discipline has occurred. Now, as we I think discuss I don't add a prior HRC meeting. You know it's, it is typical and personnel matters that you do not disclose what the actual decision of the matter is so you know employers do not typically publicly announce what they are, you know what decisions they've made around personnel matters. And there are some employers I would say private employers primarily who, who do not follow that rule so certainly in the summer after the death of George Floyd where there were very public incidents where people were engaged in actions of behaviors that other individuals perceived to be racist. Private employers fired their employees so the woman who interacted with the gentleman in Central Park who was trying to do, he was there to, you know, do birding and watch the bird watching individuals who worked at Starbucks who, you know, who asked individuals. I think it was three guys who were meeting there for meeting and to have to have coffee to leave like so private employers will quite often public, you know, sort of dismiss someone or terminate someone and that information would be made public. In state and municipal governments where there are union contracts in other and private employers where there are union contracts, it's just very seldom done. And, you know, it doesn't make it any easier. It's the not knowing that bothers people in the most right if they if they knew they would, there would be some sense that they might feel like something is done, but the not knowing is, is difficult but there's I don't know of a way around that. I mean I can definitely attest to that like in my day job, I would probably lose my day job if I like divulged what progressive discipline, what actions we took to discipline someone so definitely get that like that I guess the only part of the response that we can kind of really speak to is like the bullet points here like the de-escalation instructor course. Yeah, so I know that following this incident, the UMass Amherst was the host of a de-escalation training that was done I think was funded by the Department of Justice and offered to like, you know, municipal police departments throughout western math throughout the state so there were hundreds of people who participated. And I know that the, that the Amherst Police Department then send to officers that officers they sent, they're two tactical officers, the individuals who would be responsible for providing training to the rest of the department on those issues. Is there any sense that like, is this a new thing to the department by learning how to de-escalate? So I don't. I don't think it's a new thing. I think in the police report, he actually chief Livingston states that there are officers who are trained in de-escalation who are part of the department and who teach the training at the Police Academy. And, and I know that he's aware that actually the Post Commission has posted, the Post Commission has posted sorry for the pun, but has posted on their website de-escalation tactics that are specifically the design for you. So I know that they're aware of that, but I don't think that this is a first time occurrence. We did learn on Monday that the officers who were involved are not, you know, senior officers, they haven't been on the force for a long, a long period of time. They're fairly young. I was going to say that was my assessment from the videos that we weren't looking at. One thing that I definitely wanted to speak to is that the very tail end of this of your report, the observations, like, I think this is a great synopsis or summary, but like that last sentence. I just wanted to like lend my appreciation for that, like pointing out that like as a community, we must have the courage. I think it's important to say that to admit a mistake like it absolutely takes courage. I don't know. I don't know that I've necessarily witnessed what I would consider courageousness on the force themselves but pointing out to, you know, the corrective side of this. I think that's really important. And then also like I do also. This is hard for me, but the very last part of that the having the part about having the capacity to forgive and show grace. I think that's probably one of the toughest things to do, especially when you're talking about having to forgive and show grace to folks that are in a position of power and authority, I think. For me, I know that's that's very difficult. So, you know, I, I was actually sort of advised to exclude that but I felt like it was really important to say there are, I mean, you know, I bring my whole self to the job and so the, you know, I was trained as an attorney and I used my way into the EI work and I did that the after I attended a work mission retreat in South Carolina in the 90s so there were a rash of church burnings arsons in the south, and they were suspected to be racially motivated and I don't think they ever have. They ever caught the orsoness or the person was ever convicted for the crimes. The Council of churches in Springfield at that time I was a member of the Christ Church Cathedral which is an Episcopal church in downtown Springfield. The Council of churches in Springfield decided that they would adopt a church and that they would go down to help in the rebuilding and so over a period of like, I don't I'm going to say like a three month period. Teams of 10 to 20 individuals from the Springfield community went down to Barnwell, South Carolina. I'll get emotional talking about this. I consider it my epiphany moment because part of the work was to have conversations about race and reconciliation. The group that went down from Western Mass was very diverse. There were members from the UU church. There was me from the cathedral there were members from Baptist church in Springfield. There was a couple from the synagogue in North Hampton area. There were, there were individuals who would probably. I think I could comfortably say would identify as LGBTQ and who had no religious affiliation whatsoever but they felt like this call to participate. Part of the program was to have questions about race and reconciliation and the week that our team was down there. There was no facilitator. So I volunteered I thought you know I've trained as a lawyer I've done mediation I can I can sort of do this because I felt like the conversations were too important for them. Not to occur. This probably the hardest thing I've ever done. It was certainly the dumbest thing that I'd done because I didn't really have any training and facilitating conversations about race, but I just made a commitment to sort of figure it out and do it. And I made a promise to myself. After that, that I would not shy away from these conversations. I personally enter them with the lens of my faith. So I am really called to have that grace and forgiveness and mercy as part of, as part of the process of who I, you know, of who I bring to the table. And that's not the lens that everyone brings but for me. It's, it's, it's critical. I do not believe I can live in to my faith values, if I'm holding hate or animosity or acting in a way. That's not Christ like that's that's just I bringing my, my whole self to, to the table. It has always been a struggle to have these conversations right there are very hard conversations to have, and they're very emotional conversations to have. And I try to enter the space, thinking that people are going to try to bring their best self so it's not always the case right because some people don't really feel that way. But that's how I, how I enter. I enter the space and I will say one other thing that I think it's important for me to say which is that, you know, my role is to be the DEI director for the entire town. I, it's not appropriate for me to necessarily take sides, I am trying to be fair and neutral and take this middle of the road path to advance the entire community. So. Yeah, thank you for that. Liz or Giuliana, do you have anything to add. I think that be in a position of power in any situation requires a level of trust because you do have that position over people in general. And I just think that the response or lack thereof, following the days after the July 5 incident is kind of disheartening because it's kind of, I mean, of course, you have to retain this awareness that not everyone is going to be the same person as you not have the same views of how you should react in any sort of situation. It's kind of like a slap to the face to see that someone who is having this power of these probably very scared kids is, you know, just not helping the situation is operating up the assumption that they can just say what they want and essentially get away with it and you know, I really appreciated the whole bringing your whole self to the conversation, because nothing should be left out to be made palatable to other people. And I just think that everyone benefits from the different lenses that everyone was. Thank you I think the one last thing that I'll say and this didn't get set on Monday because the conversation got cut short. Ben and I think there still is a plan for those of us in town hall to do what I would say like a case study debrief to figure out what went wrong, how we could do things differently. You know, sort of a lessons learned approach. And that is, that's still a part of the plan and you know some of the things have been discussed and have been noted but there is a real plan to, to, to complete that work in a more concrete sense. That's great to hear. Well, for those of you who have been on our in our meetings since this incident know exactly how I'm feeling about the situation. I never wanted there to be necessarily disciplined. However, training because one of the things that I requested is that this maybe person goes to, you know, with the crest trainings and things like that. I acknowledge that we can't, because of the protection of his Union which I believe know everything that has been said or done. When it comes to these two individuals and the interaction with those students. I would have liked to have or a response to our complaint. And I'm assuming that that has come. I was not privy to I was in the meeting up until 730 because I had a class to go to. And so I did not catch all of what happened and I'm disappointed to find out that members of our community were cut off shut down, put out still when they were reacting in their true selves. But as far as the incident in itself, I take very seriously our young people and protecting our young people. I grew up in a time when there were racial there was serious racial divide. I lived in Cambridge when the incident of busing in Boston came to light and it spilled over into my high school. And I never want to see a witness to racial divide even though it's here, there in everywhere. I'm wondering what the response would have been like you had the majority of those young people been not by Poc. And I just want somebody to realize that I never wanted this person fired or disciplined I wanted this person trained. So I pray that that's something that's ongoing to know that the police department are doing de-escalation trainings is is good. We do them at the school with the staff I was one of the trainers so I know. I had to go to extensive trainings outside in order to train internally. I just am heartbroken that I'm looking at Victor's face on this screen and I'm looking at Juliana and they feel unsafe in their town. And if I can continue to at least be bring to the forefront of these issues so that I don't look at them and see the the distrust in their faces then that's the job that I will continue to do. Thank you, Liz for that. I just want to be respectful of your time Pamela and if anyone has anything else to say, I just want to put out there in this meeting that the police report that came in was addressed to the Human Rights Commission so that is our official address to the report. And I know that Chief Livingstone is not here and you cannot speak for him but I am disheartened that the apology that we receive is just a regret from himself and the department as a whole as opposed to the individual officers involved I think taking this leadership would have been the step that this community is looking for, but that was not given. And then I just do want to uplift your, your report, Pamela and say that the observation part of it. I think speaks volumes to the work that you are doing and I truly do appreciate that. And your statement of some of the youth and the family involved in the July 5 police interaction have expressed feeling harmed. I think that no one is in a position to deny other feelings, and I think that we all need to take that in our steps for moving forward is that the individuals of this incidence are have expressed are expressing that they have felt harm. And no one can take that away from them. And with that, I think that I will leave that comment there. Well, I hope you guys and are able to get through the rest of the meeting and I will see you soon. Can, but can I just say one more thing before you leave Pamela I just know that you reported on our last Saturday's events at Kendrick part. I want everybody in audience members to know Victor wasn't there because of a family emergency he was actually not even in the state, but I wanted to acknowledge Philip and Victor's and Jenny Jenny's Jennifer's pulling that off, especially I want to say something about Victor and acknowledge his leadership there. And even though he wasn't there physically, he was still checking in from out from California at a family emergency. And so Victor I just want to put on the record that we are acknowledging your contributions to that event. So for everybody who's in the audience who didn't know that this is our young people at their finest. We had a great time. And I appreciate your efforts and making that happen. Yes, you should definitely be very proud of yourself because it did was a great event so Thank you I really appreciate it. Thank you. All right, I'm gonna leave. Thank you so much. So that pretty much wraps up section three correct bro. You had a report to it. Well it doesn't wrap up section three I think what we just did was allow Pamela to speak because she needed to leave early so we still have some items on section three that we need to discuss but I think that if we go to public comment and go back to the rest of their agenda here, that could be great but I will speak on the members report. Liz you kind of alluded to what I was going to speak to Monday, the CSS JC joined the town council meeting, and that was a time at that meeting if you have a chance to go visit that. The majority BIPOC group was shut down by a town counselor, one individual that invoked an article in their bylaws that abruptly stopped conversation in the middle of a motion to hopefully move this situation forward as a town. So that was just not okay and everything about it and I think I have talked a lot on this issue so forgive me if I'm being very vague on this issue I have, I think, spoken my tongue off on it but that's what I have so I will leave with that. So, unless there are any objections I'm seeing we have a lot of folks here to talk. We can go on to public comment and then wrap up anything that we haven't discussed after that does everybody in favor of that. I'm kind of chomping at the bitches here from the public so first I saw Vera, their cage I'm sorry. Forgot should be formal about this here. I see very cage and then I. Now I do not see very cage. Yes, I do see very cage again but. So we'll go in order of their cage, Dr D Shabazz, and then pat on the back. And then other doctor Shabazz, Dr Al-Mukar Shabazz. Trying to stall here as I figure out how to allow someone to talk. Well, so I just tried to move Vera in and it's not letting me move her in as a panelist so. Did she come in because we just lost her if she didn't. Yeah, okay. You know, let me read the board before. So, during the public comment period. One of the co chairs will recognize members of the public when called on please identify yourself by stating your full name, preferred pronouns and residential address. The participants are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the co chairs based upon the number of people who wish to speak. No speaker can see their time to another speaker. The HRC will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment. And so with that said, I will acknowledge their cage. Welcome. Hi, can everyone hear me. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. I just want to quickly also give feedback about Mr. Earl Miller's presentation to the CSS JC when he presented. He is looking to replace at that point a put a departure so one person did leave their press position. And so, if at that point he was looking to, to recruit so fyi. And one of the questions from the CSS JC folks. I'm sorry Phillip is if I'm overstepping your report. But I thought it would be good to make sure that we know why people are leaving. So that way, we can predict or make the accommodations. But that the that that crests is is not handling noise complaints as people widely are are have believing. And also that it's not a 24 seven service to the community. But I, I think, you know, there needs to be a serious focus on an organizing model and I think that is something that they are doing, but I'd love for it to be very intentional. I also heard that the school committee. Ben Harrington today from someone who mentioned there may be some participatory action research happening on the ground with with the school community and I would love to see a spillover to involve the whole family and community members residents as well I think that would be fantastic. I would love to figure out what what incentives stipends or whatever to get people to come together and to problem solve our community of the problems that we're facing in our community. The officers that were involved in the Emerson nine incident. They were not rookie officers they were people who let's see. The officers graduated from Western Mass Regional Police Academy in April 2019. You know this person had a bachelor's degree in criminal justice with a minor in political science and history. He served as an officer in Ludlow before joining the police department. So he was an officer in 2017 for Ludlow. The other person Carol has been a member of the emers police department since 2017 after graduating from the Reading Regional Police Academy. She graduated from UMass with a bachelor's degree in biology with a minor in sociology and a criminal justice certificate. She completed her master's degree in public administration with a concentration in criminal justice at Westfield State University in December. I want to state that the also Scott Livingstone comments at the last town council meeting was a little bit alarming because essentially the end of the day he said he would do it again. He would detain the young people again, and he would make sure that they could not move freely until they determine who and how they were going to move about right. So if it doesn't, you know, and then there was an article by Scott Mertz back in the Gazette, and it talks about what happens in this particular video but there was a whole hour of interaction it doesn't take that long to figure out that these young people were not doing harm to anybody, and that they should have been supported to freely, you know, disperse or they the police should have just left them alone to problem solve for themselves because I think they would have handled it. Okay, but it's this, this, this sentiment from Chief Livingstone himself that is doesn't see the problem of, of offering to have to take up to take these young people to just get a slice of pizza and talk it over. That is just you, this, it just tells me that this chief doesn't get it. Okay, and it also reminds me of the institution of policing and the history of policing. How yeah okay so you found young people okay we're going to take you into custody, and we're going to bring you back to where you belong, because you do not belong, you do not have the ability or the freedoms move freely at night and legally we will determine even though there's no curfew, even though, you know, so, and then the police report, it mentions a parent's name but it doesn't, you know I'm glad Pamela. No one was able to speak to the fact that Mr Stewart disputed what the police, you know alleged occurred, and that wasn't clear in the police report that she, you know, wrote. And I also want to also say that the di position. There's a lot that we don't hear from what Pamela is not reporting, and I wanted to tell her, you know I hope she was on now. You know I got feedback from one of, you know, people of color of black people or, you know, they're so few in town that to say, you know somebody was an employee had an issue and then you know Pamela help them would essentially just close their identity but so I just really appreciate her role behind the scenes of what she's not reporting to us about people really expressing to her to her what is really going on and her being able to be responsive in the way that this particular person, you know needed. I wanted to tell her that, but sometimes you know we all know what these white institutions will do to people and yes her role is very limited and it was it's intentional it's explicit that she can't participate or that she they refuse to allow her to be in the collective bargaining table when the police union is negotiating the contract their contract their terms of their employment with the town, and I will push back on the police officers are a special category of people. They're not just regular employees like you and I. You hear oh suspended without pay. You know, the Texas police officer, you know that that shot at the young man that was just eating a burger at the McDonald's parking lot right you we all know what the discipline one was for that so let's we can go on and on. So, we need to allow make sure that we have a higher standard for our police force than what the state is is requiring as their minimum. And there's been articles out the Amherst bulletin talks about the Gazette seeking public records request about complaints against officers and all they get are a lot of redacted documents. There's not a lot of transparency coming from our police department. And there's not in the internal investigation we see the report, the police are not are incompetent they're not able to police or or to adequately provide the thorough investigation that we need and I will push back the report lacks it's not balanced I don't think the DI position should be that it serves the entire town or even the Crest program we need to have more granular information and data like okay so Crest engage with 40,000 people in six months or three months. What are the deeper engagements, you know that that's happening and we heard a tiny bit of that from from Earl you know sometimes their engagements are four hours or six hours. But let's do like deeper engagements that are very focused intentional that yield results from our residents and community members that really uplift people who are, you know, the least, you know served by this town, and most harmed by this town. By their practices. And, and so thank you. I probably ran over my minutes. I appreciate the young people involved in this committee. You know, I am a almost a 50 year old woman, a mom, and I grew up, you know, as an immigrant right as a refugee immigrant. I will always be there for people that can't speak up for themselves or to not feel safe. And there are so many people in our community that suffer and that have been harmed adults and young people. I do not have the ability the tools or the safety to be able to freely speak against the police or other powers to be. So I appreciate all the time that you're giving in to this, the Amherst nine thank you. And thank you very much. Yes, thank you Vera. Dr. D. Shabazz. I'm just trying to move everybody around. Just give me one second please. Thank you so much. I just want to say, thank you to the HRC for filing the complaint. I really believe if not for your work. The community would not have gotten some of the responses that were submitted of course by DEI and by the police report this this Monday. It wouldn't happen. So, thank you. Thank you for being brave enough to do that. And first off, as a co chair of the CSS JC Allegra is the other co chair. We are demanding a full report of the incident. A report that includes the statements from the youth and the families and if you watch the town council meeting, even though it's abbreviated and we were shut down. There were quite a few questions from our committee regarding holes in that report. So I, I asked that, you know, you all, if you have time to look at that I think it would be really helpful. We're also asking for an apology. You know, it's not enough that the, again, they're disciplined, and we, we don't know fully what that means as very cage indicated we need more details regarding that. So an apology to the youth and their families. These young people were not charged with anything, but they were detained unnecessarily, and according to the DEI report and the police report erroneously. And then lastly, we need a commitment from the town council towards a compensation fund. We feel that this will go towards not only helping these young people and their families in terms of healing and feeling whole. This will hopefully deter other police in the department from, you know, behaving inappropriately. Lastly, this this I feel is a real opportunity to ask for accountability in our town on behalf of our youth to restore trust from those that are meant to protect us and to figure out a process in our town to help heal these young people and their families and to attempt to make them whole. After all, as Victor and Juliana shared it's, it's our responsibility as adults to hold and protect you as young people. We have several community members interested in coming together to figure out a process and how to resolve this incident because it's not over. I think that this committee would be interested in working with the CSS JC and others to bring this town. I feel into the 21st century, where our BIPOC youth can grow and learn in a positive environment that respects who they are, and hopefully will want to come together to live and raise their children. So again, thank you HRC, and I hope to support your work and I hope that we can work together with the CSS JC. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next would be Pat Anabaku. That was the order right. I'm going off the cuff here. I'm trying to promote her to panelists, not to move her as panelists. Oh, maybe here she comes. Can people hear me now? Absolutely. I'm so sorry. Okay, good evening. First, I want to thank you all for an excellent event on Saturday. I had a lot of fun, you know, music, food. Thank you for your hard work. So I just wanted to appreciate you all for that. Another thing I want to say is that in addition to what Vera said, I agree with everything she said and Dr. Shabazz, is that I think at this stage with that incident, nobody should be surprised. This happens all the time, except for this time, a kid was smart enough to be the tape it. I think our next step is to think about protest. I think, you know, we have the momentum. I would like to see HRC, CSSJC, the African Heritage Group, MS Sunrise, and other group, PCA, for us to organize a protest. I'm going to give you a little bit of a blur as, you know, one of the weekend, something for you guys to think about. And as for reconciliation or healing, honestly, history is repeating itself. I don't see us healing in this town, as long as we have our current police chief. What we need to do is just go back time in history and see his record. This guy really doesn't care. Has no compassion for what happened to our youth. He said it clearly that, you know, he's not stepping down, he's not going anywhere. He raised the similar alarm several years ago about the superintendent in our schools. And what happened when she left, she left with hefty money. That's the last money before she left. And we have police chief that is dividing our community. I don't even know how we're going to move forward. The suggestion would be for CSSJC, Human Rights Commission, and the Reparation Group to write a comprehensive report of July 5th to counter what Chief Livingstone put out on Monday. Because we need to get the voices of the kids. It's missing in the report. So it's something we need to think about. This is history and we need to get it right. Since they have refused to do the right thing. I don't have any faith that we will ever heal in this town unless with this mantle, white supremacy structures in our town. And I am so excited about HRC because you all are so courageous and speak through to the power, and you don't get the recognition, keep up the good work. I'm here to support you guys. I'm more like a behind the scene type of woman. And I like action. People who know me know that I don't like too much talk like meeting talk talk talk that doesn't work for me. I like action. I appreciate all of you. Our young people when I listen to vector and Juliana. Oh my goodness, our future generation. Thank you for volunteering in HRC. And the struggle continues. But we have a lot of work to do. And we should all, you know, work together to make some progress. Thank you. Thank you, miss Pat. Next, Dr. Amokar Shabazz. Okay, thank you very much. I am a member of the town public body, the African heritage reparations assembly, but I wish to make it clear that I do not speak on behalf of that, of that group. And, and I'm speaking now in my position as a private resident of Amherst. But with with concern about the reparative justice process that AHRA is involved in. And I wish to say two, two things quickly. One of the basic principle and modality of reparative justice as we on the AHRA are beginning to understand it and and trying to fashion a plan that that implements it is acknowledgement telling is an essential part of any process of repair of making amends of atoning, let alone of healing. But so we do encourage all efforts being called upon whether by this body or CSS JC to move to kind of address this incident of July 5. With a mindset of, of, of truth telling a full truth telling, and of acknowledgement of apology. You know, the, I particularly am bothered by the way in which the, the contracts entered into between so called collective bargaining units with the town of Amherst as an employer becomes what is referenced as the obstacle to truth telling the obstacle to acknowledging and, and perhaps even of apologizing. I don't know that that's entirely the reason that people are saying more I think I'm hearing it from the DEI director but and I think I've heard some aspect of that coming from town manager I think one night when the town council meeting. was dissolved into something really fatuous. The President Lynn Grice more of that body was starting to offer that that rationale that you know the reason we can't do more around this is because of collective bargaining agreements. It's between the, the unit representing these police officers and, and the town. And personally, I don't think you get me where I'm not sure about this whole idea of well the DEI director ought to be a part of that collective bargaining team when the next contract I'm not sure about any of that that I think we're not at times people are saying I don't know what the cuff without understanding what the process is or what the real problem is. I think the real problem here is that, whether you've got to amend the charter, or whatever you have to do that limits the ability of the contracts or the collective agreements from being used as a means to limit the kind of transparency the kind of truth telling around incidents that threaten our vulnerable population are young people are black and brown people. You know, all, and so on, that if that really if we're really trying to instruct your racism, then to, you know, we've got to figure out we're smart people here. We've got to figure out, what do you need to revise in the bio as a bylaw as a charter amendment as a whatever to limit the ability of any kind of collective bargaining process to keep us from knowing the truth. In the incident involving the police occurs that negatively impacts members of the public, especially of the most vulnerable parts of our public of our of our community. We're trying if we're serious about human rights. If we're serious about, you know, dismantling structural racism or anything else. If we're serious about community safety and human rights, that I think we've got to look bigger. We've got to look harder, and we've got to propose whatever and and you know demonstrations fine demonstrations come demonstrations go. What are you demonstrating for is more importantly that the question and to me and apology is just one part of a process. We need to find out what is the impediment to the apology this happened July 5, and we haven't been able to have satisfactory truth telling satisfactory acknowledgement that something wrong occurred, and we haven't had satisfactory disclosure of how this won't happen again. Okay, so for me, I'm I implore this body. You've I salute what you've done. I salute that you raise the call for an investigation of abuse of authority, or however the exact language was that you put forward. Thank you for that. And, you know, I think that the fact that we're still in a place, October now, where mid October from something that happened July 5, and we still don't feel a sense of satisfaction around these matters points that we need more than a demonstration. More than an apology we need more than, you know, a pizza. Okay, we need to figure out what is the real impediment to the justice we're seeking to justice, and then what are the structural ways we need to reform amours to accomplish that safety to accomplish that system of safety that we're looking for. And he said we've got bright minds here. Why can't we do this why aren't we calling out that final thing I want to say is, with respect to this idea of some type of fun. In terms of some type of compensatory framework that when a wrong has occurred of our sworn officers of people and authority to protect us and something goes amiss that there might be a fun. You know, those young people have we've been saying detained for an hour of their life in a very precarious situation as it's always precarious with a sworn officer with a gun, and with the power to kill. It's always precarious that a detention for an hour like that. What is that worth. We have to be able to ask that. Okay, we can't just be out to say hollering for a fund the victim's compensation fund, and we're not able to ask how do we value value. What a harm is this isn't rocket science it's done every day. And so if we're talking about this hour of detention under a very precarious circumstance that we judge as having been wrong or or at least in part initiated on a wrongful basis that you know someone could come out of their mouth and say you have no rights. Okay, that under those that are our intention under that kind of precarious context, what is it worth. And then let's monetize it and then from, at least my standpoint, I will certainly bring up would be happy to bring up within a hra how to discuss a process by which out of these funds. The only concern is is that this particular fund is set up around people of African descent. Okay, and I know there were members of the Amherst nine who do not identify on some part or some level as a person of African descent. So in that case, I don't know by our own guidelines by our own charge and mission, whether the fund that we are generating and the fund that we could recommend expenditure from would would be possible for those who do not in whole or in part identify as African American as a person of African descent. So that's the one thing I sense, we'd have to have some debate some discussion on with respect to the process that we're in but other than that, I'd be happy to to explore the the broad idea of of a compensatory of how under the injury area of criminal punishment, how when incidences occur that continue the process or or are part of this very process of harm that we're trying to end that there is a compensatory. The responsibility of recommending compensatory payments from the funds that that that we within the AHRA are a part of a planning for. So those are my comments take them for what you will, and I appreciate all you're doing. Peace. Thank you very much. You guys want to point out. I read the little disclaimer. So I'll apologize to anyone who sarcastically to anyone who took umbrage with the fact that we did not limit comments to three minutes I think there are certain subjects that are important enough not to be relegated to time limits. And so, before we on public comment. Does anybody else have anything else to say in the public. I'm going to raise your hand and we'll acknowledge it. So, who are we at for we move into upcoming events yet or is there were still some things. Do you want to do HR member reports now. Yeah. Yep. Our HRC. Liz. Yeah, housing. See member reports is just someone has something to report on Liz is under a is under the action and discussion items. For the housing authority or housing. Affordable housing trust. Yeah. Did we have any member reports anyone have anything they wanted to talk about. So we can move on to. We can finish up the section three action and discussion items then. So we already did the treaty. I just want to, we did a and B and so I'll go on to see and I think it has been spoken about the event I think that it was a very good event very well attended event performers were very performative it is late in the night. If that's the only word that I could come up with for performers they were very great performers. And I think that it was a great first event and I look forward to next year, putting it together again and having that happen. If anybody else that was there at the event wants to speak to that already did so thank you. I just want to say that many members of our community reached out to me, saying that they felt that they were finally being acknowledged as a community that they got this whole celebration dedicated to them. It's more than just, you know, it's Latin X heritage month and this is what it means I can actual celebration and actual opportunity for people to come together, and, you know, talk about themselves talk about where they came from but also be able to, you know, either be a new community wherever they came from or be a feel included in a place where they didn't feel before. And even though I'm completely sad and I wasn't able to attend it meant so much more hearing from the people that actually went for the people that we made this for to feel like it was worth it and that they hope that this is an ongoing event but we also open it up to more communities and more people that haven't been represented or haven't been acknowledged like this in the future. Thank you for bringing that up Victor. That's very great to hear and glad that people reached out to you about that. It's very exciting. If anyone has anything else for action item in discussion see we can move on to D, which is updates area updates I believe the update is already done presses done. The update was done as well. Ah, TF, the housing authority. I cannot remember that acronym sorry. Amherst housing trust fund. Amherst affordable housing trust fund too many acronyms here in the town. So, again, I wasn't able to go to the meeting but I did was a listening ear, when the town council was talking about affordable housing and, you know, what constitutes and people that are not immediate family being, you know the the number of people that can be unrelated in a single dwelling and all of this and I just, it's just distilled disheartening that we do not have enough affordable housing for those who were born here raised here still work here that they can not afford to live here in their own community and that we continue to engage in discussion around those who come in for a little while, do not have an investment in the town, and then leave after they graduate and don't come and give back. So, I'm going to continue to be a listening ear and talk about it whenever I can, I will be attending our district to meeting which is next Wednesday. I'm going to be talking about what I admire, and I will be harping on it again. And I'm not sure if this is a place to say this, that I have recently joined with Ben school equity. I don't know what I acronym spent I used to say task force, but it's not task force anymore. And we are also having a retreat. To talk about some of our next steps in supporting everyone in the schools with an eye on some of us actually spending time within the buildings to talk to the kids and staff and find out what their pulses are like and try to move from there and making sure everybody is being looked after if that's a good phrase to say. Perfect. The end of the acronym is school equity advisory committee now. I still call it. We. Okay, so that wraps up the reality membership forum. Yep. I think Pamela kind of alluded to that with us meeting potential new members so we've met potential new members. One day and Paul Bacchiman the town manager is moving those names to the town council to vote on so we are hoping by our next meeting. We may have to more members which would be great. And yeah, that'd be awesome. So I think that's all we have on that unless anybody has anything to say on that. Just for Juliana and Victor. Please be mindful of some of the underclassmen in our school. The two of you are seniors and we're not sure what your plans are for next year. So if you're not going to be around and you're going to have to take a step off of the committee we're hoping that you can help us recognize some young people that can. I don't want to say take your place because nobody can take your place, but fill in the void that you two will leave. So, and let us know, especially me because I can, you know, come in, help you talk to people. I don't know who meeting or sports teams or whatever it is that Latinos you need those whatever other things that you're dealing with women's rights, whoever it is so that we can try to find a young young people to fill the void when you further your, your minds where we're. Yeah, me and Victor have talked to a couple people. We've mentioned it to Poku people of color united the club that we're both part of. And honestly, there's kind of been some interest but we'll keep it up. Thank you. I know y'all got it. I know you've got it. Thank you for bringing that up Liz before we move on to upcoming events I just like to make a motion. And it's in regard to kind of what we heard from the public and as well as email that I have received. I like the HRC to motion and I'm looking for a second on it to have our two co chairs me being one of them and been parent and being the other to reach out to the CSS JC and the HR a to find a time to meet and potentially either come up with the truth telling report as a member from the audience has said but to have us meet. Even though a motion on the town council was denied to invite for a meeting so I'm looking for a second on that second. All right, then I will call on for a vote so I will just go on the order of my screen. Juliana. Yeah. Victor. Yes. Ben. Yes, sir. Absolutely. Liz. Yes. And I am a yes as well. So, then let's send out that email as soon as possible and I'll reach out to you for that. So just for future references, once someone seconds you need to open up for discussion, even if there's no discussion. Fair enough, thank you. Right. So upcoming events, upcoming heritage and cultural celebrations. Are we are we hoisting that on Jennifer as usual. So, at first I want to talk about the upcoming proclamations so human rights day is December 10, which is usually a very small but very nice celebration where we read the human rights declaration. That proclamation needs to be updated and so I didn't know if folks on this committee, know of anybody who would like to be involved in recreating or revising the current proclamation which I sent in an attachment it should be in your packet. So, for human rights day, if not, it will move forward to it has to go to GOL first so we do need to kind of get it done quickly because it has to go to GOL and looking at the town council schedule. And I don't have anything listed on there after October so my guess is they probably have one to two meetings in November and one to two in December, but the human rights days December 10. So, you know, it might just be easier if we just, you know, if you guys were look at it and if you have quick revisions to hand it back over the GOL governance organization and legislation will ask for representative from the Human Rights Commission to attend the meeting and as a sponsor. Or I can just say that the entire HRC is sponsoring the proclamation as is. But it's always good if somebody can attend one of their meetings. Do we know that date for that meeting John? Or no, I don't now I don't now but once I send like, if, if you guys can get any revisions to me by the end of next Friday, which would be the 28th, then I can forward it on to GOL and then they'll take it from there. And just because we have holiday crunch times and several celebrations at once if we can work on the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King proclamation, the Black History Month proclamation and the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival proclamation. So it's those three proclamations. If you guys know folks in the community who would like to work on those I know last year we had students from the middle school attend the and help celebrate the spring festival as along with one of the pastors from the Chinese ministries at First Baptist. So they had a lot of input and were involved in the celebration itself that we had and hopefully this year we can do all of these live in person and not via zoom. Sounds great, I think. That's all. So as Jen said, if we can get the visions in for the human race day proclamation next Friday, the 28th. And then, depending on the date of that meeting, I will let you know if I can attend or not Jen but I just need to know that. And then, yeah, we can all start looking at the upcoming proclamations as well. Great. Two time sensitive on them. And then having reaching out to community members would be, you know, who want who would want to be involved. So for a API heritage month I had some of the folks from UMass come and speak so on the side of the proclamations for November we've got national Native American American Indian Alaska Native Heritage Month. I thought that GOL was trying to work on a proclamation and I don't know where they are with that or any events. It's, I think it might be a little bit hard for us to pull that together at this point, but it's definitely something that we need to look more into for the following year. November 2 is equal payday November 9 World Freedom Day, November 13 World Kindness Day, November 16 International Day of Tolerance. The 17th is International Students Day and the 20th is Transgender Day of Remembrance. So as usual, it would be great if we could have some Facebook posts to put out we did get a lot of responses from what we did put out the last few times so if each of you guys would like to, you know, choose one of them and write it, you know, one or two sentences and if you can include a photo that would be great if not I can find one that would be good. And then we also have them for December. We have World's AIDS Day, I think that would be a great one. International Day for the abolition of slavery International Day for people with disabilities that's another good one. You know the Human Rights Commission works really hard on all ableisms but we don't really discuss disability too much here and so I think that's something that we should definitely highlight a little bit more. Of course we have Universal Human Rights Day, International Human Solidarity Day, and then December 26 through January 1 is Kwanzaa, which is something that we've been doing too. So, I believe that both the doctors Shabazzes are here. I don't really ever know. Mr. and Mrs. Dr. Shabazz are here. And so, and, you know, what the Human Rights Commission would like to do, maybe collaborate for Kwanzaa or indoor with other community members we've had some great ones celebrations thus far. And I think this will be our third year of celebrating Kwanzaa. Are we planning to do this via zoom again. No more. I wouldn't, I, I, unless we, you know, our numbers go up really high I would hope that we can do all of our events in person. Yeah, I was not jazzed about how that kicked off last year at all. So we could prevent that. I don't necessarily remember that it. Okay. What happened. We got bombed. Oh, that's right. Yeah, we did. Yeah. No, and that, that tends, yeah, so, but we've better ways to prevent that if we do have to go via zoom. So that's where we are at. Does anybody else have any other heritage months or celebrations that weren't included just between now and December. I don't, I don't see any, but we're missing, but yeah, I think we're good. Yeah, let's, let's try and rather than email it out if everybody could possibly choose something for the month of November that'd be great so that way, we kind of know whose bonus is on that date. So we have equal payday, which is November 2. I want to take that on. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I'm remembering right but I think a while ago I wrote something for the International Day of Tolerance. But I can also take something on as well like any one of these. Liz, where are you going to say something. I was just going to say that I would take that one on. All right, equal payday. November 2. November 2. That's correct. I have to get it to Jen by the week before. I don't need to edit anything. That's what I keep in my brain anyway. No, that's not fair. World freedom day. Can I do that one. Yep. That is November 9. World kindness day. I can do that one. Awesome. And it sounds like Juliana you already did the November 16th International Day of Tolerance. I'm going to go to November 17th International Student Day. Might be a good one for you, Ben. Yeah, I was going to say that's like a, actually the last two are like easy for me if, if anyone has no objections, I can do this. Hey, if I don't have to take one on, I will not object. You can take them on if you would like to. I was just thinking I would lean on you for assistance. Yeah, that's fine. So, um, not only that, but we still have December. So Phil, we can like Phillip, we can just give you three or four. Just give me all of them there. Fair enough, I guess. We're in here. He said, oh, you know what? No, I will. Well, I guess I've got to get that into you soon. So I don't want to commit, but for a national native American. Do we want to post about that? I think that we can at minimum post something on Facebook as an acknowledgement. Absolutely. Oh, collab with you on the wire, send you over something done. And we're not limited to a sentence or two, right? Like it could be like a paragraph or two. So, you know, two, two, three sentences minimum. Right. Oh, perfect. Anything else after that is fantastic. Great. All right. And also just everybody, if you could take a look at the proclamation, I believe Jen, you attached that right on for the. Human rights. So there should be links to all of the proclamations that are. That they're actually PDFs, but they're links to the ones that have were approved by the council last year. Sounds good. So yeah, everybody can take a look at that before the 28. Okay. Got the events going. I don't know what I just pulled up on my computer. Sorry, forgive me, Ben, can you see where we are on the agenda? Yep, we're at the next meeting. The fun part. That's whatever the third one of these, right? Let me see. Oh, but the third Wednesday in November, since that. The day. Oh, no. It's the 16th. No, yeah, it is. Everybody good for the 16th at 630. I'm good on my own. That would be yes for me. I believe I can make it work. Juliana, you are trying to say, or you're saying, hold on, got it. You're looking up. That works for me. I think that works for me too. Sounds good. Perfect. And then other topics, not. We wanted it. Yep. Other topics that the chair did not. Reasonably anticipate 40 hours in advance of the meeting. Once. And then we can. Make someone can make a motion to adjourn if they would like to, or we could just. Stay on. The rest of the evening. Actually, I had a comment. I completely forgot I wrote it down. I don't know if. We remember a, I don't, I think it was the, the last meeting right before I retreat. A public comment was made about. One of the Amherst residents. That was a part of a hate crime. And I, I don't remember if we said we were going to do something, or if we're going to like reach out. I was just kind of bringing it up because I know. I know. Um, A many people that are. Family with the victim. Um, his name is Franklin Rosa. He, they, they reached out to me. And they said either if we could just, if there's anything that we could do, if we could, they're in a very sensitive position and they haven't really. Reached much in their whole investigation of the hate crime. So I feel like if we could do something that'd be great. family has had a great impact on Amherst for a long time. Yeah, I'd reached out to the new Haven. They're human rights commission. I got the I got I think I got a canned responses what I got. And then no follow up. So I mean, I don't know if like just a statement would be enough or if anyone has any thoughts. Yep. So I wasn't at the last meeting. Can you fill me in a little bit? So I don't know the exact date, but I'm Franklin and his girlfriend were out late night in New Haven. I think it was on Yale campus. Basically what happened was they were in an interaction between a group of college students. I don't really know if they attended Yale or their affiliation, but they were there. They interacted on the sidewalk. And what occurred was that these group of white males, they were the age of college students. Not sure if they went to Yale, but what happened was there was an exchange of words and he was called slurs. And then it led up to him being beat. And unfortunately, he was left on the sidewalk. And when police were called, they didn't really do much. So they asked for witnesses to help them out. And then he got transferred to the hospital. He had to get jaw surgery, as well as other operations done on his mouth. And so far, the investigation hasn't reached to a point where they feel like they have gotten the justice. I don't know much. I'm still trying to learn more. My family is very close with them. So I just feel like I wanted to do something, whether that is help in some way, help acknowledge maybe, I don't know, I don't know, like, you know, like, what we can do as a whole commission, but I just want to like, at least acknowledge because I know that a bunch of us love Buenos Aires and I know that their family has collaborated with so many locations of Buenos Aires. And even though that's not why I want to help them in particular, I feel like when it comes to, you know, hate crimes, where the commission that people go to, and I just don't want them as an immigrant family to feel like that is not something that they don't have the right to. And the last thing I want to do is put them in a place where just because it was outside of our town that they can feel ignored. So I just, I, you know, I just want to open up to you guys see what we can do. Yeah, thank you so much, Victor, for bringing that up. And I will say on my behalf, I am sorry that that did slip my mind and that we did not come up with anything on the agenda for tonight, but this definitely does deserve the attention that you are speaking to. And I do hear Ben as to putting out a statement about it. I do hear that also that I don't know if that is enough that we can do. So maybe if we could collectively think on this, that'd be great. Well, maybe, and I mean, I think it would be worthy of sending it to the campus as well. And the campus has either an abuzzments person or a human rights commission or something similar, possibly, I mean, I'm just trying to think. Yeah, I was going to say we could send, I don't know, I don't know which would have more teeth, like, if we petitioned the Human Rights Commission in New Haven, or if we just sent them like, I don't want to say demanding action, but at least ask them to do something because they have a more, I don't want to say active Human Rights Commission down there, their Human Rights Commission has lawyers. You know what I mean? So I'm not sure if I got blown off or if they were in the process of doing something, but I feel like it's been roughly a month or next week, it'll be a month and I haven't heard anything back. So we can also, I can also talk to Pamela about it tomorrow, to see what she thinks might be some of the best actions to take. And then, so is there stuff that the family needs at this time? I mean, this is a lot, right? And so I know it's it's hard to be like, Oh, how can we help? It's hard to articulate what that help might look like. And it's also hard, you know, when people are helping you in ways that you don't really need at that time. So yeah, what are your thoughts, Victor? So to my current knowledge, I know that they have a GoFundMe posted and they already exceeded their amount. So I I know, personally, from their family, they they're very appreciative of everything. And right now what they just want is Advocation, because they're not they don't like Ben is getting the feedback from the Human Rights Commission over there. The police is very negligent with them when it comes to the process and informing them of what they can actually do. And I also want to inform myself, but also all of us of the current state of how we can prioritize how we can elevate, you know, the the the status of the investigation. And I feel like, you know, already us talking about it is more enough. They just wanted me to bring it up and see if we could do anything. And if we can, I feel like that on the tone is more than they've asked for. But I can then I get you guys in. I wonder if the Human Rights a letter from the Human Rights Commission to the family itself, a letter of support to them. Well, that's what I was going to say, and then maybe a letter to the editor. Yeah. We could, you know, we could also do something on a mass press release for it too. I mean, because we're thinking now like there's the indie, there's the reminder there's all these smaller papers that people are definitely reading that as a new ways to let people know, you know, outside of the Gazette. Yeah, I think that that would definitely bring attention. And we can also post the letter on our website page also of support, just like we did with them. The July 5th incident and the war on Ukraine and just have people aware of situations happening. Anybody want to take on this letter of support? I could definitely help out, especially because I know that most of them do only speak Spanish and the articles that have been written are only in English. So it's very hard for them to kind of, you know, get that language barrier. So at least if we are reaching out, we can reach, you know, we can write it both in English and maybe I or someone else could also, you know, translate it. So it's more direct to them and acknowledging them. And that's great. There, I'm trying to think of it. There was a Spanish newspaper. Like I would see copies of it at the Bing Center. Right. And so I'm, I'll have to see if I can go. I thought it was the soul. I'll soul, but I'm looking and I don't, oh, yep, it is also Latino. So that might be a good place to send a letter of support to as well. Yeah, that'd be, that'd be great. Does anybody want to partner up with Victor to help write draft? When are, when are we looking to get this draft or something out as soon as possible? Yeah. I think that'd be best. I can help, I can help at it. Thank you. Yes, thank you both. I, the only reason why I hesitated was just because my week is a little bit jam packed here at the ending of it. But if you need any advice or guidance, I can make myself available. And I believe Victor, you have my cell phone. And if you don't just send me an email and I'll give it to you. And in the meantime, I will try to come up with a list of different places where we can post. I wasn't aware of that. So I'm, it is a little bit concerning that there's probably a lot of folks who aren't aware of it. And so we definitely need to share that as well. And that might be something to bring up to the CSSJC and the, well, not the HR, but the CSSJC as well. Yeah, I'll make sure to do so. Our next meeting here, I believe. Although I see the co-chair, Laidra Clark is here. So maybe she will relay that. Awesome. I will relay it in an email in the leg. You can hear it right now. And thank you, Victor, for remembering that. Yes. Thank you so much, Victor. Does anybody else have anything that they want to bring up before we adjourn here? I just, Victor and Juliana, Juliana, when you complete it, you can forward it to, well, forward it to me. And then I can get, we can get it out. Look at the HRC going to 835. Check the guys out. Man, you were my dependable an hour and a half. And that's it. All right. All right. Well, then I will motion to adjourn. Second. Awesome. And we don't need a vote on that. Right? Okay. I just need a time. Meeting adjourned at 835. Have a great week, everybody. Thank you, everybody. Great month. I was going to say, two of you I'll see next week. Yes. So I know that we adjourned, but real quick, I also forgot. Liz, is the Martin Luther King Breakfast Committee having a breakfast this year? That's a great question. One that I don't have the answer to, and I will find out. And if so, do the members want to attend because we can get you tickets through the HRS HRC members and I'll bring it up to CSSJC and everybody else. Yeah. Definitely. Oh, I might not even be around. No, I won't be here that day. If it's the 14th, I won't be around. Rats. OK, guys, my note, have a good night. Have a good night, everybody.