 Great. We'll do. I'm calling the meeting to order. Welcome everyone to our April meeting, which is somewhere in cyberspace. Let us start with introductions that will also help us know who's actually here. Go ahead. I'll start. I'm Tom Nassred and Longo, chair. Judge Greerson. From the judiciary. Oh, Gary Scott, the State Police. Monica Weaver, Department of Corrections. Great. I can't hear. I can't hear Jessica. She was muted or something. I'm, I'm chief Don Stevens. I did mute myself. Sorry about that. Jessica Brown shouldn't be County Public Defender Office. Rebecca Turner, Defender General. David, are you here? That would be no. Sheila Linton, Community at Large Root Social Justice Center. She, her pronouns. Okay, we're going to just get going. I'm sorry, this will be rocky because it just is, but there it is. I'm sorry. Hi, this is Susana Davis. I'm also on the line. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Donna Davis, Racial Equity Director, State of Vermont. Thank you. Is there anyone else on the line who has not introduced themselves? Ken Shatz from Department for Children and Families. Great. Thank you, Ken. Anyone else? No, okay. I have been told David Sher will be here shortly. And after him, Pepper. So that's all I know in terms of people who are currently on the line. Anybody else have any announcements to make? Okay. I wanted to start by telling... This is David Sher. Can you hear me? Hi, David. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Great. David Sher is on the lines. I'm sorry for technological difficulties. One note I wanted to say real quick before you go on. If there are folks who are trying to get on the video, I'm probably one to talk, given the fact that I haven't been able to make myself heard for the last 10 minutes. If you want to get on the video, you can press the little video icon at the bottom left of your screen, of your app screen, and it'll allow you to join if you want to do so. There you are. Oh, well, didn't get that lovely. I wanted to start by telling people about testimony that I gave two weeks ago tonight to... Hold on. I'm trying to call it up at the same time here, yes. With the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions. They were curious about two things. First, our report from December of last year, and secondly, our reaction to S-338, the so-called Justice Reinvestment Bill, and you'll recall that we... That was pretty much the focus of our last meeting. I gave them a shortened version of the exact same presentation that I gave to the Joint Judicial Oversight Committee on 3 December. Luckily, I'd never throw anything out, and I had copious notes so I could put something together for them. And I recall that you all empowered Rebecca Turner and I to write a letter to various parts of the legislature on S-338 when it became clear that they wanted some direction from us regarding the matter of data collection. We were going to collect comments from you all based upon our report that we could include in a kind and pleasant letter that would direct their attention towards our work. There weren't many comments from the body, but the world had at that moment lost its collective mind. I think that I only heard from David and Jessica. I don't know. If there were others, I'm sorry. I don't remember at this moment. It's been, as you all know, fairly chaotic. Anyway, the pandemic hit. The legislature wasn't dealing with anything that didn't have to do with state operations and the coronavirus. And that clearly changed relatively recently. The legislature is currently quite clear about wanting to move S-338 forward this session. So then I won't go into the whole drama about how I actually ended up testifying that I did. And in an odd way, the testimony function is like the letter. Although what we have to say might need to go in more directions than merely the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions. They asked a lot about how we thought about a body that organized data collection. You'll remember that was a hallmark in our report. And then they asked a couple of members asked for greater specificity about this. And I kind of backed off at that moment and I said that I would have to speak further with the panel. I said I couldn't speak for the panel on that point. That was acknowledged and I was asked to move us as the panel in that direction. So just so you know, we'll have to do that. There were a couple other matters that came up during my testimony in the questions that followed. They wanted us to liaise with Senator Sears and the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the RDAF in the data studies. There was discussion of how this body would work in the collection of data for the state legislature. Nothing was firm except for the sense that that would be important. Out of this came a comment that one two-hour meeting a month would likely not suffice going forward at some point in time. That doesn't mean that in May we're going to have eight meetings or anything like that, or even two. I'm just saying that that was raised and I agreed given what we're talking about that in fact that may become problematic. Some of you know, I mean it was certainly problematic when we were writing the report and everyone did Goman's labor even I think with that limitation. So that will happen probably after the bill becomes law and that there then is, I guess, the formation of the body to deal with data as we suggested in the report. The committee suggested that we shouldn't necessarily take the lead in the data collection section of S-338 but that we should join with others in leading. In other words, the committee felt that the R-DAP should work with other key entities to work out the makeup of the data oversight group. In the end, and most importantly, the R-DAP is now clearly enmeshed in S-338. It wasn't before and it will be an important entity that will work towards its facilitation. That was not previously the case, as I said, but it is now. They were very receptive to us and what we have done and also to what we hope to do. So it was very good thing that we were ready to take on S-338 last month and that Ellen Weyland-Wurst was with us to speak of the bill and the work that had created it. If all works as planned, we might very well need, as I said, to meet more often. And again, don't freak out about that yet since nothing has yet a done deal. I'm going to be working with David to create contact with Senator Sears with whom it seems we will have a great deal to do in facilitating S-338. This is a very important bill to him and to others. As the bill states, we will work with, at least, the Sentencing Commission. I will begin to look into this. I was starting to do that, but then the virus came for a visit. They were, last I knew, going to rework some language in the bill and some of this language has to do with making us an integral part of this legislation. As I say, there's a lot of movement towards getting this past the session. So we are actually, as far as I can figure out, right where we need to be in spite of the efforts of the virus. And that's all I have to say about that. Any questions, comments, anything? Wow. Okay. I mean, it may be that you're all on mute, but okay, let's just move forward then. As I say, that's all I wanted to bring up. Regarding that, the next section of the meeting that I thought and David thought and a lot of people thought would be important was a discussion of recent legislation and executive orders that sort of, that have certainly come about as a result of the pandemic, but have very clearly impacts in the area of racial disparities. So I asked four of you to speak from your agencies about work that you've been doing. It's not to be obviously very formal, just about seven minutes. And I think what we ought to do, and we can talk about this now, Chief Stevens agreed with this, that we ought to let everybody present and then after it's all out there, then open us up for discussion. Does that sound good to everyone? Which I'm in. Works for me. Works for me too. Thumbs up. Yes. Let's just go with yes. I think that sounds lovely. So, David, can you give us a general legislative overview please as the agenda requests? Certainly. A few things I want to note. One is that a lot of the folks who've really been heavily involved in various, I should say potential, mostly potential legislation, are lined up to speak after me and I will defer to them on the meat of some of those bills that they've been working on. One of the aspects of this response has really been that a lot of it has in fact been an administrative response and that's something that I think will probably be touched on by other speakers as well, by other presenters, I should say as well. Certainly a couple of things that our office has done, I'll just mention briefly because I think it's generally relevant if not precisely on the topic of legislation, but we as folks may know have been involved in figuring out the enforcement aspect of the governor's executive orders really with a heavy emphasis on education, not a punitive response to encourage voluntary compliance and we did step in to sort of set a statewide policy around enforcement matters to make sure that that was the emphasis everywhere and also to make sure that we had a response that was uniform and coordinated and fair across the state. We'd also issued a guidance with respect to pre-trial detention issues and that guidance, I really must say, was driven by the practices that had largely been put in place by other entities around the state. I do want to give credit where it's due and let folks know that this really wasn't so much an invention of our office as it was a reflection of what has been happening in state's attorney's offices and the Department of Corrections and so forth and that guidance really again is just a heavy emphasis on reducing wherever possible pre-trial detentions and in fact the numbers bear out, the data bears out that there's been a very significant drop in pre-trial detentions and I know Monica Weaver can speak more to that. On the legislative front, one of the major bills that's moving forward is numbered S114. It used to be something else. It has become a vehicle for changes primarily to judicial procedural matters. Judge Grierson, I know, has lined up to speak and I want to defer to him on this bill as well because he's really been the primary driver on it. As some folks on this call may know, the judiciary issued something called administrative order 49 and that was a document that changes the operations for the course to allow for all the public safety measures that are necessary in this time but not everything can be changed simply by judicial order and S114 has become a vehicle that deals with some of the other aspects of what needs to be changed and again I think it'd be, Judge Grierson will be the better person for this group to hear from on the details of S114 but it does have a number of changes, some changes that had been considered and that people on this call may have heard about are not in there. I will note that the potential change which included a sentence review after 90 days which is not currently allowable had been considered and the senate version is not in the version as it passed the senate in part because that was going to be a complex and controversial lift and so that didn't go forward but Judge Grierson can talk a little bit about what remains in that bill. With respect to non purely responsive to the emergency bills we do have one that is moving forward and this group should be hopefully happy to hear that it is the one with the major bill that we had identified as wanting to focus on and it makes some changes too and that is S338 which is the justice reinvestment bill and this was the bill that we talked about extensively at our last meeting and there was I think a sense of the group that we wanted to be sure that we were involved at the very least in the data aspects of that bill in other words in the parts of that bill that say hey we are going to build a better system we need to have the right people in the room to do that and I think a very reasonable ask is to ask that Aton made was that this group be a part of that since that was such a major aspect of the report that we issued to the legislature and that's certainly something that our office supported after Aton spoke on it we testified the following day it was identified on behalf of the office not just about this aspect of the bill about the bill more broadly but I certainly made sure to emphasize that we supported that ask to have this body be a part of that study and I will also report that Senator Sears has been apprised of that he has no issue with it so I do expect that to move forward and with that I will turn it over to the next person on the agenda and that would be Monica Weaver I'm Monica Hi, how's everybody doing? Hi, how's everybody doing? Hi, how's everybody doing? Yeah I'm trying to get a little feedback so I'm going to just make an adjustment here before I start okay that's better well I think I can talk for a lot longer than 7 minutes I'm not 100% sure what people want to hear from the department of corrections at this point I will start with S338 I did listen to your testimony the day you were in front of corrections and institutions yep I know you can't tell how many people are on YouTube but I was there and then the next day we also the department of classified on S338 as David said he did for the Attorney General's office and I supported the comments that you made adding our lab to I think it's section 19 and the overall comments you made so I just wanted to let everyone know that because they're sort of taking a poll for some people and I let them know that I was the department representative for this panel S338 is taking up a fair amount of time for the department in the legislature we've been testifying on that prior to COVID-19 and continuing to offer testimony as we can in this new version of being a witness on YouTube and Zoom I know that there have been a lot of other bills that have been introduced for work and calls from all parts of the state for the department of corrections to release people as David mentioned our population has reduced dramatically in the past month partly because of the detention population declining so that has a lot to do with courts, state attorneys, law enforcement all that effort in the pre-trial world and the sentence population has also reduced in large part from the department of corrections really looking at people who are eligible for release and doing our due diligence ensuring public safety and releasing people where we can and also natural releases that happen people are maxing out of their time to their minimum release date to their release on furlough which is typically what happens so the combination of those efforts has reduced the incarcerated population to just a little over 1400 people today which is quite astonishing there has been a significant change in department operations to possibly go into in seven minutes but our focus from the beginning when we really first started to prepare for this which was late January, early February has been on the safety and security of the people that we serve our inmate population our staff and on public safety and trying to sort of balance all of those things so the changes that we have made are made with all of those pieces in mind and I understand that not everyone is pleased with all the responses that we've made I do understand that there's some discussion on a bill I think it's some proposed language that might be coming up tomorrow around the compassionate release section of statute that might add some language that allows the commissioner to release people if there's a possibility of them potentially being infected with the virus while they're incarcerated I'm not 100% sure what all the details are of that bill David you may know more about it than I do or Pepper may know I just saw something about it this afternoon I think those are the main points I want to make and I'll wait and people have questions if they want to ask afterwards great thank you let's move right along Judge Greerson the judiciary please good evening good to see everybody can you hear me absolutely let me start with the Supreme Court issued what is called an administrative order effective March 17 which effectively reduced all of the schedules in the courts down to a list of emergency matters listed emergency matters for instance juvenile proceedings taking children into custody arraignments bail reviews bail proceedings emergency motions to modify parent child contact either children in DCF custody or in the domestic docket so they made a list of items or dockets RFAs but it was a very specific list of matters that could be addressed on an emergency basis only as our staffs are cut probably more than half and there's a much decreased judicial presence in the courts because of those reduced hearing schedules in addition to those matters that are listed this administrative order provides that if someone seeks an emergency for files an emergency motion on something that is not included in that list that request would be referred to me for decision not on the merits of whatever the motion is but the decision by me to allow the hearing to go ahead there have been numerous amendments to that administrative order it remains in effect now just extended last week until the end of May so essentially all court proceedings have been put on hold other than these emergency matters at this point until the end of May which obviously impacts everybody in this meeting stepping away from that order David and others mentioned S114 which is a bill now that speaks to judicial procedures the witnesses for this bill was probably about a week or 10 days into the emergency order that the court had imposed and it was a reaction to issues that we were seeing in the court that I felt and others felt needed to be addressed in some fashion the content of this order contents of it would only be effective during the emergency period it includes among other things issues and provisions that will allow certain legal documents, deeds, wills and so forth to be signed remotely either by video or with the video recording there's also a provision that in lieu of the use of a notary public which is required for many pleadings that are filed with court it includes a provision that allows those documents to be filed under with what is called a declaration or a swearing as to the accuracy of the document as opposed to appearing before a notary a notary public obviously in someone having to appear before a notary creates problems with social distancing and just the availability of folks to do that there are other pieces that are more specifically related to the criminal juvenile docket and so I'll go to those now they include an amendment to rule 43 the rules of criminal procedure which involves the presence of the defendant at various proceedings in the criminal process we have asked for an amendment to that rule that would allow a defendant to appear by video they're appearing by video for many proceedings now under the current rules defendants can appear for arraignment proceedings if they consent to those proceedings and this amendment would allow them to consent to literally any other appearance in court via video after consulting with an attorney the importance of that is simply this since the pandemic in the emergency order has gone into effect every facility correctional facility in the state now is operational with video it had been the case before the pandemic hit but probably only one or two facilities one or two courts were using that process unless someone has different information I think since this emergency period started transports from facilities to courts have dropped to I would have to say almost zero in other words all defendants for criminal proceedings are appearing by video with the consent of the defendant as well as counsel and that has made a significant difference in what we're able to do and this rule would allow us to continue to do that and a number of other changes were asked for and they include timelines for instance for review of bail review of conditions of release we asked to have those extended not to take longer to do them but with reduced staffs and reduced judicial resources in the courts we just can't meet those deadlines so it's more of a practical consideration that we asked to extend the timelines timelines to conduct those proceedings there are also extensions of rules relating to DWI offences which involves suspending licenses and this bill allows for in its present form and it's still going through committee at this point that we could continue with prosecution of DUI offences but the licenses driver's licenses would not be suspended until we could have certain hearings that wouldn't occur until after the emergency period this bill right now has gone through the senate is now in the house there may or may not be changes to that I think those are the highlights of the bill as they relate to criminal process criminal proceedings we've extended the statute of limitations that was one other one so if someone has a civil claim that needs to be filed during the emergency period we've extended the time to file those lawsuits and again it all relates to you know the attorney who's supposed to be filing a claim on behalf of a client may not be well enough to do so so there are a lot of reasons for that two other things I guess I'd like to highlight and then I'll turn it over to whoever next I mentioned that one of the emergency procedures we can and we should be doing are bail review proceedings obviously the conditions in the facilities themselves and the impact of the Covid-19 virus have had a significant impact on the incarcerated population so we have a number of motions that have been filed all over the state I think it's up to at least 50 motions for review of bail or reconsideration of sentence I won't go into the details of the legalities involved in those proceedings but the volume was such and just today there were two additional filings two separate filings that involved maybe 50 additional incarcerated individuals so we're pushing probably close to 100 individuals and because of the reduced resources what I have done is to assign three judges to consolidate these hearings and hopefully resolve as many as we can but those hearings are tentatively scheduled to take place next week I've been in touch with John Campbell and Matt Valerio to discuss how we would handle all of those proceedings but in short I have assigned three judges to handle those particular motions in a consolidated way we're able to do that in no small part to the use of video because very few attorneys whether they're state's attorneys or defense attorneys are physically present in courtrooms anymore so this process and the use of video and obviously telephone allow us to have one judge in a remote location handling cases from other counties I think I've gone way over my seven minutes Eitan that way so those are certainly the bigger issues that we're confronting every day and I guess I'll leave it with this piece I was on hearing this afternoon along with Ken the other big issue in the courts involves modification of parent-child contact both situations of families that are involved with the DCF and domestic partners either folks going through divorce or parentage cases and that is becoming a significant represent significant significant number of motions have been filed in those courts so because they're emergencies we still conduct those hearings the best we can usually by one or more people participating by phone if they don't want to come to court so that's what I've been doing that's all thank you next would be Ken Schatz I'm ready hi folks hi maybe I'll start by with the discussion that Judge Gerson just started with respect to certainly a major issue prompted by COVID-19 is the issue of in-person visitation between parents and children in DCF custody it's incredibly challenging it's a terrible conundrum on the one hand wanting to support parent-child contact on the other hand on the governor's order and commissioner of health advice any in-person contact poses the risk of spreading the virus that's compounded when you have foster parents family structure workers and other folks having to be involved in that process so it's really difficult as Judge Gerson indicated the legislature is talking about it where they will go for the time being it's a case-by-case approach in terms of going to court although I should add that by and large the overwhelming majority of families involved with DCF have agreed to remote visitation by telephone or video conferencing and certainly we're appreciative of that but it is an incredibly challenging issue to be sure so the pending legislation I think David sent something out a while ago and S-232 is really the main bill that we have been involved in in following that is really a bill that talks about implementing the expansion of juvenile justice jurisdiction which is really the raise the age jurisdiction which was Act 201 previously passed we're still on a course of implementing 18 year olds being involved in the juvenile justice system as opposed to the adult system as of July 1st this bill 232 for the most part is really the technical changes to implement that so we're certainly moving forward it's certainly relevant to the discussion in terms of this panel in that we're certainly aware that youth of color are overrepresented in our delinquency system and as we look to revamping our approach to juvenile justice we have that in mind and hopefully can successfully address it to reduce that overrepresentation I'll be candid our attention has been so focused on dealing with the pandemic we have not done the level of planning that I wish we could at this point in time that as it may we're still at it it is also relevant to mention that what's been added to 232 is discussion of the Department for Children and Families proposal to close Woodside and that is of course also very relevant to this panel in that we've talked about in the past that it is one of the key areas of racial disparity in the justice system in terms of overrepresentation of youth of color in that facility clearly from my perspective the proposal to close Woodside is a reflection of the reduced number of youth in our delinquent system as a whole. Good news also that the youth involved in the justice system are not committing the extent of violent offenses that was true in the past so that's all really good as I look at the calendar I realize it's been about a year since we've had more than five youth in a locked facility in Vermont which again is a very positive statement. But the legislature having some hesitation on our proposal to close Woodside has asked that we provide them with some alternative plans. Again we're working on those as the COVID-19 has definitely put a crimp in our ability to do that but we're still at it they also want to look at funding for other resources for youth including mental health issues which I also think is worth mentioning here that they do have been made aware that and this partly was our testimony that really the issue of priority with respect to youth is not so much violent behavior as it is youth with significant mental health issues and lack of available services and programs to meet their needs and so the legislature did respond by asking the agency Human Services to develop a plan to meet those needs so assuming this bill passes we'll work on that and so the bill did get sent to the appropriations committee which again their efforts are somewhat distracted by COVID-19 but assuming for the sake of discussion everybody does want to raise the age jurisdiction changes to occur as of July 1 I remain hopeful that the legislature will find a way to actually pass this legislation despite the fact that they're not gathering in person so I'll stop there and I'm glad to answer questions as they come up and then with that I wanted to open this up to a general discussion you've all heard the presentations I hope you have made a few notes about things that may concern you I was thinking most specifically about oh I get the phrase wrong all the time high impact, high discretion, contact ways you'll remember that Rebecca's got the term down that we've actually that was such a big part of our report were where are these moments in the system in the systems, plural where there was a lot of discretion and therefore the possibility for the entrance of not you know certainly explicit bias but also in some ways more insidiously implicit bias so I was hoping that we could start a discussion around that those of you who are particularly sensitive to this I would think you would have probably a lot of questions and concerns there were I will tell you when I was putting this together I got some pushback not from our panel people sort of going well it's an emergency you know things just have to happen and I certainly understand that this is also the time at which shall we say the Constitution is of greatest importance it's as you well know not just for when it's okay and when everybody's fine it's also for a time of stress so I'm hoping that the discussion can kind of go in the direction of let's look at given these decisions that have been made in these various departments where are some of those points of contact that may involve this bias those points being things on which this panel is focused I just wanted to clarify what you're asking are you asking us to explore points of discretionary decision-making during this COVID moment that everyone is speaking about or broadly well more broadly in general but certainly around this COVID moment that's why I was talking in the agenda about the impacts of the pandemic upon legislation that we already knew was out there but then also around stuff that has happened particularly in response to the pandemic then hearing that would the rest of the panel object if perhaps I and maybe and hopefully Jess Brown could just talk for five minutes to bring the defendant's perspective and what we're seeing to the table because we just heard the government stakeholders talk about it from the judiciary and the DOC and DCF AGO but what you have not heard is what the COVID experience is like for the defender general's office and the attorneys within and allow me to apologize for that I'll take that as a green light and Jess Brown are you there? I am, I just unmuted myself and turned my video back on. All right, so I'm on phone and I'm going to try to not get too upset but I just want to share that my experience since we've last talked for weeks I get up at six or seven and I start going on COVID emergency consults and calls motion filing draft and training emails and it doesn't end until the end of the day it is a very scary experience as an attorney but we are fielding constant calls ultimately from very scared clients and their families and these are folks that I'm talking about either just being charged and worried that they're about to be brought in but particularly for these purposes our clients who are in jail whether they're still presumed innocent because of pre-conviction or their post-conviction post-sentencing sitting in jails all of them are very scared and what we know is what we see in the rest of the country you guys are seeing the news Rikers County in Illinois we have had our own reality hit with last week's numbers in the jails going I don't know if Monica talked about the numbers been here but I think the current positive numbers I think we just got one more confirmed positive in the facility today although I don't know what facility it is but we're up to 28 is that right Monica in any case I was on mute I can answer that question so in total and I think I just want to be clear about this because we are putting this information on our website about the number of inmates who have tested positive in total we've had 33 inmates test positive they're not all incarcerated some of them have been released and so we're just reporting on how many have been tested positive overall and not on how many are currently incarcerated on our webpage it's information that we have but you are dividing it up based on inmates and staff and one of the challenges we have had and to share to the panel what it's like to be an attorney representing these folks is how desperate we are to communicate with these folks it is really hard to get through on the attorney line once we've learned that this smaller group but a group that went from basically no tested to one to then 28 or 27 or however number now because the facility in Northwest was tested and those results came back revealing what we all feared which is that COVID has been present just undetected and confirmed because there wasn't any testing going on but the scramble for us has been reaching these folks and they've been moved to the building in St. Jay where they're containing them and granted the logistics and the setup to get contact has been delayed and it is unclear how these folks are being cared for as we know the severity of COVID experiences very dramatically based on people's underlying conditions we also know that our client based the demographics of our clients the general population so those average numbers we see on the outside including morbidity down to 2.5% in the community wide is much higher we expect to be much higher in the facility so from our perspective it's a race against the clock to prevent anyone from dying in the jail and I finish each today totally exhausting just wanted to share that from the defender general perspective just one yes you have anything else to share sure I will say this and it doesn't really go to racial disparities or anything like that and maybe I think Pepper is on this call now I think I saw his little icon and so maybe he can speak to this as well but I'll say is that my experience is that the A this is being addressed in the criminal system is wildly different depending on what county we're talking about I practice in Chittenden County where our state's attorney you know basically instructed all law enforcement agencies to you know cite people out into June to not take people into custody unless absolutely necessary like people who are being charged with domestic assault are being taken into custody but you know and are having arrangements as Judge Burson indicated and are largely being released she also I mean we have spent first month basically dismissing a lot of cases that are really old that had old arrest warrant so that nobody is being arrested unnecessarily and being taken into custody she is doing a lot to make sure to either get people out of custody who are in custody or to avoid taking people into custody unnecessarily and I don't think that that's happening in many other counties at least to the degree that it's happening in the county and like I said perhaps Pepper can speak to that more so that's why it's sort of imperative for for the judiciary or the legislature to make some decisions that more broadly help get more people out of jail you know we're talking about the numbers of inmates who have tested positive some employees of the department of corrections have also tested positive and these are people who are going out into the community every day so you know it's in all of our interests to get as many people out of jail as possible in my opinion and to avoid unnecessarily incarcerating people right now so you know beyond that I don't have much to add but I do think that it's important to note that different counties and different state's attorney's offices are approaching this very differently is there any I am as I said before sorry that I missed that it's been kind of crazy I would like if anybody else who's got something that they need to add in here that I did not include in the agenda to do so please if you don't mind I would just like to respond briefly from the state's attorney's perspective just talking about what we've been doing on our end am I muted? no okay all right well so since the very first case of COVID-19 was identified in Vermont the state's attorney started developing through its executive committee a list of protocols for all of the offices of course we don't have the ability to control all of the offices but through twice a week check-ins we've been following up and making sure that all of these protocols have been followed so I'll just walk through them quickly I've talked about them in a few of the committee hearings already but all 14 states attorney's offices are following these exact protocols so there are new nonviolent offenses are all being cited to a date six to eight weeks out at a minimum June 15th this includes violations of conditions of release that do not directly impact public safety we reviewed all of the current outstanding citations and pushed all of those dates back into June 15th. We are continuing to flash site and seek to hold without as appropriate for listed violent offenses and violations of conditions of release that directly impact public safety this would include harassment of victims issues like that I think Sarah George may have taken that's the Chittenden County state's attorney may have taken the lead on this proposal all state's attorneys have done this which is we're reviewing all active arrest warrants and we've actively sought to quash ones where the public health concerns outweigh the public safety interest from the very beginning of this crisis I sent out a list of all of the pretrial detainees excluding people held without bail and the federal detainees to the state's attorneys divided by their county they've reviewed every single pretrial detainee and have made recommendations to either strike bail or modify conditions to allow for release as I think was mentioned earlier our detainee level is right around 300 it might be lower than 300 maybe Monica has the most up to date information on that but that's something that we haven't seen in a decade it's been hovering right around 400 for at least and so that's just not just our state's attorneys that's the incredible work of the defense council identifying people that maybe we've missed and DOC doing whatever they can to identify people that can be released we've been resolving pending cases for time serve when appropriate we've now just started we have not just started but we started out with lower level offenders incarcerated people and now we're moving on to the entire incarcerated population for people that might be safely released and also as Judge Grierson just noted there are a huge number of motions to reconsider bail reconsider conditions of release for pretrial detainees and also to resentence incarcerated individuals and so we're dealing with those we deal with them on an individual basis being consolidated but we're reviewing each one to see if there's instances or we can resolve them before contesting them so as Monica mentioned I think it's worth noting that the baseline data kind of pre-COVID baseline data for the incarcerated population that DOC is using is kind of February 24th of this year the inmate population, the incarcerated population on that date in state was 1671 as of today I think I heard earlier today that it's 1411 that's a decrease of 260 people and again we certainly are not taking credit as state attorneys for that it's been a collaborative effort of everyone in the criminal justice system coming together moving as many people out safely as possible of course a lot of resources in the community are also not available at this time I know the domestic abuse programs that meet in group settings have all stopped meeting you know there's always going to be housing issues for people coming out of incarceration and we're trying to just let DOC do its work on that end to help people with successful reentry into the community okay let's go to discussion it is 710 and I think there's a lot here that needs to come up actually one of my concerns just listening right now is that the story from government stakeholders and what I'm hearing from the people who represent defendants is not it's never the same experience certainly I understand that but I'm a little concerned that the difference is great enough that I would start to wonder about our mandate what we as a panel need to do about this how we address it how we define it and I'm just going to let it there for right now Aetan I have a couple of questions if I may have the floor please with all these changes happening I heard Judge Greerson say that they're making some supreme court decisions and orders and the legislators are making these decisions and the question is what are the ones that are permanent and the ones that are temporary the ones that are temporary do we want to try to influence to keep any of those things to have the flexibility to have them in the future as in the toolbox that might help in this situation I'd hate to the temporary ones to expire and they may be very useful again so I didn't know if there's a way to look at the things that might expire and have some influence that would be a positive things to give more flexibility so I didn't know what the answers to that because I'm not involved in all this stuff so I'll try somebody else can chime in my understanding is that with most of the legislation I've been involved in let's ask 114 there's another bill I don't think I did mention there's a separate bill that talks about imposing a stay on eviction proceedings and mortgage foreclosures but my understanding is on all of these bills they're being passed as what's referred to as session law I'll let David explain what that is but essentially once the emergency is gone these are going to expire that's not to say that some of the changes that are in there shouldn't be discussed and perhaps become permanent but it may be that if you will or the value of some of these proceedings will be demonstrated during the course of this emergency so it may be easier to get people to agree to new procedures once the emergency is over once they've seen them in place but my understanding is the legislation will end when the emergency ends but others may have other information on that anyone else hello David I can chime in too I mean some of this sorry some of the things that are part of the emergency judiciary package are not necessarily things that you want to extend beyond the emergency for instance right now if a person who's incarcerated wants to review their pre-trial detain they should say they can do so they have a hearing within 48 hours as Judge Gerson noted the courts don't have the staff right now to keep up with that permanently I mean during this crisis so it's not so the bill contemplates relaxing that mandatory 48 hour time frame it's not necessarily something that you want permanently in place you know a lot of these measures deal specifically with the reality on the grounds and you know staying eviction proceedings is that really something that should extend beyond an emergency or do you want to kind of go back to a normal course of business once the emergency has been lifted back yeah I think my question was focused on on the good parts that we do want to keep in place do we have a role in making sure to keep track of that so when this is over or how do we how do we what is our role to try to say look this was a great benefit to people of color or the or to the process to allow flexibility and be able to compile those and maybe go back and push these later I'm just trying to figure out where our role might be to kind of get the stuff we want that's that's working that's that's what I was really next chime in okay that to me that's really critical I when this came up there were certain members of the public who are community stakeholders in various minority communities who expressed to me concern that some of this stuff exactly cheap done what would be coming up that's good that ought to be extended and as you were saying pepper what are things that are just here to manage a crisis and what I personally as the chair thought was important was that we at least start a conversation about this and try to define what our role as a panel should be what do we do with that if we find things that are problematic do we write some kind of memorandum that we submit somewhere I don't know you know David you know more about this than I do but I mean what do we do what do we define at this moment as being problematic I feel felt like this is a good time to stop this discussion I'm not sure when else we would have but it seems important to me it seems to line with our mandate somebody else fill the airwaves I'll say this from a defense attorney perspective we're in an emergency and we are I'm glad to say that we're letting a lot of people out of jail we have let a significant number of people out of jail I'd say Rebecca and I would probably say not enough but we have I mean I don't want to diminish the fact that a number of people have been released but it can't help raise the question of why those people are in jail in the first place right and so when we ask that and we look at it broadly like then when we start to look at that from the perspective of the mandate of this committee you know it I mean I don't think anyone's doing a real breakdown right now of numbers of people that are being released for example based on race you know that's not anyone's sort of primary concern but I think that the broader questions of like why are we maintaining people in custody pre-trial you know certainly is a question that is relevant to this committee in terms of our mandate to look at disproportionate treatment of people of color Rebecca do you have anything that you would want to add right at this juncture sure I was just about to jump in I think Don the point I think that's really important that we've been making before all this happened but specific to COVID we didn't really talk about how race is implicated here or how I see or we are seeing race disparities playing out during this COVID crisis certainly the numbers we're not tracking enough numbers or any numbers to know what we do know is what's been reporting the press and folks have probably seen the reporting the times and elsewhere about the difference in morbidity rates if you're black or Hispanic we know that that people who report things and maybe identical things some could be taken more seriously or not so seriously based on the race we just know this in terms of all the implicit racial bias stuff that we've talked about how does that get exacerbated in the COVID emergency context should and we've been advocating this for this before COVID that is injecting race as an explicit consideration in the legal process whatever stage we're at not neutralize racial issues from the legal analysis period sort of my governing theme throughout how does that play into a bail review analysis when you've got not just any inmates but a particular and always a particularized analysis of who should be released in COVID we look at not just a man but a black man or a Hispanic man or a Native American man and understand what that means in terms of access to healthcare for how much underlying health conditions can be particularly exacerbated and can make that person particularly vulnerable how do we understand that that person who expresses symptoms of COVID inside the jail who's getting to see the medical providers we've known that and we've been hearing reports from our clients some have been hiding COVID on the inside because we're afraid they're going to be put in a whole segregation so taken out of general populations effectively punished for showing signs of COVID this worries on a lot of levels in terms of containment and not not encouraging the spread of COVID in the other facilities but how does this play out in terms of punishment generally this disparate results based on race on the inside we don't know but certainly Don and others like what can we learn and take away seems to me that race is always a factor and and that we should not turn a blind eye to race in any opportunity that we have seen in considering a legal analysis as to the individual person before the judge or the corrections officer or the prosecutor or the defense attorney in terms of making calls thank you hi everyone this is Susanna Davis I just wanted to chime in very quickly on this topic because I wanted to let you know that someone someone else is thinking about this about quantifying and measuring and analyzing how many and who we're letting out of incarceration facilities in Vermont so I wanted to let you know that at the beginning of April it was April 3rd I had a conversation with Jim Baker and at this point I mean the news cycle like six hour increments these days so April 3rd is a lifetime ago and Monica or someone else might have fresher information than I do but the reason that I had spoken to Jim was because I was concerned about what were the criteria we were using to determine who gets released based on COVID-19 reason being that nationally there is the increasing use of an assessment tool called pattern assessment tool which has a lot of bias built into it because it's an algorithm that relies on inputs from other stages of the justice system which as we know already have bias built into them so I called Jim and he spoke Vermont does not use the pattern assessment tool he was unable at the time of the call to tell me what exactly we do use but he did inform me that it's a combination of factors including the history of risk, the use of the offense information to the victim etc he also I also asked what was the racist breakdown of folks who were being released for COVID-19 purposes and he was unable to tell me at that time but said that he did pose this question to the data folks on his team and that his assessment was that it appeared to be something that they had not previously given consideration to thinking about bias in those terms and the important thing that his vision is to make much broader changes at DLC that will include well I'm reminded that this is being recorded and I don't want to make promises on other people's behalf but broader changes that would model some of our other law enforcement at the state level in terms of focus on equity so again any of you might have information that's a little fresher than I do but I did want to let you know that yes someone else at the state is looking at this and it would be great to have this information right the heck now because lives are at risk but I want you to know that it's a very very least if you can't get it now then I will continue to try to take this info down after dust settles and capacity this way. Thank you. Hi Aetong can you hear me? I can. Okay great I'm on the video can people see me because through the computer people weren't able to hear me. I can't see you but I hear you very clearly. Okay great I actually just had like a couple of comments but I actually just had some clarifying questions I want to make sure I understand some of the information that was presented and it's by various people who talked so whoever feels like they can answer these questions if they could would be really great. So I think Pepper said something about normal and about returning to normal and I just wanted to say I really really appreciate Jessica and Rebecca's comments because I don't want to return to normal I understand that we are responding in a way to this pandemic but I would like to create a new normal because the normal wasn't working for anyone including the populations of brown and black people that we are talking about. So when we talk about returning to normal I would like us to maybe think about what that really means and if normal was really working for us which I don't think it was or we wouldn't be on this panel in the first place and the reality to the system is that it really has been harming and killing people all along so the reality is I agree that I wish there was more people out of jail and that I concur with what Jessica and Rebecca are saying is why are these people in jail in the first place and how are we actually documenting and understanding how racial disparities are playing out for this COVID pandemic within the systems that we're speaking about and I don't think we have the documentation and I don't feel as though our conversation really started with looking at this from the racial disparities lens that we're all tasked to do. The questions that I have are a few questions around what people have said just for clarification. I believe it was Monica mentioned a compassion release and I was just wondering if it allowed the commissioner to release folks if there was a potential to get the virus. I think that's what I heard so I just wanted to understand if I heard that correctly and for you to elaborate on that briefly so I can understand if I heard correctly. That's my first question. I might as pepper to elaborate on it a little bit more but I understand that there is some language that's being introduced that changes the current compassionate release statute. There's a lot of people who are saying that the department should release people under that statute. The statute is pretty clear and has some limitations and so I think there's been some suggestions for people to add language to it. Pepper, is that accurate? Are you the right person to really talk about the language that's being proposed? So a couple of the state's attorneys have felt that the basis for a lot of these motions to re-sentence folks is based upon their susceptibility or pre-existing health conditions and their susceptibility towards greater morbidity because of COVID-19 and so a couple of state's attorneys have suggested that the underlying factors that led to their sentence have not changed what has changed is they can't be in an incarcerated setting any longer and the current medical furlough statutes have some limitations to them about who qualifies and so I don't think that the legislation is actually ready for it's been sent to a couple of legislators who have shown some interest in it but I actually don't know if it's really ready. There's all sorts of considerations and due process concerns that involve victims' rights with the proposal and I think it needs a little bit more before it goes live that would be my perspective on it but I actually haven't seen the final drafts or any drafts really just kind of more conceptualized a liberalization of medical furlough. Yeah, we just started in the current statue sorry, Cintiola. So this is a current statue that you wanted to make amended language to with regards to the pandemic. Yes. Were you going to say something, Monica? No. I was just going to follow up on something different. We'll go ahead. I don't think Cintiola's done much with her questions. The next question I had was around Judge Garrison, I think you mentioned emergency motions and that people can or being like a hundred emergency motions that go specifically to you that you have the discretion to address or not and could you just give an example again of what those emergency motions are so I can have a little bit understanding it sounds like that those emergency motions only going to you up until that May 15th date within that sort of timeline or could you just clarify a little bit more what you were saying around that? A hundred motions have not come to me. The number of hundred I was using were the number of individuals as of today and this is just an estimate, I'm not sure the exact number of these motions for bail review and or sentence reconsideration they're separate they're separate apart from my authority under the so-called administrative directive. These are all motions filed by individuals that I've assigned three judges to hear. The the discretion that I have under the administrative order only relates to matters that are not listed for emergencies that come to me to decide whether they should be heard I've only had perhaps a half a dozen of those in the last month they're two separate two separate items one of the bail review motions if I could use that term and that's what I was referring to as perhaps a hundred motions involving a hundred individuals I should put it that way does that clarify it or did I confuse it more? I think that clarifies thank you Judge Garrison. Appreciate that. That leads me to the next question which I think might be for Ken you were talking about something around I think it was S232 and around 18 year olds being involved in the system and you were talking about Woodside and you were talking about something about the 18 year old involved and I didn't quite understand or catch what you were really there could you explain what you were talking about with the 18 year old and them being the system and relating that to Woodside did you clarify what you were saying? Sure. So two years ago the legislature passed a bill known as Act 201 that raised the age of juvenile court jurisdiction historically youth up to the age of 17 primarily were adjudicated in family court 18 and over youth who commit a criminal offense are prosecuted in adult court the raised age jurisdiction changes that so that beginning July 1st 2020 18 year olds who commit an offense not including the big 12 offenses will be charged in family court not adult court so there will be confidential proceedings two years from then 19 year olds will be charged in family court not adult court so S-232 makes some technical changes to Act 201 to simply make sure that we implement that raised the age jurisdiction successfully it doesn't change the policy of Act 201 the reference to Woodside was simply a provision that was added to Act 201 to address the DCF budget proposal which proposes to close Woodside and what the Senate Judiciary Committee did was add to S-232 language requiring a plan for alternative placements for youth in the delinquency system and also to require the agency to develop a plan to address the mental health issues of young offenders is that a helpful summary yes that's great thank you can appreciate that I've just got a couple more questions I think this one might be for Pepper it was a question of what conditions are people having when when people are released I wasn't clear to me what the follow-up is I'm like really pleased to hear I think you said 1671 there's about 260 less people in the prison system right now yes I think that's great and I think it's unfortunate that it takes a pandemic that we believe will impact us all and not just the prison system for us to act in this way and I want to say that because even though this is great that we have 260 people less in the prison system I acknowledge that there's a reason for that and my belief a part of that reason is because we've realized how those impact people impact us out here and so I'd like to continue to take a look at that but my question is is around the follow-up if these people have been released is there a need for follow-up or they release because there isn't really a need for follow-up or are they going on a furlough or are they going on with conditions or is it just they're done and it's only the people who can be done and not supervised or have extra supports when they get released or is it sort of a spectrum of all of those things potentially? Great question yes it's absolutely a spectrum of all of them depending on what the situation is pre-trial detainees they're either being held without bail because they've committed a violent offense the evidence of guilt is great and no and a judge is determined that no combination of conditions of release can adequately protect the public and yet we're having state's attorneys review some of those hold without bails the people that are being detained for lack of bail as in bail was imposed and they can't afford it we're seeing state's attorneys strike bail in certain circumstances and then those people will be released into the community awaiting their trial on certain conditions check in if they change residence or they are released to a responsible adult for instance for the people that there's a good number of people that DOC is releasing on furlough those people will be subject to the same kind of constrictions or check-ins as for that are typical furlough some people are just being straight up re-sentenced state's attorneys are stipulating to just say you know what whatever sentence we're going to get we're going to say you've gotten time served for your pre-trial detention right now so we're going to agree to a plea deal that gets you out today with no other outstanding obligations so it is the entire spectrum and maybe this is the same or similar question but how do we how do we know when it's successful for re-entry are there any during this pandemic temporarily or are there any other systems set up I know that Ken was talking about what's I closing and they're needing to be mechanisms set up for those use and other things are with us releasing so many people out of this particular system what is how do how can we be successful for re-entry and is there anything that's specifically been put in place or funding with that so the re-entry plan is usually developed by Department of Corrections and it is I would say that it is probably the best money that we can spend in the state I mean maybe not the best money there's other competing alternatives but it's certainly I was watching Department of Corrections testify on justice reinvestment very recently which includes a two million dollar investment in re-entry programs and housing and services and I think Dale Crook from DOC suggested that people with more serious offenses do better on re-entry if they have a good re-entry plan and people with kind of less risk of recidivism that have a bad re-entry so that just goes to show that the transition from the incarcerated setting into the community getting that right is essential and I don't know because it's mostly on the Department of Corrections side what services are shutting down because of COVID-19 I know I've heard from some state's attorneys that the sober housing in their communities are not taking new intakes and so that's very stressful for places like DOC when you're trying to place individuals back into the community safely and I don't know if Monica, you have anything you'd like to add on the kind of re-entry programming or services that are available or maybe not available because of the pandemic and what we can do to support re-entry well I do think that the housing is really critical I mean that's been discussed for many years and it's a big part of the S-338 part of the justice re-investment model it's not in S-338 now that appropriation for transitional housing they took that out I'm trying to figure out how to put that in some other we're working really closely with all of the transitional housing providers because some of them are completely funded by the Department of Corrections other organizations are funded through their city or their part of state government or part of community justice centers they're also dealing with maybe their own issues with staff or being able to keep their houses operating and so we're working really hard with them to make sure that all of the beds that we contract for are available to people but releasing people without housing as Pepper was saying has in the past when we've studied it particularly people who really need some structured place to live has turned out to be problematic they end up returning to incarceration at greater rates than people who don't have a stable home so in this particular time it's really important that we have those housing providers available and we're working with them every day to make sure that's happening thank you Monica, thank you Pepper I just have one more question and it's for Ken I'm just wondering on the DCF level with parent child contact and visitation knowing that I personally work with a lot of parents who are impacted by DCF and have their children in custody and know a lot of parents have lost visitation and some of the telecommunications has not happened or is not happening in a timely manner has there been motions or complaints that you've received from loss of parent child contact and how are you as a department if so handling that so we have had I think 12 to 15 motions filed throughout the state related to parent child visitation and COVID-19 and so frankly those are dealt with case by case some of them have been filed by DCF to limit in-person parent child visitation others have been filed by parents asking for in-person visitation so they've been adjudicated individually with respect to the first part of your question clearly if people are having trouble implementing telephone conversation or video conferencing they should feel free to contact either the district office director or for that matter me or Christine Johnson here in our central office and we will certainly look into the matter we are definitely aware of the limitations involved by remote contact and want to do the best we can to enable families to make that happen and just the extension of that question I don't know if there's any shift in policy or things that have shifted because of the difference between in-person and sort of either calls or video calls and understanding how important it is for parents to be physically connected to their kids and the difference between we had a two hour visit now they're saying the kids can only last 15 minutes on a phone call who's discretion is that at and is there any policies that have been created to kind of align with try to keep things as consistent as they were as if they were in physical contact I think we're actually working very hard at that to try to recognize on the one hand the difference, it's not the same we all know that and so we have to try to figure out how to adjust during this pandemic and we're doing the best we can I think that we have encouraged our staff to use when we can have available mental health counselors, multi-disciplinary teams to try to address specific issues but honestly there's no simple answer we're definitely cognizant that remote visitation is simply not the same as in-person and I think we're all doing the best we can to try to adjust to those circumstances Thank you Ken, that's it Aetan, thank you everybody Thank you I want to work in the time that we have left towards the possibility of sort of an action plan if in fact we feel like one needs to happen Yes I'm sorry It's Monica, can I just comment on something else that came up earlier just briefly? Yes I couldn't hear Susanna very well but I picked up a little bit of some of what you were saying and I want people to know that while right now it's hard for me to tell you exactly all of the information you want to know about releases and breaking it down the way people are asking for it, it is something that we're trying very very hard to do in the midst of also sort of managing everything that's going on at the correctional facilities so it's not something that we're avoiding, it's not something that we're, don't think is important it's just not something we've been able to publish just yet Right Chief was that you? Yes I had just one quick comment and then I just wanted to ask well this is probably for Pepper and Monica and Susanna is that one thing that's really scary at least here is because of the COVID-19 is civil liberties versus safety because I'll give you an example like Harbor Place they built a fence around that transitional housing to keep people in not to keep people out so I just, we should make sure the poor are disadvantaged but it's kind of nervous when they start building fences to keep people in that kind of disturbs me a little bit but anyway, I just wanted to make that we need to start, we need to keep our eye on that too, especially with the transitional housing that Pepper and those guys were talking about when they released people Okay, thank you My concern again being who I am here is trying to get us to something on which we can act and it feels to me that there is a really good range here of both praises and complaints in terms of the responses there's also here a fair amount of fear about what does this mean given that we now have this change I guess my question now, I have an idea but I don't know, I want to hear what other people say kind of make this quick because we got 12 minutes where do we want to go with this because there are plenty of places to go anybody got some ideas because I do okay, I'm going to throw out my idea some of you aren't going to like it but I think I'll make it, I'm going to try and make this as easy as possible I think we can't figure out an action right now I think we don't know we just had an audition of what's going on and we sort of did this in a kind of clearing house fashion but I feel like there's more to dig here and I would love to see from all of the stakeholders like a half page of bullet points about what's working and what's not really that simple, that basic that pre-school that I can look at and I can compile and get back out to you so we can look at very specific things and make some decisions about perhaps where we want to put our energy where we don't want to put our energy what we should do, what does that energy even look like does it look like some kind of memorandum I'm throwing this out here for an oak for a discussion it's very quiet does that see okay, was that a dumb idea let's go there we both can't work with silence okay hey, it's Rebecca thank you Rebecca oh, I'll fill the silence with a question can you just say what you were hoping for us to do bullet points on again complaints and praises to all of the responses or some of the responses that we've heard in the last couple hours to the pandemic in terms of their impacts on the high impact discretionary points that we have been looking at do we have enough data Anton to really do that I mean, I don't know I don't think we do I think what I'm hoping for is sort of impressions right now we can worry about the data later if there's not data then we know where we're at but at the moment we're floating hey Tom, when you say data are you specifically when I hear data what I'm specifically thinking of is when they said that there was 260 people who released I want to know how many of those people are brown and black people, native people I want to know how many of those people are poor is that what we're talking about because we're talking about how we're responding in the midst of a pandemic I'm not hearing how we're responding to the midst of a pandemic within racial disparity that's not what I heard this conversation of start as I hear that's where we're going towards and where we're asking for but that's not where I heard this start from if that's the data that we're looking for then that's again confusing the next steps is the I would counter that the discussion may be symptomatic of something if we don't have the data and we're having this discussion that's interesting we should know that so for example for the 260 people that were released does anybody know the demographics of those people Sheila this is Monica that's what I told you we're working on right now I mean I think hopefully you all understand that we're trying very hard to develop reports that we didn't have previous to this so we're trying to look at things in ways that we haven't looked at it before so we can provide that information and continue to do the things that we're working on so we don't have it right now but it is something that we are working on getting and providing to the public and then I would say that if someone wrote a paragraph saying my god we have no data on this and we were just discussing this for two hours that would be revealing that would help us make some decisions about where to go perhaps we really need to spend our time focusing on S338 given that it really has a lot at least in section 19 to do with data collection and we're already on that I just think that this has been preliminary and it was great for that but I think we need to take it further and I don't want to wait a full month to do that that's why I'm saying complaints, praises focus on this discussion, what you've heard what you've taken notes on and let's go from there This is Jessica, can I add one thing perhaps the people who have spoken about what their various agencies are doing could also sort of do bullet points of just to summarize what their agencies are doing that I suppose it will be in the minutes David are you taking minutes of this meeting is someone taking minutes I just feel like it would be helpful to have that information gathered somewhere about what the different agencies are doing to how the different agencies are responding to the pandemic so that we can then sort of say I see that DOC is doing X, Y and Z but I feel like this is also missing and we should be looking at this that makes sense that makes perfect sense it's integral anybody else this is David I think this is the idea is very good I agree with Jessica's add on to it as well and I would just say maybe we shouldn't view it completely as one side versus the other side one side is going to say what they've done and the other side is going to say what they want to see done but rather the folks who have been part of on the government side of responding should also talk about ideas for the future brainstorming where the high impact, high discretion points have been impacted to be done differently and just have more of people doing both revealing knowledge and generating ideas all around I agree and I did not mean to frame it as a battle of any type but just like that we should all be brainstorming and starting from a point of information about what different agencies are doing and then brainstorming ideas of what we could be doing more and also how we can be viewing this and responding to this as Sheila keeps pointing out from our perspective of, in terms of this panel making sure that there are not disparities like let's just say in how we're responding to this pandemic that we are not further extending disparities in how people of color native indigenous people are being treated versus native indigenous people of color So if this is going to go forward I want two things one is I want to make a deadline and secondly I'll compile it I will compile it and shut up David and then I'll turn it around and get it out to everybody but I think I don't know how the rest of you feel it's really productive as a preliminary step and I feel like it's the next thing to do it's not like the grand gesture we're not ready to make a grand gesture as Sheila would point out we don't have the data so can I just say one more thing before you do your where you're coming to this wrap up I can see yes absolutely you know how I roll so yes we don't have the data and we do keeping it real with all of you it's like we don't have the specific data of the coming out of the pandemic but we all know what's up we all know what's going on let's operate as like we know what's going on and that we know as Rebecca said earlier that race is always an issue there's always going to be disparities and this is going to play out in the pandemic as we're seeing in the media across the nation so we already know this exists so even though we don't have the concrete data and I'm not badgering you Monica I understand that getting that out is like a lot harder than said than done so I get that and I want us to also operate knowing that we know what's up we know that there are disparities even if the data isn't we don't have the data yet or the data either even necessarily showing that because there's a lot of loopholes in that data something that I don't know if it's appropriate for this but moving forward and so feel free to lean back on me but we can really brought up Woodside and Woodside I think saying that a lot of youth of color had been had resided there and disproportionately there was a lot of youth of color there and then how people coming out and mental health like we know that an underlining belly of why many people actually end up incarcerated is because of mental health or because the lack of receiving appropriate mental health services at least that's my belief and I think there's data and studies around that and so I'm really curious in terms of next steps with I don't know not just looking at Woodside but looking at that as an example of systemically how are we putting into place mental health services that actually meet the needs of indigenous and people of color how are we actually doing that because when they come out or when we're creating out those other resources that will have to be done for Woodside or when we're talking about people just entering into the system all the different ways a huge component is mental health and then externally being in a predominantly white state most of you might know that there are not very many practitioners in that field of color period and then on top of that how those people of color are receiving that care or lack thereof is a huge issue so systemically I'm feeling though mental health is a huge component in all of this in the disparities that we know about and that we're seeing and that are going to continue to come out of this particular discussion of the pandemic and I would like that to be somewhere in the focus of us moving forward with next steps great thank you so I'm dreading this but it feels like we need a vote and I have no idea how to do this I mean I can't see anybody I David help me you're like a lawyer do something I would propose that if anybody has an objection to the proposal as Eitan has stated it and Jessica has refined it that we that they should speak up and if there are no objections we can consider it a unanimous acceptance of that proposal and then I'll tell you something else yes so all I won't know who you are so it's really lovely who objects how many objections okay well then so what I'm going to suggest this isn't long it doesn't need to be long so I suggest that by close of business a week from this Friday which is the 24th you submit just this short little bit of bullet points to me all right just send them to me I'll make sense out of them after that so by close of business on the 24th of April which gives you roughly that work anybody object I'm just going to express concern about finding that will certainly do my best great that's all I can hope for well then that's our action thing all right good I'm glad everyone's on board I think we're at the point of making a motion to I would say drive home but I don't know whatever you all do somebody want to do that a motion to adjourn anybody second it all second it all in favor aye all opposed all abstentions motions carried we're done I will see you all on the I believe 12 that'll be our next tele-meeting but I'll certainly be in touch long before that thank you all