 And I'm James Milan. Welcome to this episode of Talk of the Town. I am joined today by Sanjay Newton, who is a member, a clerk in fact, of the PCAB's committee. And I'm going to let him explain what that is in just a second. But just to ground this conversation, Sunday works on a committee that was formed in the wake of the writings that came out of Lieutenant Padrini here in town a few years ago. I'm sure most of you, if not all of you, are quite familiar with the whole situation and how it has unspooled over these last years. It's an uncomfortable piece of our recent history that we are all still grappling with. And this committee is a fundamental and important part of that work as we move forward from here. So first of all, with that brief introduction, Sanjay, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, James. I'm glad to be here. It's important work, and I'm glad we're having the conversation. Me too. Anyway, I mentioned that you are a member of the PCAB's, and that is, of course, an acronym. So if you don't mind just explaining both what the acronym stands for and then what the work of the committee that you're involved with is. Yeah, sure. So the PCAB's is the Police Civilian Advisory Board Study Committee. It's a mouthful, but we just go with PCAB's to keep it simple. And really, you know, we're created by Town Meeting and to report to the next year's Town Meeting about best practices in civilian oversight of police. And I think, you know, that's really the charter of what we're looking at. You know, we were created by Town Meeting last year in the fall special Town Meeting session. We've been meeting since March, and, you know, we have a great group of committee members, you know, several town staff, the Town Council, the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The Chief Flaherty is also a member of the committee. And then we have representation from several different committees in town. The Rainbow Commission, the Human Rights Commission, Diversity Task Group, and Vision Arlington, you can find the whole list and all of the people on the town's website. But it's really a great group of people who've been really engaged with the topic. We met four times over the course of the summer to really sort of dig in and make sure we understand what it is we're studying and what the landscape, you know, both nationally and locally is. And people have really been, you know, putting in the work to understand that. You know, one of the things that I think many of us were surprised to learn is that, you know, civilian oversight is not just something new, right? This is something that's been around in various forms in various places for quite a while. You know, there's 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the United States, and about 200 of them at this point have civilian oversight already. But you know, I'm going to interrupt, excuse me, just because, of course, you've been steeping yourself in this kind of research over these last months. Is that a surprisingly small number as far as you are concerned? Or, you know, do you have any reaction to knowing that, you know, it's about 200 among, as you just said, 18,000? Given again the kind of prominence of the conversation around some kind of oversight of police activity. Yeah, I don't think that that's a surprising number. I think that, you know, in that 18,000 is a very diverse range of law enforcement agencies, right? From single officer departments to, you know, thousands and thousands of officer departments. And I think what we've seen in looking at the history is that, you know, historically, lots of larger communities, right, had specific problems that they wanted to deal with, and they turned to civilian oversight as a way to deal with that. And, you know, I think what we're seeing in the last couple of years in the research that we've done is that a lot of communities across the country, you know, there's 200 now, but there are a lot of communities and a lot of communities of all different sizes looking at what are the best practices in this field? Where, you know, what makes sense for our community? And what can we do to bring civilian law enforcement to ourselves? And that kind of conversation, 200 is the number now. I don't think 200 is going to be the number in another two or three or four or five years. Yes. So I understand what you're saying is that 200, basically, the work that you guys are doing right now is all with a particular goal in mind, which is the establishment of some sort of supervisory or civilian oversight board. And you're talking there are 200 that exist at the moment, but many, many others, like Arlington itself, are in process in the process of figuring out how to best do such a thing. And as you say, in the near-term future, we can expect that that number will increase, that number of 200 will increase, probably fairly substantially. Can I ask you before we move forward, you gave a great description of the composition of the committee, and clearly it's a significant number of people from really representing a nice broad cross-section of our community. How did you get involved? I know that you are a town meeting member as well, but how did you, you know, how many folks like yourself who, again, not tied, I don't thanks to any specific either committee or department in town, how many folks like yourself are on the committee? And again, how did you get involved? Yeah, I think there are 13 voting members of the committee, so folks who are not town officials, right, or not town staff members. And, you know, I came to the meeting, I'm a town meeting member from precinct 10, and the call went out looking for people who are interested in this issue and wanted to, you know, have this conversation and really dig in and do the research. And this is a you know, I think many of us, right, over the last few years, you know, five, two, three, four, five, six years have really had an increasing awareness about, you know, police-civilian interaction and an increasing level of understanding about both what the status quo is and what the options that are available out there are. And, you know, I think, you know, I saw the opportunity to, you know, continue that conversation here in Arlington, and I'm really happy to be participating in it. Well, that's great. So basically, you responded to a call, as did others, and that's how, you know, some significant portion of, again, kind of community representatives made their way onto the committee. That's great. Yes. So you've mentioned that you guys have met four times already. And what are the kinds of things that you've needed to tackle before we get into the specific research that I know that you have done that took the form of a presentation to the rest of the committee and that we were going to want to dig into in more detail? Just in general, if you can give folks an idea of, okay, as you sat down to the work at those, in those first couple of meetings, what are the first things that you kind of need to tackle? Yeah. So, I mean, we went actually four times over the summer, and we've met several times actually in the spring as well. So it's more than four times we've met, I think eight. Thanks for that clarification. But either way, right, the, you know, the main question is what have we been doing so far? And we've actually just at our meeting last night, we voted to publish an interim report, which really covers a lot of this ground of what have we been talking about? What have we been thinking about? What have we been studying? And that report doesn't have any conclusions in it, right? It's not, we don't have a decision yet of whether we're going to recommend creation of any sort of oversight body. We don't have a recommendation of what sort, you know, if we were to recommend what sort. But this is really about, you know, understanding what the landscape looks like. What are the different models of oversight out there? There are several, there are four four-ish, three four-ish different models that exist in various forms in different communities. And understanding what is the current situation in Arlington, right? You know, if somebody has a complaint about the police department, where do they go and how do they go about doing that? And what's the process after that? So we spent a lot of time, you know, understanding those things and really looking at, you know, what are the practices out there? We had a great presentation in August from Brian Core, who is both our neighbor in Cambridge, but also the immediate past president of NACL, which is the, well, I'm going to forget, National Association Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, I think. Well done. But he gave us a great presentation sort of taking us through and that actually is available. Our meetings are available on Acme, and so people can go and watch his great, really great presentation to us. Yeah, so you just mentioned that there are, you know, four-ish way, you know, options that you have uncovered. That's part of this larger research that you've been doing into the best practices of existing civilian boards or those, you know, probably again, in the same situation that Arlington is looking at, you know, what to recommend to the town. So in any way that you would like, describe for us what you've found, what is going on in the areas around us and that we can really draw from and will draw from, that the committee will draw from in terms of making its ultimate determinations. Yeah, so, you know, I would say I think a lot of people sort of think of the investigative model of oversight when they think of civilian oversight, right? Somebody has a complaint and they bring it to this body and that body does a full investigation and makes a recommendation and, you know, and that's what people have in their mind for civilian oversight of law enforcement. And that is one of the models that's out there, but there are others. And so, you know, one of the other models is a review model. And in that sort of model, there's a specific focus, there is still a specific focus on individual complaints. But the review body itself doesn't do the investigation, right? The, you know, internal affairs or professional standards, different departments call it different things would still perform the review. And then this body would would look afterwards at that review and say, oh, you know, you should go back and talk to this person more or, you know, make sure that the review, the investigation matches the community expectations and community standards before any sort of final recommendation was made. And there are a lot of this is functionally how Cambridge next door operates. And there are a lot of other communities that operate on that model as well. Okay, I'm going to, sorry, I promised I'm going to interrupt first for a second. And just to make sure I know that you've got two more models to discuss. But so far, I just want to make sure I have this right that basically you've got two, you know, two models you've mentioned already an investigative model in which the actual civilian oversight board would have investigative powers and need to do that work itself. The second one you've just described more reviewing what the police will do internally in response to, you know, to some kind of call or request. And then with the oversight board, just kind of looking at the work that the police has done and giving their own feedback and having the I assume the authority to request that the police, you know, do something to a greater degree or, you know, we're slightly differently or something like that. And do I have that right? Yes, that's right. And, you know, I would say, you know, the authority part of it is a is a big question, right? And no to invest, you know, no to boards across the country are the same, right, in terms of what authorities they have and what abilities they have. And so, but you have exactly the the summary of those two models, correct? Yes. Thanks for that clarification, because that's a really important one, you know, around just where what is going to be, again, the ultimate, you know, situation in terms of authority for this civilian board. But I'm sure we will have opportunities in the future to delve into that more deeply as well. Anyway, I did interrupt. I apologize. Not a couple of more models to describe. Yes. So the one of the other models is an appeal model. And so, you know, this one I think is fairly self-explanatory, right? You go through whatever existing complaint or formal process exists, still, again, focused on individual complaints. But then you can appeal, if you as the complainant are not happy, you can appeal to this body. And also, you know, if a law enforcement officer was not happy with the way their disciplinary hearing was held, right, they could appeal to this to this board. I'm escaping my mind. Actually, I believe Brookline has a model somewhat like this, in that they have an ability to appeal to their select board when people feel that the process didn't happen the way that they wanted to. And there are other places nationally that have that sort of model. And then the sort of last one that we haven't covered is an auditor or performance model, right? And there are lots of places that have this. And this is less focused on specific complaints, right? This is much more focused on understanding how is our police department functioning? What sort of policies and practices do we have in place? It spends a lot of time, you know, this sort of oversight often spends a lot of time gathering and interpreting data, right? And, you know, either publishing that data publicly or using that data to then provide feedback to, you know, whoever is making decisions about policy, about training, about, you know, investigative processes and these sorts of things, right? And then, you know, we alluded to it earlier, but, you know, no two boards across the country are alike, right? Even ones that say they fit in one particular model often have bits and pieces. And, you know, that's one of the things that we've really learned is that, you know, the local context is what's most important here and understanding what Arlington needs and what's going to work in Arlington and then, you know, picking and choosing the pieces from all of these different models that could work for Arlington is really, I think, you know, some of the upcoming work of the committee as we move forward here. Sanjay, how long have you been living in Arlington? I've lived in Arlington since 2013. I moved here. Yeah. Okay. I ask only because I have been living here a long time as well. And, but here at ACMI since about the time that you moved to Arlington. And in my work here at ACMI, I've had a chance to interact with the leaders among the police in particular, as well as other members of the police department over these years. And what I can say is that, you know, Arlington has been proud and the APD, the police department itself has been proud, I think, of its leadership, both regionally and in some ways nationally around innovative community policing initiatives of different sorts from, you know, its treatment of opioid addiction to mental health, you know, support, et cetera. So I know that there has been building over some amount of time a sense that, wow, here in Arlington, you know, our police are on the right track. They've really gotten, you know, they are models for others to emulate and we're lucky to have them. That was a general sense, I think, that pertained for a while. Yeah. And what I would say, you know, that's been a theme of conversation in the committee so far, right? Like, what problem are we here trying to solve has been a thread through several of our meetings, right? And a lot of people have had really great experiences with APD. And that's, I think, a fairly accurate for many of those people. But, you know, I'm an engineer. And so, you know, in doing my work, sometimes what we're going out and doing is, you know, there is a problem and we must fix it. You know, there's oil spilling on the floor or there's wet and we must stop it. And, you know, how do we fix this and how do we make sure it doesn't happen again. But the other way that, you know, I often approach my professional work is, there's this system. How is it working? Where could we make it better? Right? Yeah, it's working today. But look at those guys over there doing something even better than us. Or, you know, people are thinking about this idea that could be better than what we have. Does it work for us? Could we make it work? What would we need to change to make it work for us is another way to sort of approach that idea of what is the work of this committee, right? Personally, you know, just speaking for myself, I don't think that there's one problem or one issue that this committee is here to work on, right? We're here to, and the charge from town meeting to us, right, is to look at this whole system and make recommendations about what is best and what's going to work for Arlington. And, you know, I'm struck by the fact that in describing your own work and giving a couple of nice examples of what it is that you were talking about, hey, here to solve a particular problem versus, hey, let's look at the system, you've just described as well that kind of that spectrum, the range of options for like the committee's work that you had outlined before that from something that would be incident driven, it seems like, you know, with the board having that power to investigate an incident or series of incidents, etc., and moving gradual steps backward to the fourth one that you had mentioned, which was performance, you know, let's look at the whole thing and how things are done. So let me ask you the reason that I gave that very long preface, you know, to the previous question is really that, okay, that's where things stood for a while and then they got rocked to their core in a lot of ways through the public conversation that has happened over these last two or three years. I'm wondering whether in your work, and again from your engineer's perspective, whether you would say, hey, this committee that you're on right now and the civilian board that may be the result of this would have been a good idea five years ago, 10 years ago, would have been a good idea any time. I mean, it's always easy to look back at the past and say, oh, if only we'd had x, y, or z, right, and, and, you know, but as a community, right, our job is really to look forward and figure out, hey, you know, what do we need to have in place for the next five years or the next 10 years, we can't change the last five years, right, but we can set ourselves up for success for the next five, 10, 15. And, you know, I think one of the things that I've also taken away from, from being part of this committee for the last several months, right, is that other places that are doing civilian oversight have evolved over time, right, so that the, you know, the committee that, you know, they established in 1995, well, you know, they had to revisit it in 2005 and make some changes to what they did or, you know, this, this, this idea of, you know, police and community relationship and trust is not something that just happens with one committee or with one action or with one, right, this is an evolving process over time, right, that lots of people both in the community, if there's some sort of board created out of this, right, within the police department, that's a relationship and a work, you know, that's going to continue over years. There's no one single piece to that relationship. Right, and I think I may have spoken in a way to give the wrong impression, I just want to make sure that, that I clarified that when I asked you about, you know, would, would you think this would have been a good idea five years ago, maybe I should have said 10 or 15, so in other words, a good idea at any time, we were feeling really good about our relations. It seemed like between the police and the community for a number of years, again, that's been a little bit shakier, let's say, for the last bit, but even before that, when we were feeling like, oh, good, you know, we've got this, we've got this, it sounds like the work that you're doing now, it would have been very useful, just as again, because as you say, stepping back and looking at overall performance, hey, we're not looking at, we're not worried about a particular incident or series of incidents, we just want to, you know, see how things are working and see if we can make them even better. That's what it sounds a lot like, how you see the work that you're doing now, and I, again, it just makes me think, hey, this would have been a good idea anytime. Yes, absolutely. To me as an engineer, the best system is one that identifies issues early, when there is a little bit of tension in a relationship, oh, let's figure out, let's identify that tension, let's figure it out. Just because there isn't a problem now doesn't mean that there couldn't be some problem in the future and systems that we can have in place to understand those problems, recognize those, you know, tensions and deal with them early and well is a benefit to the community. Great, we have spent a good amount of time then kind of bringing folks up to speed, bringing me up to speed as well, on, you know, just the work that you have been doing so far and where things stand as we speak now in August of 2021. Can you just spend a couple of minutes to tell us what do things look like in terms of timeline, in terms of, you know, what kinds of considerations are happening, and then even, you know, is there an endpoint that you're aiming for in time with the work of the committee? Yeah, sure. So, you know, as I said, up to now, the focus has really been on making sure everybody's on, everybody on the committee is on the same page and understanding what is out there. We've created this interim report, which I think is really excellent, and I hope that people will go out and find it and read it. I think it's a great read to get up to speed with the committee, and I think moving forward. I'm sorry, just to say again, you had said and that people will be able to find that report on the town's website, I assume. Yes, there is a committee page for the PCAB's committee on the town's website, and we should have that report posted there shortly. Yes. Great, sorry to interrupt. No, no, absolutely. And, you know, as we go forward, I think the work of the committee is really now undertaking, you know, a conversation both within ourselves and with the wider community about, you know, what all these options are and what people, both the committee would like to see, what the public would like to see, what can work for Arlington. And I think, you know, we have not had very much of that conversation within the committee yet, but part of what we have planned for the fall is some opportunities for public input, and we don't have exact details on that yet, but that that fully needs to be a part of the work of this committee is making sure we've heard from, you know, as many community voices as we can. And so we're going to be, that is part of our work, you know, right here soon in the fall. You know, there's still topics for us to continue to consider, but then we're also going to be, be, I think, starting the, you know, the conversation about what pieces of these models that we have seen make sense for Arlington, right, which, you know, yeah, I think that's a big part of the committee's work going forward. You know, the committee's charge is to present a report and or recommendations to Town Meeting 2022, which, you know, believe it or not, that time is rolling quickly here. It'll be here before we know it. Oh yeah, that's a long way away. We've got plenty of time. Sure. So I do, I do think there is some urgency to the, to the work that the committee still has to do, right? There's a, this is a lot of information to go over and a lot of things to consider for Arlington. But I do think that, you know, that by the end of the fall, hopefully we should have a much clearer picture of, of what, you know, between community input and conversations amongst the committee, what we're, what we're going to recommend for, for the town or not recommend. And I think, you know, that's the, that's the timeline I'm, I'm personally sort of hoping for to make sure that we have time to, you know, prepare for Town Meeting if necessary. I've been speaking to Sanjay Newton, who is both the clerk on the police civilian advisory board study committee, PCAB, and also a town meeting member, as you mentioned from precinct 10 about the work of the committee. And we fully expect to be able to speak to Sanjay and, and or other members of the committee as their work proceeds. And we will keep you informed as we stay informed ourselves. This has been Talk of the Town with our appreciation again to Sanjay for his time and to you for joining us. Thanks so much for being here. I'm James Milan. We'll see you next time.