 Hi, Brian, Brianna, let me see. Yes, we are officially recording now. Hey, good evening, everyone. Welcome to the. March 10th meeting of the community safety working group. And calling this meeting to order at 533 p.m. It appears we have a quorum. So I'll do a roll call attendance. If you please miss Pat. Yeah. Ms. Pharrera. Yeah. Mr. Brennan Jones here. Miss Owen. Yeah. Ms. Walker. Here. And Miss Bowen. Here. Hey. There we go. Thank you. Have some others joining in. At this moment. Okay. Hi, so I have you list under Terry Mullen. Yeah, that's. Can you just tell me your name so I can I and I would like to fix it. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Oh, okay. Sorry. I just put my pronouns at the end. Sorry. I could delete those if that's necessary. Hi, Dr. Shabbos. Hi Dr. Shabbos. How are you? I'm good. It's a pleasure to be here. Hello, Deborah. Imagine here. Yeah, it feels like just community. So good to be amongst you all. Absolutely. And there. So we're all in the room now. Thank you all for being here. I want to move us forward. And. Just a quick review of our agenda today where. As usual, we're going to open up to public comment very shortly after we review the. The February 10th. Minutes. And, and approve those minutes minutes. We're going to public review. A public comment. I'm sorry. And then. I think in the interest of the group, I'd like to ask our group if we could dispense with our members report. Given the. The amount of work we have to do this evening. And if there is something that you maybe want to share. That's at some point probably incorporated in your comments during the course of our work this evening. When we get to our action discussion items, we're going to be. I'm going to have a consultant discussion with with our consultants about the work coming up. And we're going to be setting priorities for the next steps that we're going to be doing. And then we're going to be doing some of the work that we need to do. And then we're going to be doing some of the work that has to happen with our group. And then as usual, we'll do upcoming events. And. Set our next meeting date. As usual. And at the end, if there are any topics that have not come before the chair. In a timely manner. We'll raise those at that point. And then we'll move to adjourn. So given that. I don't have any comments on this, but what I'd like to do is we've asked folks to read the minutes before. For him, we're not going to go through them on screen. And I'd like to welcome any. Comments or corrections or edits to the minutes of. February 10th meeting. And I'd like to just open that up to the group, please. I think I see any hands. If there are no comments on the, the February 10th meeting. I would welcome a motion to accept those meeting notes as written. Motion to accept those minutes. Thank you, Ms. Carrera second. Second that. Okay. All those in favor of the thumbs up. Okay. And Brianna was that you that said second. Yes. Thank you. Again, just a thumbs up on the minutes, please. Thank you. Okay. I'd like to move very quickly to our public comment. If there are members of the public viewing this evening. Who would like to. Make a comment or share their thoughts with the committee. This is the time we do that. And I'd like to open that up and you will be recognized by. Ms. Moisten and welcome. Into the panel. Yes. Good evening. So Mr. O'Connor has his hand raised. Mr. O'Connor. Yeah. Good evening. This is appropriate time to make a comment. Absolutely. Okay. So again, since I don't have television, most of what I learned about the world is from national public radio and associated things. And I did hear a program about the star program in Denver. And I found it disturbing. That less than what appeared to be less than 5% of the calls. The calls were being referred by the police department to non armed employees of the city of Denver. And I think that. That will lead to serious problems. So I would really like to encourage the task force to the working group to. To really take into consideration the idea that they recommend to the city council. That. That certain activities, the. Certain calls be referred to a non armed group. And others be referred to the police and. That. Because I think the issue. Of the mistrust of communities about what will happen if the if you call the police. Can only be addressed if people know in advance that if you call somebody about a mental health issue, you will not see an armed police officer. You will. You will see somebody else and that can only be guaranteed. If there is a, an entirely new department. Headed by a civilian, which includes a police department, but also includes a group of individuals whose job it is to. To non violently resolve things. So that. And I think the, the other, the other issue, which I think is involved with the policing. Issue in across the country is. Unless you have a new department, you cannot. When you have a entirely new department and the police. Part of this laid down. You then get rid of all the agreements. The contracts and so forth. So you start a new with new people who have to apply for their jobs again. And as such, you then get to choose which. How to evaluate people. How to train them. And in fact. What disciplinary matters are going to be imposed for. People who put their hands on their guns when they're talking to. Who who draw their weapons on individuals. Who file face. False police reports. All of which approved. Incredibly difficult in. In other police departments to get rid of and the way to get rid of. The, the existing disciplinary code. Is to have an entirely new department with new, with personnel under hired under new conditions. And, and say that this is, this is how it's going to be. We're not going to allow the Wild West to continue anymore. So thank you very much. And. Be happy to hear how the meeting goes. Thank you. Any other hands. Thank you. Miss moisten. Couldn't hear you, miss more than if you had a. It gets me each and every time. No. He was the only one. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I, I think we're going to, you know, move right directly to. The work we have to. To do today. And it's, it's our beginning discussions about. Working with our. I want to also thank. For welcoming. Those folks to the panel. I want to thank Mr. Delaney and. Mr. Bachman also for joining us this evening. As they are part of their procurement process. I want to welcome, you know, Dr. Shabazz. Dr. Johnson Anderson. Mr. Terry Mullen. And let's see if we miss anybody here. I think that's it. And also our. Dr. Katie Ladowski. Yeah. Oh yeah, she just fell off the screen and came back. Hi, Dr. K. I did see you finally. Welcome to all of you. And let me, let me just start by. Asking, well, verse in a couple of things for the public who may be watching right now, we. Have been in this process, this bid process for a while. We have welcomed. And accepted the bid. From seven generations movement collective. We are very happy to be working with them. I'm looking forward to working with them. For the, for the duration of the contract. We are in the process of. Getting that contract signed and up and running and, you know, Mr. Delaney, Mr. Bachman can fill us in on that as well as. Members of the collective. And we're eager to begin and we have a very tight timeline. So we're going to be discussing our priorities and looking at what we can do to move this process forward. Before I go any further with that, I want to see first before I welcome and introduce the, the folks from the collective. If members of our committee have any opening statements, they want to say as well. Well, for me, I was just, I just want to say welcome and we're eager to work with you all. And, you know, there's a lot of work to be done, but we're excited about it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. And so let's, let's get right to it. Again, welcome and thank you for being here. It's exciting to see some new faces on the screen. You know, we're used to seeing each other all the time, but now we have some new collaborators with us and we're very happy to be in this position and very eager to go to going forward. I want to welcome each one of you and give you an opportunity just to introduce yourselves to us. Certainly we know some of us know each other, but to introduce yourselves to us. And then we'll begin our discussion. So I don't know who would like to go first. I'll go first and then they please, they can introduce themselves. I just want to say, you know, the, the work we have before us, I know that we've done a lot of work in this, we've done a lot of work in this work. So we came together in part to do this type of work on behalf of communities. RIP large that have, you know, want to see this as something that is ethical and socially just, but done in a way that includes the community voices. to accomplish. So I'll say more later, as we go into talking about the contract, I am Dr. Demetria Shabazz. And as I said, I'm so glad that you all have volunteered your time to be on the Community Safety Working Group. I know as somebody who lives in this community, someone who has participated in the town in various capacities, what dedication it entails, and time that it entails. So thank you all for your service. My background, by way of introduction, is someone who has a background in social behavioral research and work. My specialty is communication. But it is in social and behavioral type of research methodologies, which are mainly qualitative. Definitely understand quantitative, but we have someone on our team that does that work as well. And so I want you, as you listen to the introductions, as folks introduce themselves, to understand this is a very capable group of folks who are all working together with a certain idea around social justice and what it means to do this research in the community. Thank you, Dr. Shabazz, and welcome. Welcome. It's good to see you. Someone like to go next. Dr. Sanji? I was going to say, go ahead, Katie. You don't let me start calling on you now. OK, OK. I won't have to do it. I'll do it. My name is Sanji Johnson-Anderson, as you can see. And I like to introduce myself as an old teacher. But my research interests really sit at the intersection of Black feminist epistemology, critical race theory and performance ethnography. And my work focuses on the experience of students and families who are primarily on students and families that are marginalized in public spaces. And I have a ton of experience when I'm working with community groups, doing grassroots community work, doing performance work. And of course, as an educator, I value that. And it is what I think defines me beyond all else. And I believe that when you are a teacher, you are a leader. When you are a teacher, you're good at everything because you have to be. I'm really excited about making a contribution to this work, that we will value this work and that the work will accomplish what we set out for it to accomplish, inclusive of the voices, especially the voices of our community members that we most often do not hear from. So I will be giving it my best effort. And I am a team player. I'm very nice, as you can see, and easy to work with. And I really do look forward to getting to know all of us and to working together to make something worthwhile happen in our community. So thank you for welcoming me, and I look forward to it. Thank you. We all welcome you as well, Dr. Johnson Anderson. And happy you're here. Good to see you again. So we'd like to go next. Happy to go. Thank you all. I can't wait to support this work, first off and foremost. And I was watching the 11 o'clock news last night, and there was a clip about Watertown Mass, of course, doing very similar work. And I imagined any of your faces could have been those people speaking to their initiatives. So thank you for taking up this work and for committing to it. To be part of it is really an honor. And to bring our expertise to it is exciting. So thank you. I come from a background in education, both as a educator myself in 7th through 12th grade, as a teacher educator in both local and international settings. And my research work is based also in qualitative, although sometimes mixed methods, research. And I'm very excited about the fact that we will be drawing on participatory action research. This is an approach that does prioritize and positions community members as the experts of their own environment and of their own situations. So to be using this is very exciting. I've been an advocate of this approach since early in my doctoral career, attending a workshop by kind of one of the founding mothers, if you will, of the PAR approach, Michelle Fine, as well as Dr. Maria Torres as well. So to be starting then and probably over a decade ago at the City University of New York and now to see it being used in our own town is phenomenal. So we have a lot of work to do. And I'm eager, like all of you, to get started. So thank you for this collaboration. And last but not least, Terry. Hi, I'm Terry Mullen. I have a master's in applied mathematics with a focus on predictive modeling. A lot of the work that I've done has been to show and to explain how statistics is not the silver bullet people want it to be and how we really need to what the cons are of trying to use a purely quantitative approach and why we need researchers like Dr. Luzowski and Dr. Demetria Shabazz and Dr. Johnson Anderson as well as researchers like myself to be in collaboration with each other. So I've done some work. I'm a programmer. I've done some work for Defend 413. So if you've seen my name, that's probably where. And yeah, that's me. Thank you also for all of your work. This committee is by far my favorite. I love watching y'all work. You are so amazing. We're our favorites too. We're a little prejudiced in that way. But you know, you know how biased it is. So as you can see, we have just an amazing group. We, of course, will talk more about the details. We'll be contracting out with community ambassadors, that type of thing. But this is our core group for particularly this project. And you know, I think you have some of the best folks in this community to work on this important project. I also want to say that I like to be given time to talk a little bit about some of the things, the questions we have with the contract. But then also Dr. Listowski will, for those of you who aren't familiar with PAR, we'd like to kind of talk about our approach and how it fits in to the participatory action research model and why we chose that model and how it was written up in our bid submission. So that's what I've laid out for us, I guess, for this evening. So perhaps we should go right to the concrete pieces of this around the contractual issue. The contract is our beginning. And it's laid out to define the parameters and scope of the work. And so Mr. Delaney, you are here. Mr. Backelman. And I know at least I've been communicating around the status of where we are with that and what our next steps are. And then I think we can move right to some conversation with the group directly, if that works for the rest of the working group. So perhaps you can give us an update or any specifics we need to know as a community safety working group. So we received the contract on March 2nd and we read it as a team also that day, sent it to our attorney to look over and looking at how we responded to the three original bids, part A, B, and C. And we looked at what we stated as the scope and within the timeline of the contract. And we saw a number of differences which came up in how now part A, part B is configured. So we like to go over this in general. And by the end of the week, actually send you some of these questions and our suggested edits. But I think prior to doing that, we need to have a conversation on priorities and the timeline as it's configured now. So again, we bid on this to bring our expertise of the team to bear on what we see as a serious matter regarding community safety and policing and really in pursuit of social justice and equity within our community. And I say this because the points I want to bring up and talk about as areas of negotiation have to do with delivering quality services within this specific time frame. So we respect that the time frame is to utilize this analysis to drive policy and budget discussions. So we understand it's time sensitive work. We respect that you also see the budgeting process as a statement, a real statement about the values of this community. So this being March 10, we are effectively talking about six weeks, provided that we can get started on this immediately. So brings up the first point of concern that in order to put people together, particularly to recruit, train the contractual community ambassadors as they are defined and get started on this work and leading to the preliminary report, we want to streamline the pay schedule and really look at it within thirds because we're going to have to pay our contractual folk to train. We don't want them to spend their time and not compensate them in some way. And so we'll need one third almost immediately to get this work started. And also, when we talk about to formulate the necessary focus groups, the research, the work, which becomes a part of our analysis to turn in a report, we see it as within the next three weeks, another third. And then the final report, we could receive the final third. So perhaps, particularly with the Part B, some of that report might even happen before the timelines that you all have set up. But that brings up another issue. And again, these are generalities, and I'll put it in a document, a written document, to forward to you all. But those dates are also not streamlined, meaning they're not consistent. So just like with the pay schedule, Part A and B have differences, the timelines for Part A and B are different. And since we are contracted to do both of those and we are one entity, it would be great to have all of that consistent. So the pay schedule consistent and the timeline consistent would just be a lot clearer. And so at this juncture, that brings up this point and something for you all to consider as a group that I think we could help as researchers help you all prioritize. Prioritize in terms of what's the research that's really important and pertinent to creating a report that will be useful in shaping budgetary concerns. So the research and data collection, there's a lot that you all have laid out within Part A and B and even more so because it looks like some of the stuff is repeated from Part C and put some dispersed within Part A and B. And so it becomes even larger. And I think with the time that we have, it would be important if we could have a conversation either all as a group or with one of us and your committee to begin to be real specific in terms of priorities. D, we see you all doing these five or six main things because this is what's going to drive the data that will be needed to write the report. And I think we could figure that out now that you have. And again, it doesn't mean that you all did a great job and are doing a great job. But now you have at your disposal for researchers that have experience doing community-engaged work, doing participatory action research work out within communities that we could perhaps help to shape what are the prioritized items that need to be done now as opposed to something that could be done later, either contract it with us or contract it with someone else, however you want to do it. But right now, within this timeline, these are the priorities. So and again, that would assist in shaping that report because we would be able to focus on those things, get those things done, get the report into you in a draft mode, have you look at it, and then have that final report and the presentation. So that's one thing. And then as far as some specifics, our group, we were awarded the two contracts, part A and B. We liked the payment schedule streamline. We liked some of the dates streamlined so we could begin this work to hire the community ambassadors. There's items such as some language, such as on page three of the contract where it reads. And this is just in general. I just want to give you an example because again, we're going to be more specific in writing. It reads if requested by the CSWG. I think as we lay out priorities, it would be really important that, yes, we can make way for contingencies, right? But it would be more important to be real specific. This is what we want you to do and to stick to that as opposed to, oh, we just thought of something else. And again, that doesn't mean you will, but it reads like that within the contract. We just thought of something else and we want you to do this now within this timeline. Because time, of course, is of the essence and it seems that having this report is a major part of it and getting those experiences from the community, putting that into both qualitative data and quantitative data, that's going to take time. And it's not necessarily I mean, the writing takes time, the analysis takes time, but what takes time is recruiting those folks, going out into the community because you have to build that trust, doing that research, and then bringing it back in order to have that analysis take place. So I just want us to think about that. Katie's going to talk a little bit about that in terms of PAR, of course. And then lastly, who do we speak to regarding items that may come up, eventualities that might occur during the process of the research? Maybe there's, I just spoke with actually just trying to plan out through Craig's doors, for instance. If that becomes a priority, and again, I don't know, we have to look at that because we had laid out the BIPOC community as the main groups in which we would look at five of them. You have 10, which again, if we're gonna prioritize, can we prioritize five groups and focus on them? And then we can reach out later to other groups because again, time is of the essence. But there might be contingencies in terms of, we had planned to, within our proposal, provide gift cards from restaurants, would support businesses within the town, that type of thing as incentives for participants. Well, just in talking, having that conversation with Kevin Noonan, he suggested, well, not necessarily restaurants, but a gift card to CVS or Target would be more useful to our folks if that's a possibility. So things like that might be a contingency, I don't know, but we would wanna know who to contact for those types of things. There, like I said, there are more specifics. I don't know if this is the time or place to get into every specificity within the document, but we will have it to you by the end of the week and we'll be starting the work, but we'll have it to you by the end of the week, and then you all could look it over and hopefully have a signed document by Monday. Any questions or comments? Thank you, Dr. Shabazz. Okay. Yeah, I'm sorry, that was me on you. I'm sorry. Thank you. That's really helpful to hear. Let me just go back to the top of what you said and even all of you in your communication, in your introduction about wanting to put the community up front as experts in this and getting the kind of feedback that's gonna help inform our recommendations as a community safety working group to the town, that I think we join you in with no reservations. We certainly want that. We've attempted to do that already with a couple of forums that we've had and we've done it through looking at the people coming in on our survey link, getting information from them and we've received information from people just in general. They will write to us and tell us about their experiences, et cetera. So we join you in that piece. I think as a community safety working group, just looking at this now, just hearing this for the first time, we're running your comments, Dr. Shabazz, against what we know that's in the contract as it was written. So there are some, you're requesting some modifications. You're requesting some different trajectory for the work going on. So in terms of specifics about all of that, I don't need necessarily to know if we get to all of that in this moment, but certainly I wanna see how that sits with you, Mr. Delaney, Mr. Bachmann, quality work makes sense to all of us, certainly. And I think all of us are sensitive to timeframes that we're working on and we wanna get this work done and done well, but we wanna have it done in the most efficient manner we can. So I don't know, and then I'll come back to you, Dr. Shabazz and certainly members of your group, Dr. Wozdowski, I wanna just hear from you, Mr. Delaney and Mr. Bachmann to see where you're standing, listening to some of these comments as well. So I think the best way would probably be to wait for until we have all of the feedback, suggested changes and questions from seven generations at once. I think having an idea of the full scope of what you're questioning or would like adjusted is probably the way to go. And I also think doing it, we don't typically do these kind of contract minutiae in a committee meeting, it's kind of messy. So I think having that just be done with town staff when it's all ready is probably the way to go. Generally, so altering the specific payment schedule, the milestones, that is definitely something that can be up for negotiation. The timeline is tougher. A lot of those milestones were in the original bid document and you and the other bidders constructed your bid based on that. So some of the additional milestones we put into the contracts might not have been in the IFV. I'll say might not have. And those could be theoretically up for negotiation, but a lot of the final reporting and stuff like that, that's in there. So we'll definitely want to see what they all are. You brought up a number of points and I'm probably missing some, but I'll stop talking here, but if there's more. Mr. Bachman. Yeah, I think Dr. Shabazz raises a lot of really key points that are really important and that it's important to iron out, have a good understanding for a good working relationship. And some of these do will rest with the community safety working group. So I think it's important to, if we can resolve them tonight, that would be expedited like this. So the IF requested line, I mean, I think it serves, the consultant will need to know if you're requesting it or not because they need to build that into their work plan. And if I can dig up with that. So it says, if I get the right one, Dr. Shabazz, it says, if requested by the community safety working group, the contractor will facilitate communication and dialogue between the community safety working group and the Amherst police department to help shape community safety working groups recommendations. So you may not have an answer tonight on that, but that's a decision point for the community safety working group. And I think it's something they would want to build into their work plan. If you're just going to say, yes, we want that or not. So that's one point. I think Dr. Shabazz's idea of having a point person to be able to run things back and forth is really important. Time is of the essence. I think while you may want them to come and report in every Wednesday, they might have an answer, they might have a question for you that needs an answer that day. And so I think having the community safety working group designate a person who can field those questions. I think it really should be someone from the community safety working group, not a town staff person. I mean, we can work it through Ms. Moisten, of course. Yeah, I agree with Anthony on the dates. The dates are what we put out in the bid and that's how everyone bid and we can't really change those dates. The payment schedule we can, that's those, what we tried to do is tie those payment schedules to products. I understand the sensitivity about getting money. We can't pay in advance. So the town's not permitted to pay someone in advance of the work performed. But we can move that payment schedule sooner in the month of March, if that would help. We can, we only work on a reimbursement basis for everybody. So as you do the work, we can make those payments quicker and more frequent, if that's helpful. The question I had, I have is, how will I know when to sign that procurement, that authorization? So I need, I don't wanna be really abundantly clear with everybody, with the contractor so that there's as little ambiguity as possible. So there's no discretion that this task was done, the payment gets made. And so we just move it forward. And so trying to tie it to product is how the contract is assembled. If there's some other way to do it, open to that. But I think, if there's a report required, the report gets turned in, payment gets pushed out. And I think that that's, as I understand why you would want seed money to get started with folks, but we're not allowed to do that. Those are the major points. But I think those are, there's two questions for the, I don't think the point person is necessary tonight, but I think it's important to have a person like that. And then the discretionary, the one discretionary item in the contract was, do you want them to fulfill that function or not? And that would be wise for you to decide that. And then I think, as Anthony said, we can work out the payment schedule. But just ask me, I just want to be tied, tied to work performed or whatever it is that has to happen. And just so you're aware, it takes a little bit of time for the town to process. So I mean, we will, I'm not sure how long it takes Anthony. No, I'm very much aware how long it takes. Okay. So, no, and I appreciate that, Mr. Backelman. It, going back to that line, if requested, I mean, it has to do with the priority. So if the priority is for us to facilitate discussions with the APD, I think that that becomes a whole use of time and skills that could be used to gather data from the community to aid in the report. So I think those are two different areas. Certainly we have the skill base to do it. But I think just for us to really assess that, is that something that could later happen based on the research findings, based on the data, based on the experiences that people have had to shape future trainings and discussions with the APD and the CSWG. I mean, I see your role in this community as important, this is the first time to my knowledge that you have folks civically engaged and civic leaders in the role of leadership speaking on behalf of the community that is representative of people of color to this level and capacity. So all I'm saying is that this might be that facilitation could be informed by the data, by the research, and if you have six weeks in which to have a report that is useful to budgetary requests, that might be something to put for later. So that, you know, it's up to you almost certainly, but I guess, you know, I think it's something that that should be considered, particularly since it's also representative within the contract as if requested. So it seemed that not necessarily, but we may request it. It was also part of, I think it's duplicated it was in part B and then it appeared also in part C. So it's like there's a duplication that we saw in both of those parts of the original bid that we did on. So thank you, Mr. Jolani and Dr. Shabazz as well, I think. Oh, I'm sorry, and last to speak to what Mr. Backelman was talking about in terms of pay schedule being tied to performance, what I foresee is coming here at another juncture within a week or so, basically to report on this is our recruitment, this is our hiring of folks, ambassadors, and this is the training and this is what we're doing and report out on our progress. And so, you know, it could be tied to that because certainly we'll have to do a 1099 for all these contractual workers. And therefore we can't, we'll have to make those requests sending into the town in order to then get reimbursed for payments to them. Absolutely. Thank you, thank you, thank you both. And I did thank you, Dr. Lozowski for being patient for you, I think you had a couple things. And I do want to, if I may, I'd like to before you speak, sort of check in with our group too because to see if they have any questions at this point, we have done a considerable body of work already which may feed into some of the things that you may be talking about or may need to know from us. So I want to check in with them because also we have some responses I'm sure to what you're saying already. So I don't want to be the only one speaking on the screen right now. So if I may, if I could just quickly go to Mr. Vernon Jones, Dr. Lozowski and it will connect you. Well, I wonder if we could do a quick review of the dates and what we are up against. I felt like I heard Dr. Shabazz talking about having six weeks and there's a piece of it that as I understand it, we don't have six weeks. And while the timelines are different on part A and B in the bid and the contract, while we can't put everything at the end, you know, my guess is that we could actually rearrange some things, that there are some things that we really have to have by the time the town manager needs our budget recommendations and there are other things that may be in that part of the contract that could be that you could have some more time on. And I'd be, I would hope we could do some of that. But Mr. Bakerman, would you be willing to review again when you need to get the final report from our working group relative to budget and whether that also needs to include the community responder model at that time and then what the date is for the second report from us who will need things from the consultants a little before they're due to you. So yes, so I have to thank you, Mr. Wiley. So I need to submit my budget. I required to submit my budget by May 1st to the town council. We want this to be part of that budget. So I think we extended the timeline a little bit from what we originally started. I think, you know, again, I'm present. I'm hearing all everything that you're thinking about. I've seen the work that you did, Mr. Vernon Jones. So I'm sort of understanding. I want to stay on top of it so that when it comes time to put together the budget there's not a lot of ramp up time for me. So I want to stay on top of it. So I think mid, I think we said mid-April, like I'd have to look at the actual dates but mid-April, we're really in the, we're just pretty much finishing the budget by mid-April. So basically a month from now to get things. And the final report, I just need the sort of the shell of the recommendations. The final report with all the stuff that has to be done that can come by April 30th. So that's not as, you know, that's something that, I know that takes a lot of time for a consultant to pull together the final product. But in terms of the concept and what you're thinking, basically a month from now. Okay. Could you have a follow-up, Mr. Vernon Jones to that or does that answer your question? Only to, I'm not sure how we go about, you know, sort of sorting out exactly what we need from the consultants prior to our submitting something to the town manager by April 10 and what are the things that could wait to the 30th? And maybe that's something a few of us could work on with, you know, a member of the town staff and someone from the consulting group. I'm not sure how to proceed there, but I'm interested in giving the consultants all the time they can have for the parts that can, that we can wait on and being very clear about what it is that we can't wait on. So, Ms. Ferreira, I did say I was gonna go back to Dr. Lasdowski, but if this is related to what we're just talking about? Yeah, I mean, I think... Yeah, go ahead and then I'm going straight to you, Dr. LaFerreza. Yeah, because I thought you also said you wanted like us to kind of chime in and... Yeah, I wanted to... Yeah, there's been a lot of conversation going back and forth, so I wanna make sure that, you know, when things are fresh on my mind to it comes up, it kind of goes along with what Mr. Vernon Jones has been talking about, because I know we had met last weekend and had discussed, you know, a variety of different things. And from what I recall is that, yes, we need to make sure and that's in there in terms of the timeline, right? That we need to have that final plan by April 2nd because we do need to give something to Mr. Bachman by April 9th. That was what we had discussed previously. So for me, I think as you've already noted, Mr. Wiley, we've already done quite a bit of work that I think that the consultants could utilize and work with, you know, coming off the gate, right? So we have surveys, we have two public forums that were recorded. We have, you know, also APD data that we've gotten already, you know, ahead of time. And we have, you know, like, yeah, like the surveys and stuff like that are very important that we haven't even really looked at, you know, those need to kind of all be collected and digested that can all go into and we've also already been looking at some of the alternative programs and things like that that we could discuss with the consultant. So I think they could meet that deadline with that final plan of April 2nd, just, you know, based on those. While, you know, also I'm assuming, right? Because there's several people working in your consulting group that the participatory action research can all be taking place. And that can be part of the final plan that's by April 30th, right? All the other work with getting the community and the ambassador, because we still have the second part of our charge where we're really looking at the police and really looking at how to reform. And, you know, and I know we're gonna need a lot of that information from the community in terms of what recommendations are gonna go into that. So for me, that's the way I'm kind of, you know, gauging it, there's a big body. Thank you, Fros a bit here. I don't think, I don't think we heard the last sentence. So on Mr. Herrera, we heard you froze a bit. Okay. Yeah. So I'll just say that. No, I'm saying there's a body of work available that, you know, we get that, that a consultant can utilize and stop work. Thank you. Dr. Lozowski. Thank you. I might have an additional comment now that I heard that. I just, I wanna thank everyone for focusing on the timeline. And I, as Dr. Chavaz said earlier, it is the reports that will inform the policy and the budget. So I wanna respect that timeline to the last possible date as possible. I know we are already delayed though in this work as well. And I know, you know, looking back to the original bid and like the idea was that we would be meeting February 24th or fifth or something. So we're already two weeks behind and my goal again is an ethical researcher is to prioritize the process of the research. And when you're dealing with qualitative, you know, data collection and analysis, you're dealing with human lives. And in particular with participatory action research, it does come down to trust in building those relationships. Otherwise we could throw surveys at everyone, but I don't think that's really what you want. So I appreciate, you know, this discussion to get a better feel of like when that last possible date is. I am, however, a little nervous to hear that there's more data, which is exciting, but it also, if that's something you want us to do, then then we gotta figure out what the contract says. Cause to my knowledge, that was not part of it. And if it, if there's more to analyze and more data sets to review, again, that's going to, you know, impact our timeline and our, cause again, we can't, we come into this thinking, you know, our approach is participatory action research. I can tell you that report has already started, right? I'm already thinking through methodology, you know, justifying why this, why PAR makes sense, et cetera. It's really the work with our participants that creates the findings, which will then inform, which will inform the recommendations and that portion unfortunately can't be rushed. But we will start our recruitment and training, although I hate that term cause professor once told me we train cats and dogs, not people. So yeah, we will, you know, start our collaboration with community ambassadors and get that started. So thank you for being open to maybe some flexibility in the timeline. Thank you for that information. I'm going to just open this up now to our entire panel, our group, your consultant group, to see what other comments folks would like to forward at this time. And just real quick about data. Yes, we are aware, at least I was, I know it's not, it's kind of vaguely included or it's not really specific in the contract that you want us to incorporate the data sets that you've already produced. I think, and we'll have a conversation as a team, how that could be useful for part B perhaps, in that you have survey data, you have the two forums and as Mr. Vince O'Connor, you know, offered during public comment, you have public comments that have been recorded over the course of this group meeting. That's all data. That's qualitative data that can be assessed. We'll need all of those recordings. And again, I would ask to produce because to go through qualitative data like that and produce a report, it's still, it takes some time even though it's there. And this is definitely within our bailiwick to take that information, take that qualitative data, put it into some type of quantitative, way for it to be digestible and understood and utilized. One of the things in terms of data and policing, we also have some data from Defund and the league, but they weren't totally forthcoming with all of their data. And so I'm sure Terry and I will talk about this, but there is some of the policing data that we weren't able to get access to. So that might be something that we'll have to discuss, particularly if you all believe it to be useful to this process, okay? So there is information out there, most definitely. And we would ask to have access to all of that in order to put in, excuse me, to put into part B, which also includes my new, and just to remind you, because again, it's about prioritizing, offering, researching other communities and programs and then making suggestions for alternatives. So it's kind of this two-part report. So I just wanna be mindful of that's all within the scope to be delivered by April 2nd. Right, I have a couple of comments, but I'm gonna defer to the group since I've spoken already a couple of times. Any members of the group have a question or comment on offering at this point? I can't see, I have to look and see if I can see those hands from people off-screen here. Hang on a second, Ms. Walker. I think if it's an option that we should absolutely have, people go through the bid and either revise or prioritize the items, I think that would just be helpful for all of us to be on the same page. And then it would be helpful for us because then we'll have more clear expectations of what exactly it is they're doing. And then also just to be mindful of the timeline, like what absolutely do we need in order to make the report on the second and have those things also be clear for the consulting group so that they aren't, so that they can prioritize their work. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Walker. And I think this kind of feeds back into what Mr. Delaney said earlier about getting all of this on the plate at one time so that we're not piece-mealing the input coming in. We all understand what the parameters are. And I believe you said, Dr. Chavaz, that by the end of the week, that could happen. We do it in a proper way, certainly. Get the questions, the answers and get all those things on the page. I do wanna say very quickly that we have been thinking already as a group. We haven't had a full opportunity to discuss, but we have been thinking already about some preliminary kind of straw poll kind of things we were thinking about in terms of what might be recommendations down the line. And I don't wanna go too far into that because we haven't had our full discussion on it, but we had some discussion, we had some frameworks about trying to say, what do we know already and what's kind of obvious and in our face that we need to think about. So we have some of that going on already. We have been sharing resources, doing some of our own research a bit, sharing what's going on in different districts and towns and cities. I just recently shared that the park document is one park document about community policing, for example. So I think we're not, in terms of all of us reading and gathering stuff, that's a good thing. There's a lot of information going on there, but how to draw it down to what's essential is where we need to be and we need to do it very quickly because we're on such a tight timeframe. What I'm hearing is that we all wanna give you certainly the time to do quality work. That there's a piece of this about hiring folks to work with and get out into the community and get this feedback, have these conversations and come back. What's your sense of how this might be an unfair question if it is, you'll certainly tell me, but how many folks might you need and what kind of timeframe we're talking about in terms of recruiting, hiring, vetting folks who are gonna be working on behalf of the group to then go out in some kind of framework to do. What is that gonna take for you in your mind's eye? So this might be a good time to segue to Dr. Litzdalski to give you a sense of what par and overview of our approach with par and then we can talk about how many, I mean, in our proposal, we certainly had specified five. So why don't we let Katie, Katie, you have some slides. It's not very long, but I think it'll give you a sense of where we're coming from in terms of recruitment and engagement with the community. Thank you for sharing permission, all queued up. So I'm gonna start apart from my slideshow mode because I'm gonna be taking notes on one of the slides. So I'll start in this mode and then I'll move into the actual slideshow. But very briefly, I only have a few, 10 slides prepared here. To share with you a bit about participatory action research for those of you who are less familiar with it, although I think a lot of you are familiar with it. So in general, what we're hoping to do is give you an introduction to participatory research, participatory action research, highlight the benefits of this approach for assisting all of you in meeting your objectives to examine people's experiences with public safety services and also identify the underlying values of PAR and how it informs our work, right? So this goes back I think to the question of how do we recruit and what numbers are we working with, et cetera. I'm gonna start with a brief activity. I'd love for you just to shout out answers as I scribe. What do you think of when you think of a traditional researcher? Are there images that come to mind? Again, feel free just to shout out your thoughts. I have free tower. I have free tower, thank you. What have you seen power researchers depicted in the media or films or textbooks? Yeah, I'm also like what Mr. Bernard Jones said, like kind of just researching in the libraries or doing things and not really engaging with people. Let's keep them coming. I see them as more recorders and reporters rather than deep thinkers. This is a good, a good list, right? And this is an activity that can be done in a setting when you're actually working with in our case, perhaps the ambassadors, right? Starting off with what is your image of a researcher? Because this is all about participatory action research is very much about positionality and positioning community members as the experts. So I'm gonna go to my slide. So a lot of times when you, if you were to do a Google search as I did, a researcher yields the following images, right? Lot of lab coats, computers, again, that kind of sterile environment of an office or a library, you know, a lot of science perhaps not really working with people per se. So we shift the lens in participatory action research and here's a few fundamentals. First of all, get rid of the lab coats, right? We don't have to wear anything specific. In part, the people with lived experience are viewed as the experts and they conduct the research. They design the research. They collect the data. They analyze the data. In the case of your inquiry, the working groups inquiry, those who experience community safety services through policing and otherwise firsthand are the experts. And we have focused our lens as you saw in our proposal to BIPOC communities because they are frequently the ones who experience policing. So it is community members who are the experts. They are the ones who know which questions to ask and how to find the appropriate answers. They design, they collaborate to determine the design of the research methods to collect the data, analyze it and also present the findings. And it's that action, right? In participatory action research which is intended to inform policy and in our case as well, the town budget. So just a little trivia. Did you know that PARA is a highly valued approach to inquiry in other town sectors? And my work earlier, a number of years ago in working with the school committee, the regional school committee voted to approve a policy which actually prioritizes the use of participatory action research. And you can find it on their webpage. But it took about a year to get it passed, but it's exciting that the school district also upholds this as a valuable means of data collection. So to see the town using it for this endeavor is very exciting. So just to kind of paint this picture a little bit more clearly, there's thousands of studies that use participatory action research as its approach from sectors in healthcare, education. I highlight one here from a number of years ago where residents in the South Bronx designed a study to examine the stop and frisk rates, right? Because they were noticing that this is something that their policing was beyond perhaps necessary. They found some data and then they made public presentation one evening and made community members aware of the fact that the stop and frisk rates were much higher. And I don't have the stats, but so much higher than what actually takes place in the neighborhood of New York University, NYU. And they found that when people in the South Bronx were stopped and frisked, there were very little offenses, 90% of resulted in no issues. Whereas in the other neighborhood of NYU, when people were actually stopped, there were more offenses found. So they're obviously the disproportionate number, but that just shows you how participatory action research can identify an issue. It's designed by the stakeholders who are living the issue, so to speak. And it serves to change practice, which is what they did. So how does PAR assist the working group in meeting its objectives? Again, the use of PAR ensures a systematic, yet flexible approach to research. And maintaining this balance, which is why I kind of brought up the timeline, it's essential in order to engage the communities most impacted by policing. Because human lives are involved and there's trust that needs to be built, we're often at the mercy of getting to a particular point with community members and in our case ambassadors before we can get into the thick of it, if you will. And it went before people are willing to open up and explain their situation. So our next steps are to recruit our ambassadors, BIPOC and BIPOC youth in particular. And we are hoping to do this with the help of maybe using the town hall website for the community working group to essentially create a statement of interest, post that statement of interest, have people complete it and apply to be ambassadors. I think from that pool we'll also be able to have additional people who will serve as the ambassadors, group members, if you will. So our goal is to start with five, train the ambassadors and then they will then also work with additional numbers of people to get even more reach. So yeah, so the goal will be to train them in research design, qualitative data collection methods, again, making them aware of what is even possible. I know often we talk about focus groups interviews or such, but there's a whole range of different methods that can be used for data collection. And then also ideally those participants, those ambassadors also take part in the data analysis. You know, it wouldn't make sense for myself as someone with, as a white woman who has one experience with policing to be looking at this data alone, right? So it's incorporating those community participants in the data analysis and dissemination of the findings as well. So I will stop sharing, but happy to take questions. Thank you for your attention. Any questions or comments from the working group? Crash course. Ms. Ferrara. I'm just gonna like, because I'm having internet issues, but Sean, some light on, and I think Ms. Moisten, maybe you could kind of talk more about it, is that I guess we already have certain folks that are ambassadors in the community. Ms. Ferrara, I mean, Ms. Moisten. I know I just, she was fading out so I didn't know if she was done speaking. So we don't currently have ambassadors. There are individuals that were asked to in the future be ambassadors from different locations all over town. And so those people were or and or are available to step in. And so they cross range of a couple of different cultures and bilingual and language. Mr. Baucherman. Yeah, I just wanna clarify the terminology. So the town has an ambassador program that is for COVID-19 response and that's something different. So I think Ms. Moisten is talking about another group of people that would be more purposefully driven for this project. So Ms. Moisten, there was like- Ms. Moisten and Ms. Ferrara, I'm sorry. Yeah, I just kind of undersold that. So these are people who are already established leaders in their particular community area that already have well-developed relationships with other residents in their community. Thank you, Ms. Ferrara, thank you. That was my point. That's what I thought it was. They were actually people that were kind of leaders in the community, that's what I was saying in terms of possibly utilizing them and not starting from ground. So there you are, my screen change. I lost track of you there from Dr. Lozowski. If you were to have the five ambassadors, candidates that are in front of you right now and you're ready to go. What's the timeframe around a training module for those folks and how soon would they be able to go out and begin the work? Of course, you also have to define where the work is gonna take place, certainly, but in how it's gonna take place. But what's the training timeline? And I guess I'm thinking about this in terms of our calendar issues, because this is a very important piece of us connecting with the community. It's one of the pieces of our charge to make sure that happens in order to come up with some viable and actionable recommendations. So just in answer to that, what's your take based on your experience? How long does that turnaround take place for them to be up and ready to go? So my timeframe is highly influenced by your timeline. I think I would design it differently, but I'm also respectful of your timeline. So I would say, I think we would be ready to post something to the town website, for example, as one means or by Friday, like a statement of interest type thing that people would be asked to complete, most likely within a few days, a week's time. I'm hearing in terms of there already being potential people, but also wanna open it up for the sake of seeing who else comes forward, right? Because one, the goal is to select ambassadors, five people, but then for each ambassador, we're also hoping that they work with a group of people, right? So the more the merrier in this sense, and it's gonna yield the data and the stories that we want to hear. But I would say if we can begin working with the ambassadors, I would suggest we would complete that by, I mean, if we can identify people and then depending on what their schedule is, we could complete that by the 21st, but they also have to recruit for, we have to find people who they are gonna do their outreach to, right? And so this is where the time is critical because it's not just about training them, but again, it's about building rapport. You can't just sit down and open your heart about what happened at one time, about a sensitive topic such as policing. But as we mapped out and perhaps my fellow colleagues can share that timeline, we anticipated a few hours workshop with the ambassadors and then on top of that, they go out and do their outreach and collect whatever data they decide, right? So it's acquainting them with PAR, it's presenting different options of data collection and it's them deciding what makes most sense here, right? In terms of what data to collect, to get people's information and to collect the data. So it's... I'm sorry, go ahead. Dr. Olsen, go ahead, finish up, please. Yeah, I'm sorry. That's it? Okay, for the moment, yeah. Yeah. So... I just wanted to check on a few things. So one is I'm assuming that you, there's gotta be someone with more, that speaks, that's bilingual, correct, involved in that group. And then also, you know, language to choose, but also I'm just, are you gonna advertise or out other than the website? Because the website typically only, I mean, are you just using it for a form, like say this is where you go to sign up and you'll have other kinds of outsourcing? Cause as you may know, typically the website collects, you know, the same people, which wouldn't necessarily be helpful for the information that we're looking for. Jennifer, you bring up a really important point, like who goes to that website? What we want to do is try to centralize things. And so since folks know that the CSWG has information, their meetings, et cetera, on the town website, we would direct traffic basically to there. Just again, to centralize things. So folks aren't looking, you know, well, the CSWG, you know, they're linked to me or whatever is one place. And then the form that's connected to this work, connected to the CSWG is another place. So that's why we thought of that instead of putting it on our website, that it would be important to connect the work and these ambassadors to the CSWG. So that's how we saw it. And I think it's a, you know, from our vantage point, it's a good thing in that they understand that the work is emerging from this group. But also, you know, you don't have to go look in multiple different places. I mean, basically what Katie's laying out is a two-week type of, again, not training, but a two-week type of program for the recruiting and, you know, getting their input and shaping these discussions within the community. And that's how we have kind of laid it out. Certainly we have folks that we've already also talked with in the community. But again, we want to open it up to see if some other leaders might emerge, which is, you know, part of how the research takes place. But the people that you seem to have already spoken with, which is awesome, you could get them to, you know, fill out the form. It also allows us to, you know, get a bit of background, talk about their interest in doing this work. We have some demographic data, you know, in filling out the form. All of that's kind of key and important. Mr. Vernon Jones? Well, I love the PAR approach. And I think we certainly want the information from BIPOC folks. I mean, that's why all of us got on this working group to begin with. And I think for our recommendation, I mean, we've pretty much decided we're going to recommend some sort of community responder program. And I think the credibility of our recommendation will be greatly enhanced if we can say we've had some outreach to folks who are homeless and if possible, some outreach to folks who with mental health issues. I mean, this is what the literature recommends when you set up a community responder program, talk to the people who are, have interactions with the police, who now we think we're going to provide an interaction with a different group of responders. So I don't want to take it away from BIPOC at all, but you know, either within BIPOC or slightly broader, I think it's key that both of those groups be included in the outreach. We've talked a lot about this as we were proposing and just thinking about the feasibility, right? So when I think of houseless population, I think of, oh, we could run focus groups or talk with people at the various resources in town, Amherst Survival Center or whatnot. And then, and while we'd be able to identify folks, I'm almost thinking logistically, like what would that look like in the age of the pandemic, right? Where we can't just go and sit down at a table and perhaps converse like we would without. And perhaps many of people in the houseless category don't have the technology to do a Zoom meeting. So this requires a lot of thought and strategy. And I think what we decided as a group, and again, I'll ask my colleagues to chime in, but what we decided is given the time constraint and again, when we think of population with mental health issues, the needed trust and relationships to be able to dive into something of such a topic that could put people in a very vulnerable place, it felt like it was too forced for the timeframe that we had and it was outside the nature of our approach, which is obituary action research. So that's where we did narrow our scope, simply because again, we hold the process and we hold the people, the ambassadors in this case, to, we wanna honor their and respect what they bring. So if I could chime in, even within a timeline of February 24th or whenever the original timeline was set up, working with folks and getting a group who might have mental challenges, that type of thing and again, establishing trust, right? In order to have those discussions, we really try to lay it out and each time it came up problematic, particularly in the time of COVID. I, like I said, I had a conversation with Kevin Noonan of Craig's Doors and just in terms of resources and how that might even look for a discussion. And he said in their new facility, which is they're housed in a hotel, they did at one time have like a bank of computers, but once Craig's Doors moved, their staff had to actually co-op the computers in order to work. So they don't have resources in order to have that conversation virtually. And there's not necessarily a central location for them to gather to have a discussion. So it would have to be very individualized. So I mean, some of the solutions to that might be to send the survey and have a means in which we could, particularly me, I have, I'm only sharing this because that's, I've been vaccinated because of, and with me a issue I have. So I got on the list with my mom benefit of having this issue. At any rate, I certainly would be willing to go and set up a computer and sit with some of these folks and do a survey instrument with them. It's not pure par, it's not ideal because I'm not part of their affinity group, but at least we would be able to get some data. So that would be an extra, you know, and perhaps worthwhile. A survey instrument's not going to give you the same rich qualitative experiences that having a discussion would. And I think we need to keep that in mind. Thank you, Dr. Shibasah, Ms. Moisten. And so I'm assuming that you have dedicated five ambassadors for your own particular reason. But I just didn't know like if one of those was someone from the homeless population. One of the ambassadors, does that not work? No, that's what I'm trying to share with you and researching that as a possibility. You know, so you have an ambassador and where did they go to have that discussion? It can't necessarily take place virtually, right? Because people would have to have those resources or those resources would have to be set up, right? In either their own location, where they are, where that would be, I don't know if you're in a shelter for Craig's Doors, from what I'm understanding, they're in a hotel, so different hotel rooms. So logistically, how would you do it? And that's what I'm proposing, that at least to get some data, right? We don't have an ambassador because we're, how would the ambassador outreach to that community in some comprehensive way, right? Becomes a question. And I'm still discussing it with Kevin Nguyen to try to figure out possibilities. But this is the conversation that I've been in with him. And so we talked about possibly setting up a computer to have a survey on the computer where individuals might be able to input information. Again, it's not within the PAR research model and it doesn't give you that rich, contextual, experiential information that would be most helpful here. Thank you. Hi mom, talking about time frames, I'm looking at our clocks a little after seven, we try to end at 7.30 and I know one of our members certainly has to leave at 7.30 on the dot. So I wanna come back a little bit to the point where we talked about having something to us by Friday. I just wanna say Ms. Freira has her hand up as well too. Okay. Before you started speaking. Okay, go ahead Ms. Freira, I'm sorry. Yeah, well, the ambassadors. Obviously there's intersectionalities though. Can you all hear me? Cause I know, yeah, there's intersectionality. So I'm saying when you're going out there and talking with people from groups, you're gonna get people that are bilingual that obviously have had issues with drug and alcohol, or houselessness, or mental health, you know what I'm saying? So I don't know if we need to have like A ambassador for homelessness or A ambassador for drug and everything. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it has to be just finding those folks that have that connection into the community that then know of these stories and things like that to be able to bring the folks in. So these are all the areas obviously that we're interested in finding out information and I'm sure you all know this, but that's the way I kind of think about it in my mind. Absolutely Debra. And that's what we have had that discussion and we're depending on that intersectionality to inform this project. So absolutely, that's what we want. That's gonna be rich, important data. We're all intersectional. And so the discussions and the survey instrument would pick up on that demographic data, most definitely. And... Go ahead. Thank you. I was just gonna say, and while a particular ambassador might not have the identity you're looking for, it's not to say that other people within that ambassadors group can't speak to that identity, if you will, right? Because again, five ambassadors, they're all gonna work with, I forget the exact number we proposed, but seven to 10 or so people in each group, right? So collectively, we're gonna have input from ideally 50 people. It's not just the five. Okay. So what I think would be helpful, I hear you saying the houses population, those with mental health issues. So I am committed to do as much as I can in terms of getting some experiences from the house's population, working with specifically Craig's doors, but it might be more survey and anecdotal as opposed to the same type of data we would get from our research. Just to keep that in mind, I think mental health communities are much trickier. And I go back to Deborah's point of the intersectionality, we may indeed find amongst all of these populations, amongst all of these affinity groups that there's something intersectional in terms of mental health challenges that people bear and due to those challenges may have experienced whether positively or adversely interactions with APB. So I'm not doubting that we'll get some of that information, but to go to them as a group, I think it's a bit more delicate and we need to be very sensitive to rushing in to those types of discussions and conversations, even with someone we might be as an ambassador for that group. I think, thank you, Dr. Shabaz. Terry has their hand up, by the way. Who does? Terry Mullen. Oh, hi. Hi, and I just wanted to add. I thought it went up and it went down, I said, oh, he didn't ask me. I just wanted to add also that the public APD data also has some tangential information on APD calls due Craig Store specifically. That's like a geotag that the APD does have. So we do have some Amherst specific data. Now, again, this is quantitative data. We won't get the richness, but we also have access. Thank you. Mr. Vernon Jones. Well, we got asked specifically whether we wanted our consultants to facilitate communication between our group and the APD. That was a questionable thing in there. I would propose that we do not look to you to facilitate communication between the APD and our working group, but we do, you know, it does call for you to analyze data, including data from the APD. And we hope that you will take all the data we've gotten from them. And if necessary or appropriate to go back to them that you don't have to go through us, you're working for us, you can go back to the APD and ask for more details or anything. And if, you know, if it's data that they have, and I think the town manager would also support those kinds of requests. So, but as, I mean, it's up to the group, but I don't see you facilitating our conversation, but I'd like you to have full access to them and whatever data we can get from them for you and for you to think about what's needed from them. And to that point too, to Mr. Vernon Jones's point, we, before this conversation and certainly a couple of weeks ago, at least we've been, you know, planning to meet with the Chief of Police of Amherst and that's actually in the works. I know Chief Livingstone is willing and able to meet with us. We just need to put some things together to make that happen and have a conversation with him because we have asked a number of questions of the police department. And there are some data points that we have already from them and there's certainly some gaps. Some of the things that they are not keeping record of because they don't have the capacity to do so. Some that they're just not collecting it because they're not thinking about collecting it until recently, a lot of new questions are coming up. So a lot of new data points are needed. So, and just coming back behind what Mr. Vernon Jones said, you know, we can have that conversation. That's going to generate some additional information on top of what we have. I want to go back to the contractor that does say that you'll be, you know, analyzing and researching and analyzing all the stuff that you do. Not that we do necessarily. So perhaps we can, you know, there's some mix there. You know, it specifically said, if anybody can get at him, that the, yeah, the contracts will analyze all results and data received as a result of the participatory action research methods and public outreach. So that's the kind of stuff you're talking about. So it is expected that you would analyze and that. However, there's other information that informs that. So we're hoping that to be able to incorporate that in your work as well. Wait, of course. And again, we're not working in a vacuum, but I think it's important to keep in mind, prioritize what you want us to go out there and do, right? This is something that obviously, you know, you need some expertise in, but also those of you who are, you know, who are qualified to do this work, you're doing the work of the CSWG. So you can't do both. So that's what we've been, you know, hired to do. So we're going to go out and do that. We'll analyze it, put it into report. And there has to be a balance with what is already there. And I think you've done a great job in already collecting, particularly some qualitative data. The survey was a good addition. But, you know, now we have to go out and do that our research project, right? That we've been tasked with. And I think, again, prioritizing, you going through the contract as well and prioritizing, this is definitely, you know, the top one that we want you to do, this is the next one, this is the next one. That will help us also give attention. And as I think it was Alicia that it said, and be able to plan as well. So if we could do that together and shape it, I think it'll be much more useful to you and to the town. And we'll be able to get it done within the timelines in particular. Sanjee, yeah, I just want to make sure Sanjee gets a call. Yeah, I just saw it come up on the screen, yeah. No, I just, this may have been said before. Just forgive me if I am Johnny come lately, but I wanted to know how deep the commitment of the working group, how committed are you to actually putting into action the findings and the recommendations of the consulting group? I mean, you know, because these things are not easy. We know these are not easy issues that we are confronting. And once the work is done, what can the community expect in terms of results, in terms of action? Well, just to begin, I think the group as a whole came into this with a very serious commitment on our part to begin to work in a direction that looks at and makes recommendations about policies and procedures and practices within the Amherst Police Department. We do have a charge and that it's a very serious one. And what we're charged with is coming up with recommendations and not just recommendations that are airy and sound kind of nice and whatever, but recommendations that are actionable, that they're doable, and they make sense and respond to this community, you know, we're not necessarily, there's a lot of history around policing that we all know. And, but, you know, for example, we're not Eugene Orgren, but we are Amherst. And there are some structural issues around policing that we all are aware of that need to be changed in many cases, modified at the least. So we're about that for sure. And I think what we want to do is be able to make some recommendations to the town on how to proceed. And they have to, those recommendations have to have integrity and they have to have meaning and they have to respond to what you're finding, what you're going to find, what we found already. But certainly it has to be something that the community is going to say, this is on point. They heard us, we want this, they made the recommendations and, you know, then the town responds. So that's my take it. I don't know if any other working group members want to respond as well, but that's our commitment. Thomas Pan. First of all, I'm not responding to what Dr. Sanju said, I just want to, I wanted to wait until almost the end of the meeting. Obviously time has always been an issue when this group was formed and, you know, we're restricted by fiscal year. And as I listened to all of you tonight, everybody's making sense. And from my perspective, I would say, you know, to let the town council now, you know, for several generations to do their work very well, we should let them do their job very well and then have the town manager and the town council and say, you know, set aside such an amount of money for this budget year. And then when the group finished their work, then we can allot that money to their findings. Instead of first like having the several generations, you know, rushed through this project, I'm just feeling that it's not very realistic. We're doing this because the town council wants something for this current fiscal year. Why don't we ask them to set aside some money for this year? We're still working on our recommendation so that we do this very well. I don't think we'll buy into the community that we hired a consulting firm in six weeks. They got everything done. That's impossible. Who are we kidding? I were enamored. I didn't want to say this at the beginning, but I don't hold back. I just want to say my piece. Yep. Thank you, Ms. Walker. And then Ms. Pereira. Sorry. I just wanted to say a couple of things because I also have a firm 730 deadline. I apologize. So I wanted to respond to Mr. Vernon Jones proposal that if we were to keep the current bid contract, I would be comfortable with just completely taking that request out of it because I don't think it's necessary to have the consulting group facilitate our interactions with the APDS. This is something we've already long been in conversation about as a group. And I think we're fully capable of taking that on. I though now have an interesting new perspective since Ms. Pat just spoke. And I, before I raised my hand, wasn't thinking about that, but I actually think that is a great idea to consider. And that I know we're all really anxious to get these recommendations into the town and to make some big changes and for these things to be implemented and for things to start running, but also really concerned about efficiency and the product of our work and having it be meaningful and have it be like service purpose. And so it may be in our best interest to consider or look more into just asking them to set aside more money for us to continue this work so that we can have better results. Thank you, Ms. Walker, Ms. Ferreira, I think you had your hand up. Yeah, I have the 730. So one of the things that I do want us to quickly discuss before the 730 mark or maybe you send me an email is whether we are gonna be meeting with the police chief next week because I think we need some prep for that, if that's the case. So I just wanna put that out there. But in terms of what we're discussing, I mean, definitely, I mean, I would love to have more money and I guess we should ask the town council for more money and I'll talk to Mr. Bachman about that. However, I do not wanna lose the momentum though. I think we've talked about this before, right? The fact that the budget cycle is coming up, this fiscal year is coming up and I think the community is expecting us to do something. We can get the ball moving, we don't have, we already been talking about this for a couple of months. We already have some ideas in terms of some alternative recommendations. Now, can we add to that? Can we add more? Yes, for other fiscal years? Yes, we can. But I think, this is my opinion obviously is that we, and both, not one or the other exclusive and both. Thank you, Mr. Herrera. Mr. Vernon Jones, this is my opinion. I'm just watching the clock wind down here. Do you intend to ask us to do something with the- Yeah. List of proposals you had me send to everybody via Ms. Moyston? That's to me. Yes. Yes. Well, yeah, I do. I didn't anticipate necessarily that we would be having this full meeting this evening based on how information that was shared, but I'm glad we've had it still. Yes, I would. In fact, for those, our working group, we received a document in the packet, which I asked Dr. Vernon Jones to send forward to everybody to take a look at, not necessarily to the level, we were going to have a discussion about that. What I'd like to do, I don't know if this fits into what you may have been thinking when you put this together, but could we take that as a homework assignment, Mr. Vernon Jones, and actually go through the chart and check each item individually as a working group member to get some feedback that we could call it for our next meeting. I think it would be useful to do that as long as we have an understanding that we're not making decisions by filling out a checklist separately. We're simply sort of giving some indication of which way we're leaning on things and that we will have time to talk about them together. That was my understanding. It would be great if we had all that data before our next meeting. That was my understanding. And I think specifically you said in there that this was a tool for discussion. Certainly it was not a decision-making tool, it was a tool for some conversation to have, which feeds into where, and I think I mentioned this before, and this comment is to the consultants, we have been straw-polling ourselves to see where we're funneling down to in terms of what we wanna see happen already because we do know some things and some of these things are pretty straightforward that we need to have happen. So this is just another way to collate that information. So I would like to recommend to the group that we take that form, that grid that was sent forward by Mr. Vernon Jones, have us work on that with the understanding that we come prepared to discuss it at the next meeting. Again, with the idea of moving our recommendations and thoughts forward in the process. So if that makes sense and that reflects what the intent of this is, Mr. Vernon Jones, I'd like to go forward and recommend that as a piece of our next meeting. I love the idea of homework. It'd be useful if people could do it and send it, I don't know, to one of us or to Ms. Moyston. So we had a collated summary to begin our discussions. I think we would increase our efficiency in our next meeting. Well, that was actually gonna be the next thing because I had a note here about the timing of feedback. It would be something that we would wanna feed to Ms. Moyston, I would believe, and also be able to have it collated. And that could go to Ms. Moyston and possibly you, Mr. Vernon Jones. I don't know if you have availability to do that, but the two of you could begin that. We need to, as a group, decide on, or you need to help us understand when you need it in order to collate it in a way to get it on our agenda next week. So that's the quick, I mean, Monday's our agenda, but maybe Friday? Oh, I'll make it happen if I've got everything by Monday morning. Okay, let's agree then to do that unless there's other comments about this particular grid that we're working on. Okay, let's agree to do that. And we'll take a look at that grid that's in your packet and get that to Ms. Moyston and Mr. Vernon Jones, Ms. Moyston. And then I'll go to Ms. Walker. And then Ms. Owen. So the grid itself and the results of that don't have to be in by Monday. I just need to know to put that piece back onto the agenda. Does that make sense? It does. And I think we have to have it available in some fashion to, you know, that crafts our discussion, if you will. Yeah. Ms. Owen. And then Ms. Pat. I think Ms. Walker was first. Was what had to be. Okay, sorry to tell Ms. Walker. Yeah, you could, you have to go as well. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. I was just wondering though, if we could circle back really quickly to the consulting group, they said that they have some suggested edits for the bid contract that they're going to submit to us by Friday. And then we briefly discussed maybe having people come together to get responses to them. And so just in light of being mindful of our timeline, and I don't think we're talking about putting that on the agenda to go over next week as a full group, all of their suggestions that maybe we have a subcommittee that can meet and go over that and get an answer to them more quickly. So that they can start their work and they're not waiting for us to answer them. And let me just hold that. That's it, that takes up a little different direction if you will. And I, who was next, Ms. Pat? She just said what I was about to say. So I can't remember now, which one was the whole lot of hands went up there once. My question was just circling back to what Ms. Freira had brought up earlier. Next meeting, are we also meeting with the APD? And should we have, I know at some point we had a subcommittee to go over the police data. When are we gonna meet with the APD and should we prepare questions or? Well, we haven't decided on a meeting yet with them, because we haven't had this meeting. We were putting, we could have met with the APD this week, but we were anticipating a meeting with our consultant group, which is taking a priority. We could move that to the following week. We could move that to the 17th. I don't think Chief Livingstone needs tons of advanced notice. He does know, but we have to get him some information that so he can properly prepare. And if we were to do that and do what we're talking about in terms of the great information that Mr. Bern Jones put forward, that's two things right there. And we still haven't gotten back to the top of our agenda about what is needed for the consultant group. What do they need by Friday to do what they need to do? And Ms. Freira has her hand up. Yes, Ms. Freira. I thought I was before her. Oh, you were, I'm sorry, Ms. Brandt. I was before her. You were, you were, you were, go right ahead. So I'm not sure I brought into the great thing that we're supposed, because everybody already submitted alternative public safety. Why do we need to work on that again? I think we should leave it the way it is. We shouldn't prioritize anything. Whatever people submitted, we, you know, should go. So I don't think we need more time to work on that. That's just my own opinion. I'm not understanding the point. I think if I'm- For example, for me, for example, for me, when I did my own recommendation, I actually reached out to my network, to people. What would they like to see change in our midst? And then for us to come back and said, we're going to prioritize stuff. I don't want anything taken out from wherever contributed the recommendation. I think everything should stand the way it is. And I said, I mean, we don't have enough time. Why do we need time to discuss what we've already done? It's a waste of time. That's just my opinion. My, my, my only take on that I think was that, that grid was just a way to summarize what were several narrative things that were sent as a way to just to put it in some brackets for discussion purposes. That's all. It was not taking away from anything that, you know, those documents that were submitted by you and, you know, Mr. Cage and other folks, it's not meant to, you know, take that away, but to be able to push it to a place where we can collate it for our own discussion. That was my understanding. I mean, we're talking we don't have enough time and we've already done that work. Why don't we do other stuff if we don't have enough time to do other stuff? I mean, okay. Yeah, I'm not disputing that at all. I'm just, you know, that was the intent of it. And perhaps that's, that's correct. Ms. Ferrara? Yeah. Well, I mean, I tend to disagree a bit with that. I think we do need to look at that more though, Ms. Pat, because when I looked at that grid, there's a lot of questions that I have on there, especially around the community responder portion of it. So, you know, because I have a lot of different ideas around it. So we do need to look at that because we need to be on the same page if we're going to be making some recommendations, maybe in terms of what you put on, maybe not, you know, we can keep those as are no changes, but in terms of community responder, I have a lot of questions and I have a lot of suggestions. So, okay. Dr. Shabazz? Yeah, I simply want to say that we would, you know, once you all have that together, we would love to look at that information and include it within the qualitative information. But for right now, if there's no other questions for us, I know a couple of us have also hard deadlines of 7.30. And I would, like I said, I'll get the document to you all and it would be great as Alicia suggested, maybe a subcommittee for us to direct our questions to and discuss this, but pertaining to the contract. Yeah. But I just, if there's nothing more, I guess I just didn't want our group of folks who need to head out that they should do so. I think our getting to our specifics, you know, where we need to be, you know, on your behalf is something that we probably could consider doing that in a subcommittee rather than the whole group, certainly. But I don't think we have anything else right now. Unless there, I'm not seeing a hand. I did see Ms. Moisten. Maybe you want to comment, Ms. Moisten? Well, I just wanted to, before they left, confirm what was happening on Friday that we were going to get the document. I just need it for the notes so that I can have it in there correctly and then our follow-up can happen after. Thank you, but thank you for coming though, all of you. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Well, thank you. Thank you guys. Appreciate each one, every one of you. Good night. Good night. Well done. So Ms. Ferrer and Ms. Walker, you both have to leave. We're running over time again. So I'll only take your comments very quickly, Ms. Ferrer or then Ms. Walker? Yeah, one thing. I don't think we should meet with the APD next week. I think next week we need to prep to meet with the APD. You see what I'm saying? So I think I would like the APD prep to be on there as an agenda item and as well as that grid to be on there. In terms of the consultants, yeah, I think it just needs to be a subcommittee to kind of, once they submit whatever their questions are, committee can work with Mr. Bachman and Mr. Delaney to just respond to their questions. And with that, I'm heading out. And you all can email me. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Nice to meet you. Good evening, Ms. Walker. Yeah, let me know when things are due. Okay, bye-bye. Yeah, Ms. Walker. So thank you. I also have to go, but I just wanted to propose that I thought I don't mean to volunteer anybody for this, but I thought that Mr. Vernon Jones and Mrs. Pat that we could just reconvene as the subcommittee that did the bid initially, and I would be available to meet Monday or Tuesday of next week and that we could just go over their suggested revisions then. I was thinking the same thing too. I had written the same thing right here. I don't know if you can see it enough. Literally, I said, why recreate the wheel that's already rolling? But let me, while you're all on screen, is any objection or any question, any concern about that from the three of you? Only that I assume some of the things are up to us and some are up to business procedures of legal responsibilities of the town. So I... Mr. Brock, let me just, I don't want to leave that necessarily hanging there, but just for a moment there, Mr. Bachmann. Yeah, very quickly. So yeah, we are constrained because of the bid that we put out. We have to stay within those constraints and that's why Anthony will work with that. But there were, I think they had some legitimate questions for you to answer. And I think the one thing, as I mentioned, do I want to make sure that we have some payment dates tied to product or whatever it is that you want to have is your thing that the committee, that they're serving you and your needs. So if I could add one more thing. Yeah, please. You can also ask APD to come in and then go and then they can come back another time if you want them to. So you don't, it's not just a one shot with APD. If you want them to come in and make a presentation or something and then say, okay, now we will come back in three weeks. That's an option for you as well. Well, in terms of that item you just mentioned about the police. I'd like to maybe work on a proposal of how to approach the police in terms of this discussion that we're going to have a conversation with them. It's more like to work with me on that and get that to you to take a look at. We don't necessarily, I mean, I would, and I'm speaking because this was told to me, certainly. Chief Livingstone is flexible about when you can meet. I just don't want us to miss an opportunity to get some information that we need going forward that would be very helpful in terms of us making recommendations. So it doesn't necessarily have to happen this week but certainly we could, I could say something forward and I'd welcome the work of somebody else with me to look it over, send it to the group and say, hey, here's how we can approach. It is a way to approach Chief Livingstone and his staff and here's what we can anticipate in terms of conversations with him. Mr. Vernon Jones. I would recommend you ask Deborah Ferrer to work with you on that because she's been quite emphatic about the point of wanting to prepare. I'll do that. And I'll just initiate that from there and going back to what Mr. Mothelman said and then circling back to you, Mr. Vernon Jones. Yeah, there are some, Anthony, you're still here. Thank you for hanging with us. There are some specific things that you all have to deal with. We can be specific, I'm sure, to some degree, to some greater degree on what we want them to do, certainly so perhaps the subcommittee, we could send you off something as early as tomorrow to say, hey, here's specifically what we all think needs to happen and get that to Dr. Shavaz and the group ASAP. Mr. Morsden. I just wanna make sure I understand what I'm doing. So Friday they're gonna send us their revisions to the contract or their questions, which will be forwarded if it's not already to Anthony, Paul and all the CSWG members. And then the subcommittees going to meet with them on Monday or Tuesday? Tuesday. On Tuesday. And do you guys have a time preference? Like, do you need me to set up a Zoom meeting or? Is Alicia still there? She is. Yeah, if I'm still here, sorry, I just had to turn off my camera because I'm in motion, but I'm still listening. What time is good for you guys? I'm available all day. So you guys just let me know. And then I have to check back with the seven gen generations to see what time is good for them. So I'm just gonna send a doodle poll out for Tuesday based off of- What about Mr. Ross? Here, I can meet up. Why are we meeting Tuesday rather than Monday? Because that's what Pat said. Oh, my, oh. So Ms. Morrison's trying to figure it out. We have to post it, right? What is today? Today is Wednesday. We have to post that. Do they, there's only three of them, right? Don't we need five to make a form? These are. So you don't need to post it. But it's an official subcommittee, so they need to post. Okay. So if you post it tomorrow? If I post it tomorrow, it'll be fine. I'm flexible, yeah. And Ms. Walker, Monday? Yes, I'm also available all day on Monday. So send, and Mr. Delaney? Okay, so I will send out a doodle poll for Monday. I'll be available after three. On Monday. Oh, after three. I'm not available after 6.30, so. After six. Oh, wow. Not available after 6.30. So maybe we're talking between three and 6.30. Can we have two days? Monday and Tuesday, just in case. Yes, but. Seven gen generation. So I'm going to, I think the best thing to do is send out a doodle poll for the Monday and Tuesday. Time frame. And you'll put your post meetings, whether you get. Everything back from everybody or not. Yes, I will post a meeting. Well, I need a time. So I might, I can just assume that it would happen at three and cancel it. Yeah. Cause we may. Even if. If they're not available. Right. If they're not available and we're available, we may need to meet to just kind of craft our response to whatever their requests are. I want to do that. Alicia. Yeah, that's okay with me. I'm really just fully available Monday and Tuesday. So whatever you guys want to do, I'll be available to do. Thank you for the rest of us. We have thoughts on if we have thoughts on that or if we have any other questions. If we have any other questions. If we have any other questions. If we have any other contributions. We'll just send them. To you, Ms. Moisten to forward to the subcommittee. Okay. And we'll do that. I would suggest for us who are not on that subcommittee. To get those in tomorrow, Friday morning, the latest. So that we're not, they're not waiting around to hear from. To the last minute from us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm saying in the meantime, I mean, I think there's some information we can give you. To think about as you, as you deliberate. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. Get it all in the hopper early. Okay. Mr. Delaney, are you available on. What we'd say Monday at three. Yep. Yes. If that's when it is. I'm, I'm widely available on Monday. We will need you. For sure. Yeah. Okay. We did for the moment. All of that. You're okay with that, Ms. Moisten. We're. That's sufficiently cloudy or clear. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think that's it for the moment. Any upcoming events. Miss Moisten. I don't have one, but the league of women voters equity task force is having their open forum with the different, I think they said there's six different racial equity grassroots organizations that will be presenting. I just happened to see it on the calendar of our website. So I just wanted to make that known. I can send a. Email out tomorrow with the link information so that folks can. Join if they would like. But wait, but we meet again before then too. So it's okay. Yeah. So our next meeting will be on. Next Wednesday. We understand it's going to be a subcommittee meeting. We haven't figured it out as a Tuesday or Monday, or we're not sure yet. Depends on this. Yeah. Okay. Can I add an upcoming event? Sorry. Yeah. So D fund 413 is hosting an active bystander know your rights training. One is open for the general community on Friday and then they have one available for the BIPOC only community on Saturday. And you can register for the event. On their link tree. Great. Thank you. Okay. I assume there may be no other topics. That we need to discuss at this particular time. That being the case. Make a motion. To adjourn. So move. Second. Vernon Jones. Thank you. Miss Pat second. Meeting is adjourned as of. 747 p.m. Thank you all for all your work. Thank you. This important matter. Thank you. It's overwhelming tonight. We're good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're good. Thank you.