 Hello. Hello. Looks like there might be folks. Let's see. There are a couple of people in the. Or attendees, but none of the other panelists have arrived. And just so that you're aware, like the meeting is being recorded. So it's automatically set to record. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. So. I might be the only committee member here tonight. So. Deborah and I talked briefly because she was stuck at her conference and I thought I would probably just. Do some announcements about upcoming events. Cause I know DI has some stuff going on. And. See if anyone wants to make public comment. Okay. So yeah. You do have. Three attendees. So there might be. And someone who might want to make a public comment. I know that Jennifer had told me. That Lissette and Everold were not able to, to make it. Yeah. And then last minute we got a note from Isabella as well. And then I thought it was going to make it back from my conference, but I'm not. All right. So I don't know. I mean, I guess we can. Do the official recording. Thing. Yeah. So we're recording. Yeah. We're recording now. I generally. Automatically set the. Meetings to record. To the cloud automatically. Otherwise. Forget. Wonderful. Do I still have to read the official thing, even though we're technically not meeting. Yeah. I think I would just, I can do a revised version of it. Just so that for the recording purposes. So. I can do that if you like, I have it right in front of me. So. The community safety and social justice committee was scheduled to meet tonight, Wednesday, January 10th. And then we'll open the floor for announcements and public comment. So there are two. Upcoming. Events. Next week. We'll open the floor for announcements and public comment. So there are two. Upcoming. Events. Next week. As part of MLK and national racial healing day. But let me know if I get the details wrong, but the MLK day. Event is at the bank center at 1pm. And there will be a reading of one of Martin Luther King, junior speeches. I don't remember. The name of it off the top of my head, but it's a nice event. There's a reading. Everybody takes turns reading. And then there's a discussion of the event. Or of this content afterwards. And then the. On Tuesday. The national day of racial healing. Is an event that's now in. It's seventh year sponsored by the Kellogg foundation. The event. Is open to all community members. It's an opportunity for community members. To come and share personal narratives, stories about race and racial healing. That the. Those stories will be done in small groups. And will be facilitated by community members and members from town staff. And the event takes place at Crocker farm. And I believe starting at 6pm. And then Thursday night, Deborah. And I are going to speak with the League of Women Voters as part of the Judy Brooks lecture series. So that is virtually from seven to eight. Their website should have the information about the zoom and everything like that. It's the League of Women Voters gamers. And we're going to present a little bit about CSSJC and crests and. Other recommendations of the CSWG. So that is. Again. I was going to say the final two things that I would mention. I'm going to go ahead and. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say the final two things that I would mention. Are that the public forums for the resident oversight committee are taking place. Actually one is taking place virtually as we speak. And then there are two more events scheduled. One for January 18th and the second one for January 21st. So I'm not going to go into that. I'm not wanting to come out. When is the lunar new year celebration? So that date, it will be in February and it hasn't. Been finalized yet. I think tentatively we're looking at February 17th, but I'm not sure that that's. I'm set in stone yet. Thank you. I just wasn't sure if it was before or after our next meeting. So I'm going to go ahead and do another update in terms of the committee. I'm sorry, my dog is. Playful. Dr. Frickette has given his resignation. So we do. He started his term as a town counselor. So we do have. An additional vacancy on our committee as of right now. So if anybody. If anybody is interested in the committee work, it would be wonderful to have. Applications for new members. And that's through that. You can go to the CSS JC online and there should be a link to the committee community activity form that you have to fill out. But we are, we are still able to maintain a quorum. Just we weren't able to reach it tonight, which is why we are abbreviating our meeting. So. I can't think of any other announcements at this time. I guess. We. Lisette and I were at the. Multilingual Parents Advisory Committee meeting for through the school's last. I think it was just. It was like the week before Christmas break, I think. And so there were a few people that attended that. So we gave a little presentation and had a discussion with some of the families. And learned a little bit about what they do in the schools and some of the events that they're hoping to put on in the springtime. And they have invited us to potentially come back and chat because we do think that could be a good resource for DEI and for crest to have as, you know, reaching out into other communities that might not. Be the traditional communities that the town has. Reached out to in the past. So. There are four attendees. I would like to extend the opportunity to give public comment to anybody who. Would like to give public comment. I have to read the thing. During the public comment period, the chair will recognize members of the public when called on please identify yourself by stating your full name, preferred pronouns and residential address or connection to town. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. At the discretion of the chair based upon the number of people who wish to speak no speaker can see their time. To another speaker, the CSS JC will not engage in dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment period. So I have promoted one person in. For public comment. Thank you. Hi there. Hello. Hi. So here's my public comment. I watched your December 13th meeting and I was disturbed and dismayed at something Tim Nelson said. In the meeting in a discussion about whether it should be Amherst police or crest responders who would be sent for a noise complaint. He wondered aloud if college kids quote would listen to an unarmed civilian. The answer was I don't know. But the fact of the question is what bothered me. Questioning whether town residents would comply with the requests of an unarmed civilian implies the assumption that arms are required in order to ensure compliance. And it implies that the police rely on fear and the presence of weapons to get people to comply. It implies that police believe that it's the fact that they have guns, which is the reason people listen to them. It implies that police believe that the police build fear while crest responders build relationships. So Tim said they were starting small by having crests respond to only a small number of categories of calls. And then he heard from CSSGC members that you would like to see this broadened to include noise complaints. And Tim then said they would need to look at the data and see how these calls play out. So I wanted to urge the CSSGC to request or insist or demand that the crest interim leadership established goals on what it would take for them to feel comfortable having crests respond to noise complaints. And if those goals and metrics are achieved in a specific timeframe to go ahead and make that change. Because I feel like if goals and metrics are not established ahead of time, then I fear we'll continue to hear the platitudes and generalities about noise complaints instead of the actual change that CSSGC members have asked for. So I understand you're not having a full meeting tonight and you have many members missing. So I might just attend your next meeting and give the same comment just so that other committee members can hear it. Thank you, Jennifer. And if you have anything written, you know, if that was from your brain, that was beautiful. And if you have it written down, you can forward it along. Okay, thank you. See if there are any other hands raised. I do not see any other hands raised at this time. Give it a minute or two. Thank you. Well, I am just percolating on that for a second. Pamela, I know we had asked for some information. I don't know if there's any, anything that you had prepared for tonight or anything that you think would answer some of the questions last night. I can't remember off the top of my head. I think there was some data questions that we'd asked about. So I don't know if that was something that you. I don't. I don't know if that was something that we, the responders are just in week three of, of being on dispatch. So we don't have a lot of data to present at this point. I do see somebody else just joined. Just for the members of the public. We do not have a quorum for our meeting tonight. I am the only committee member who was able to make it due to various emergencies that have come up. We have a period of public comment. So if you have any questions or concerns you want to raise, you can raise your hand and we'll call on you otherwise. Let me look at our calendar. Our next meeting will be on February 14th, which is Valentine's Day. I can send a poll to people if they think that that's not going to work. I don't have any plans in the foreseeable future, but that doesn't mean other people don't. So I can, I can set up. I can send out an email and just see, you know, get the pulse of people. And if we need to decide on a different date that week. Or following date. I see Michael has his hand up. Right. And I, um, I made an effort to promote. I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to give him to a panelist, but it was declined, but I'll try again. Okay. My audible. Yes. I may not be visible. Oh, I am. I didn't decline being a panelist. Just. It was mostly out of modesty and shyness, but, uh, I didn't know quite what that meant. My responsibilities. But anyway. I hear that you do not have a quorum. But I'm sure you have. A quorum. I would like to question my other questions and, um, information questions. And is it possible to ask them? Uh, mostly a semila without a, without a quorum. Uh, so I would say ask away. And if I can answer, if I have the answer, I'm happy to share. It's generally that, um, prohibition is for, uh, members of the. Uh, commission who are not allowed to, to. you covered any of this already. It doesn't sound like you have covered. I just was wondering a couple of things like how the executive director search is going on, the search for the new Crest members, and if there have been any hires. And I think you already answered how dispatch is working. It's too soon to tell. And then so there were those questions and then I just wanted to see if there was some information I read in the paper about a visit to North Carolina's park program. I think it was called. So I'll take them in turn. So the Crest Responder search has been completed and offers have been extended. And so we anticipate that we'll have three new folks joining the department very soon. I am not a member of the search committee for the director search, but I am aware that they have started their interviewing process. But I don't think they've completed interviewing all of their first round applicants. So I think they're in the midst of that search. And then the final question was about a trip to North Carolina. Yeah, I read that there were some members who were going down to a a similar program. Okay, so the Crest Department applied for and received a small additional grant from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. And that grant will fund three trips so that the new director and responders can travel to do site visits at sites that are fully operational on dispatch. So it will be an opportunity for them to learn firsthand from the from the other organizations. So that's terrific. So when there is a new director, the new director would go on one of these trips with some responders. Right. And it would be like three different sites or three different sites that that have programs that are similar to the program in Amherst. So I believe that it's Raleigh Durham. The other one is the Kahootz program, which I want to say is in Washington, Oregon. Yeah. And then I can't think of the third site. But I think that the the plan will be that those trips will not begin until a new director is appointed. So that's really excellent. I guess that's it. Maybe this was asked once before. Is it a policy of the town or the department or anybody to do? I know I was on the school committee for many years and I think it was always just sort of voluntary. But exit interviews, I know that might have been discussed before. So it's the HR generally handles exit interviews with individuals. I think they extend an invitation. It's and some folks choose to and, you know, some do not. Yeah. All right. Thank you. That's that's all I've got for questions, informational questions. Is there a likelihood you're going to get a quorum tonight, Allegra? No. Oh, it's me. So I think we were just going to have, you know, we made some brief announcements and we were allowing for public comment and then I think that will round out the evening. Yeah. Let's see if I have anything else here. Pamela, were you involved at all in picking these sites or how, how were they picked just out of curiosity? So the sites were chosen based on their similarity to the program here. So in each of those sites, the the responders are part of public safety. So in some communities, responders are part of like mental health or the public health and these sites, they're part of public safety. So that's the what that was a rationale for the choosing those locations to go to places that are that are doing the work, similar to the way that it's supposed to be done in Amherst. Right. Makes sense. I've been in touch with some of the folks over in Northampton and I know they're under the Department of Public Health. Otherwise, there's a lot of similarities in terms of what stage they're at and numbers of responders and so forth. I would just comment that it's really interesting to be talking to the folks in Northampton. So they're in a very similar place in some ways in terms of how far they are along with dispatch. They may not even be as far along as we are with dispatch and they have the same number of responders that one responder leave, they're looking for another one. And what was the other similarity? You know, they're also not not with dispatch much yet, you know, they're and they're not doing disorderly conduct or noise complaints either yet. So they're all similar to where Amherst is at, which I thought was interesting and maybe helpful and maybe helpful to know that we're not out of line. You're not out of line. I say we, but I'm not a we. So just to pass that on was instructive. I mean, it is different, but with some similarities. Thank you for sharing. So I think I'm gonna tentatively say our next meeting will be scheduled for February 14 at 6 30 pending confirmation from other committee members that they would be able to make it. Perhaps I could suggest the week before, which is February 7 as an alternative date. A it's a week earlier since we missed a meeting tonight and be the 14th would be like in the week before vacation week. And sometimes that might get hectic for people. So I would I would offer those two dates as so I'll So Jennifer and I will send out an email tomorrow and see if we can get a response for a quorum on the seven. That would be great. All right. Well, with that said, I guess we'll bid everyone to do. Yes, it's 652 and we're adjourned. Have a great night, everyone. Thank you.