 Okay, welcome everyone David I was all like in a twitch last time about a quorum. What should I shut up? And we have first what 15 Yeah, we got it we got it Okay, we're sad So welcome. Let's start with introductions because we are filming of course and I guess name and affiliation and pronouns and so on and Gary one of you start and we'll just go around Lieutenant Gary Scott with the Vermont State Police representing Commissioner Anderson I'm Ken Shatz commissioner of the department for children and families Jeff Jones, I guess at large Rebecca Turner here representing the general of the officer defendant Aiton Nass read longer chair he and him Karen Richards sign the guest Human Rights Commission she and her Sheila Linton she and her at-large on route social justice center David share with the Attorney General's office great Oh, I got that backwards. I just noticed that Announcement should come next before the approval minutes. I'm sorry I and or and we're gonna put something else in there too that Sheila has just asked for Just so you know Monica's here. Please. It's not James Pepper cannot be here as well and he wants to Just so you know as an agenda item for next meeting Do he has some comments? He would like to make about the the reading that we were well been working on the He's got some ideas for that around How to reduce bias and on the prosecutorial and the things so that'll be next time Judge Grierson cannot make it and major Jonas can't make it so that's that's the list at this moment I may have you know, there may be more emails coming in Because some of these were like in the last 20 minutes, so it's a little hard to keep up Okay, great, of course Okay, thank you Sheila do you want to So I'm I wasn't here the last time so I'm not sure but I don't think I saw in the minutes But whatever like I asked a ton if we could do just a grounding exercise to bring us into the space today and I thought that what I would really like to do is that I would really like to do that by giving a moment of a Moment of acting out for Kyra Morris, and I think that everybody around the table knows who Kyra Morris is She was a state representative here in Vermont representing Bennington counties Her she is or was the only black individual who sat in a Vermont legislature She's been under attack underneath threats for her life with her family and a livelihood both professionally and personally and Whether you know her or not are connected to this issue or not I ask you to be outraged with me and I ask you to act out And so instead of a moment of silence What I would like to do is to go around the room and for everybody to act out how they're feeling about that how they're feeling about What Kyah is experiencing and so many other people of color around the state and what exactly Are we going to do about it? Not only what are we going to do about it collectively as a group here on this panel? professionally within the work that we do and Individuals as the human beings that we are in our collective struggle and liberation for racial justice. So I start I'm in solidarity I'm outraged and I'm troubled by the silence of our state in our community on this issue. I am also outraged I'm angry. I feel like this This is a direct interference with our democratic process and That we need to stand up against this kind of hate And I completely understand where Kyah is coming from in terms of withdrawing from her race, but I think that it Is to some extent it emboldens the people who engaged in this behavior to Direct other people to engage in the same way and I think that that is something that we have to be very strong About and we have to really stand up. I Just I Actually felt sad. I the anger, I don't know where it's gone. I just felt sad and I felt very defeated I'm tired of discourse getting to this point. It's been happening a lot in the country and I Finally picked myself up and said What I'm going to do in the sense of within the reach of these arms it will not be this way Is do the best job I can with this panel? because I Don't know who those people are. I can't do anything and This is what I can do and it's not direct and it's not perfect, but it's what I can do and I will show solidarity that way Which is I hope that You know the discourse around why this is All the events and why why it was wrong and what brought about it and also to inspire more people to Reaffirms my commitment So I also feel angry frustrated said all those things that people have already said and I think that there's also a sense of Overwhelmed and feeling that Appreciate the point of being raised about how to How does one take leadership or who should take leadership to continue sort of expressing that outrage and trying to Make change and I don't have an answer for that, but I think that it's the kind of thing that's on my mind right now Yeah, I also Share the sentiments that all of you have I think it's a real loss for the state that she will no longer be serving the legislature although I know that she'll continue, you know as a Person fighting for other causes that we're all trying to work towards and I think in terms of this panel Just you know doing the work that we're doing to keep Shedding light on the topics and talking about them I think we echo a lot of those sentiments It's it's frustrating and you want to continue to come to the table and see things like that happen It's like many steps backwards So how do we keep trying to move this sort of forward and make progress and it's a frustrating process So it's upsetting to see things like that happen I largely agree with the sentiments that have been expressed very I feel very angry and frustrated and it's Frustrating and sad to see people like that Get what they will be as a victory and that's not to say that I didn't make the choice that she that was right for her I respect that but It's just tragic that these things are happening and for me I work with her pretty closely on the Judiciary Committee in the State House and she was just a really Great person to work with it was Really effective and I'm gonna miss her presence there since it's a real loss for the state that she isn't gonna be there so that compounds my frustration on this and You know, I think just rededicating ourselves to what we're doing here obviously our offices Working on that specific case, but we need to do more much more systematically Thanks Thank you everybody Okay, I'm gonna stop together here Minutes approval of the minutes are there any From the last meeting those were sent out are there Any points that need to be made about those minutes? Things that people felt left out not Fully explained, I guess I just would say kudos to who wrote the minutes last time So I think that's a lot of reflection of what would Sheila say so thanks for that I'm reflecting that in the minutes. That was nice to see my voice in the room Even though I was Anything or would someone like to make a motion to approve and second Seconded all in favor I All posed All abstentions Motions past minutes are approved. Thank you As they stand so there we are David you can just take them from your computer and give them to your wizard people and they can do their wizard thing Okay, great Thank you All right now Karen Richards not gonna spend any more time and announcements I'm just gonna go right on in we all know who she is. I'm so grateful that you can come back because We really it was interesting everybody just sort of came to this point at the meeting Where if there was no motion? Seconding there was not that but it was really clear that everybody got to this moment of sort of saying why re-event the wheel Why not make things more robust with organizations that already exist and then it was like we need to have you back And we need to have you back before you go off to I don't know rates of it You So You were gonna you have some issues you wanted to bring up In that kind of dovetailed with what you sent out so What I actually did was I brought in our Close to our What are close to our Final statistics there for this this whole year there may be some changes Getting the data out of the database Level anyway What I wanted to do was just kind of walk you through some of this information So the first or second page actually List the three areas where we have jurisdiction gives you the various categories of protection that exist under each of those areas and So the Attorney General's office would have those same Responsibilities with regard to private employment. So this is just state government The next page shows you about how many Okay, I pasted something out of there Anyway, the number of calls that we get was the next thing that was on here Issues I'm glad somebody else does this All right, so for calls and referrals last year we had about 826 calls over the course of the fiscal year And they're pretty consistent across course around 200 calls or 200 to 300 calls depending Most of them are non-jurisdictional calls, which means they're not Calling about a complaint that meets our requirements for discrimination complaint But there may have a landlord tenant problem where they may have a problem where they think it's discrimination But it's about smoking or something that's not a protected status. And so we do our best to refer those folks Where they need to go and a lot of them are private Website analysis showed that we had a total of 23,000 page reviews and 9,484 sessions with 6,525 users and that's 84% new users to the site And then in terms of the complaints accepted you can see about what the numbers are I gave you the fiscal year 17 and the fiscal year 18 so the housing cases are slightly down this year everything else is slightly up and The total is up slightly from last year as well Then it shows you how cases are disposed of what the closures are so about 28% are closed. I think with conciliation And 28% are admin hearing about half of 44% are closed by conciliation efforts so Administrative dismissals are either withdrawals with settlement That we close them for non cooperation of the complaining party or if there's no private case Or if the complaint is not returned and there you can see that about 65% of cases where the complaint is not returned So it would be really interesting to know more about What that statistic is and what it means because clearly there's a lot of complaints going out where people don't Get them back to us and I think Experience shows that the highest area that that happens in is housing Why that is but it's one of the areas that we would really like to capture more cases And then complaints brought before the hearing the commission for hearing there were a total of 17 is past year, which is probably the highest number we've ever had go to hearing in a year And there were seven that were reasonable grounds The next page shows Categories and by complaint type and the number total number And it's also reflected in the protected status by fiscal year chart on the next page I kept trying to capture the major categories and you can see that disability Complaints remain pretty constant and consistent throughout by like one or two cases a year in number and then race Color national origin were spiked last year. We had twice as many cases in those areas And then the sex sexual orientation those all remain fairly Steady as well, and then the retaliation complaints back this year and those tend to be in the employment And then the next thing shows you the types of relief that we're getting in cases both relief for the complainants and And monetary relief non monetary relief and public interest relief that the human rights commission gathers and this past year we collected around $411,000 in damages for people And that That will vary from year to year public accommodations are usually not that high It's usually the employment paper to generate the most money And then outreach and training we did 37 total training events, which is down from what we Did last year significantly and trained around 870 people last year we trained around So those numbers dropped just in part from staffing issues As you question They're both and so there's three types of training that we do one is we will often as you'll see in A lot of times the public interest relief requires training for The entity or the individuals and so that we we consider that to be responsive training that we're doing Because you need to learn how not to do this again, basically Then we have particularly in the housing area Large housing providers who reach out to us on a manual basis to access to come into their housing training for their staff So we will go and do that And the implicit bias training that I've been doing is also pretty much word-of-mouth I do it one place, and then I usually get two or three calls after that to please come and do it somewhere else and so That's how it most of it happens is people calling us or And is there a cost associated? We charge usually an nominal amount just to cover the costs Some of it is a penalty to the respondent But mostly it's nominal not just a cover the cost of our transportation and copies All right, and then the last couple pages show the summary of the reasonable Brown's cases that we've got and what those settlements And then the litigation So that's Do you I know you've just been going on but then giving us all the but did you want to Address your comments on the sheet that we sent to you or sure as well at this point. Yeah Yeah, I Empty on that Since we've read it, okay, so I wanted to give you some idea of what the case I am finding as as you leave a job and Get ready to leave a job you're like looking at What are the things that could be done better here that would work better? for everyone and what I realized as we're putting together the job my job description and putting it out there to get applicants that The job is not doable by a single human being. I mean literally it is like everything from You know doing a legislature to litigation to education and outreach to Policy work and everything else in between right like one person is charged with that and then there's three investigators And there's an executive staff assistant and that is us And we're trying to cover the whole state with that and so what I really Started thinking about was if we had more resources and we were talking about this internally as well What would that look like and what would be the best option for? maximizing all of the staff and so my My conception of that and this could change with a new director coming in may have a different conception but my conception of it would be to separate the legal counsel from the executive director so that you have somebody who can concentrate on litigation and you have somebody You don't have a director who's going okay Am I gonna be able to really manage this little complex litigation while I'm trying to handle the legislature Is it that factors into how Robust a response you can give and then of course you can't be a paper tiger if you're not gonna put your money Where your mouth is if you're not gonna Sue and you're not gonna pursue the matter then people the word gets out about that and you become You know useless and so it's really important to be able to follow that up And and I think having a dedicated legal counsel would really help with that They could also work on the conciliation efforts. They could do legislative research They could do a lot of things that would take those things off of the executive director's plate So that the executive director could concentrate on policy and strategic planning and how to move forward with issues like how do we Start a conversation about racism in the state of the month That's you know, gonna be a robust one that can start to address this issue instead of just like Really like we're on a treadmill all the time so and then the other piece of that that I thought would be really important would be Somebody who could do education and outreach so that we would have somebody on the ground who could be out in the communities Who could be wanted to do community forms who could be organizing those for the executive director who could be getting Keeping up our website and making it more robust doing more newsletters doing Getting our Facebook page up and really active and getting more active on social media So there's a lot of things that somebody in that position could also do that would really help to move the agency forward so that's sort of my conception of What would help the most in terms of adding resources to the So that was mostly what my response here was with the Kind of Why that makes sense to me and what's that people break down in those areas Yes, so I I would love to hear from an assless space What would be great for you to be successful and I think we often talk about it like oh if I could just get this Rather than what you really deserve a knee So how many people in those various positions? I know that you mentioned a number before when you came before but I'm wondering How do you reassess as the same number is that a different number how many bodies is that I think it's I think it's two bodies You could also try to pursue another investigator position, but I think that With a better outreach program education outreach program you will hopefully have more complaints Jurisdictional complaints coming in Which might necessitate another investigator, but I wonder if it's Pushing too much to try to get that investigator in before you actually have the cases coming in the door Or whether it makes sense to just if you're going to go for it. Just go for it. That's where I was going Are you saying that am I understanding you right that that you have the adequate number of investigators to handle the current the current case load Yeah, I see you you feel I'm currently and You feel that way and do your investigators feel that way. Did they feel like their caseload is manageable? I I believe they do Have a quick question. I saw somewhere. I can't remember if it was recently in the legislative Bodies or not, but look, I don't know if it was the mental health or the opiate Issue that they're thinking of providing more resources to your department to Some funds that are just coming in I think it was through mental health I was just curious how that would other if other if you know other things coming your way That are outside what we're trying to do Okay, I have to see if I can find that I remember seeing something So I'm sorry I might be pleading with divorce, but you think that you only need two to three more positions in the Human Rights Commission to be You're most successful for our sake Well more successful. I'm not sure I would say most So, I mean with that number is that number low because you're thinking in that mindset of that budget Or is it low because you really think because what what I've heard is that you've held a lot of weight and Even breaking that up into two positions would be what realistically is what is needed already So therefore I'm just wondering if not to sell ourselves short that to be realistic about what our needs are and To prioritize those needs and to reflect those and I feel like if we are gonna if we're going if those needs relate to money Which in this case it does that that we need to prioritize that as a budget and we need to figure out how to raise that and not Like cut ourselves short because there isn't the money there We need to do the work around the table and make the money be there so that it can be successful So we can be effective So I just if it's not three people and it's five and I just want to hear you know We really need five or we really need you know what ten to be honest with you I'm doing this for whatever Robert was doing it for whatever and this is that consensus and I would also love to hear just a little bit more of How much you've talked to your colleagues in terms of how they actually feel and making sure that It's also coming from them because they're on the back you are in your position And I'm also concerned too from my own experiences from Utilizing the Human Rights Commission Newly I have some kind of double answers to the questions that have been thrown out and I can assure you that People who are trying to access the Human Rights Commission feel is though They're not enough investigators for whatever reason are not obtained to or given the time that they need Whether that's valid or not I don't know but I will say that that amongst the communities that I've worked with have felt like wow They're too busy. There's no judge. There's always something To the reason why they don't file that second complaint why they feel like it's going to get lost and so I Rather eliminate that compete the community saying like there's just not enough resources there But I'm to do our jobs well, which most of us around the table We're talking about in the spheres that we work in and just like be realistic about what we need to do And maybe that doesn't change your answer From my understanding it sounds like you need a litigator and a training person I mean if that's what you say you need that's what you say you need I mean if you need something more later than great, but I'm right now. I mean You're saying that those are at least two positions that you need if not more if you get more demand Well, that was my question is it if you get more demand or even ideally right now with your current situation out more demand, right? I Think you could I guess I having been in state government I It's sort of It's like For me, it's like a settlement negotiation right where For too much money And they just walk away from the table because they're not gonna like talk to you because they think you're crazy, right? So I wonder if you I'm trying to be realistic in the sense of having to ask the realistic enough that they might actually Not walk away from the table saying are you crazy like we're not gonna double the size of the human rights commission Or quarters and stay there But you know, I don't know. I don't know what I think there's There is a collective feeling that This isn't civil rights is an area where the federal government is walking backwards about as fast as they can walk and if not running the other direction and You know, I think it's it's going to be up to the states to really step up and pick up the slack And so to that extent, you know, this is kind of a good time to be It's a Negotiation from a criminal defense perspective is that you always I Cast her whatever I want because ultimately It is usually in the state's best interest not to go to trial either, you know, for whatever their reasons so if our state is at point where we like There's a clear consensus, which I think at you know by the fact that this panel is created in and my committee was created as well like It's on everybody's mind and now might be the time to go in with the high-ask and not Did we did and I'm sorry to have missed last week last month when it seems like from the minutes that the focus was recognized recognition of the group that Each HRC should be the centralized place in state A lot of because other agency and like for instance state police, right? I mean that they've already got Yeah Page two Really the three columns of jurisdiction And so what do you see as the most relevant for our issues in terms of where the company to come in From our perspective on criminal justice system, of course the police prosecutors defense training the staff supporting Women's would it be the public accommodation right so in a place that offers goods and services to the public including our correctional system Is a place of public accommodation? So we get complaints from people in the corrections. We get complaints from people about police about the judiciary Some of us are more appropriate for judicial misconduct Conversations in a lot of times. I disagree with the judge and so And back to the numbers and fielding And I guess then the question is back to numbers and thinking big and trying to support Seems like we don't if you don't think the numbers are there yet to support more than two and it's within this public accommodations How do we get the numbers up are we are you are you thinking then there's an under-reporting? whether the issues are corrections Get a more accurate assessment of what are the new numbers? I think that the part of the problem is that People don't even know we When I go out and talk to groups I'll say how many of you have ever heard the Human Rights Commission You know not that many people have because the agency for whatever reason has not I mean we get a decent amount of press We get a decent amount of reporting on our work, but For every reason that doesn't resonate with people in a way that makes them think this is the place I go So I do think if there was a robust education and outreach campaign that we would start to get And then it would I think we are I would say we are at capacity with our current Investigators in terms of what they can handle so if we started getting an influx of a lot more cases We would quickly be Who is your a model of that? Is there a model that you see around the country as Well part of what I've been thinking about and looking at is sort of the ACLU and the way that the ACLU has built up its resources and in this time so And you know they've added a lot of they've added policy directors they have You know they have their education outreach person. They have more attorneys. They have like a lot of that kind of build up And and the work that we're doing is similar on a different topic So I look at them and say that that's a potential model for how you would want to structure a larger agency I think other human rights commissions around the state around the country. I'm sorry are Structured very differently than ours ours is one of two hours in Maine because we always copy me for some reason hours in Maine are these kind of anomalies in which the There's this commission that is Overseeing the executive director will overseas the staff whereas in other organizations you have commissioners who have very different roles They might be hearing officers, and they're also doing Administrative agency level hearings, which we don't do in Vermont So you could do a whole structural change to the human rights commission where instead of people just getting this investigative report That says reasonable grounds or no reasonable grounds and goes to five essentially lay people who vote up or down on that recommendation And then it has to go to court you could structure an agency where you had Administrative hearings and people got Probable cost-finding from an investigator and then it went to an administrative hearing where there was evidence presented and witnesses presented And that sort of thing and that would be a whole different structure that you could put in place that maybe would be more effective I Don't know and I don't know what the stomach or you know that kind of change But that's the way most states do it and then their Attorney General's offices are often prosecuting attorneys for those cases rather than having in-house counsel although I think some of them in-house counsel as well or in-house counsel they would review the findings and then the AG would prosecute or whatever so you could You could set up a whole different system which would then require a whole different Type of staff So I want to sort of Think through maybe out loud the the the charge that we were given so and I also missed last meeting So I apologize for that too But but you know the charge is how to institute a public complaint process to address perceived implicit bias across all systems of state Government so and it may be that the group decided last time to focus on Those forces of state government about criminal justice system and and I respect that but on the other hand I actually think Human Rights Commission can be the appropriate body to look at all of state government agencies and Sort of what I want to propose is the idea. I get the I get the approach of the Commission Proposing that they need an additional litigator and training persons and those make sense to me But I would put out there that maybe what we want to think about is actually another position That is focused on helping create a public complaint process for all of state government Because I think this charge is kind of both a broader and narrower than your current jurisdiction So implicit bias goes beyond Finding through discrimination and it might not fit neatly into your current system of looking at whether or not There's you know, the charge has been where there's reasonable ramps And I think that the value of having a person dedicated to looking at state government along the lines of this charge could be Recognizing that certain agencies like public safety like agency human services bodies and Attorneys already have existing systems, but you can still be a clearinghouse You might not want to duplicate what other entities are doing But you might want to keep track and make sure that we're all aware of Numbers types of cases of the resolutions are because right now you don't know that I don't know how many cases come through the public safety system corrections or attorneys or for that matter DCF and so I see value in the Human Rights Commission being a focal point So that's kind of my thinking is that to have To have the recognition that the Human Rights Commission is potentially a place for this to live and figure out When it's just gathered information Publicizing that so we all know what's going on and making recommendations statewide, but also in appropriate cases going through its own Consideration of the actual allegations and moving them through a process That's kind of what I was thinking about the value of the Human Rights Commission is to really focus on issues of bias particularly with respect to state agencies So They've created this other Racial equity advisory panel that's going to be looking at disparities within state government And there's going to be an executive director that's charged with that and the legislature may have conscious decisions Do not put that in the Human Rights Commission so I Don't know how that would Fit with that or how that you know how those two I mean it not to say those two pieces could have worked together But but they might and that person supposed to be liaison with the Human Rights Commission Whatever that means. I never got anyone to quite explain it to me, but Yeah, it still seems we could ask for that Will you ask for that? What's the that? The that being the position like that's proposing It seems like we could still ask for it and then I mean we're advisory So if we throw this at the legislature and say by the way, we think this and they go well No, we can say here's reason why they be CDE so on and so forth I mean it sort of comes under your let's go for the moon Well, I kind of also suggested similar To what you were saying about keeping track of the data, and I think your pushback was that a lot of times it goes in the litigation We don't know because it's confidential and sealed. We don't know the words I asked her how do you get the data to follow up to see What happened because without data it's hard to do anything like then be a clearinghouse And I think you said you already have people that say this belongs to this belongs here this belongs there But then keeping track of what happened which was to Sheila's point I think originally a while back like well what happened Did they just stop doing it because they're frustrated or did it go to litigation or what happened to it? And I and I think there was some Unknowns of like well, maybe we can't collect that data, but maybe that position could be Like okay, we don't want to know the details of the litigation We just want to know if it was solved or just forgotten or dropped So it doesn't really violate client privilege, but it just at least you know It either follow through to completion or it just They never showed up and it just got tired of it and dropped it or something I don't know, but I think data would be very helpful even to the new panel but anyway, I I have read you with what kind of saying And my original thought what you're saying chief Steven's I Concerned Yes, I want I want like a central place for all this to go that's documented central that is public access for Things that are not highly confidential. So whether they lie and put I then in addition would like to see an independent entity of The entity that's being questioned to be holding that information and be accessible by the public Just that's just that's what I'm looking for and when I'm talking about the role so similar to what you're saying I think it's the same thing you already have most things that are public less They go to mediation arbitrary all the stuff, but you've made a really good point There was you talked to we've been talking about jurisdiction which a lot of the cases don't fall into your jurisdiction So my question with that is do we need to be changing some legislation? So I'm trying to a lot of some type of thing to raise the bar on permafesa to even make your Agency effective because again coming from the other side of working with people. That's why they don't return it They know what's I can go to and they all got time for that They do live in their lives about to get down the house about lose their children about that they don't have time and Usually the people who were falling are people who are the most oppressed individuals anyway They're of color. They were disabilities. They're on survival mode and they're without representation So the knowledge and the time and the energy and the emotional strength that it takes to fall through on something like that When you've already heard from everybody else in your community that it didn't work It's it's it's not effect. So I'm just I keep coming back to the jurisdiction thing. I keep coming back to Whether we can really Make it a separate Whether we can change you were talking about what changing you we could change what you do I'm interested in what you said I don't I don't remember all of what you say, but I was interested in that you were trying to explain that I was it all you could do this and we could our human rights commision could function like this now once I understand all What you just said I might like that and I would like to discuss that more or maybe you put that in writing so I can see it in writing of How can we change the human rights commission to meet the needs of the people? I mean this is not brain surgery to me like it's like we have needs we have communities that are coming out and saying what their needs are and We are trying to meet those things and so just thinking outside of that box like how can we How can we make it effective? And I don't think it's a one-pronged approach I think we need to change legislature and I think we need more staff and resources I think that we need more outreach, but I think it's many problems. And so I would love to I would like to Move forward in making this organization successful for all the people who need to use it So the jurisdictional thing I think is not a huge Barrier because it's basically are you a member of protected class did something bad happen to you? And is there some evidence somewhere something that happened that will tell us that it was related to your protected status That's all we need. It's a very low bar for a kind of issue case and that's enough to to file a complaint we generally Once we get the information and the getting the information may be the problematic piece because we have a We have forms online that people fill out We can take information over the phone But we generally have people fill out the forms if they can they can't then we take the information over the phone is Once we have that information we draft the complaint up for them We send it to them and once we've drafted that complaint. We are saying to them We believe this to be a valid complaint and you just need to send it back to us I think some of the barriers to that are Exactly what you said people are in crisis and this was on their mind at this moment and the next moment They've got another crisis that they're dealing with and so this falls down below the radar I think it's also it may be that the complaints are required to be notarized I don't know how much of a barrier that is but that would be an easy fix to say You don't need to notarize it We don't have respondents notarize their responses, which is kind of interesting like If they want to lie it doesn't really matter, but if the complaint is lying, that's a problem So, you know, I I think that that's there's some assumptions there About people filing complaints, but whatever So I think that those are there's some potential barriers there And you know to the extent that we could simplify our online complaint process and those sorts of things I think those are things that we could work on that would make that better The other thing that I think might address some of your concerns and the thing that we've been also toying with the Human Rights Commission and again lacking sort of resources to Kind of pursue in any robust manner would be to implement some sort of restorative justice process within the Human Rights Commission that people can access instead of going through a formal complaint process and that I think has a lot of promise for Being able to address some of these things quicker And in a manner that actually has the potential to provide healing for people instead of just You file a complaint and you either get a reasonable grounds finding where you don't and you don't necessarily feel good about the process for what happens out of the other end of it And so that would be another way of sort of looking at it like could we implement a restorative process And what would that look like in terms of staffing And what would you need to do that But I think that holds some promise and there are other Human Rights Commission in Canada that have been doing that and I've been in contact with them to find out how they're doing it And what they're doing with it. And so, you know that holds a lot of promises Do you envision that as part of HRC or Is there a possibility that HRC would connect with some of the already existing I think it could be either way. I mean we had been conceiving it I think when when I'm talking to the person that I'm in contact with in New York West, there's always a different one Canada She she was talking about What they have really done and they thought they were going to have to just like revamp their entire process and and change everything from the ground up in order to do this and what they realized was That they could if they just spoke to people differently about the way that they do mediation for example and talk to them about a restorative process within what used to be mediation that more people were willing to access mediation And more people were willing to participate in a process that was described as a restorative process and so, you know that also um And so they didn't really have to tweak their process all that much other than to add in like another tool in their toolbox Basically that they were making available But again, you have to have staff who are able to do that or who can do the referrals or who can already serve it up, but So you mean an additional person? All right Well, well that was part of what we originally began with So that's what I was asking because there's certain ideas that have come up over the last months that I wasn't hearing in those persons So I'm glad that this is coming out. I'd like to ask you a quick question that I don't have the legislators thinking you do too. You don't have that works, right? They want to get things to move on I want to make sure we're not overstepping our bounds and getting too far into the weeds Like you said, one of our charges is just to recommend a central process for complaints period Right now. We're trying to solve the human rights commission structure, so do we just say Our our avenue to meet this charge is to Centralize the complaints to the human rights commission and we request that the legislators Work with the human rights commission to develop whatever plan they need to make this possible And then you're working directly with them because you know how it works. We're going to we're going to submit this They're going to pull you in and say what do you need? That's usually the way it works because they're going to know we're recommended this They're going to go to you and say come in and testify and tell us what you need and then you're going to have a plan or draft up You know, they may take our recommendation But they're going to go to you and you're going to tell them the same thing you're telling us So i'm looking at this what our meeting here is a discovery of How do we work together to support you in this endeavor to help you structure it? But I want to make sure we're not overstepping our bounds and then letting you or the new executive director of the human rights commission Decide what you need and how you're going to support it instead of us trying to tell you what to do I just want to make sure from you What are you looking from us in this panel? Are you looking for us to help you design that or just saying? Okay, just support me in in my efforts and trying to restructure and do whatever I need to do So I want to give you that option and not us to keep telling you how many people you need and all of that so So I I Welcome your input into what you all think Is important and what could help the human rights commission be better I welcome that input because that feeds into my the way that I think about it and the you know, my involving thoughts on the process and I'm sure would also Be that for the new executive director as well I I do think you're correct at the end of the day It's us that is going to be asked like What do you need and and how do you need it? But I think that the more that we have Support coming from groups like this to say no, you need to do this Is is going to make or break the difference in whether it can actually get done or not Because it was just us going in there for an ask and we don't have the support of the community And we don't have supportive groups like this done We're unlikely to be successful at all and whatever we might be able to figure out and negotiate so I appreciate the support of this group and having this discussion and supporting And how do you sort of envision what we're talking about here of all like all agencies throwing a complaint into your shop like that how do you see that like Do you see that in growing and how do you what problems do you kind of see with that happening if all of a sudden All these different agencies are now Showing some type of complaint process to you and now you may be sending them back and happen to capture that I guess that grows to another position what we're talking about Would it be a totally different position outside of what you're thinking about and a whole different division within there? And how does that grow within the I mean, I don't know if you thought about it at all But that's kind of I think what we're saying is there's this complaint place It needs to be centralized in the state and now it's going to land in your Arena is that a whole different area? Does it kind of have been flow naturally? I think that the The question for me would be how would those complaints end up getting funneled there because right now You know if you have a complaint against an attorney You complain to the professional conduct board about the attorney if you have a complaint about police officers those internal affairs So I don't know how you would you would have to create a system in which those complaints Came one place and then went back out again And I would wonder how efficient that is And whether it just feel whether people just feel like they're being Jerked around because we get a lot of calls from people who say oh You know such and such agency told us to call you and then we say well, we're not the right agency It's this agency and they get angry legitimately because they're the fifth or sixth person they talk to Right Time they'll never get back And it's frustrating for people and so we tried not to do that So I would be a little concerned that how you set that up so that that system I could see it as a Maybe the entities themselves report the data to us. So we had the once a police had x number of complaints Um, dcf had x number of complaints You know, whatever the judiciary had x number of complaints and that we could collect and compile that information I could see that but I would I would hesitate to create a system where things come in And then we just have to refer them back out again just because I think that is not helpful We'll probably grow as we figure out how many agencies we're going to start really You know as you get to sheriff's and I mean think police side of that it's got all those police agencies, you know, there's There's a I could all of a sudden just keep coming in. So I just I find myself persuaded by what you were saying About I'm thinking about what you were just saying here. It's sort of like, okay, then we could have that person Do this we could actually get a position, you know ask for a position for somebody who's coming up with a robust complaint complaint process to Ask those sorts of questions and maybe in what we Forward to the legislature when we put in something that would look like a proto job description You know and say that we would hope that this position would include Somebody who would ask Etc etc Just throw that out there because I'm thinking of writing. Are we also thinking though of Karen's initial idea of splitting the ED into a new Executive director and Council as well, so that'd be Potentially three. Yeah Right. Yeah. Well, I thought okay There was I think a litigator education is in this new thing. Yeah, this was told pretty, right? Yeah, maybe or more But if you think So I appreciate the points about not overstepping our role I think that where I look at it. This is what the legislature has said to this panel Help make state agencies accountable respect to racial bias and I think that's appropriate It makes sense to me. I think the human rights commission is the good place to do that I don't I appreciate the point I don't think you want to move do we want to have duplication or more hoops for people to go through But that would be part of the charge Because I don't think we as a panel need to go through all those details now I don't think we want to reinvent the wheel But I think that the human rights condition as the focus Is makes sense to me and to give them resources to do that makes sense the question about whether or not they want to Split the director and the litigator. I want to be respectful of their perspective But I don't know that we need to weigh in on that But we want to make sure is that if we're asking the human resources commission to take on the role with respect to state agencies They have appropriate resources to do that Give them the charge to figure out how much of this is Relationships and data gathering how much of this is avoiding duplication But still gathering information so that they can share that with the rest of us And then make recommendations for improvement and I will say that I think that I do appreciate the point about training though Because I think that's relevant Because if you're going to have a public complaint process with respect to state agencies There is an element of training so people know that that is available and how to use it I also think we have a perfect model for justification by using the Vermont state police process They've actually seen the numbers go down because they're actually capturing data They're making changes so you can just adjust the data piece to justify why you would want this because it's already successful here Why would you not copy that success and and then duplicate that in other places? I think that would be a good argument to justify that clearinghouse data capturing position Because they want to see results right you're going to want to track results anything else Um, I'm missing a lot because I'm not but it seems to me that one of the things that we're really talking about here and may not be yours is a necessity for a A triage office um It's difficult to go through local police and make a complaint there's push there's fear there or any organization and A referral from an office such as yours Would have more force than a civilians it's a lot tougher to blow you off and um That's not just for police but dairy mills. I think you would agree with me. That's tough, right? So I guess and I don't know where this will go, but I'm in my mind coming to we need to suggest An overarching triage. It doesn't mean it's limited to that But it would be something if well publicized that people would feel at least safe going to and South of Vermont that uh shows there was no way to go Or nowhere No, no, there was no way to go And that could um also serve as a data collection point as well So you know you're the triaging but you're also collecting that data on who's calling about what kinds of complaints and Just keep coming back to the effectiveness of the human rights commission and have times been really appreciative and just trying to figure out How to support people in that in that full process and really wanting people to succeed in that and Really liking what you're saying is that I know from my own personal experiences trying to file a complaint against an agency that has harmed you is extremely difficult and if um there was that neutral sort of person and then That like I agree with you kicking something back out. This doesn't sound very nice but I think that It eliminates that frustration because they're calling because you're an independent safer entity So it might be annoying if you then had to go checks and balances to do like your client Please and they then you had to redirect them But maybe there's also needs to be resources as an advocate within your organization That helps people guide them through that process says okay We we have to guide you through now the plate process through the police And that's what you have to do to set them off on the right track to set them off to be Going forward because these people are often not represented Often trying to figure out how to afford with the complaint So even though you spoke about a low bar and I do know that is a pretty low bar It's not a low bar for any of the other organizations in my opinion um from my experiences and experiences of people that are working with so It's a frustration that many people that I work with I will refer them to the appropriate entity to file a complaint And then if that doesn't work or give them to you and often it's no it's often Oh, they already exhausted it with them or we have to wait for that or the search of it It just goes around and around and it would be great if there was some An independent source it would be great if that was documented be great if data was used Just and it would be great if there was somebody in house That could help with that process and being able to follow through with those complaints against those agencies for Those agencies to have an ombudsman or an advocate or a case worker Or human resource, whatever that title may be to help people through that process And if we didn't want to do that collectively within our organizations and centralizing that Might be the other appropriate way to do that I just Again, I'm looking at the disability and you all got that page in there People with disabilities and I'm not making an assumption of what those disabilities are But again, when you are in trauma mode, you do not have to have a disability not to be able to function to get through the process And so when you create all those other factors that people are living with It is very very hard and I would like to get actual numbers of what people are experiencing and actual Being able to actually solve those issues for Sort of an ombudsman I That's the word I was saying before A couple of years ago Karen, does any, just when Sheila's reference you started this This People one person Uh linked up with HRC or not, is that linked to the line with anything that's seen nationally anywhere without similar situation? Here's how you, here's what we would claim because walking those people that a social worker we would call or in our world Ready to help navigate all of those systems It does not sound familiar, but I'm not familiar I mean, I could send out of kind of a blast email to other human rights commissions and see if any of them around the country Have something like this or It's almost like the victim's advocate Yeah, exactly We have that I mean, I think part of what the human rights commission has always been trying to do is walk That line between You know, we are doing impartial investigations. So you need to be Not seen as being you know Waded towards one side or the other but it conflicts in Not conflicts, but it's it's one charge and then you have the other which is advocacy for civil And human rights right and and trying to balance those two things and make sure that you don't end up with an agency where You know, somebody has to respond and feels they don't get us a fair shake And how you structure it so that you don't end up what and if you had that kind of position You'd have to make sure that it was somehow So so totally separated from your enforcement division that you didn't you know That that perception wasn't Where do we go next? I have a sense, but I'm not I want to hear from other people I want to know if the Community has any thoughts on what we're talking about. Okay Is that possible in case we have that might help enrich our conversation. Sure. I was just writing each time. I'm in the community I was connecting with you Because I just wrote a ton of notes that could I have my five minute comment now before we go on to talk to you Oh This is Anne Schroeder Schroeder and I'm with ACLU people power in William County And I want to thank a ton and Karen Especially for taking the time to email with me About an idea that I had and I originally came up with this when I first saw Karen And I don't know how helpful this is, but at least it's on this topic I came up with this when here I'm saying how people don't know that they exist And I came up to the last one made of a forelasm with someone from NAACP He had no idea anything about the human rights commission So I was thinking about this and and I thought well one way to make this complaint process More available would be for the social justice organizations to actually link Have a link, you know preferably pretty obvious on their Facebook pages their home pages And and then you know the various claim forums and and Karen has written me by I was very impressed I didn't know you were leaving though. I'm sorry She really spent a lot of time emailing with me once I thought about this And I did find one organization was already doing this Which is the workplace fairness Vermont and they are already linking to your whether you do that or not I just had I did not I just happened to stumble upon that And it would seem now of course this is going to increase the workload But if if if people could see that right on their own organizations page And I reached out to a couple people just to see what they thought So I reached out to will land back a little land back at my injustice because I emailed with him periodically And he said he doesn't have an objection to that and they may do it the next time That they do a website update, but in his experience Impacted people will generally not file a complaint without significant support And or community organization, which is exactly what you guys were talking about that they they they wouldn't Necessarily do that and that's why this whole victims advocate thing that you're talking about this kind of advocate Having an advocate person that could help that person and I'm guessing at my injustice that they just don't have me There's not much I mean, I'm sure they would do what they could but there's that's not their training And then I also reached out to the ACLU Vermont since I'm working with them and they're on a whole different other angle of this And camp connoisseur said she has no problem with this idea of linking to it in theory But they would need to do some thinking about how How they would do it because And they have to speak to their legal team because they already have existing ACLU complaint processes So there's this to these two kind of organizations that really had some have perhaps nothing You know linked to them, but there's some that would it would just confuse the matter But anyhow, that was my thought and um, you know, I just um, I appreciated that aton and karen were email Whether that's good work I just thought I'd throw that out there I just listed how many requirements posters that each hire has to post that aren't kind of uses as labor laws and All kind of the required post certain things for employees to be able to see but you can pass on that We should be on it if um for state government I meant just in general because I know all employers have to post that for workers I mean regardless if you're federal or not, I mean if not, maybe that's the thing that maybe it can be added You know, because those are mandatory to be put at all places of employment. Yeah, there would be Yeah, they would be directing people to us and then we'd be referring them to the attorney general's office because if they're Private And then So i'm thinking Here in talking about like thinking in terms of where to go next I should write something y'all should tear it apart um You like that idea, okay great Yeah, right Make the chair work. Um, and what I have come up with so far and I've like made a little diagram here is Ken's idea of a position to come up with a robust complaint process and that and then Okay, I'm just gonna say that and then an ombuds person triage person And then whatever the hrc Determinance that it needs so that we're not in the position that has come up here Dictating to them what they need But you're listening obviously to some of our concerns so that may alter as a result of these kinds of conversations And I feel like I should just sort of write that down on some level and send it out to you all and We'll go from there Um, of course So it's Sorry It's because you're a meet And I'm going for a second. I'll remember this. I can't go on. I I was I was I was pretty much I I guess I just I'm just sort of saying I think that's where I should go. We should go next Okay So I going back to Say again, thank you. Will you help me remember? Okay. Um, my job at us without us again coin in the disability community I I still would love to hear from the community. I'm wondering if before you have your grand leave if there's a way Because we all talk about you know, are these stories true? What is the community really thinking and feeling and I'm not the voice of all of her mods communities I want to make that really clear And I know sometimes sitting here it might sound that I think I might And so I want to make it really clear. I do not speak for everybody I there are plenty of maybe wonderful things that people have to say about our system I'm not sure what those are, but I'm sure that there's plenty of wonderful things I do not speak for everybody But I do have experience working with people and not about it now So I would love just like going back to your colleagues and being like, yo, really what is going on Really tell me how stressed out you've been and really reflecting on how stressed out you've been and whether that Contributes to you not being there anymore and being able to do that job and understanding that you did say you need to split that and all that But really doing that and then having like a means assessment of the human rights commission You're sort of asking why is that you you would ask that the beginning of this meeting? Well, why is that rather than I can tell you and I could I could say that in different stories and different experiences I personally had Why not have a process so much people could give you that feedback and in a constructive way To where they're not just saying here's my concern or my complaint But this is what I'd like to see So maybe there's two questions of this has been my concern There's too much time lapse and what you do and I think you need more staff So you allow the two options to be able to be able to say how they're feeling about the situation Also be able to give you feedback that can contribute to the development of what we're doing here And I just think that's important moving forward because if we are creating structures for people without those people It's not going to be the most effective it can be So I appreciate your Volunteering the proposal to put something in writing I want to add because I did appreciate Karen's point about restorative justice And so I don't I see that as part of what you've described whether it's the Related to the onwards person or or a person to just do this public complaint process But I just want to say that I as one member too I mean I think it'd be great to for us as a panel to talk about Asking the commission to in fact implement a restorative justice approach. I'm just writing it Okay, thank you got it anything else That was great Okay, thank you. Thank you Karen. I I hope we can don't go too soon I'm gonna be around for really a couple months. Okay. Okay. Um good because I think you still want to kick Pick away. Okay, great. And thank you so much. Thanks for coming And anybody who has other thoughts, please feel very easy Karen got Richard at Lamont.gov I know She's gonna send it to me and I'll send it. Yes, that was just a teaser Okay, so thank you all for your hard work. I really appreciate everything that you all are doing Thank you I'll be in touch. Okay. Thanks a lot Okay, um reducing racial disparity in the criminal justice system Everybody was reading their their little part I think The best way to proceed from this Is to I I think we should just take where we are at the table and Talk about what you read and David make some notes All right, because I think that this is probably gonna be best For people to talk about it right now and then redigest it in written form So I will get those minutes out as I try to do every time and I'm sorry about this last one, but there was this horrible holiday. It just messed me up Um And but getting that out to you as quickly as I possibly can I think that'll allow us To make some determinations about The applicability of what's in that document in our work um so David do you want to start because you were You're sort of Representing judiciary matters I mean, I wouldn't step on judge grayerson. No, no I wouldn't either But The other thing is I'm reluctant to keep tabling the damn thing. I just I feel really badly about doing that. I mean on the other hand James pepper was really clear that he had things he wanted to say about it, but he can't say here tonight Um, I don't know where we're gonna get through all of it. No, there's no It might just be initial reflections, but okay, that sounds like a plan Well, that's a good one We'll take volunteers. Let's do that and just have some okay, Lieutenant Yeah I did read through it and uh A lot of the things the recommendations that they they suggested here as an agency We have already undertake a lot of that So I think what looking big picture is The question or the charge that comes to us as an agency a lot A lot is how to get other agencies to sort of pick this up in some way like how can we start to have Sheriff's departments and local police agencies sort of tackle what we're recruiting and Diversifying their ranks and making sure that's reflective of the community and It you know, you start to think about that. That's it's it's a huge it's a cost, right? That's how do we get Outsiders outside of Vermont to come to Vermont and stay and apply for jobs and things like that And I think we're seeing that across the state in all things So that's a that's a big undertaking that I think many of us have to sort of tackle but a lot of the the training parts and sort of cultural diversity and things we have Offered out to agencies and you're part of that and reverse read and others have helped us do that and go Have that on a very regular basis happening through all of our recruit classes Those questions are put to our applicants diversity type questions and lgbt issue questions are put to the applicant Before they even come in we ask them what they'll bring in way of diversity to the state police because it's a priority to us When they sit in the hiring panel those questions are put to them So we're we've kind of having those scenario based questions That can change up when we've got input from the community of what those questions should look like um And then the training aspect pushing it forward what we do when they're you know at the beginning of the process We have a very short sort of two hour Implicit bias cultural diversity training then at the end We have a longer session Which is a full day where they're watching the documentary of 13th and taking the harvard implicit bias exam Things like that reflecting on and talking about it and then ongoing that all supervisors and Evaluation process so we have a lot of these things that they're talking about in training And implementation of how we evaluate the employee and whether they're standing on track And if they sort of go off the rails for a lack of a better term we have a catch all process in our evaluations It's a a web based system that will catch that so That goes in in line with our supervision supervision and accountability So we're seeing that our supervisors are tracking their employee Subordinate putting it into writing and if there's something happening there So a lot of things they're talking about we're doing How do we get other agencies to sort of pick that up and I don't know what the I don't have an answer on that yet, but We're we do outreach again the community outreach part of that is sort of We're doing a lot of that as an agency and how do we get other agencies to sort of bite off that apple and join with us And that's sort of the challenge is when we we put it out there we get very minimal response back So it's frustrating in some sense But we also are large enough as an agency to have the resources to do that So I can see that a small most of the agencies are promoting pretty small And although they're probably doing community outreach. They don't Necessary documented in a way, you know school resource officers and Attending the local, you know harvest markets and things like that that may not be accounted for in documentation But are occurring so And I don't know how we track that either and how do we make sure that that is actually happening? In an effective way, so I I think a lot of the points in there we I was able to check off on things that we do on a regular basis So I was pretty happy with what I read and what we're doing So I guess that's just a kickoff point and there's other things, but I don't want to take up too much more time If anyone wants to ask questions or add up to that Thank you others Use his comments as like a you know template I hesitate especially because I would love to talk about the defense side of that together With we just but I did skim The defense portion of this report to see what the recommendations and problems that have been identified from defense attorneys perspective implicit bias In that and and what struck me was that this sort of Presented here Multifront similar to what you're saying an issue of training attorneys on how implicit bias Seeps into our individual representation Of persons of color and we don't even know it So there's that level of training There's also the substantive law training which is going toward the big big issue Which is where do I definitely identify inherent implicit racism at various critical points in the criminal justice system? Whether it's from and I'm talking about when the defense attorney gets involved in the process Which is a time as an initial appearance and failed decisions and arguing down getting your clients released Cognizance because we have these wonderful constitutional rights down to getting you know from emotions to suppress file based on allegations of Racial motivated traffic stops, right? And in there there are legal standards that have been traditional arguments that have reasonable person standard And training on arguing with the reasonable person standard who is the reasonable person You know and pushing a doctrine of how that has been defaulting to an email White the string demographic so training in terms of identifying training needs on the substantive areas where we can push this defense attorney's really innovative ways to interject and re-challenge all bad U.S. Supreme Court that is neutralized racism as being a legitimate and relevant factor in motions to suppress and fail and sentencing and getting training on that point so that we can encourage more motion filings Then then get the right preservation that then continue the litigation through the appellate process and produce the decisions That change the criminal point so that training point I saw here But that's a huge area, right And each of these that they they identify recruitment. I mean recruiting defense attorneys Any staff who want to work in our field really really difficult now we take it to the point of recruiting Persons of color to fill our spots or even more challenging because Getting your family spot on for that match the high costs of law schools make it that you know It's on and on and on the growing nature of our work It's there's a high burnout and you know, so the recruitment issue and money involved with that Was was something I identified other things that that that this recommended was more Approaching the legislative change laws and increasing discovery increasing their laws Sentencing reform We are lucky to have a lot of that already on the books a lot of it's about training and forcing, right? some of that we can tweak and have a very Active legislative arm Have a key to our clients interests during the legislative session. So there's always room for improvement So I thought that that was good I'll leave it there I I basically have my comment as I connected whether I agree that we can see Errors we can match up some of the recommendations with the parties Oh, the only thing I wanted to professional conduct Board was an issue as a place of complaining was a place racism And I'm plus a bias of attorneys where people have complaints Did it come up that we have a specific rule adopted last year a year ago last year related to allegations of attorneys who Engage in discrimination based on race did that come up? It's noteworthy because we're the only state in the country to adopt this ABA model Placed on my radar by the defender general when I brought to him this issue and for everyone's references, it's rule of professional conduct 8.4 Sheep Can you say that again? Rules of professional conduct Rule 8.4 Which governs all generally in this conduct for attorneys and it is the last subject So it is a it is professional this conduct for a lawyer to Engage in conduct related to the practice of law that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know Is harassment or discrimination and based on race color sets religion and origin of ethnicity and sex Place of birth discrimination It goes on and on all the protected categories within that this paragraph does not limit the ability of a lawyer to accept a corner Which dropped in my presentation? That's not relevant. This paragraph does not include legitimate advice or advocacy consistent with these rules But what's noteworthy is that Vermont is the only state in the country and it's adopted as ABA model specific on issues Is that Oh, yes, right the american bar association Right recommended and then it's up to the individual states to some of the Adopted Vermont is the only state States from adopted so that's 50 states and we're the only ones who did it this particular Let's do it Thank you, that's very insightful Others don't feel like your comments have to be flushed out. It's like we've got 12 minutes and You know, we're just starting this because I just don't want to completely let it go and table it again That's all I just want to keep this fresh We've tabled it for three months So there were lots of sections that related to my particular department because it was broken up into probation parole and reentry jail and incarceration Because most other states those are separate systems Right and in Vermont, you know, we were unique because there was a couple of other systems were there No, it does laugh when we keep saying that. Yeah, well, it's true But in most in most other states, you're going to find there's things separated out across the judiciary is going to run probation Right and then you might have other people like sheriffs who are going to run county jails and then State organizations running prisons and then you'll you know, it's just better in Vermont. It's unified response So we're we're assistance and this report was written sort of with the rest of the country in mind And then they're all operating different systems. And so it's slightly duplicative. It says some of the same things across all of them, which Um, it was fine. I still read as much of them as I could. Okay. Um, and so similar to what we're hearing already in terms of Leadership and recruitment that that was across all of them. It makes sense. Um, obviously to think about recruiting People diverse groups of people and we certainly looked at that and in some cases for us, um That means women quite honestly in a lot of cases having women who are working in correctional facilities And so that's one of the challenges that we're working on overall with diverse recruitment and it does cost money It takes a lot of time That being said, it's something that we're identifying and working on In our system some of the other things that I thought were interesting To gary's point is there are things that we're doing already That doesn't mean there's not a lot of things in here that we can improve on They talk a lot about risk assessments and using risk tools and Developing graduated sanctions particularly for People who are out on community supervision to reduce technical violations and return us to incarceration And we have a whole grid of graduated sanctions that that we apply in over Course of years. We've actually seen Change because of that grid And we're constantly looking at that and revising that to make sure that it's appropriate There were some other things in there some of the things they talked about also were a lot about programming And how much programming should be offered to some of once they come into a correctional system and and that's Also problematic for the reason a lot of other things are problematic is it costs a lot of Of money and where the where the priority is going to be in terms of what type of programming should be administered We have risk reduction programming. We've expanded our MAT treatments. You know, there's there's a lot that's going on. So it's it's worth conversation around what What people are looking for in the correctional system as a priority for the for the resources that we have and how to How we want them to be distributed Normal point just yeah, it's about data too, which is yeah something and that's I was just gonna go back Yeah, that is it sort of you know as we've gone down as an agency We've gone down this path for a long time now and it's just as every layer pulls back another layer and you realize how much further we can go and We're working with other agencies to do it But we're also seeing where there's so many points where that data gets, you know those input points where it can be People can have different ideas of how it should be entered and you know the decision making there of what that happened So it's we're constantly evolving and we're looking at our data working on it and we're with corrections Also understanding what that means where all these points are coming in. So I think we're seeing already a good sort of Groups working together to understand what the data means where as a person enters the system Where can we pick capture other points along the way? So that's something we're working on with other agencies Yeah, and to and that was another point. I wanted to make I think on page 21 page numbers on the upper right Anyway, um, it talks here about um, a five step process to look at the criminal justice system And um, I know that the crime research group Is working on a report Because they're getting data from us to do this And they're pulling our data and data from across the system to really I think what they're what they're talking about here is Across this intercept system Following people through the system and where people Come in and out specifically with the lens of race in mind. So how like how how they want to look at that They're just starting to work on it. I don't actually know when they expect the report to be completed I know they don't have our data yet. So Have to wait until they get it and analyze it But that's that's a pretty I think that'll be really interesting for us to look at okay once it's completed You had mentioned lieutenant about data of several meetings ago And we were talking about that with you david about getting reports Is that Conversations remains all of this Yeah, I think that I mean that's what we're talking about how we want to the different agencies if we're going to Push into a triage point. I think we need to know what the scope of that's really going to look at what these different Institutions that could be reporting in right, you know, all of a sudden that could be a massive amount of data That could be popped in or it could be a minimal amount. I just don't we don't know So we need to go back to uh In what agencies are going to write what agencies do we want to think about as reporting in okay? Okay, I also think as part of this discovery that we're doing I want to also give some kudos Even to the corrections department because working with corrections a lot within mates um, they have a resource officer that if if uh, say a native person or Someone that has a certain religion that wants to use a certain item They try to accommodate for them, but if they can't and they get denied that gets bumped up To someone else who reviews that to say well, is that okay, or what was the deal? I mean, I know I talked I talked to bob and yeah, and uh, you know, that's why I say we also have to put in What on our report? I think some things that are working that could be maybe emulated Not just this is from a cultural standpoint, but it could be looked at from a Another aspect too where someone would be dedicated for Legal or complaints or something. I'm saying from the spiritual and things you have something in place Which is a good thing I mean, then maybe some of the other items that are overlooked could then model that as a as something that's working I don't know. I just wanted these throw that out there because I know It's always we don't want to probably be bad But I mean you guys are doing a good job when it comes to the cultural at least spiritual resources Thank you I'm gonna suggest that we pick this up at the beginning of next meeting and add the comments of James Pepper who was very eager on the phone and about five o'clock this evening to Add his thoughts to this Um So Sound good that we'll do that. I think this was a good start, but I I'm a little like It's a little anticlimactic. I'm kind of like we're all getting going and like it's time to stop because we have five minutes left Um Ann's had her five minutes. Thank you Sir I You're you're not here to comment. Are you not here to comment? Okay? I got that Something good So Next meeting and this is apparently this is an issue, correct Monica. This is so the commissioner has it as a conflict now Tuesdays and um So You will you will get me except neither one of us can come on october 9th And so someone from the department will come and that's a said date Yeah, that because we have a room so some someone from the department will come on october 9th. Okay, if she can Make some other arrangements. Um, I will not be here But if it's possible to think about another day and I she didn't want me to suggest that that needed to happen, but Tuesdays will be hard, but it's gonna be hard for her. So we might we have to Monday's are good days for her. Okay. I'm just putting that out there and that may be something to think about Well, I'm all we're collecting comments I have received a comment from someone who has been trying to get here Few times he's gone to the wrong location. He's about one email back And so that's my request was can we choose one place? Um, or somehow Take the public to get here and this was unpassing so far. Well My understanding is if we choose it's difficult to get rooms like this And that choosing one place is possible But they may be in buildings that some members Are uncomfortable with and those would be governmental buildings so We I'm gonna I'm actually gonna I'll put this on the agenda for next time for for an open discussion Um, because we really don't have the time right now We have three minutes before they have to close the building and I'm sure everyone needs to use the walk What happened with the consistent meetings did something happen a lot of times? That was like when I got the minutes. I was like, oh, we're meeting somewhere else and then we're meeting somewhere else again Like oh, they're just Yeah, there's just a lot of room Security Yeah, we've never been But It I think with I agree with you and And in advance notice, um If there's enough advance notice for people to really get the time of public and not just online for a minute It's interesting to tell our people on whatever and make it really public. Um, there is a um There There is an incentive to having it rotate around the state because it allows it to access people from around the state That might not be able to travel as far so You can look at that as yeah strength rather than weakness and just really try to be really good with our communication While we're trying to figure out a stable location Me be good with my communication Sure Um, okay, uh, so that'll be on the agenda for next time is to have that With that discussion we won't like kill ourselves with it, but we'll we'll definitely talk about it Kimble public library in Randolph 67 north main street on the 9th of october from 6 to 8 p.m Be there or be wrong boy to tell your friends family et cetera The new business let's just leave it because I think we've gotten a whole business that if we have any more new We're gonna scream Anyone want to make a motion to adjourn? Second