 Okay. Good evening, everyone. Um, this meeting is now officially being recorded as there is a quorum. Should I call the meeting to order? If you want to wait a few minutes, that's okay. Okay, I'll wait a few minutes. Brianna and Alicia did Paul send you guys an email that explains that he was going to be sharing your recommendations to the finance committee. No. So I didn't receive it. Okay, this is what it is. The finance committee is to review the town manager's budget line items and I will be addressing the items that the CWG prepared in its recommendations. I don't know if that helps for us at all. I don't want to jump on the agenda, but I, at some point tonight, I'd like to go back to the email he sent us last Thursday. Okay. So, um, I would, you can call the meeting to order now. I would thank you. Okay. My name is Brianna Owen and I'm calling the meeting to order as the co-chair of the community safety working group. Governor Baker's March 12 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law allows us to hold this virtual meeting of the working group. Given that we have a quorum present. I'm calling the May 26 meeting of the community safety working group to order at 603 p.m. Please remember to mute your mic on each member of the working group by name. At that point you should on mute yourself and say president and this will indicate that we can all hear each other. Please remember to mute your mic after saying present. Miss Walker. Here. Mr. Vernon Jones. Present. Miss Frera. Yeah. Mr. Cage. Present. I want to take a couple of minutes to review the agenda. We will first hear any public comment that members of the community or members of the public wants to provide the working group. We will not respond to your comments but listen to your comments carefully. We will then focus the bulk of our discussion today on debriefing from the town council meeting that happened on Monday. Our first order of business is public comment. If any member of the public would like to make a statement, please raise your hand. I will recognize you and ask Miss Moisten to turn on your microphone. I ask that comments be limited to no more than three minutes. The working group will not be responding to your comments but listening carefully. I pulled up the wrong agenda because that was yesterday so just one moment and I'll be able to show you today's agenda. And no one in the audience has their hand up for public comment, right? No, they do not. Okay. So the next item we can move to is members report. At this time I want to open it up to community safety working group members to share any work or anything they want to share that relates to this work. Miss Ferrara. So we can start talking about this now and I'm sure we could probably talk about it more when we, you know, kind of debrief and prepare for the finance committee meeting tomorrow. And I was able to attend the meeting that Allegra Clark had sent in regards to the domestic violence advocates. And thank you Allegra for saying that that was very, very beneficial. Absolutely. Excellent. And obviously it was like a group of advocates from Jane Doe and other other organizations, and they actually had like these questions and everyone kind of got to talk. And I basically, you know, talk to them and let them know, you know what's going on in Amherst and what we're doing and obviously the questions that have come up around domestic violence. And they are very, very supportive of an alternative to policing. And they basically said that, you know, most of them said that, you know, in terms of survivors having to deal with the police has not worked is not working. That survivors do want an alternative to having to go to police, especially like some of them even brought up a example of having to go to the police for protective orders and things like that, you know, they were saying a lot of times they're very uncomfortable with going to police for those things. You know, and they kind of explained it that, you know, in terms of domestic violence, obviously, there's the before there's a lot going on beforehand. There's the instance, right when they need help and assistance and then possibly the only avenue they have is called the police. And then there's the afterwards. Right. So they said that obviously there's, there's, you know, it's, there's a line of places where they really need assistance. I talked about our recommendations in terms of the recommendations for, you know, the cultural center and the youth empowerment and everything else they were very excited about that because I said it would be case management they would be looking at other things and they said yes you know want to deal with a lot of the root issues. And then they discussed in terms of the actual responders. And they basically said that one of the things that would be important would be to give the responders training on the domestic violence how to interact how to de-escalate how to support how to really assist, as opposed to having an advocate go with the team, let's say, or something like that, they said that that could be part of the training that is giving to the community responders when they're getting all the training around the escalation and everything else. They said that that that could be something that could also be provided. Let me see what else we're talking about. You know, some of them were saying because a lot of them were from like East Eastern part of Massachusetts and so some of them were saying that they were going through some of the same processes that we are. For instance, one area, there's actually two proposals happening. There's a proposal from the police department, and there's a proposal from like a group similar to us, right, that's majority BIPOC people who are asking for a program that is separate. And then the police department is asking for program that's within the police department. And so one of the advocates said the thing that we want might want to think about is that, you know, some police might be petty and stuff that if we do create a program that is separate than the police department, they might then if, if let's say, our community responders do need assistance, right, if something potentially what to become violence, and they need to call the police, they might not respond, you know, or some of them have said that there's been some police districts that that are going down the road of having alternative community responders. And what they've done, they've kind of cut out their DV program that they have in the police department in terms of being petty and stuff like that. So they said, you know, just to kind of, you know, watch out for some of those things. The other thing too that was interesting that they shared in this part of I think if you go into that link, it should be in there. Was that, you know, we're talking a lot about the, you know, who to program, obviously, it being over 30, 30 years in place. And there was this MPR interview, I don't know if you all have seen it, it was cahoots household workers and police responsibilities in Eugene, Oregon. And it was an interview with Ari Shapiro with, you know, the folks that are running the cahoots program out there and it was very informative, you know, and basically, Shapiro asking, you know, Ben, who was like one of the main people, well, how do you know, how do you go in there? You know, what do you go in there with? Since you don't have a gun, you don't have this. He was like, well, I go in there with my training, I go in there with the escalation training, I go in there with my prices training. And they basically said that last year, because obviously, as you know, it's Eugene and Springfield, they said they had about 24,000 calls and only in 150 calls did they have to call for police backup. And all those other calls, they did not have to call for police backup. And they said, and then Ari asked, well, what was an example in terms of where you have to call police? And they were like, basically, it's in terms of when someone is going to hurt themselves or possibly, you know, her others, you know, but usually he's saying they're able to de-escalate the situation. And then there was another staff person who also said that the, and she said, in 30 years, we've never had a serious injury or a death that our team was responsible for in regards to the community responders program. So, one of the advocates even went so far to say, listen, this is not working, you know, with the police, it's not working. We need to try something different. Survivors are not being helped out as what, you know, it's being put out there that survivors are being better served with the police department. And she said, you know, alternative needs to be tried. Something new needs to happen because right now the system is broken, you know. So, you know, and they basically were like, oh, thank you so much for joining because obviously I was kind of like, not necessarily, even though as you all know, I was a time nine coordinator, I dealt a lot with, you know, assisting folks at UMass with sexual violence, I was messing violence and all that, so I have the background. But, but obviously I was coming in from a different point of view, but they were very excited to have me. They were like, can you come back again? Because they meet every month and everything. And they were very excited. They were like, hats off to you all for the work that you all are doing. That's so awesome. Thank you so much for going. I wasn't able to make it. And I was caught really off guard by council members Steinberg, I think it was, by that comment around domestic violence. I remember it way back like probably like two months into her work, there was like a safe passage workshop, and the facilitator there said that usually things get worse once the police get involved. So, yeah. And this was like, maybe they had probably around eight to 10 advocates from, you know, most of them from like the general but from other, and they were all kind of like either wanting to know more about alternative responders, or most of them saying, yes, we need to try something new to help survivors, because what's happening now is not helping survivors and they're a lot of them are from like, you know, one same Quincy Cambridge, you know, like big, big places which we know they're dealing with a lot of probably a lot more violence, you know, a violent situation. And they're just kind of like, no, we need something different. Definitely. Thank you so much for attending Miss Ferrara and also reporting that information back that's very helpful. Did anybody else have something they wanted to report to the group related to our work. Okay, I guess we can move straight into our discussion on debriefing the town council meeting on Monday. First, I just want to thank all of the members of the CSWG for all your work that went into the final report for Part A. I was really excited to share leadership with Miss Walker and present our recommendations. And I really appreciate everyone's work. I know that this work has been super time consuming triggering exhausting and we've been meeting so much. So I just want to throw that out there and thank you all. And we can get the conversation going. Mr. Vernon Jones and then Miss Ferrara. I just want to say, I think our two co chairs for fantastic. You were, did us proud throughout the entire meeting. I just felt honored to be part of a group that the two of you were meeting and playing that role with the town council I thought it was just great. Oh, thank you, Miss Ferrara. Yeah, and I mean, you know, Mr. Vernon Jones just, you know, took the words out of my mouth. I mean, you all were just spectacular, you know, just on point the presentation was on point you covered it it was very thorough from beginning to when you went into particulars into specifics. Very informative. You didn't leave a lot of area for like, you know, questions because you covered it. You know, I want to say that, you know, obviously I have a lot of community members so they were all texting me about the two of you. They want to invite you all to like, go speak at different events and everything because obviously the other part is that, you know, you all are leaders, and you're showing the way, you know, for a lot of other, you know, younger voices and things like that, the younger generation. And so everyone was very, very excited. They were just like, thank goodness, you all are shown they were like CSWG is showing the way to really do things. You know, so my hats off to the two of you. You all are just fabulous. Oh, thank you so much. You're making me turn red. I thought the presentation also went really well. I thought some of the council, the council members questions were a little bit off base and I tried my best to try to bring them back to our cause. I'm a little bit confused by the email that our group got just a little bit before this meeting regarding the meeting for the finance committee. Did you all get a chance to read that? I want to say something before we dive into that. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. So, first of all, I want to thank everybody for. After a Monday's meeting, I thought the coaches, you guys, I don't want to repeat what everybody else have said. Me too, I got a lot of text messages from my network, you know, everybody's proud of, of you guys, you guys are right. You know, future leaders, your leaders are writing. And also, especially to Southern Gen. I remember on Sunday night, you know, Brianna, you were late, up late, you know, doing the last minute, you know, touches and, you know, yeah, and Alicia Sunday night and to Mr. you know, Roswell and Jones and Deborah, you know, the work you guys put in over the weekend, even though you wanted to go away. I mean, it's all teamwork. Southern Gen, you know, I can't stress enough how lucky we have, we have to have local firm organization do this work for us because the amount of time and expertise and wisdom they brought to their work is, you know, it's really impressive. I just want to put that out. In terms of my impression at the, at the meeting on Monday, I think it's similar, similar. Nothing much has changed. Such as excuses. You know, when bifurfs are, you know, what are your colleagues special education issues or whatever, or discipline gap or academic achievement. It's always, you know, give it time transition is hard excuse upon excuse upon excuse. That's what I heard on Monday. I also heard money, money, money, money, money is too much is too much that nobody is talking about 1.1 million. For a mess, how common renovation. Nobody is talking about huge capital projects on Jones library and other projects. Nobody talked about overpaid. Over time, for police officers, most of them make more than $100,000. But if focus on Mondays, how are we going to pay for this overlapping of services and all that crap. I'm sorry that, you know, just to have one person have so much power. I think member is a member of town council, and also the chair of finance committee. It's not good to have very few people have so much incredible amount of power, it really worries me. I will stop. Thank you miss Pat. Mr Vernon Jones. I just wanted to appreciate one other thing about your presentation. I thought you seamlessly wove together things from our report things from the seven gen report things from the detail memo things that came from other places and articles that the way you wove all that together I just thought was magnificent. I also thought other members played a good role too and I particularly appreciated miss Pat's statement toward the very end of the meeting really explaining back in Breonna up and explaining why it's an exercise of white supremacy to limit the amount of time that was available for our agenda and public comment. Thank you so kind. Sarah. Yeah, I mean I think that's that's the thing to that I heard from my network is that people are just really impressed with, with all of us, you know at the end of the day and with this group. And the fact that we're, you know it's a team effort. You know at the end of the day, even though we had the two leaders kind of leading the way and guiding everything, but we all, you know chimed in we all did what we needed to do at the end of the day to a very kind of difficult process right because again my, my question and the question that I've been putting out there and even like I know like, you know, of Rose which is a friend of mine who sense that that message there me and him communicating back and forth on social media because it's kind of like, you know, why, why did you charge us to come up with recommendations, when now you are trying to basically kind of break down those recommendations, not out of funding then the charge should have been listen create something that we want you to create and these are the parameters. And this is the funding that we have for it, you know that should have been a charge you know, it can't be. Here's the charge, you have these two, these two specific areas you need to focus on and we had all of that and then you know in terms of looking and researching and going to all the meetings and all of that. And then look at these two specific areas and then we met, you know, obviously we've done the party and now we have the party. We've met party and now you're basically saying, well, we don't have the money for it or this is not what we asked for, you know, so the thing. You know, it's really, you know, very disturbing, but again, you know, we're going to have to, of course, respond. You know, to these questions we're going to have to continue because obviously, you know, our residents of Amherst all residents of Amherst not just the few that get supported and get protected. The residents of Amherst need our work and need us to press forward. So we are going to, you know, obviously, talk more in detail in terms of some of these questions, but it is frustrating, you know, nonetheless, the amount of just resistance because again, you know, our charge wasn't create something that we already know. What we already know is not working. We have to create something new. I understand that creating something new. It brings up a lot of fear and people are afraid right they're afraid of what is new I get that. But that's why we needed to create something that was new you can't create the same thing because the same as I said when I when I spoke with my opening kind of sentiments was you do the same thing as you all have heard right it's the definition of community you're doing the same thing again the same results. So why would we create the same thing. So, anyway, I'll stop there for now. Absolutely and I tried to amplify miss Pat do you want to go. I tried to amplify in the presentation that it's really important that the specific the specifics that we worked out as a group need to be brought to life with the recommendations because I don't want them to use vague ideas when we've spent so much time specifically on what needs to happen for the programs to be successful. And I don't. I'm also not okay with our recommendations being halfway funded and then we're, we're going to be given markers to evaluate the success of programs that aren't fully funded. I don't that doesn't sit right with me. Sure. So, you raised the issue of the email that we group email we got today from our roads. You know, I've known him for a while in this town and what I can say is that I am known for calling people out. Right time. I did that a lot. At the school system with special education, I raised white supremacy issues and how you know kids of color by poor kids don't get as much services. Who need who needed as compared to affluent families. I raised the same awareness I called out the business community. And I'm calling out of roads tonight. Because the, his email is very divisive. I will encourage him to actually go back and read the work we've done. And I thank him for his services to this town. However, I know his record and I'm not attacking him as a person, but I know his record when he was a school committee member. As a black man, I'm a black woman. I couldn't go to him and say these are, you know, issues I would like you to approach for school committee because his record when he was in school committee was to follow the status quo. And the political establishment in this town, including the business community. So, am I surprised about the letter. No, am I first traded, absolutely am I disappointed. Yes, that's what I'm saying that, you know, that is track record, track record. That is his track record, not to say that, you know, he has done some good work in black community that he's a man of privilege. In this way, even though he's black. So I'm calling him out tonight. I don't have anything against him. I've known him for a long time. And, you know, I'm, I'm very, very frustrated. And I did send an email, a group email to for the black community, the reparation group just express the way I feel. I'll let other people speak. Ms. Frera. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, just like Miss Pat, I just think it's divisive and like I said, you know, urban I we were kind of going back and forth on social media and then at some point I just was like, okay, you know, I'm not going to keep on going back and forth on it, because I think it's just futile right. But that was my sentiment to is that you know, you know, we don't need to be divisive. Right. And if you do have kind of issues with certain things it's kind of like, you know, just come and talk to us, you know, and let's let's work it out, as opposed to kind of posting it all on here and sharing it with everyone in this way it just, it just feels, you know, very, you know, frustrating because, you know, we want to get kind of feedback right to be able to make this even better a program, but not in terms of just kind of like wholeheartedly saying, No, I don't know, you know, I don't agree with this or I don't agree with that. I mean, that's that's just very frustrating. And with our, you know, I've known him for many years and everything and actually he did help my son out with a situation that he was dealing with with input ribbon I was very grateful to him for that. And, and I like you said miss Pat I don't have anything against him in terms of personally but it's in terms of this right this is something that we're trying to we know it's something new we know people are very afraid to take this step forward. So we don't need to be divisive right what we need is kind of like okay you have questions you have you have issues come talk to us, but kind of blasting us in this way is a little bit, you know, this concerning to me. Did anybody else have any more comments on the town council meeting or on the email we received. I think the coach here should respond to our roads. Okay, I can respond. That's my suggestion to respond and copy to all the people that he copied. Okay, I will definitely respond or miss Walker, miss for air I see your hand. I'm just saying if you want us to kind of, if you want to do a draft and then share with us and then we can just, you know, like we usually do just back and back and stuff because I think, yeah, you know the coaches should respond but I think it should come. It should be a team response, you know what I'm saying from all of us so that he knows that as it's been always like that we're a team, you know, because one. You know, he's a committee, he's a committee black leader in this town, and you know, his words does matter. And so we do need to respond to it. It's not just like random people, you know, that you know that wrote the email so it's serious, and we should take it seriously, and we need to respond to it is that Mr Vernon Jones. Yeah, I'd say you know I've I've known her for a long time and I've valued some things he's done he's done and I've had some strong disagreements with him on some other things. I think writing is important at this point because we don't want her giving cover to town council members who you know aren't don't want to step up and support what we're proposing. And I think this is the group that has studied the issue. Frankly, as far as I can tell in a way that that her roads has not. And I think that's the purpose of writing is partly to help everybody who got that letter understand. At this point the expertise on these issues lies in this group. More than anywhere else. Yeah, I definitely wish that he came to just the community safety working group and didn't put put kind of put us on blast with like the town council president and I saw Shalini was on that email to him and I felt it was a little bit divisive I was opening it like okay, but yeah we can definitely work on a draft and I can try to finish that this evening and send share it to all of you guys for feedback to respond. Because I definitely want to respond and I just want to continue to make the community safety working group something where people feel like they can come in and participate during public comment. I feel like he should have been a part of our work or come to public comment or something like that before writing such an email, because I haven't seen him at any of our meetings. So that's why I felt a little bit out of line. Miss Pat, I just want to say to Mr Ross, it took a lot of courage for you to make this comment, being a white man, and, you know, speaking truth to the power I know it's not, you know, it's not easy for you. So I just want to acknowledge that. Thank you. Thanks. Miss Freira. Yeah, and actually for me that was the thing so it was it was like different so all the emails because some of the emails I didn't even know who they were you know but I could recognize some of it, but most of them were all council members then is that it all the council members yes so that's not good. One thing I wanted to discuss and then we can, you know, I won't take too much people's time and then we can talk about tomorrow. Yes, I also want to call out the local media because that the article that they, they, they printed for the Monday meeting, the content itself is not bad. But the, the, the title of it, again, I see white supremacy in it. You know, it's focused, you know, if you if you didn't read the article you think it's only about money. So I didn't like that. I wanted to call that out as well. You know, I don't expect anybody to say anything but you know some of us subscribe to Gazette. Some of us do business with them and if they can cover stories in a balanced way they're doing the service to the community. I've never read in Gazette where they say, you know, they criticize highly paid administrators in this town, or criticize, you know, capital projects, or anything, you know, that benefits mostly white folks or whatever. And then the caption for Monday meeting about our group is money like that. I don't like that. So I want to call that out. I did call Scott, but I haven't got, you know, he hasn't got it back to me yet, the reporter. I just want to put that out as well. I didn't read the article yet but I am looking at the title now and it says, for those of you who haven't read it yet. It says Amher safety group plans to plans run into millions. Wow. Okay, yeah. That's, you know, that's the caption. Yeah, because. Mr Vernon Jones. Yes, I don't know for sure how things go with the Gazette but I know on many newspapers the reporters who write the articles do not write the headlines. So our, I mean I don't know how that headline came about I think it's I think it's objectionable, but it may be the editor not the, not the reporter. So that's what my, you know, that's what some people because I'm among the by for community today that have been text text messages all over the place about this particular title. And my understanding is that the report, you know reporters can write stuff by the editor gets to make, you know, final decision as to what the title is. So perhaps we may want to do a public service announcement or something like that to counteract the headline. Something like that. That's at least that's what I'm hearing. That's the chatting. I'm hearing in the community that CSWG that we need to put out something in the paper to counteract that. I don't know how people feel about that. One thing that Mr Vernon Jones. Well, are we ready to go on to the finance committee meeting, because I wanted to raise a question last Thursday I guess the 20th the town manager sent us an email that said, I have assembled a staff team to address each of your recommendations and we will be prepared to present our thoughts at the finance committee meeting on May Thursday, May, Thursday, May 27. Since we are working on having an implementation plan with timeline milestones budget for initiating a computer responder program and FY 22 hopefully by January one. I will of course share what we have developed with the members of the working group. So this sounds like he's going to present a new budget tomorrow night. And we don't know anything about it. This does not seem like a good procedure. And I am wondering do we want to see whether he's able to join us tonight. Give us some sense of what, what he's planning. I was on the invite for this evening's meeting because that was my question to miss Walker and I have both asked him and followed up with him on whether what his action plan was. Since ever since the $130,000 was designated for Crest like what is your action plan and we haven't heard back so his comments tomorrow come as a surprise to all of us. Yeah, so I guess, can we just finish what Miss Pat has said before we because I think that the other person is just going to go into tomorrow's meeting. But I just wanted to finish what Miss Pat said because I didn't I hadn't read the article. And now that you, you know, kind of stated that headline and everything. Yeah, that is very troubling. I don't know what the protocol is, but it would be good for us to kind of do a response to the Gazette or something like that. I don't know. I don't know the protocol is but yeah, the article itself, I'm okay with that. It's neutral. It's not bad. Okay, so the article is okay with just the headline. Exactly. People, you know, we live in an age of so much bombardment of information sometimes people just, you know, read headlines and move on. Yeah. So that's, that's my concern. Yeah. Well, Miss Pat, you already have a call out to the, to the person right. Yeah. And I do have a relationship with him so I, I called him up, you know, but you haven't told me back yet. So if you get more information from him and then, and then once you know more than you can share it with us and then we can, what to do at the point. Are you all good with that. Definitely. Good, but thank you for bringing it up this back. So now on to the finance committee, right. Yeah. So yeah, I'm a little bit confused about what, what his plan is going to be. I just got Lynn's email a couple minutes before this meeting started, and their agenda is again, and I don't know it. I'm just going to read it. It says budget review community services social services community responder program. So it looked in, in their agenda there's no place for us to do the presentation. And it just says CSWG questions and discussions. Athena will bring in the entire committee as panelists, since you will have a quorum, Andy will ask you guys to call a meeting to order. And you see the email. Yeah. I mean, I, I saw the email but I didn't really do you want me to keep it up or do you want me, I don't know how to make this bigger here. So it sounds like she's giving them your presentation ahead of time for them to review. And then they will be, and it says, the town manager will go first and then the council will ask questions and have discussions and then CSWG questions and discussions and that's when she's saying that you guys will be brought in, you should call the meeting. But it doesn't, it doesn't sound like you will be. Yeah, so that's what I'm a little bit confused about because I had been in conversation with Lynn since last week and I told, I let her know that we were going to present all of our recommendations to the finance committee because we wanted all of our recommendations to be a part of the budget. And she said that she didn't respond directly to that. But now I'm looking at the agenda and we're, it doesn't look like we're presenting anything. Ms. Ferreira. I think Ms. Walker had her hand up. Walker. I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm kind of being mobile around my house right now because of my children and the noise. But I also was feeling a little bit confused about what the plan for tomorrow night was because my initial understanding was that when we had originally planned to go to the first finance committee meeting on the budget and on the public safety section of the council, we were instructed specifically by the chair of the town council that it would not be in our benefit to attend that meeting because we wouldn't be given time to talk. And so that they would be interested in setting up a meeting where we could actually have time. And that that was going to be this meeting. And so I thought this meeting was going to be a little bit more focused on us and what we had to say and our time to make our presentation. And that we had said that we were going to do a slightly different presentation than what we gave to the town council. And so I'm a little bit confused as to which slide show they gave them because if it was the one from the town council meeting, one, it doesn't have all of the language on the slides we used mostly visuals. And so they'd be amissing a lot of the information and we also had additional information specifically geared towards the budget that we wanted to present. To the finance committee that is not on the slides that we used for the town council. And so it's just a little bit hard to sort this when we get emails like this the day before. So I'm not exactly sure what course of action we should take about that. I think that's my kind of questions to because I think in terms of like doing the whole presentation. I'm assuming that these because the whole town council is going to be there and I'm assuming they were there on Monday. I think we needed to do that but like what miss Walker Stan when Alicia saying in terms of kind of having a pointed presentation really focused on more of the financial reasoning as to why we made the decisions that we did around the community earlier, I think would be what I was more interested in and then also Mr Bernard Jones, and I had kind of looked at more of the details and stuff and maybe, you know, interweaving some of that information. And that's what I would want to but now I guess what in this voice and you're here since Mr Bachman, I guess, that's my question is, so now what do we do, you know, because they are not going to have the information necessary. And so what they're going to do is bombard us with in questions that we could have already resolved with, you know, sending them documentation. So that you guys need to go and do and present what yours. You were thinking of presenting. I think that's the best way for me to say that it seems a little bit. I don't like, you know, it seems like you guys need to go and present what you wanted to present. And as soon as you have the time to speak, Brianna you should call it out for what it is. Okay. That's what I can say about it. Yeah. Mr Vernon Jones miss Walker and then miss Pat. Yeah, I think we should be aware, as I understand it all of the voting members of the finance committee are members of the town council, and they were all at the meeting Monday night. So anybody who has a vote on the finance committee has already heard our presentation. So miss moisten is exactly right. I think we, we need to figure out what beyond the presentation we've done, we want to say to them and plan to say it. As soon as we have an opportunity to say anything. Miss Walker miss Pat and then miss Ferrara. Yes. So I also agree with miss moisten and that was that where my thoughts on it also that I think we should just present when it is our time Brianna and I had already begun working on a condensed presentation so basically what our plan was it's not completely finished yet but was to eliminate or reduce most of the historical context slides. And then just to do the recommendations but adding one slide for each recommendation with specifics on the budget that come directly from the document that Russ and Deborah created. And then we have specifics as to where we got our numbers from and we can do a little bit more explaining. So that was the plan there and, and I think if everybody is okay with that I think we should just continue to present that when we are giving the time to speak I just don't know how much time they're going to allow us to have miss Pat and then miss Ferrara and then I see miss bowman's hand is up also. In addition to doing a condensed brief presentation, I would like to recommend that we start with the ask question or if we're doing presented we start with the ones that they don't want to listen to. And that is the BIPOC cultural center. And also the youth empowerment program. We start with that. And then let them know that the crest program will be our last presentation. So they want to control what we want to present tomorrow. We need to tell them they charged us to do this. We need to fully present in terms of budget item line item, whatever, tomorrow. And if both of you are stuck at some point, I'm happy to help out because I, you know, participated in creating the budget. And we, you know, we use a combination of comparative salaries in town of similar positions, and the average with indeed website and other places. I'm happy to help out tomorrow if they have specific questions on budget line item. It's what I want to say, but we definitely need to start with those other two and then work hours. I know they're going to ask for like, why do we want to pay people 10 K for, you know, things like that. So, I think we already responded on that on Monday, that I will shut up. Yeah. Miss Freira and then miss Bowman. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think like what Miss Pat was saying, I think we all, you know, you all will be again, you know, the co chairs to kind of, you know, go through the presentation, we can chime in and help, you know, wherever you all need help, we can all chime in. And I think we all need to kind of, you know, jump in and assist, you know, throughout the whole process as we did, you know, on Monday. The other thing too is that and miss Pat and, and when Brianna miss on you all brought up that that point. It's just like this is a critical meeting tomorrow right it's around the budget it's around everything that that we've been getting a lot of resistance on. So we need to take the time, you know, we need to make sure we do all recommendations because remember I I made that question at the end and I think you said Brianna that you also asked that question, and it's been crickets right silence, no one's responding. So my thing is, when it's our time we use the time to present all our recommendations, and we present everything in terms of the budget, because it's going to be on them as to why they're trying to to put that to the side. Right. And then the other thing is that to bring it up it's like we take up as much time as we want. You know, I'm sorry, they're going to have to listen to us. And then also in terms of public comment if they try to limit public comment again, make sure that they they they extend the public comment so we have the time, because this is important it can be about us. You know, curbing and, and no, that's not going to happen, because that's what happened the other time and for me, that's strategic. Right, because a lot of public comment has been has been in favor of us. And basically by limiting the 15 minutes, you're not really getting the breath of people that are in support of doing this and spending this amount because they think it's a priority. It's a value and that we need to do it. One last thing was in terms of, I got some questions like some, some folks from the net, my network were like, Oh, so yeah, you know, and in terms of the reduction of the police and that's going to happen right away and I was like no actually no so I think we want to make that clear that what we said is no more, you know, we're not going to fill your vacancies, you're not going to hire any of the police but actually we didn't even say for the first fiscal year to cut the police. You know what I'm saying so I think that needs to be clear because I think that's already, you know, because obviously we don't even have the program in place so why would we say to cut the police right now that would make no sense right. We need to make that clear, because I think that's getting people very afraid, you know, like oh my god the police are going to be gone tomorrow. That is not what we said, we just said no more hires, no filling of vacancies, and obviously we have to put the program in place, right in terms of crests. So I think we want to, to weave that in and make that very crystal clear. I agree with you and Miss Pat. I see Miss Bowman has her hand up. So, first of all I want to apologize for missing the meeting. They, um, I just have a ton of things happening right now at once. Um, but that being said, um, I. So I absolutely agree with presenting the, the budgets, you know, the budget side of it explanation right off the rip. I think that we should absolutely I totally agree with absolutely not backing down and allowing them to quiet us. And I believe, I really believe that if they quiet, if they do quiet us because obviously, you know, they, you know, there may be, there may be that possibility where they where they're, you know, able to do that then I feel like, um, we need to get back together and go, go to like create a letter to go to the media and just call it for what it is. If we do get quieted and to be like, look, this is what our budget was. This is what we're asking for. This is why we're asking for it. And we were silenced at the budget meeting that we were supposed to be able to present. Um, it is very strategic. What is going on and what is what they're doing. Um, one of the things that I had mentioned, um, to Alicia and I don't know if she got a chance to say anything is, has anybody had a chance to look up other policies, programs, whatever that the town has made budget for, and that were not BIPOC, you know, BIPOC, um, led issues. If so, you know how much pushback to they get and how much money did they ultimately get because I have this really deep seated feeling that there's been other things that have been requested that the town council has not pushed back against. I think everybody in this group is well aware why we're getting pushed back. Um, and I just wanted to kind of like put that out there to like, excuse me, put that out there to really think about that, because of the fact that it's like, one of the easy one of the one of the, um, the easiest ways to put them on blast is to be like, okay, and I'm, I'm using this as an example but the library is asking for such and such gazillion dollars, you know, and I know they're getting there, they're having to sign traditions up but like at the same time, like, how much resistance are they really getting? How much, what is, what is, how much, what is really being questioned? You know what I'm saying? So I just want, I don't know, like, where to even start looking for this information, but I think it's something that we should, you know, if we can find it read it kind of easily, it should be considered because I really feel like they've given money to other programs and not given as much pushback as they've given to us, especially considering the amount of work that we have all put into this. So I just really wanted to, I just wanted to say that. So, I'm also actually very disappointed in Mr. Rhodes, so I want to put that out there too. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bowman, Ms. Pat and then Ms. Moisten. I was just going to say, um, quick example I can think of and I did reveal the whole budget that has been proposed by the town manager who will be there, you know, the town is going to be paying for an economic development director. And that's going to benefit BID, BID and BID membership among all white landowners and lay-in lords. Why do we need to spend money to create such a position? We don't need it. One quick example is golf course that we maintain and pay people actually to maintain the golf. Who uses that? It's affluent people, mostly white folks. And nobody's raising any issues around that. That's just, you know, and then, you know, we have white administrators who are overpaid in this town, nobody's raising those issues. So Sashinas, I hope that helps. They're superintendent, all of them. They're being overpaid and, you know, nobody's saying anything. And then, you know, people are raising eyebrows because BIPOC has made, you know, recommendations. One thing also the question anybody can say tomorrow is when you start a program, it costs, a start-up costs more money. There are some costs that is one-time thing. And I think of the two vans, for example, electronic equipment, setting up, you know, offices and, you know, you know, uniform or whatever. But it's not, it's not like we're going, some of those costs will go away after, you know, the program, you know, start, you know, up and running and things like that. So they should bear that in mind as well. Thank you, Ms. Pat. Ms. Moisten and then Ms. Ferreira. I was actually going to say that Ms. Pat is probably the person to find out about the money in regards to what Tashina Boman was talking about, like the different projects that are being sponsored for or that they're not getting pushback. I just have to stress that you just, you're going to have to just keep calling them out if they do try to quiet, and you have to really stress that you need all of the, everything that you recommended, you recommended for a reason. And that was to get, it's to make the movement happen. And you, while the crest will do a lot, you need all of the different, all of the other recommendations to back that to make it all, you know, so the overall goal is equity here, right? And so that's, that is the piece that you need to like really stress to them is that it's, you know, it is about safety and alternatives, but it's about equity too. And so that is, there's a lot to be said there and you just have to keep calling them out because this, yeah, it's pretty much what they, everybody else has said. Thank you, Ms. Moisten. Ms. Ferreira and then Mr. Irving and Jones. Yeah. Just in terms of what Ms. Moisten just said, you know, when I spoke with the DV advocates yesterday, that's exactly what they were very excited about was that, you know, we were comprehensive, right, in terms of making recommendations that were preventative because first and foremost, we don't want to have to have to respond, right? We want incidents to decrease and things like that, but also having something in place, of course, to be responsive, but something that is going to be, you know, equitable and care for everybody. And so this is something that I think we want to stress. And then my thing is Ms. Pat, I know that you have probably like, I know you have more expertise than me in terms of budgets and things like that. So I don't know if maybe, you know, how you might want to strategize with Ms. O and Ms. Alicia Walker to kind of maybe have a part to play actually in the presentation, you know, to kind of break down some of the budget because you were very crucial in creating it. So anyway, that would be my recommendation for that. Then we're very seamless to, you know, as opposed to, well, you have a question, I think we want to hand them and like had a lot of the questions that we can, and then whatever the questions they have, obviously, then we answer them as they come up in terms of one-offs. And then lastly, I know it was brought up, Mr. Vernon Jones had brought that up earlier about Paul Bachmann. So yeah, where is this copy of what he's presenting tomorrow? What is going on with that? I mean, I really don't get it. Since Mr. Bachmann was part of our meetings for these past months since November, why wouldn't he share what he's presenting tomorrow so that we have a heads up so that we know, you know, how to respond? So can anyone kind of also tell me some information about that? I have no idea. You know, that really worries me if, you know, he didn't extend courtesy for us to at least review what he's going to be presenting tomorrow. It's, the whole thing is making me suspicious. Oh, Mr. Vernon Jones, I thought I saw your hand up and I also see Ms. Walker's hand up. All right. Ms. Morrison, is there any possibility of contacting the town manager now with that question? I already did. So, I have an email that says the finance committee meeting is to review the town manager's budget line item and I will be addressing the items that the CSWG preparedness recommendations and that doesn't still really tell me what that means. I don't know. But I have sent him a text. This email came to me on Tuesday. So now I'm sending him a text about like, A, where are you? And B, they have questions. So, thank you. If he's available, it'll be good if you could jump on. I'd like to go back to the question of the reduction in the number of police officers. My guess is that most of the town counselors are not aware that the town manager's proposal increases the number of police officers over the number currently working. Since at least December and maybe earlier, there have been 44 working sworn officers. Even though the department's been budgeted at 48. So for him to budget 46 is an increase of two. At a time when we need to be decreasing the police department. We have recommended a decrease to 43. Because we know there is another retirement expected. So this is a unique moment with an opportunity to reduce the department budget by five positions. And at a minimum, we should get all, you know, we want all the money from those five positions. But it does, you know, our proposals at this point do not call for any police officer to lose their job or be laid off or terminated that may be necessary in the future, but not at this point. Our recommendation is to get the department down to 43 and keep it there as Ms. Ferrer said, not filling vacancies from there forward. But I think most of the town counselors are not even aware that the budget they're looking at as an increase in the number of officers. So I think our request or recommendation to go to 43 is a very reasonable recommendation and needs to be, you know, made quite strongly in our presentation. Miss, thank you, Mr. Vernon Jones, Miss Walker and then Miss Pat. Thank you, Mr. Vernon Jones for that comment because I was actually very helpful to lay it out like that. And I think because I did hear a lot of town counselors in response that they're fully supportive of wanting to give us more funding, and that they sound like it sounds like these are great ideas and they're very interested in it but then they also have the backhand and I heard one counselor specifically say they didn't want to be responsible for like people losing their jobs. And so I think something like that for her specifically to hear would be very helpful. And then some other counselor members as well. And then I also just wanted to earlier express my, the fact that I was also just a little bit uncomfortable with Mr. Bachman having these discussions and committees set up outside of our committee to be discussing the things that our committee has been tasked to do, and that we weren't even involved in the idea of that happening like he didn't bring up the idea like hey guys, this is what I'm thinking of doing right now. I just wanted to get that along the lines of what you guys were thinking or anything like that and I'm just now thinking about that so I just wanted to bring that up because it's feeling really uncomfortable for me. Oh, thank you miss Walker miss Pat. What I want to say is I think everybody is in the building that 130 K. I came out of two frozen offices. But that's not the way I said, if you add on. I don't think an average police officer only makes us to 5k a year. That's impossible. Over time, it did not include benefits, meaning, you know, employer in the town's portion of health care, retirement contribution, and all that, you know that that comes with it. I look at 130 K as one police officer position we need to drill down to that, and I'm going to say tomorrow. I don't want the public to feel Oh, the police officers are only making 65 K a year. And these people are recommending 2. Something million dollar program. That's not true. So I don't know what where the 130 is coming from for to put this up. That's impossible. I don't believe that the facts don't support it, because it does it does not include benefits. I don't know if it and Oh, did Ms. Fair Fair we're going to say something. So I don't I don't know whether it includes benefits but I just I what I want to say is that your new rookie make doesn't typically get the overtime. Right. The overtime typically goes to the people who have been there before. I'm just trying to just give you the info right in theory right and typically because it takes a while for them to get out and I don't know about the benefits piece. And typically the overtime that they get is from the detail policing. And the detail is paid for whoever is doing the work. Right. So if there's construction on route nine. And route and the state is doing that work then typically it's the state now often they do detail for us too so you know it does I'm not going to say it never comes from us. But that's typically how that works with the overtime with the police. And it is amazing how much they work but typically how much they earn over a year but you know, it's a lot. But often the newer police officers the rookies as they would call them. Don't make that much in that 65,000. I don't know about the benefits piece is kind of close to what they get. Miss Pat. The point I'm trying to make is whoever the two officers where that retired that left or whatever. I don't think they're rookies. No. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think they're rookies my point is whatever salary they were making before they no longer with the department. You know, should be what we should be talking about. Right. And I thank you for the clarification the second thing is in the benefits and it should be and I'm, you know, it's good for employees to have benefits but it's not included in throwing around 130 for two police officers. The point is if we add on benefits and years of experience of those officers that left, you're talking about at least $200,000 or more is the point I'm trying to make it's not just 130. Yeah, I just didn't want him to kick it back and say that it's the rookies that right because I think what he's trying to say is we're going to give you what we would have given these new police officers, right. I don't think it's going to include the money that's going to come out of the folks that are going to retire. It's his point is that it's the two new rookies. Does that make sense. I mean, I've been helpful to say it does not include benefits. Yeah, it would have been helpful that if we add on benefit we're talking about 200 K positions. Yeah. And then Mr. Vernon Jones and then I have a comment. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about is like that needs to be like. So the money that every time our officer retires. We should not be replacing them with a new working officer for some seconds. I personally feel like the challenge would really be to the town is to look at what that officer retired at. Yep. And then bringing and that be the amount that's that is going into into our organization organization, along with the fact that they're not hiring a new officer on behind that that officer that retired. And then that's based on everything from the red lining that went on in Amherst to the fact that I can't walk into not one store in Amherst and not be in white spaces that I cannot walk like I like, literally I want to take the whole freaking town to dump them into an area where they are the only like not and not together individually, you are the only white person you are the only white person you are the only white person you need to live here for a month and figure it out. And that's like, and that's like nothing, you know what I'm saying because then I think about it. And I'm sorry by pop people tend to embrace community and we'll be like, it's not going to let that person go and be left out. They're not going to let that person go without knowing time to open my door to people. I don't have enough money I don't have enough this I don't have enough that but you know what we're going to make this work. So you don't go hungry. So like, the reason this is happening is because of the fact that none of these people are made to feel uncomfortable. None of those people are made to feel like they have to look at themselves in the mirror and look at what they are actually doing. I am teaching my children, when they when we drive through town, and they see all these like Black Lives Matter sign one of my actually was funny one of my friends that's on real interesting to me. I don't see very many Black Lives Matter sign when I'm in a black neighborhood. It's performative. That's what it is. And my kids know it. They I'm like, look, don't even look that way is performative. I'm not like, okay, you put a sign, you put a sign out. What is that doing. We need to hold them accountable, we need to hold this whole community accountable. And it's going to be, it's going to be hard and nasty because people who have it, and are have been maintaining it, aren't going to want to let it go. So they're going to do everything they can, and undermined it sideways way. And people like her rose to say the thing that he said, and not join the meeting and not be part of this, but then to have some side comments to say, then that's what they do that's what that is literally what they do. And we need to be really aware of it. And we really need to like, we need to not come out like, like, oh, like soft and like, um, what is the word I'm looking for like, compassionate. I know this is uncomfortable for you. I know, no, no, we need to come out like, look, you are literally starving me from being human from being human from feeling like I can go into a store and I'm not going to be followed feeling like, I can like, interact with somebody and not feel like you're going to look down on me because you have no idea what I'm going through like I'm, I'm, I just I know like I, I went I didn't go to the meeting on Monday partially because I knew we had this meeting on Thursday and I really like I'm tired of tiptoeing around well meeting white people, I really am. Um, 30 years I've been here tiptoeing around well meeting white people and I'm just so done, and also the well meeting black people are getting on my last two. You know the ones that like let's just be peaceful let's just be like look, I don't want to be peaceful with you anymore, because being peaceful with you has done damage to my family. Being peaceful with you has done damage to my community directly. And so, like, we really need to go in there guns of lazing like hey, we're, we're not going anywhere. And we're going to keep showing up and we're going to keep making a record and we're going to keep putting on blast if you don't want to hear us here we're going to go to the newspapers and we're going to, you know, and make we need to make a lot of noise surrounding us, because these are programs that are constantly stripped from us in order to make room for college students to have apartments for for new new pizza restaurants to open for bars to to expand. It's at the expense of the community and I'm not going to say BIPOC meaning it's at the expense of the community of Amherst, the people who are lower income, the people who are like, not out there, you know, with the set little like I don't have to work I can just stay at home the two parents who are working the single moms the like single dad. This these commute this, the Crest program, the community, the community son of all that stuff is going to is going to directly affect the community of Amherst that doesn't have a voice. And we got to fight for them. We really do. We got to fight for us. And I'm just like, I just I'm just so scared. I'm scared because I'm. I've seen it happen where we get shut down and I just don't want to see us get shut down tomorrow, because I just I, I don't have any more faith in this community, like as far as, you know, like people. The white people in this community, and I'm going to say, Mr. Vernon Jones, I told you before I consider you a co conspirator, you you're there, you're doing the work. That's what that is what an ally looks like, you know I'm saying like you're out there doing the work, you're speaking to the people you need to speak to you're not trying to elicit things out of people of BIPOC the BIPOC community to, you know, to further any agenda it's like no we got to take responsibility for what our community has done to the BIPOC community and and so it's like I have so much respect for you, and I wanted to thank you and I'm going to stop rambling because I need to eat dinner. So I can stop rambling. Mr. Vernon Jones, then this prayer. Well, thank you to Shayna, not just for your comments about me but you know what you describe as rambling is you know you're you're telling the truth. And it helps us all when you do that. I think we need to be a little careful about how we handle this business about benefits and whether they should be in the budget or not, because the police department benefits are actually not in the police department budget. They're in a different, you know, section of the budget. Well, I would be fine, you know, and I think we just need to compare apples to apples so if they want to talk positions and salaries, we can talk positions and salaries and not count the benefits and just say you know if we get the positions then the town will have to provide the benefits. So we need to be consistent about how we do that and not get, you know, caught up about, you know, that. The other thing is at the last at the finance committee when they police department presented its budget. One of the finance committee members asked the chief, will you need more overtime because you have fewer officers. And I think we need to call that out. That's that you could, you can only make that statement if you don't believe the crest program is going to pick up a reasonable share of the calls. And as a matter of fact, I only see two ways they can oppose crest one is if you don't believe it's going to pick up the calls, and we've got all kinds of evidence that it will. And the other is if you don't believe how much distrust and mistrust and disrespect and fear there is on the part of the BIPOC community with regard to the police. And I think we need to call it out if they're doubting either of those things. Thank you, Mr. Vernon Jones. Miss Ferrara. Yeah, I mean I just wanted to say in terms of what Tashina said I mean it's so so true in terms of like, you know, you know, white people and, you know, the council, the counselors which as Miss Pat pointed out it's a white space, you know that's a white space. So, I think though we are making them uncomfortable. You know what I'm saying because that's why they're giving us so much resistance, because we are pushing and we are saying no, this is, these are recommendations this is the way that we need to go in order to create something different to create some real change. And that's going to be equitable and it's going to be inclusive of everyone in this town and not just a certain segment of this town which again, as Mr. Vernon Jones was saying, you know what are you not believing you know like when we were talking about, you know what seven Jen had presented in terms of the communications they had with the folks that they interviewed right. This is like are you not, you know why are you trying to say that it was national statements or general statements no it was very specific to this area. This is happening here it's not happening elsewhere, you see what I'm saying so I think it's kind of to like really, you know, focus in on that. Again, tomorrow, if need be to really showcase that no this is what is important and this is what we need to focus on in regards to why this amount of money that you're going to have to spend money to put this in place. So let's just get down to how much is it going to be so that we can, we can put the program in place to I mean what she said about, though, you know, like a BIPOC person and, and how we right when we go into spaces and Amherst, we never feel comfortable, you know, we always the, the, you know, the one and only in all the spaces in Amherst and the restaurants and in the stores and all of these places and it's funny because I'll just say like you know me being from back to Cape Verde right and you all know I travel back to Cape Verde every once in a while to see my family, which over there is majority black people right. I come back here. I'm in utter depression. As soon as I step in here. Why, because I don't feel welcome. Right, I don't feel welcome. I see myself here. I don't see people that look like me. I don't see people that look like me in, in leadership positions. I don't see people that look like me in any kind of positions within this within Amherst. And then what do I have to do is just kind of grid it, grin and bear it right grin and bear it. No, we're trying to say and that's why we recommend in diversity equity inclusion department. What's the change. Why do we have to always grin and bear it. Why do we have to be the ones to always feel like we're the onlys. It shouldn't be that way, especially given, you know, what's happening in our school systems, right that seven gen brought up over and over again that 50% of at least 50% of students in a school in our school are diverse. So, so then what are you doing why aren't you making the town, an inclusive a welcoming place for everyone. Right. So we need to kind of, you know, point that out and then lastly in terms of the police. And I think, you know, Mr. Brin Jones brought it up. I mean we need to kind of hone in on that right that we're not asking for any new hires and Mr. Brin Jones I didn't even know that it was going to be assumed to be retirement so yes point that out. There's a retirement no new hires. And, and yes there will be reduction in the future because once the pro the program, hopefully is going to be fully stacked fully resource is up and running, and taking that percentage of calls, then there will need to be a further reduction in the police department. Yes, but we're not going to do it haphazardly, obviously, for people who are thinking people, we're not going to do that haphazardly, but we have to make it clear that yes that will happen at some point. Thank you miss for Mr. Vernon Jones and then I have a comment. You know, this town council. You know, had passed this resolution about eliminating, you know, our undoing systemic racism, and they voted for the charged for our committee, you know that this we, they were, they were part of this, they voted a charge that said come up with alternatives to policing, come up with, you know, proposals around police policy and oversight. So, you know, I think we, we need to be strong and firm with them but we also need to hold them to what they've said, and hold them to the things that they claim they have they have already claimed they support these things. So now it's time for them to put their action behind their words. And I think that, you know, rather than us. I don't want to assume that they're all against this, but I do want to insist that they, you know, kind of put their money where their mouth is at this point. Walk the walk sorry I just need to say that talk to talk but you got to walk the walk. Can't just talk to talk. I honestly feel like the way that town council treated us in our entire processing as like what we've experienced as a group as of deadlines presenting. I feel like it just illustrates how town government is a white space, along with everywhere. And I tried to make that clear when somebody asked about the overlap between what was it LSSE and the Youth Empowerment Center, like no because that the intention of LSSE was never to support BIPOC youth it was never that. My hiring BIPOC employees is not going to change that the intention that it was started with and I don't think people get that. Like, it's so frustrating to me and I also, I just want to say I'm very frustrated by this process and Mr. Bachman sort of not keeping us in the loop as to what's going to happen tomorrow. And Alicia and I are going to come with a strong presentation put all of the other recommendations before crest because all of them deserve equal funding, especially the preventative services. I'm just very frustrated I share the same frustration as all of you and I also saw that Mr. Bachman sent. Thank you notes to police officers over the last week. So I mean, there's a lot of stuff that's going on that sort of degrades our work. And I think that between that and herbs email very discouraged, but we got to keep going and keep pushing and keep applying pressure. Ms. Pat. Oh, Ms. Pat, I can't hear you. I think you're on view. Can you hear me now. Yeah. So, tomorrow, have we thought about if they said that there is no space for youth program, or they don't have any space for BIPOC cultural center I have some suggestion. The Catholic Church, they have a space that the town can explore for youth program because my understanding that the youth program should be located within downtown to actually make you know kids go there. Do people know the space I'm talking about at some bridges. You know, it's something that we need to, you know, push out tomorrow to the finance committee. I'm also thinking in terms of the BIPOC cultural center. Even though, like, I think the town should also explore ranking space, if they don't have any space. So I'm thinking the space near the Comcast building. Do people know where Comcast is? If they can space there, I mean, it's not big enough of something that we envision, but to start off with, why the town keep looking, but that will, you know, to start something going. Because they're going to come up with, we don't have buildings, you know, or we don't have this, how are we going to get this, you know, the patient, it will take several years is what I'm concerned about. But what I'm suggesting is that let them rent spaces. You know landlords are hurting right now, you know, some businesses are going out of business, so that you know let them look for space, you know, for the programs. Thank you. Thanks, Pat. Miss Bowman, I can see your hand up. Yep, my hands up. Hey, can you guys on the other room please? Um, So, yes, absolutely, it should be low, the youth center should be located in the center of town somehow. I think it's, I think it is very reasonable to have one of the churches, see if one of the churches will work as a temporary space. And I do say that. Um, you know, I don't know, like, it gets weird when you're in somebody else's space because you don't have to clean up everything every time, whatever programs over so on and so forth I've been in situations like that. Um, one of the things that I was. No, I'm no walk away place. One of the other things that I was thinking about was, um, you have all these new apartment buildings popping up with with space under that, like, you know, like the ground level floor has like they're throwing in a restaurant or the story and you know a workspace for the students or whatever. You know, maybe we try to get on one of those places, you know that, you know, one of the sky rises that they're building in her town. Um, you know, the other, you know, and so I'm just like, really trying to think of those types of things. There's didn't so verse was it sober escape that just closed so that that building or something they had, I think that building just they just closed or something. Or was this, I don't know if there's a jewelry store somewhere in Amherst, um, there's a jewelry store somewhere in Amherst and that closed. I'm just trying to think of like different buildings that are just, oh, that are there that are that could potentially be available. Um, yeah, that's I don't know. I don't wish to say. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to comment on Miss Ferreira's first comment about, you know, there's this whole thing where the council is like, well, those things don't happen here. As far as it goes with the acts that we see on TV in regards to the police and the BIPOC community. But at the same time, those are still so important because they hit home right like, if your child sees that all the time, what are they going to think. Like every day that we turn on the news, there's something that's linked to a police officer, a white police officer killing a BIPOC community member. And so that is still a very crucial point. I mean, it is how we come up with those unconscious bias ideas, right, like peanut butter and jelly, it's just as simple. We've all been conditioned to say, you know, to think about peanut butter when you say jelly or vice versa. And those make a difference, right. And it's no different than so you still need to speak on it, but you need to let them know to some degree that they do make a difference like that does. It does factor in on our children if our children only see that on the news. What are they going to think, including on top of the stuff that we, or these other folks have experienced in in Amherst like it's still a very crucial point I think. So I'm going to ask Ms. Walker and then Ms. Pat and then Ms. Farera. Thank you, Ms. Moisten. So I just wanted to just add to what Ms. Moisten said, because I very much agree with all of that. And just one specific comment that like kind of really bothered me and I was also bothered by the fact that I didn't address it directly at the town council meeting is that when there was a question of whether or not we were going to wait for something violent to happen to address these things. They were the response was, No, we are not going to wait for something violent to happen. Like as if violent things don't already happen as if police don't cause violence in Amherst and as if they don't already caused harm. And so I think there is a large assumption that these things do not happen here like I know there has been hours and hours of testimony but they've made it very clear that they don't believe it, because they have even said like these are just your interpretations of what have happened and these certain things. So there is a strong belief by the town council that violence does not occur in Amherst at the hands of the police. And I think that's like a very misleading idea that they have and that is also fueling their optimism here. Thank you, Miss Walker. Miss Pat and then Miss Pereira. So, one thing is if we can, you know, run this meeting to 8pm, because it's been a long week for everybody. Like I have a contract, I need to like submit tomorrow some feeling pressure. Just to piggyback with what Alicia, you know, just said, when we talk about violence, as we all know, it's not just the physical, it's not just the shooting, you know, the emotional toll that comes with even police stopping you because you're black. That one alone is violence. I don't understand what town council can get that. I don't understand what they don't understand that. That even having police follow you just driving and then you look back and you know, there is a cruise that just going, you know, your heart will start, you know, jumping if you're a person of color. That's violence right there. So when they're talking about, you know, we don't have shooting in our midst of violence, they're ignoring. Because if they know what we buy for folks go through where we have to talk to our children when they come in town, when they lived here and even it's a lot of negotiating every morning to even leave your home. You know, because you're walking out, you're walking into white spaces everywhere, everywhere. The only place that is not white space for me. It's my place of employment, my business. That's it. But when I'm in the community, I'm constantly negotiating everywhere if I'm shopping anywhere. So for them to just say that is, is, is like immature. Now, for tomorrow, when we're talking about, we haven't talked about the diversity, equity, inclusion, because they want to dismiss it in a way that we need to push back tomorrow that, you know, can show that the money invested in this department and I, you know, we should also always connect it with the, you know, a youth program and BIPOC cultural center. The money that is invested in it will have so much good return in terms of less involvement with the police, you know, whether is somebody, you know, needing help with, you know, one thing or the other. You know, I heard on Monday when Caroline Mora had mentioned that when she was raising her kids, she was able to get assistant in town. That assistant is still on. And that, you know, I brought this up many, many, many times. And that assistant is still on if you, if people need help, you know, paying rent. Unfortunately, that product that the time of our mess, move that program to a white led organization in Greenfield to provide that assistant to people. What I mean is some BIPOC folks has tried to access those help and they were declined because of cultural incompetence. I would like that program to come back so that it can be handled by the Department of diversity, equity and inclusion for an example. So people already thinking we don't have such program here. And do you blame people you don't, because the people who are doing it for us are doing a poorly job will be an example so I just want us to really putting on the value of investment of this department as well as press. Thank you. Ms. Farera and then miss Bowman. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just, you know, I think that's why we're so frustrated and just so exhausting because I think we covered it very well, you know, through the presentation through our comments to our opening. I mean, that was my opening in its totality was talking about my kids and what we have to negotiate every day before they, they, they go out the house. You know the fear that that any, any BIPOC mom has to go through when they have kids that are BIPOC, you know, I'm saying period point blank, you know, so it's so for them to still not hear it's just, you know, it just doesn't make any sense. But obviously, again, you know, we're the ones that are being tasked to do this and we're going to continue to fight with this and fight on and do what we need to do. But it just, it's almost like they can't hear us, you know, it's like they cannot hear what we're saying, because to even say that there isn't, you know, that type of trauma and violence and pain in Amherst is is you're living in a different world, you know. Um, but the other part is that I know miss miss past eight o'clock I actually have to go because we were actually supposed to only meet for like an hour today. So I, you know, is there anything that you all need from me if not I need to go because you know my kids are needing me. So, Mr. Can we just check when our meeting is next week. Is that decided. I like Wednesday today, six o'clock, if that works for people. Next Wednesday, June 2nd. Because yeah, I've had people say that they're confused with our meetings and I apologize to them I said I was the problem I requested to have the date moved. If it's six o'clock, I can always join in like three minutes or five minutes after not a big deal. I mean, the woman you had said that it might be a problem for you. Yes, I probably wouldn't, I probably wouldn't be able to stay for the whole meeting because I'm usually like, I'm probably I'm usually getting off the meeting around eight, you know, um, and we have tended to go over so it's just this. It doesn't. I mean I'll try to. I'll try to be as um, I'm trying to be as flexible as possible Wednesday is just my hardest day. I work. Well I'm going to be we're starting probably going to be working Wednesdays and then I go pick up my son and then I go bring him to you know so I'm like, I don't stop at all so. It's fine. So just leave it on Thursday then I was thinking it was my because of me that the people want to keep it on Thursday then. Thursday works for me. Yeah, I'm fine with Thursday. Mr. Ross. I'm okay with Thursday. Better for me. Okay. 530 or say 530 is fine with me. 530 is also fine with me. Does that work for everyone else. It's fine. Okay, I may have a problem next week regardless of when we meet but but Thursday's at 530 is good for me. Okay. You're at do six. You're good. Okay. Okay, so do you second at 530. Well it'll be June 3rd. June 3rd. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, so I'm going to sign off. But the only other thing is that I'm thinking is that obviously we got to focus for tomorrow, but then I guess we got to think about the, the second part of our report, right. They're saying June 30th. And so we need to think about whether do we have time to get in June 30th we want an extension and stuff like that because. Yeah, because that's going to be too close, you know, to kind of we spent all this time trying to get here with the part a. And now all of a sudden we got to turn it right around and go into part B. I think we need more time. So that's something I just wanted to put it out there so we can think think through. Miss Pat. Also next week, as part of our agenda, which we should also talk about limiting us meeting every week. Because people are getting exhausted. With summer coming and people, you know, vacation plans. So after June or something like that we may want to think about either meeting once or twice a month. That's my son. For a minute. Oh, sorry. Yeah. So there, there's two real quick things one on Miss Pat. I get what you're saying, but what I have done is Miss meetings in order to do self care. And there's always the notes of the meeting, you know, after the fact. And I think that we, because we're on zoom, I feel like we can pretty much zoom from anywhere. I mean, unless you have a specific reason why you can't zoom because I've, I've zoomed from the car. I've zoomed from various different places. I, you know, I try to sign in right. And I'm zooming and listening to you guys all the way home before I even talk. That's why usually I'm not actually I usually don't talk in the first half an hour is because I'm driving, I'm actually driving home. So I think I'm a, I'm, we've gotten so much pushed back with this first situation that I'm like, I feel like if we, if we back off in the summer, we may not meet back up and come, you know, when like, I think I think I really think that this will, this will allow for the town council to basically, you know, push us aside. Um, that being said, um, what I originally wanted to say was that, didn't we have a whole conversation. Wait, hold up, we had two conversations with Amherst PD. And in both of those conversations, do I am I crazy or do I not remember the chief of police saying that the some, the Crest program would be a very helpful because they don't even like going to those kind of costs. And I think that needs to be brought up that this is something that even the police are asking for, because this is not the cause that they want to be having to, you know, they don't they this is not the cause they want to be was it going to um, and it would take some of the pressure off of them. So first and foremost, why would they need more money for overtime because they're not doing any of that stuff. But on because they're only going for for violent calls. So any money that they have, they should have some money left over for violent calls, you know what I'm saying. And you know I mean for any overtime that would have to go on top of it, but they also said that they need what we're offering, they've they said it twice that they need what we're offering so we need to make that clear to town council when we have this conversation with them. I have another note really quick. Um, also, I know we're limiting a lot of stuff, but I think we really do need to throw some history facts in there. Um, because a lot of the reason these people don't know what's going on is because they don't have any history historical context, because the historical context of our experience at BIPOC people is different from the historical context of our experience from non BIPOC people. And when, you know, go ahead, look it up, look up the red lining in Amherst, go ahead, look it up, look up this stuff. Here it is here's the websites where you can get this information some like something about the history and where, you know, whether it be, you know, we'll share, you know, we'll have some sort of links up somewhere where we can just put the links up and you can you have it is your response. I say that this is your responsibility as a town committee that you need to go to these links and read these links and understand what it has happened in this town, and what has happened in this country to create this environment this is an intentional environment that's been created fear in the BIPOC community of policing is intentional. So, I just, I really feel like that historical content is really important. Thank you. Thank you miss Bowman miss Ferrara. Yeah, so to Sheena we actually did go, you know, the, the two co chairs went a lot into it, like the whole historical aspect the only thing is is that in terms of tomorrow we need to maximize you know I mean we can go into some of it and like you said maybe put some links on there. But the thing is is that we really went they went deep into it last time which I thought was very thorough. And the other part about the police that was a point that I brought up at during the meeting, I actually said Chief Livingstone said, I didn't make it we can make the point again, it's not a bad thing to bring it up again but just, just letting you know that I did bring that up specifically. I believe that all of that stuff came up already I'm just saying that every time we have conversations with these people this needs to be brought up. Yeah, we need to be like, it needs to be like hitting them in the head every time they think of you know every time they interact they need to be hit with some sort of historical fact hey you know here it is document boom there it is there it is. Do you know, and I mean like look, we could be even as far as do you know your neighborhood specifically kept black people out. You don't think that that affects how black people are living when you start hitting direct neighborhoods. Oh miss so and so you don't you live in this neighborhood. Well, oh, your neighborhood, here's what it looks. Here's what it says for your neighborhood you your, your people kept, you know, kept people, you know people by pop people out, like it really pointing out when making it hit home. That's the thing we got to make it hit home. And I think that we're coming close but we haven't hit that yet we haven't hit that point. Yes, we're like, oh, your family owned slaves okay here here it is here's about you know what I'm saying like on that level where you know people are like really feeling it. So, that's just my thought. Yeah, I'm going to go so but the only thing I have to say to she and I mean I get I get what you're saying but remember what we're not going to change these people's viewpoints in terms of their own historical complex. I mean that's that's, they have a certain worldview that's very sad, you know what I'm saying. And I, you know, because remember, we went into all of this stuff about about the violence and in Amherst and they got out of it and basically said, you know, wait, we don't we don't we don't have any of these things in Amherst. You see what I'm saying. So, in terms of my thing is is that we're not going to be able to change these folks. You know what I'm saying they're going to be who they're going to be. My only thing is is that we maximize the time to make sure though that we get in, but we need to get in to make sure that that we break down this budget break down our recommendations. We take the time to do that, so that we can put out what it is that we need, you know what I'm saying because, you know, I'm not I'm not in the business you know obviously I've done it for many years but right now, in this group, my business is not educating these folks, you know, my business is getting what's needed for our community, my pocket, especially for the entire residents of Amherst. That's my, that's my, that's my charge, but with that, I'm out. Bye, Ms. Farera. Thank you. I just want to say that the concept of white space is very hard for the, a lot of people. I don't want to make it limited to. And, you know, when they think about it in the concept of someone came over here and said, we are going to make these rules. These rules were really only meant for white men never minds everybody else right, like these rules were made for white men and not only did those people come over here but they divided their own people, because they were just selfish and greedy so what it right like what it really comes down to to some degree, you know, they basically divide it and said you guys will be scholars and you guys will be farmers and you guys will be this and they gave those what they were considering the lower class white people enough privilege so that they could feel like they were better than the Negro or the indigenous people, and it caused purposefully everything has been done very purposefully so that it keeps these groups, instead of coming together to realize that this group is not good to keep them arguing so that it's like a part of a history there that could help possibly understand the white space concept they just don't understand it because they live in it and it's so hard to explain to people when they live in it and they don't have to think about what it's like to walk through a store and be watched, that that's what happens to you only based off of the color of your skin. And the other thing I wanted to mention, and I can't remember I think it was miss Pat who spoke about it a little bit about the violence with the police the other thing is, there's a certain certain level of privilege power that the police have that probably could be addressed right so while, you know, Miss Pat might say violence, and it is right, there's it's anything that's traumatizing is considered violence, but it's it is like a power struggle thing with them right like you're not going to tell me what you're going to do and you're going to do like it is a it's an issue of power, which can be considered fall underneath that term of violence and that you know I just think that that should be something, perhaps that should be considered in terms of it too is that, I mean we had a person who was having a hard time they've been to every floor they screamed they yelled and someone from the second floor because I was moving one up here called the police, because this, we didn't know what was going to happen, but one police who got off the elevator was like nine, I mean he was huge right and so he gets off the elevator and he's like you're going to come with me we're going to get on this elevator and the guys like I'm not getting in the elevator I don't want to get off the elevator. Another officer came up and was like come on we're going to go down the stairs. Right, he met him where he is. But the point of that really is is that there's that powers that privilege of power that that was in play there. And it's just like, it has to be addressed. Right, because that is a big piece of it that falls underneath that umbrella of violence. And I think also to like one thing that makes it hard for them to understand is they benefit from the privilege of white spaces. So of course they don't understand because I bet other people listening to that situation would be like oh why didn't the person just get an elevator. When I'm hearing that I'm like okay why like it makes sense the person's anxious and they want to go down the stairs. And I don't even know the demographics of the person. It didn't, but honestly doesn't even matter because, well it does but it doesn't right because sometimes it's strictly just about UK I'm a police officer you're going to do what I say, and then that's just it right like that's the piece of it. Yeah, it's the power is the power thing. It's, and it's hard it's it's brutal. So, for sure. Thank you, Ms. Moisten. Did anybody have any other comments. If not, I wanted to motion to adjourn just because we did go a little bit over the same thing. Second. When did we not go over I mean like, what's that. We should have known right in our meeting. One thing, I didn't understand why Miss Boston didn't get called in on Monday. You didn't come into the meeting, like when we came in. I mean you attended that. I mean, anyway, I mean it's not really my space and I'm okay with that. And you know everybody was very, you know, I'm going to just say emotions and everybody was it was ready to go. It's not necessarily my space to, it's not my platform, it's your guys's platform. And, and, and often. And I don't yeah, I don't know. I was wondering like what happened because we specifically wanted you to join us. But also like they don't show Athena at their meetings either, like and we can just call it a power. I don't know. I don't know what to say sometimes I just shouldn't. You're concerned you're one of us Jennifer. Exactly. And we appreciate your work. You so so much you don't even know. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. That's all I need really right. Yes, Miss Bowman. Miss moisten. Miss Bowman. Can you call me about Mr. Bowman. Yes, I can. I think Mr. Bowman and your Mr. together. Oh, I don't know about that but let's talk about that off the meeting because we are being recorded. Okay. Thank you to our chairs for the work you're going to do. Yes. If you need me, let me know. You guys did awesome. You guys did awesome. And you'll do awesome tomorrow and don't back down like just go for it. Thank you guys. All right. Thank you. Hi. Good night. Good night. Thank you.