 And there is a quorum Allegra, so I'm going to leave it to you and Deborah to go ahead and call the meeting. All right, we are all here. Wonderful. It is 631. And this is a meeting of the community safety and social justice committee. And I am calling to order with the extension of chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. So I'm just going to go over our agenda quickly. First, we will have announcements then public comment. Any member reports action and discussion items will include crest DEI and youth empowerment updates police chief and crest director search updates review of the budget letter, which went out in the packet. Reson oversight board update multilingual parents advisory council and then a debrief from the forums specific and specific things that were brought to attention were communications feedback civil rights violation feedback and community outreach efforts. We will end with additional public comment and upcoming agenda items and meeting schedules and any other topics. That the chair did not reasonably anticipate 48 hours in advance of the meeting and then we will adjourn. So, does anybody have any announcements before you go to announcements. Can you do the check in for all of the members so they can be heard please. Thank you for the reminder. Jennifer. I'm just going in order the set. Can you hear us. Yes, and thank you. We can hear you. Deborah, can you hear us. Yes, I can. All right, we can hear you. Isabella, can you hear us. Can you just say something to. Yeah, yeah, I can hear you. Thank you. Can you hear us. Yes, I can. All right, we can hear you and everyone. Here. Thank you. Okay, everybody is here and can be heard. Anybody have any announcements after that one thing that I saw recently was a flyer from the Black Business Association of Amherst. They are having a Juanza celebration on the 31st, I believe, which is Sunday. And that will take place at 1pm at New Africa House on UMass campus. Jennifer is the town doing their celebration as well. We will be doing a celebration on the 26th. Perfect. Jennifer, can you provide more information about that? So what are you all doing on the 26th, just so everybody can know? Yeah, so typically we have a whole program that comes in where some of the youth come in and we speak about the history of the Juanza, the different items that are on the Juanza table are explained. Then we do the seven symbols of Juanza and the candles or the seven days of Juanza, we will have dinner, which will be very nice. And we will have two performances, one by Lauren Mills and some other youth who I don't know who are quite yet. And hopefully the other one, we'll have some drumming and drumming tutorial and possibly another one that hasn't been confirmed. And this is taking place at the Banks Community Center. Great. Any other announcements from anybody? Great, not seeing any hands. I will move to public comment. So during the public comment period, the chair will recognize members of the public when called on, please identify yourself by saying your name, pronouns and residential address. Residents are welcome to express their view for up to three minutes at the discretion of the chair based upon the number of people who wish to speak. No speaker can see their time to another speaker. CSSJC will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment. I do see six members of the audience. If anybody would like to make public comment, please raise your hand to do so. There's one hand raised. Thank you very much. Names of milk are Shabazz. I live in South Amherst. And first of all, thanks for the shout out about upcoming Kwanzaa events in the area. It's a great opportunity for community building and especially in terms of the celebrating some of the positive traditions of the African continent. African people worldwide. I wanted to just speak as we come to the end of the calendar year. In reflection on how far we've come and how far we have yet to go. And to really encourage you all in your work and to know that there is a considerable community support. For getting the answers we need and getting the movement in the direction of the kind of a safe community safer community that we all want here. And so just wanted to say that and express appreciation for all for all your labors and to to know that it is supported. And and we wish you all the best and particularly helping with the selection of our next chief of police. Thank you. Thank you again for members who have just joined us of the public. We are at our first public comment period. If you would like to make public comment, you can raise your hand. And you will be called on not seeing any more hands up. We will have an additional public comment period at the end of our meeting. And next on the agenda is member reports. Is anything any. Does anybody have anything to report. Yes, Deborah. Yeah, so I have some things to report which actually like when I had several meetings throughout the month. One was with Michael Hudson from the Pellum Public Safety Working Group. And there, and there was another member to and I forget her name and they were really pleasant and wonderful to talk with. And Pellum is looking at the possibility of, you know, creating their own kind of community responder and or possibly, you know, partnering with us. So it was just a good conversation. They were really picking our brains in terms of the work that we did, especially with the CSWG and now CSS JC, and I guess I had had some communications already with or Miller prior to him leaving. And Michael I know has been attending our meetings. I don't see him on today but he's been pretty much, you know, at all the meetings that we've been having at the town forum so I think that will be a good thing and and again showcasing, you know, the leadership qualities that were demonstrated in terms of beginning with crests and why crests are so important for us to continue right because other communities which is what CSWG wanted are emulating and looking at the work that that we're doing. And hopefully it'll be duplicated throughout Massachusetts and hopefully throughout, you know, and beyond. It's really a good thing. The other one is we were contacted Allegra and I were contacted by the League of Women voters racial equity group, and they invited us to do a Judy Brooks presentation. And, you know, they haven't they haven't publicized it yet right Allegra. I haven't seen it go out I know that we approved the flyer or whatever but I haven't seen that it actually was distributed yet. So, so just to give you all heads up it'll be January 18, most likely at 7pm so mark your calendars. So Allegra and I will be presenting on, you know, the CSWG recommendations talking about the status of crests and looking at things so, you know, hopefully once the advertisement is out, we'll be sharing it with you all and with all our networks to make sure that it's shared far and wide, because we need to continue to let the community know about the work that CSWG did and CSSJC is doing, and obviously the status of crests and what's going on with it. And to continue to monitor closely, all of these issues. So that was another one and then I think there was one more but I'm forgetting now. So if I remember it, I'll come back. Thank you. If you want to add anything Allegra. I just I wanted to add that I was in touch with some local service providers who were unable to attend either of the community forums but didn't want to offer some feedback. And so I was able to speak with someone over at the survival center and someone over at Craig's doors just about some of their experiences with crests and some of the things that they would hope to see moving forward and, you know, I think there was an emphasis on keeping crests a separate and distinct department and also looking at staffing levels because it did seem at some points that there there was some lag time in response when they were called directly and I don't know if that's a matter of staffing or a matter of the time that they were taking on each call so that that was one concern that had been brought to my attention so. But that was good to have some additional feedback outside of the forums. I'm trying to think. Well, I remembered what I had forgotten which was, and I'm sure Allegra you did too, because I had seen that you had met with her. And we'll talk more when we talk in regards to the resident oversight board but we did meet with Deborah Coladney. I know I met with her separately and then I think Allegra met with her to, and she's the person that's doing the town forums for the resident oversight board. And so I was able to give her give her feedback in regards to my concerns and and when we get to that. Again, we share my concerns in terms of where things are at in terms of the resident oversight board, but wanted to make sure that that's another, you know, activity. And then, I don't know if you're able to but if you could kind of share again the information around the housing issue that you're dealing with that would be good. So not this Thursday, but the week of the 21st, which is the following Thursday. The zone of whatever appeals will be hearing from the real estate developers for the affordable housing in North Amherst. And at this coming meeting. This is where they will discuss the deeds, how people qualify what they need to do to get one of these houses. As I've said before, we've gone over design. What would be available in these houses. And I think from everything we've seen and from everything that's been presented. I think they're very will be very nice to develop houses. And this is an opportunity for people who wants to buy a house in Amherst but cannot necessarily afford market value houses. So these prices will be capped. So if anyone's listening, if you know of anyone who you may know who is interested, or somebody you may have helped or that may be trying to buy a house but cannot afford. And as I said, open market prices. This program would benefit those people. So please come to the December 21st meeting. You have the opportunity to make public comments as questions. I believe you may the developers sometimes respond to questions in real time. But there's also if you're a first time home buyer, there will be training programs tailored to first time home buyers. So you can actually learn how you can become a first time home buyer. So I encourage anyone that is interested or if you know anyone that may benefit from this program. Just spread the word. The 21st meeting is going to be waking up. Get out of answers to how do I qualify for one of these properties. And this is again just for clarification. This is home ownership and not rental. Neverell, where's the meeting taking place? It is on zoom, like everything else. It right now it is on zoom, and they are posted on the town website. So I believe it is on the ZBA link. So we can go to Amherst website and the link is publicly posted. And these meetings will continue. I believe every week until the ZBA votes yes or no to approve these properties. Thank you. Any other member reports. Hi, let's move along to the crests, DEI and youth empowerment updates starting with crests. Generally, you have the PowerPoint. And a leg, right. I have a couple of questions before we begin. Yes, which was, is it possible to to move Rob up on the action items so that it's possible to move all of those together? Absolutely. I'm hoping that I can. Can depart. And then secondly, I'm just wondering whether the search updates are expected from DEI or from your members who are part of those committees. I was planning to talk a little bit about where we were in the process for crest director. I don't know if. If everyone can share police chief or if. If you and Jennifer are both on the commit or, you know, if you're on committees or how. I was, I just wanted to clarify my expectation was that it would be your committee members reporting about, and I just wanted to make that to make sure that that was clear that rather than I'm not on either committee. So, to give a brief update when we get to that action item on, on the police chief search. I can. Sorry. Right. So, so just to clarify though Pamela so you're saying that you don't have any information then in regards to the police chief search or the crest director search. I'm not involved in either of those searches. Okay, that's good to know. Yeah. Right. So, here's the first slide. So, can you move to the second slide. Chief Nelson and I are here and so he has that's the agenda just the dispatch update that he'll be giving. I'm going to talk about the neighbor services provided the service provider contracts. Chief Nelson will talk about the crest responder search update and then I'll end with a discussion about the plans for the sunset of the interim leadership team. And just so the rest of the community, the committee members know, you know, we did want obviously the full temporary leadership team here so just so that they know just so you know Pamela can you let them know that they weren't here because just so everyone kind of is on the same page. So, Cat Newman, who is part of the leadership team is traveling with a responder and is out of state. And Sergeant Griffin has another assignment and is not available. Okay, thank you. Okay, so I think we can go down to the next slide and that will achieve that you're up. Good evening. So we've come up with some call call types that you can see. This is what we're going to start start out out with, you know, we're called they're just dispatched to redirected calls so let's start with this group because those seem to bring the least amount of threat, least amount of danger to the responders. So the calls will be thoroughly triaged by our dispatch center before they go to Crestmore or the police. So just and you can you can see see effort for for for yourselves but the main the main ones are the first four. You know, well, well be being check mental health check that was some someone who's who seems to be in some some type of type of state. This is a agency. I think one of the one of the examples of that would be assisting with with the live the library. The citizens that's you know some someone called you know calls to calls for for assistance or calls for for some someone that that type type of thing, they're fairly straight straight for for forward. And again, this is you know the call walk run run for for format we'll see how each how how how this goes. We'll review each each each call see how how see how how it went how it went went well how it may may not not not have gone gone well and see how and and and learned learn and learn from from from that as as we march down down down this path. I'm going to go live. The 18th at eight, eight, eight, eight a.m. so the last the last two were primarily add add add admin tried to the tracking, you know, when you're doing, as it says administrative task task or if it's a fall fall follow up to a previous response. So, so again this is, as I said, crawl walk run, and we'll learn this is, you know, as we said, send the past, this is all brand brand brand new and we're going to learn a lot as we go go go down down down down this path. So, can we ask questions. Sure. So yeah I have questions and regards to it so thank you, Chief Nelson for for this update. So I think we had talked about a little bit, but I want to kind of get more information in terms of so why is it that we're only starting with these calls as opposed to just, you know, other calls that so I didn't see noise complaints on here. Unless they are in here. And disorderly disorderly conduct type things. Also, so if it's a well being check, you know, alcohol drugs drug kind of, you know, calls and things like that with with those land. Let me answer the question. Okay, no, you know, as I said right or right off right off the bat. These are calls that present the least amount of danger to to the response from the responder. And it makes sense as I said, all walk run. These calls are where we we found in in record and records that they, you know, you don't have. You don't you don't you don't have to have by you. It's rare that you'll have have a violent episode or something that it ends up being Dane Dane dangerous to to respond to the spawner because don't don't forget on the on these calls. The responder is going with it. There's no police police police involved. They're going on their their own. And first and foremost, we're looking out for the response from a responder says safety. No, no, no noise complaints. Disorder order orderly. Those have a heightened tend to tend to tend to be to have some some degree of Dane danger some degree of violence. So that's so so so those those are down down down down down the road. If it's if it's acting at some at some point they are they're going to respond to that but I don't believe believe believe believe they they will I don't believe believe they they should because of the higher. Chance or propensity for there to be some some some violence in in in well for the well be be being checked that's you know something you know some some someone's concerned about. You know they they haven't seen their their friend for a few days or not answering the phone but those type types types of things. Excuse me. Now why now why why why there's a need for well will be be be being checked that will come come later. Once once once again to get there and knock knock on a door or look in a window or something or something like like like like like that. It could be through any number of reasons you know and then based based on what what they find. They'll either you know conclude conclude the call or you know it's saying that okay the person's fine or just not not home or they'll the last ask for assistance because they can't really find the reason to find. You know they can't really conclude that that that that call. So anyway you know you you mentioned drugs or alcohol well that might might be the reason but they're not going to know until they get get get there do their due diligence and determine whether whether they they they can close their call on on their own or seek seek assistance be it from from from police or fire or both. Okay, but I have a subsequent question ever based on Chief Nelson's response so I mean. I think what I want to do because not including noise complaints not including this early conduct is not what CSWG had in mind in terms of our recommendations. We had made our recommendations. We had said that this patch, based on whatever the fact pattern was, would then send it out to crests, and it would be anything nonviolent. So, I don't know, you know, why you're saying like for instance right what happened on July 5 with the young people was a noise component. So, if if if crests had been the one to respond to that. Things will probably would have gone a lot differently for those young people who are now traumatized, who are now terror, you know feeling terror felt terrorized, and I still dealing with the trauma of what happened with the police. So, I'm not in an agreement with the fact that the noise complaints is not entered and it is not part of this. I'm not in agreement that the solely con is not part of this, because I was, I am, and I was part of the CSWG and so I remember our conversations and recommendations, and it's anything nonviolent so I don't know, you know, unless you need to show me the data in terms of you said there was some data, I want to see the data that showcases that there's this propensity for violence and so on and so forth. Because if we bring up the example of July 5 with those young people, there was no propensity for violence there. Wait, wait, let me finish. So let me finish. I don't know why and let me finish. So I don't know why there's this thing of why isn't it taken on a case by case basis, as opposed to just blankedly saying, no, no noise complaints, no, no this or that. So, yes, please, please respond. Well, first off, you said those were recommended day to day to day patients and that's and that's just just just just what what they are. The other piece is, you know, it's just you have you have to draw the line some some somewhere. You have to make a choice as to what what what what we're going to do do do here. And again, these calls are the ones that tend to be less violence have a lesser pen and to survive vi. And there you have you have to have the job aligned because you've got to start some some somewhere. You've talked about the July 5. Okay, fine, that's one is in sense. I can't speak, speak, speak to how it may have turned out differently, as it didn't it what happened. happen. But we have to go with what the data shows, what the history shows, what the experience that the police police have with these types of calls. Thus, we come up with this list as the first entreaty into the response to sponding. You've got to start somewhere and since this is all brand new, there is no guide, really good guide, guide, book four or four of this. You start smart, you start small and then grow. Yeah, but the community has been waiting for a long time for this, so I don't see why you're saying that you start small. There is room for us to start small when it is community members, especially BIPOC community members that are feeling the intimidation. Like I just said, what happened with the July 5th incident was very traumatizing and terrorizing to those young people. And so for me, I don't see why it is that we're starting small. We should be starting with what it is that Crest can respond to. And I was at a function where it was professional people, but just because it was all professional people of color because I'm a black woman and I remember there was a noise complaint and I remember the police showing up at this place where there was this noise complaint and the police trying to escalate. So us as professional black people, we were just kind of like, you know what, we'll de-escalate it, but I remember those police officers that showed up and actually tried to intimidate us and terrorizes at a social function. And again, and I remember going to the door and saying, I'm an attorney, I'm a professional person and they basically belittled us. No, I'm giving you another example as to why I feel very, very concerned that obviously certain things are being left out and saying that we need to start small and so on and so forth. Because I've been so, you can't say that someone else told me it wasn't no third person, it wasn't fourth person, it was I was at a function and this is what transpired because I was there. Okay. And the police showed up and tried to intimidate, you know, other people, black people, people are called who are there to intimidate us and then shut us down and told us that if we wouldn't shut it down, they were going to arrest us when we were trying to de-escalate the situation. So this is why I'm saying that this needs to be looked at and hopefully the community has taken note because this is not acceptable that these are the only calls that are going to be taking place. We made recommendations back in 2021. We're about to go into 2024 and you're saying starting small. So I just want to make sure that you understand what I'm saying, all right? And where I have these examples and where I've brought up these two really major examples, these countless others that we brought up during the CSWG data that we gathered. Okay. So I'm concerned about this. I'll let you finish. Go ahead. No, I said I'll stop there, but I'm very concerned. I appreciate your concern, but the bottom line is we've been charged to make this work and we are going to make this work. We've got a lot, a lot of experience here. A lot of really smart folks. Folks that want this to work. And in our professional opinion, this is a way to get this to work. We're going to disagree. Okay. That's fine. Everybody has an opinion. But for us, this is the best way to make this work in a short term and a long, long term. We're not just talking about today, tomorrow. We're talking about next week, next month, next year, the next five, five, five years. We're trying to build. We're not trying. We're building this so that it's sustainable. And the way you do that, we didn't say, hey, we're going to go to the moon next year. All right. When that starts started, you had to build. You had, because they didn't know how to do it. This is all brand new. So it's the same type of thing. And there are going to be changes in the course as we go along, as we learn, learn more. So you've got to start small, learn from your successes, learn from your failures, and use that to grow and make this what it should be. That's going to take care of people. So we're going to disagree. But in the end, we are going to do what's best for the agency and what's best for the community. That's what we're charged with. But I was just telling you, you're saying it's best for the community, but I'm just telling you that it's not what's best for the community. I said, and we're going to disagree. It's a disagreement, though, that will potentially cost more people being intimidated and more people being terrorized by the police. And so that's the part. And I'm representing the community, which is specific to BIPOC community, which are the ones that end up feeling it on their skin. So that's what I'm saying. And this needs to be taken into consideration. And I'm hoping that the community is listening so that they can bring it up and make sure that it's because if this continues. And like I said, I want to see the data. You said that there's data. So there should be numbers. There should be this and that. So the next step. You'll have to talk to the police. They have that data. But again, Rome wasn't built in the day. And this is going to take time. Any other pro-program like this did not happen overnight. I think the standard is two years or something like that. If everything goes according to plan. Everything has not gone according to plan here. So the work is being done. It's being done well. We're going to end up in a good place. And some folks are not going to agree with the pace. It's going to take as long as it takes. It's not that we don't care or hear about what's going on. The work is going to get done. It's going to get done well. It's going to get done correctly. And folks can agree or not agree. That's one of the nice things about living in this kind of country. You're allowed to disagree. Well, okay. Avril, go ahead. Thanks, Deborah. So, Chief Nolan, I agree with you and I agree with Deborah all at the same time. I think starting small is a good idea. But I'm agreeing with Deborah when I say a noise complaint is small. It is not a criminal matter under mass general laws. Disorderly conduct, while it is a criminal matter, it is not a jailable offence. It just carries a fine. So, those are small things. And so, the question is, if the goal here is to start small and trial and error, understanding concern for, you know, Crest's safety and Deborah's correct. If you do have data to say, Amherst PD has responded to X amount of noise complaints and those noise complaints turn violent and those people had to be arrested, that's good for us to know. But if that data does not exist, then you can appreciate why we think that Crest responding to noise complaints is a small matter. And then it's the same thing around disorderly conduct. Disorderly conducts don't start that way. It becomes a matter where a noise complaint gets generated, the police gets there and things escalate. And then because it escalates, it turns into a disorderly conduct, which the intent here is, you know, to de-escalate and keep people out of jail for things that, frankly, should not be jailable or under the law, but because the way a person responds or behaves, it becomes a situation where the police feel that they have no choice but to arrest somebody. So again, well, I do appreciate that, you know, we have to start small and see what happens. I genuinely think that the noise complaints and disorderly conduct responses are small things to start with. Oh, and okay, I get your point, but I disagree. I mean, you can also I apologize or postulate that, you know, that disorderly or noise complaint may not get out of hand because the police do show up. You can go down that route and no one gets arrested because someone shows up that can arrest you. Who knows? I mean, noise can place in this town predominantly a call or college kids. And you could say, well, you know, our college kids are going to listen to an armed civilian who tells them to be quiet. I don't know. But the thing is, bottom line, we made our best decisions here on how to start dispatching. The main thing is we're going to start dispatching and we can quibble about, well, we should add this one or that one. But the main thing is we're going to start dispatching. We're going to learn from that. And who knows? It might turn out that, you know, we find that, maybe we can send them the noise complaints. Maybe we can send them to disorderly. But we're going to have to learn about that first and see if, and as I said, as we go down the path, we're going to have to see where we can grow, grow, grow, grow this. But you got to build your foundation of information first and see how it goes. And it's not just about responding. It's about how our responders operate. Making sure that they're doing the right things on the right calls. That's all part of it as well. It's it's reviewing calls to make sure that the outcomes are what we hope them to be. So there's a lot of other stuff amongst this. Well, surrounding this, besides just what we need, we need to expand the calls right now. So this is what we're going to go with. This is what we're going to build our, I guess you would call our base data on. And this is what we're going to learn from and grow from. These calls are not to be all in and all. All right, it's going to grow. All right, but we have to start some somewhere. And this is where we chose to start. I'd like to make two points and then ask a question. I do agree through that, you know, sometimes on a noise complaint, a person may not necessarily respond the same way to an armed civilian that it was the police. But then that's where the benefit of saying I'm here so the police are not here. And if you guys, and if you guys are not going to listen to me, I mean, that's the whole point of being connected to dispatch is that they can call the police if absolutely necessary. Yep. So again, that's my first rebuttal to what you're saying. And my question is, how does the staff of Cress feel about where they consulted? Do they have the chance to give any feedback or input as to this is where we start? Was there? Okay, can we talk about that? Well, we can. I think you can get more, you can get a more in depth answer from Miss Young. But yeah, they were involved with this. I mean, yeah. We can hear from Miss Young. So the conversation around call types actually began on the very first day of the interim leadership team. So that was one of the things that we talked about on day one, and they have continued throughout the last four months. And actually, this list is expanded. I believe that the original list that the former director presented to this group many months ago was only three call types. But in conversation with the responders and with Mike Curtin from Dispatch, we ended up with six call types that we would be recording and responding to in the CAD system. The responders were involved in every decision around the types of call types, as well as the language describing the call type. All of that work was done collaboratively. But the heart of my question is, and I profess that by saying, this group has been saying for months now that the big concern here is that Cress is going to morph into something that it was not meant to be. And just by looking at this, it seems it's primarily focused on mental health and nothing to do with alternative means to law enforcement. And so my direct question is, starting with these call types, was there any feedback from the Cress responders to say, I am comfortable or not comfortable doing those nonviolent calls that would typically involve the police? So maybe I misunderstood your question, but I thought your question was, were the Cress responders involved in the selection of these call types? And the answer is unequivocally, yes, they have been, we have been engaged in call type discussion with the responders from day one of the interim leadership team. We've had several meetings. And when I mean, when I say we, I mean the leadership team and all of the Cress responders about the call types. And so this is a list that was generated by the entire Cress department with input from dispatch. Can I just let me conclude my thought. So the plan has been from day one that there would be a rollout of call types. And some of the data that Chief Nelson is referring to, and we shared at the last meeting, is that the Harvard Government Performance Lab has data that suggests that it is an 18 months to two and a half year period for most departments to go from creation to actually receiving calls on dispatch. So by doing this at month 18, we are really on track nationally where we should be. The plan has always been that you would start with a small group, and then you will add to it as both the dispatchers and the Cress responders become more familiar with the procedure and understand the practices that they're going to do. These are not the only call types that the responders will respond to. It's just the initial grouping. And I do believe that, you know, whoever is the next director will have an opportunity to continue to expand these call types. And we'll address the types of call types that are suggested in the prior CSWG report. But this is just the initial start for that. So apologies if my question wasn't clear. It's not necessarily around the call types. I have no issues with the call types. It's actual calls that they're taking is the question is was there any feedback from Cress individuals to say these are the calls we're comfortable going out on, not necessarily the call types or the actual calls themselves from this. I don't understand the distinction between the actual calls that they're going on and the call types because in my mind they are the same. But the answer I would say is, yes, the process has been fully collaborative as far as the leadership team working with the responders to talk about the type of work that will be done and their ability to do it and do it well and safely. So the first group of responders, so of the five that are here, four of them went through extensive training at the very beginning. And the fifth responder has actually been going through crisis intervention training, a 40 day program starting last week and ending I believe, I think actually she ended to she will end today and return back to the office tomorrow. So there's been a lot of thought and preparation into preparing them for this point. And I do want to say that I think that while it is, you know, there will be continued discussion about the types of call types and the order of the call types, the fact that this interim leadership team working collaboratively with dispatch and with the responders to be able to have this group go live on Monday at 8am is a huge achievement. And I don't, I mean, it's, you know, while there will be continued debate about the order of the call types to actually get to the point where calls are going to be dispatched to the responders is a milestone. And, and we really should, you know, should have some celebration about that because it's been, as you all know, it has been a long time coming. And so we're doing our very best to stand up this organization in a way, as Chief Nelson has said, that will make it successful long term. This is just the beginning. It is not the only call types that they will have. It's not the only calls that they will respond to. All of the data from the Harvard government performance last says that 18 months is really what the national trend is. And, and I think that both dispatch and the responders are prepared to go forward with this list, and they will continue to add as time, you know, goes on. One last question before I have other people chime in. So this is not the question. So they're going to go live on this Monday, 12 18. Okay. And my question is, when there's a new director in place, do they have the authority to say, Okay, we've done these many call types for these many months. Here is enough. And they've been successful or however they want to measure that. Now I think we can take these additional calls. Is there a mechanism in place where there will not be pushback from the police department? So you're, you're asking two questions that I, as an individual, can't answer, but I'll give you my best guess. So I can't anticipate what the police are going to do or not going to do, right? But I will say that we have worked collaboratively with police and dispatch to start this rollout. And there is an expectation in it and an agreement that as this rollout happens, more call types will be will be added. That's always been the plan. I think that that was the plan when the prior director was in place that that there would be a rollout and things would be added. And I will also say I'm sort of jumping the gun. The last bullet point I have is about the sunset of the interim leadership team. And the leadership team has committed to staying until a director is appointed. And we have all committed to being a part of the onboarding process like, you know, we're professionals, we want to give whomever is selected the best opportunity to be successful in this position. And we know that that doesn't mean that we will, you know, end on a specific day and walk away. It means that we're going to try to assist the individual who's selected and be a part of the onboarding team and support that person's like the goal for, for the for the interim leadership team is to do a final report with a number of recommendations. Like it will be the the director's responsibility and job as well as the town managers to decide which of the recommendations that they that, you know, that they follow or to make their own. But we're we are it is our job to equip them to be successful whomever that person is. Yeah. And, you know, let me let me add into your question. The director is the head of the department department and one one one one of their responsibilities is going to be looking at where and when to to to expand the call the call call types. But if you're going to do that correctly, if you're going to do it safe, safe, safe, safely, you got to do do do do it in a cloud collaboration with the other the other two arms of public safety, the police and fire, the EMS, you're going to consult consult with them and say, hey, we're going to do we want to expand into this realm. Say, well, fine. The smart thing and to do is to find find out what what it what it would have been your experience experiences when when when you had had these type type types of calls. And then you talk and and and you think figure out what is the best way to to to approach it. You just don't go willing to know no no and in in in into something like like like like this pushback. I don't see that that there's going to be and anything that you would call pushback. We're you know this we're we're a team team here. I'm talking to three three three legs of public safety safety here. We're going to we we are we are we are a team we're a growing growing growing growing team. So you depend on your team to help you out in spots where you might not be that familiar. But in in in the end, the director, the director, the head of the the head of the credit, Christopher part part is going is going to make make make the decision on, yes, we're going to go here, or we're going to go there, we're going to expand into this realm. That is their their their charge. And if there's and the smart the smart the smart director will find out as much as much as they they can and get as much background as they can before before before before before they make make a change, especially in a brand new department. Thank you. Thank you for your questions. I mean, I just have some thoughts before going to the set, in terms of everything that that Chief Nelson and Pamela Young said, because you all said quite a bit and and Pamela, I do congratulate you all for starting this patch, because obviously it was supposed to be started back in August and then, you know, then we all know what happened there in terms of role being put on administrative leave and then subsequently resigning. So yes, this is this is definitely huge in terms of this patch. However, we we from everything that's happened in terms of CSWG having made those recommendations and the fact that the town said, our charge was create a probe program that is an alternative to policing right alternative public safety department. And so what's happened is that this department has been in place for over a year soon as it'll be, you know, in March will be two years and basically have not been able to do their full scope of what they were supposed to do in terms of being an alternative to policing. So yes, we do have to question why that the the, you know, some of what was included in terms of non jailable non violent calls are included in this list, because it's been a long time. And when I've heard of feedback in terms of concerns of Cress, is that Cress is basically a social service agency or a taxi driving agency transportation agency and hasn't been able to do what it was established to do, which is to be an alternative to policing a public safety department. And so if you continue to not allow them to do their job, then what are they doing, right? And that's where we have the questions. And that's where we see the resistance, even though yes, now you've allowed some more of the calls to happen. But as Everold and I have pointed out, most of those calls are dealing with mental health and or social service calls. And so we're not seeing the public safety part of it. Okay. And so that's where we that's where I want to see the data to see why it is that the public safety part of it hasn't been included in this list. And why it is that then it's saying that, you know, we're starting small, and so on and so forth. Know that the starting small would be still including some of those calls. Yes, you can start small in terms of the number of calls so on so forth, but you still include those matters within your list. And that's why I am questioning why those were not included in the list. And so so even though, you know, this has, you know, a baby step has been taken. And I'm happy with it. We're noting the resistance, right? Towards Crest being established as an alternative to policing and a public safety department that is independent, independent from the police and from the fire department. Yes, you all are going to work collaboratively. But it's supposed to be independent. And right now, the fact that you're saying that now this this interim group is going to continue on and actually on board the new director doesn't give me any any type of peace actually. It really makes me feel like it's going to continue to be skewed in a way. Okay, because I feel like the mission of what Crest is supposed to do is not being focused on. It's being taken towards a different direction, which is more social service department as opposed to an alternative to policing. So that doesn't give me any type of peace to say that you all are going to be training the new director, because then the new director is going to feel that this is the path that the community wants Crest to go. And that is not the path. Okay, that we want Crest to go. We want Crest to be an alternative to policing. The Crest members were trained as you stated, right? Earl talked about it. They got a gazillion hours of training on de-escalation on how to do this work in a safe way. We did NCSWG. We did a lot of studies in Denver and all those other programs where it stated very little in terms of respondents being harmed when they go out to respond to these calls, right? Because why? Because they've been trained, they've been they prepared to go and do the de-escalation. So just because they're not armed does not mean that they're not safe. Okay? So, and I understand, Chief Nelson, you said that a lot of smart people are doing this work. I consider myself smart too. I consider the other people that did the work on CSWG and the countless hours of research. I consider them smart too. And the folks on CSAS, I consider them smart also. So I think you want to take into consideration what we're seeing and the points that we're making and the gaps that we're seeing and the gaps that are not being answered in terms of why is NCSWG being responsive as an alternative to policing and as a group that's supposed to be responding to public safety departments? Well, the public watching. Well, being checked is public safe, safe, safe, safe, safety. Addressing a mental health health health concern is part of public safe, safe, safety. Assisting a business with some with some of the with the request for service is part of public safety. Assisting a citizen is part of public safe, safety. Bottom line, you got to start some somewhere and this is where we're going to start and that and this is how and this is how it's going to go and it's going to be successful because it has to be and we've and we've got folks that are committed to make sure that this is successful. So, you know, I've been doing this work for a little while in two different communities, two completely different communities. I think I think I think I'm pretty well versed in what what what how to address public public safety. So, this is going to work because we know we know we just know know know what is we have we have we have the right folks in the right right place with the right training training and with the right the correct mind mind mindset. So, this is this is this is what we're going to go go go with and it's going to grow. But you got to start somewhere and this is where we're going to start. We hear from the set. Hi. So, chief, thank you for being here. I pretty much just echoing what other members have been saying this evening. As far as my understanding is that we have this crest you know mental health responders and we also have the crisis and intervention team with the police department and then in addition to that there's this CSO which I believe was brought to our attention about a month or two months ago, which at least I had no idea that there was a CSO position even since 2019. So, I guess what are the differences with what the crisis intervention team would be like the type of calls that they would be taking as opposed to the actual crest responder. I'm I'm I'm I'm not sure that I can in a sense and sense that that would be something something for the crisis intervention team to speak speak speak to and APD to speak speak to in turn to the CSC CSO and what the mission of the CSC CSO is and let's Pam Pam can add so this is something to that. Right. So, I think I just need to clarify the point that I made earlier. So, the police department does have a CSO they are separate and distinct from the crest department. So, we're not involved with with that operation at all. The CIT that I referred to was a type of training that one of our responders well I think at this point all but two responders have gone through so it's crisis intervention training which prepares responders to to to assist where there might be issues around mental health or behavioral health as well as a range of other types of types of calls where there would be some sort of crisis that they would need to respond to. So, that's what CIT that's what I'm referring to not a CIT team that exists in the town or in the crest department there is it one. Okay. Does that clarify? It clarifies it for me. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. And I guess a follow up actually two things. One, and I don't know if you have an actual answer for this one is how long will data be collected until this dispatch update is revised? Who knows? I mean, you know, a lot of a lot of a lot of that we are going to leave leave to the new the new director, you know, they're they're going to come up come up with what they what they believe is a good good time timeline in turn in terms of reviewing calls and that type type type thing that's something those are those are the types of things that we want to kind of stay stay away away from right now because we don't want to hamstring the new the new director the new director director is going to be making those this is decisions and we're talking about bringing bringing on a new director in about a month or so. Well, you know, we're only going to have a month a month worth of data and who and who knows what is going to be a good time timeframe to look look look look look at this, but we're going to we're going to, you know, that's that that's something that should be left to the new the new director, you know, and and I'm going to respond to something about we're not we're not going to train the new director. I mean, that's that's not what we're hiring for. We're going to onboard, which means we're going to give give give them bad bad background gives give them sound foundation and information that they need to go from not working here to working here and help and help and help and help them along. We are not going to train the new the new the new director. We hope that they they can in some way shape perform hit the hit the ground running with an assist from the legal leadership team, because we've been been here since September and most and most of us have have have been we're working in in in town for a while. So that's some, you know, there's a difference between training and on and on and on and on and on and onboarding because what this is is a trend is going to be a trend transition, you know, so okay. And then also in regards to the third bullet down on Z 58. I guess I just need a little bit of a clarification as to what types of response to request for assistance from a business or nonprofit agency or town department. I use the the example of the live the live the library. You know, if they've got some someone that's just just kind of hanging hanging hanging around or doing there just or whatever, they're going to go up there and then have a conversation with with with that person that type that type of thing. You know, it's a it's a busy busy business nonprofit agency just some some, you know, an entity that's having an issue and they'll and they'll they'll go and address that issue, you know, in the best way that that that they can if if they can that is that that type of thing. Okay. Kamala, did you have a response to the sets questions? So I think that Chief Nelson gave a great response. I want to point out that there are some um technical reasons for why the call types are listed that they are the Crest department. Well, the dispatch department division is in the process of obtaining a new CAD system. The new CAD system, which would record all of their calls would allow for a responder department that the current CAD system doesn't have the capability or the there is no distinction between like between other departments that simply police or fire. So one of the ways in which we talked with dispatch about the way to capture the work that the department is doing is to create some of these call types that are administrative. And so and in addition, like the assist business assist agency, the responders routinely have a presence over at the john jones library. If if they were going to the jones library, and they have what I would call a satellite office there, they would call into a dispatch to say, you know, responder blah blah blah and responder blah blah blah are headed to dispatch dispatch will know that those two responders are at the library. That call is listed as an assist agency or assist business. And at the time that they make the call, they also informed dispatch that they can receive other types of calls from that location. So there's, there are several sort of moving pieces about recording, having dispatch know where responders are having dispatch be able to send them from a particular location to assist with the call or respond to a call. So, you know, there's been some thought into that and the process is going to be ongoing because there is hope and an expectation that there will be a new CAD system that will include the capability for distinguishing responder from like police or from fire, but it doesn't exist now. And one of the slides that's coming up, we're going to be talking about data you would ask for a lot of specific data and we have purposely not provided numbers and there's a reason for that and that is because we are in between several different systems and don't currently have what I would describe as accurate or fully complete data because the systems were modified. The slide will show but I believe like in October and then again in November and we are in the process of obtaining a software system that was recommended to the department by the Donahue Institute for capturing data and it's hopeful that that purchase will happen before, you know, if not before the end of the year, before the end of December, certainly in early January. So, you know, we're in between different systems for capturing information. Thank you. Everold, I see your hand up and then maybe we can move on to the next slide. Thank you, Allegra. So, I think Lizette did ask my question because I thought Z5-4 and Z5-8 were a little bit vague as if everything could roll up into that. But from that explanation about, you know, people being at the Jones Library or at a non-profit, are we saying that they're there like uninvited, overextended their stay? And if that is the case, why isn't it just labeled as a trespassing, like responding to trespassing calls? So, again, I think that the explanation is that the call types are designed to match with the current CAD system. And, you know, so I can give you examples from both the library and from an agency. So, I think it's now been like three or four weeks ago, we got a call from a non-profit in town that wanted two responders to respond to a situation which, you know, we could call it any number of things, someone disruptive, disorderly, whatever. And then as the responders were dispatched from the Crest Department to that call, enroute to the call the same agency called back in and stated that they had a change of heart and they were calling the police because in their mind the situation had escalated. Another type of assist business agency we have had occasions when the senior center has asked across responders to assist them with someone in their space who's, you know, perhaps being disruptive in some way. Or, as I said, you know, we have what I would call a satellite office at the library where responders are there periodically throughout the week and assist librarians with issues. And then there have also been specific cases where departments or agencies, other departments in town have asked for Crest responders to assist them on specific issues. Does that answer your question or provide a better answer than? It does. We've also talked at length about the hours that the Crest responders are available. Has there been any change to that given that they're now taking dispatch calls? So there has not been any change in the hours currently. And I think the anticipation is that the hours will be expanded when we're fully staffed. But right now we are, you know, there's only five responders. So again, we're sort of skipping ahead, but that's all right. Chief Nelson, do you mind if I just go ahead with the hiring process? Tam, I got to go. I got a fire. Okay. All right. So Jennifer, can you skip ahead? I can't remember exactly what number it is that has the search process right there. So we are nearing the end of our Crest responder search. We have had 12 applicants supply for the search. We had two applicants withdraw from the search. We offered six of the remaining 10 people who applied second round interviews. And we anticipate filling three vacancies. And so I think that when the staff is back at its current full capacity of eight, then there will be an expansion of hours. And we have had, we meaning internally, the leadership team have had many discussions about how the department might be able to expand beyond their current basically, or when they're fully staffed, they're basically 12 hours from eight to eight shift. And I think that it will be the director's job, the new director's job, to decide how they're going to staff, whether they're going to have, you know, three shifts or whether they're going to have staggered shift. I don't know quite how that will be answered, but we, given the current staff, it has been difficult to go beyond the hours that are there. The other challenge, I think, to having an expanded role and some way has been resolved is that, you know, the department is in a building that is generally close to the public at 4 p.m., which is not useful for a department that you want to have where the public would want to have access to it for longer hours. And so there are, I think that the library is amenable to staff being there in the evenings. And of course they can be dispatched from any location as long as dispatch knows who's on call and where to locate them. And one of the other things that I think has been on discussion is, you know, I'm searching for a word to having teams on call. So, you know, I don't know how that will be resolved. I think it will be one of the issues that the new director will have to resolve. So, very, very quickly. So that three vacancies that are being filled, does that mean that there's six people potentially to fill those three vacancies? So there were 12 initial applicants, two people withdrew. So then there were 10 people who went through the first round of applicants. We interviewed everyone who applied for the job. Of the 10 people who were in that first round, then six of those individuals have been offered second round interviews. And from that last group of six, we would anticipate that we would offer a position to three of the six. Okay. And none of these includes the position of the director. No, no, no. This is only the responder search. The director search is being handled separately. And, you know, as I said earlier, I'm not participating in the director search. So I don't have any, you know, knowledge or data about that search. Understood. What's being done about finding a permanent home for Cress? So there've been lots of discussions about that. One thing that I'm sure you're aware of is that space is at a premium for within the town. And I think that the leadership team will make some recommendations. I think the assistant town manager has gone through the building and reviewed it and heard the concerns of all of the departments that are in the bank center and will be trying to, you know, be creative about a resolution. But I, you know, I, we've been here for four months. I don't know what the answer will be about a permanent home for Cress. I do know that in my personal opinion is that it needs to be in a location where there where access is not restricted in some way. Right. Deborah? Yeah, to kind of go off of what Eva was asking and, and, you know, I had to excuse myself a little while. So I wasn't sure, you know, the beginning of this conversation or whether you've you've shared some of this or not. But the points that I wanted to make was just a yes. If the access to banks kind of, you know, kind of shuts down at four, I am in agreement with you Pamela that obviously we'd need to either, you know, have Cress at a place that access is longer so that the community can have that. And, and some of what we received in terms of feedback was that sometimes, you know, doors were locked, they weren't able to get in. I mean, things like that. So that kind of opened our policy that feel, of course, being available to the community is also not necessarily happening all the time on a consistent basis. So, so I would agree that we need to look for a more permanent home for Cress where it would have this type of access. And, and the library, you know, in the meantime, kind of utilizing the library, I don't think that that would be necessarily the best option because we've received feedback from the community that the library is not a safe space for BIPOC people for community of color for, for those who are other marginalized by, by mainstream. And so I don't know if that would be the place that we would want to then, you know, have the kind of overflow for Cress. So I think, you know, these conversations in terms of a place and where is very crucial, but we need to continue to think because I don't think the library would be it. And then, and I know you did say, you know, that, you know, hours will expand once Cress is full stack fully staffed, you know, at eight and stuff, just to want to remind and we're going to talk about the budget at some point, that Cress is not fully staffed at eight, you know, that was not the original recommendation of CSWG and Cress will not be able to do longer hours and shifts and things like that. So my question is, what is being done so that Cress can actually hire more people once the directors on board, because with just eight people, that's not going to happen. And that's why our conversation in terms of dispatch is so critical, because if they're not getting dispatched to calls, then obviously, what are they able to do, right? They're only able to do a minimal amount of their work. And I had heard that, right, that that Cress really a lot of times weren't the Cress respondent weren't able to do what they're supposed to do, because they're not getting the calls and things like that. So I think we want to kind of think about when we say fully staffed, is that what we mean when we're saying eight responders? And for me, that's not what we mean. It's not fully staffed. And you won't be able to go to longer hours and really benefit the community if that's the case. And then lastly, my question for you Pamela would be so okay, you anticipate filling these three vacancies. Obviously, I know that you can't share details, but I'm assuming I'm hoping and maybe you can shed some light that some of these applicants, you know, have lived experience, you know, have there's some diversity there. You know, our, our, our applicants that have had a wide variety of experiences with community members from all backgrounds have had some type of training in terms of doing this type of work. Of course, we're going to provide them with a lot more training, but they have some, some type of things. So I want to hear more about that. So I don't think that would be appropriate since we're still in the midst of the hiring process to go into details about the background of the applicant. So I did say that Pamela, I didn't say for you to share those. I'm just saying generally. Okay. That's my response. So that's your response. That's it. I cannot answer. At least I am, I, I can't think of a way in which I can answer your question without giving personal detail about the applicants. I mean, it's a very small applicant pool. And if I start to answer that question, then I think it's, it, you know, it, it, it would be very tricky. So the position description asks for people with lived experience, lots of different types of background and, but I don't feel comfortable. Okay. Then let me broaden it out of the 12 applicants, Pamela, did you all get some diversity, some inclusivity or not? Because then that would be problematic if there's no diversity within the applicant pool. So, you know, I really, there was diversity in the applicants, but this is a, this line of questioning really feels very uncomfortable for me, given the fact that we are still in the process of hiring. You know, we have not offered anybody a position. We are still actually in the process of interviewing. There's an interview scheduled for tomorrow. It's, I really do not want to say anything more. So if I, if I understand you, then essentially you're being true to the job description that was posted. Exactly. Okay. Any other questions about the cross responder search at this time? Not seeing any questions. So Jennifer, can you go up to the, then just the slide before this one, which is the service contracts. So you'd ask for an update on the service provider contracts. And I think at the last meeting, I did state that because of the procurement laws, the contract with Craig Stores has to go back out for bed. It did not, the RFP did not allow for an extension of those services. So there will be a new RFP for, for those types of services working with the unhoused population. At the last meeting, I stated that we were reviewing the wildflower alliance contract. And our inclination was to extend that contract as per the current contract to June 30th. At that point, it would go out for bid because it would be the contract period would ended. And that is the same. The same is also true of the contract with Sarah Shufflin. The, those contracts, the extensions documents have to be completed before December 30th or before December 31st. And so I'm working with the leadership team to have those extensions completed before the deadline. I'm confused. So you said, so for Craig Stores wildflower alliance and the Sarah Shufflin one, they're all going to be going off to bid? No. So yeah, can you stop by again? I guess I was a bit. Okay. So Craig Stores must go out for bid pursuant to the procurement laws in the state that the way in which that contract was executed does not allow for an extension. So it has to go out for bid. And the two, the two other contracts can be extended to June 30th of 2024. And at that point, they too would have to be go out for bid. So there is a six month extension from January 1st to June 30th for those remaining two contracts. The contracts as they currently exist would expire on December 31st. And so we as a leadership team are trying to work diligently to get them completed before December 31st so that they can be extended. Okay. So the plan will be then to extend wildflower alliance. And I'm not very, but I'm not sure what Sarah Shufflin actually, if you could let me know what that one is for. But so those two are going to get extended and then Craig Stores because of the law, they're going to go out for bid, right? That's correct. So Sarah Shufflin was involved in a lot of the initial training for the responders around de-escalation and motivational interviewing techniques. And since the hope is to have three new responders, she would be repeating some of the training that she did earlier with the first group of responders. And the thinking is that one of the current responders was hired after that first initial group of eight that that responder and the three new people would go through as a cohort again through the full training program. Okay. Thank you. May I add something, not about the service provider contracts. So I had the chance to read all the things that Cress has done up until this point based on what's in this PowerPoint. And I believe the pages four, five, six, and seven, which precedes this page that we're looking at. You know, it would suggest that Cress has been doing some things. But if you read what's written on the paper, none of it is an alternative to public safety. It's it doesn't suggest that they're doing anything within the original mandate. And I want you to fully appreciate, understand the frustration that has been seen by this group and that we're giving back to you. Because again, we appreciate that, you know, you guys are in a situation that you didn't anticipate, you're trying to fill a gap that you're not supposed to be filling. But, you know, there had to have been some thought process from this interim leadership team to say, when we go back to CSSJC, we're going to hear all these things back. And to come here and say, you know, these are the things that Cress is going to start with. And while I do appreciate that there's a benchmark from the Harvard study that says, you know, 18 months, it doesn't mean that we have to wait the 18 months. As as Chief Nolan said, you know, Chief Nelson said, you know, it's we start small. And the cases I've mentioned, you know, the disorderly conduct, the noise complaints, quite frankly, trespassing. Those are small things. Because when I read all that, and you know, it's great that Cress is making themselves known through the community. But nothing on there indicates that Cress is making themselves known to the community as an alternative to police. Or, you know, and a group that's going to respond to non violent situations to minimize the need of having police respond to everything. So it's, I think it is a little bit problematic. Again, I want to be supportive of this leadership team. I do appreciate, you know, you guys are doing your level best. But I think you guys can do more. I think you can push a little bit more. I'm sorry, go ahead. Okay, we're not saying just thrust these people out into the wild and have them take these crazy calls that they're not trained for. But, you know, for the people that are listening, they really want to see some kind of concrete result to say, here's what happened a few years ago. Here's all the work that went into it. These are the recommendations made. And yes, while there have been some hiccups, we are in a place to say, we're making some kind of progress. And I will agree and appreciate that yes, taking dispatch calls is progress because that is a humongous deal. But everything that's written on paper is indicated that Cress is a social services program. And that is the issue and the frustration that we have. So, I mean, obviously, I feel that, and I will say that I'm speaking for myself and not for the leadership team, that I am feeling the brunt of frustration of 18 months of Cress not meeting more than 18 months. So probably almost two, if not three years of Cress not meeting the needs of the community. However, my role has been four months. And so, you know, I can again, speaking for myself, I'm doing everything that I can possibly do to move this department in the right direction, in the right way. You know, I would, and the initial meeting where we've talked about the creation of the leadership team, there was concern about the leadership team, my role in the leadership team. And I said, you know, I did not take this job on to fail. And quite frankly, did not want the job, but I am, you know, have taken on the responsibility. And I am pushing in every possible way to move the department towards the mission that that was identified. I don't really know if I have any capacity to move at a pace that's any faster than the pace that I'm going at. Quite frankly, I'm like, you know, I am, you know, I'm exhausted all the time. The DEI department is suffering greatly because all of my time and energy is spent with Cress. You know, Jennifer has taken on, you know, a yeoman's share of doing the work for the DEI department, and it is limping along. And this is not how I anticipated this year going for DEI. We had really great plans for how we were going to expand our own work. That being said, I'm, you know, obviously, we're not unaware that there are desires of the community. But there is a pace at which I can work. And, you know, I am really nearing capacity. There is a reason why I said publicly, you know, I am pushing towards having someone else in this role by the new year. And there is a reason why, as a professional, I think it's important to be a part of the onboarding for the new director. But some of this work will have to be on the shoulders of the new director to complete the design that the community wants. It's just, you know, I frankly am not capable of giving much more without having a physical and mental breakdown. And I'm just being franked about that. Like, you know, the continual push, push, push, certainly I get it. There are demands that this department, you know, that this committee wants and expectations. I'm a human being. I have limitations. I would love to have a personal and family life. And while I think that your concerns are legitimate, and that they have merit, I think that the expectation of the leadership team might be more than the team is capable of doing. Like, these are large policy decisions that should, in my opinion, be directed to the people who are in charge of making those large policy decisions, which is not me. And thank you for saying that. And I do think you're doing you love a bus and I do think you're overextended. And by no means in any way are we holding a personal responsible. We are not. We do see and hear everything that you're doing that you should not be doing. And I think I speak on behalf of everyone we say, we really appreciate the fact that you actually stepped up. Because quite frankly, you, as much as we have our reservations, you guys are keeping it going. So we very much appreciate that. But I, at the same time, you're on the leadership committee. And unfortunately, it's double edged sword, but sadly, rightfully sadly, that is the way it is. You might not be to your point when you're doing all these things that you're not supposed to be doing. You may not be the best person. And we would, we would understand to your point, you know, not want to be on the team anymore after the year is over. And that may make sense. Because yes, if this is not what you're what you're meant to do, it's reasonable to see that you may want to step back and and I agree with you that some of these decisions are policy decisions that you guys cannot make. So again, it is not personally against you. And I hope you don't take it as that, but as part of the leadership team, and because you're the face we see the most, unfortunately, you're the one who has to hear it. Yeah, let me let me chime in with that too. Pamela, so yeah, I mean, all of whatever I said is I'm definitely in agreement with it. In terms of you saying that you're not the one to kind of make those kind of big decisions and that we should go to those that make those big decisions. Well, I have tried to go to those that make the big decisions, and they've referred us back to you all, right? So the town council, which I contacted Lynn, and I don't have any problem to say this on here, right? So it's it's recorded, and it's on it's it's it's captured, right? In real life that I contacted Lynn and asked some of these questions, and I've contacted Paul and asked some of these questions and have gotten no response, right? Of every limited response from them. And so that means, you know, we have to to talk in review. And I recall, right, when you were first appointed that you said the buck's top with you, you know what I'm saying? That you were the one that were going to be making these decisions, and so on so forth. And if you recall, I had actually said that I didn't think it was a good idea for you to be in this position, because I knew you're going to get overextended. And I was actually looking out for you, you know, so here we go a couple months later, that is the case. But we are the voice of the community. If we don't bring these things up, no one else is going to bring these things up for the community. Community members are contacting me and letting me know, right, that this is what they want to have happen in in Crest, right? They want Crest to be this independent public alternative policing public safety, right? And then we're seeing that it's it's and again, I stand by my words that it's being taken in a different direction, right? And it's being baby stepped in a way that, you know, again, these dispatch calls, even though yes, now they're going to be dispatched, but they're going to be dispatch calls of some of the same, right? So there was nothing new that was added to it. And when you bring up Earl, saying that he only had three of them, and now you all extended it, Earl was under the gun. I mean, Earl was telling us for months that there was a lot of resistance. So yes, he probably was going to start with three. And remember, because he started with three, you know, I don't want to say anything. But, you know, those dispatch calls was signed in August. And all of a sudden, he's on paid administrative leave. So and that's when he was pushing three. So that's why I'm saying why we are very concerned, right, is that the resistance is real. And when when when certain steps are taken, then actions are taken against against people that want to actually broaden and want to make crests do what it was was was established to do. The pushback is real, right? Director is gone. Pushback is real. And so what message are we sending to a new director that wants to come in? Right? Is this director going to be independent? Is this director going to be able to make independent decisions and actually lead crests into what they're supposed to do? And that's why I am concerned. You all have said it's going to be onboarding, but I am concerned that there's going to be certain telltale. This is, you know, this is kind of like the playbook. And this is the direction you go down on. And and then again, the community concerns, which we are the voice of, get set to the side. And crest does not get to be what it's supposed to be. It is new. We all knew it was new. We all knew that this is we're leaders in mass in state of Massachusetts and beyond in terms of what we're doing. So we knew there was going to be challenges and so on and so forth, but we didn't know that it was going to be this level of resistance from this patch and from the police. Because that is the thing, right? If crest starts taking, and I'm going to be very clear, crest starts taking on complaints if crest starts taking disorderly and crest starts taking some of these other things, the police department are going to feel like they're what are they there for, right? And so on and so forth. So there is resistance for that reason, Pamela, you know, and I'm going to share that with you and I'm going to share that with the interim leadership team that actually has a police person on it who's not going to be happy with me saying these things, right? And that was the point. One of our recommendations at CSWG was to reduce the size naturally of the police department, right? So I can see why you want to take these small, small, small, small steps. But for the community, no, we need to take big steps because this is why crest was created was to actually do these things and to yes, so that the police department don't have to be as big as they are. That would be the ultimate because the crest would be taking on some of these other things. So I'm going to be pointing these out. That is my job and I'm sorry that you're the one that has to bear the brunt. But unfortunately, you are the one that has to bear the brunt because of who is on this leadership team. Are we ready to return to the powerpoint? I think so. So I think the only thing that is remaining from the powerpoint is just a summary of some of the some of the types of neighbor services that have been provided. And rather than going through them, I would really like to spend some time on the data one, which is I think might be slide further down. Yeah, right there, the last one that the current one that you have on the on the data. So the prior slides as attorney Henry pointed out, talk about the types of interactions that the responders have been engaged in what's not provided there. So those are just short narratives about the types of interactions that they've had. What you'll see as far as the data is that in June, the Donahue Institute prepared a report for the Crest Department, advising that they move to a different software system called Qualtracks. In October, the in-house data collection system that the department was using was revised. And then a second revision was done in November. So one of the calls from the committee had been for specific data and I have purposely not provided that because I don't know that or I don't have faith in the data collection that we currently have existed. We're straddling several different types of systems, which is why it opted to to provide the narratives that are provided. On on average, the department is responding to approximately 20 calls per week. And we've had conversations with the town's IT department, which would be responsible for procuring the software system or procuring Qualtracks. And we've had conversations without IT and then two conversations with the Qualtracks software provider in November and then the beginning of this month. The department will be moving forward with procuring Qualtracks, which is the system that the Donahue Institute suggested. If we are fortunate, that will happen before the beginning of the new year and then the the department will have the capability to capture data in a more reliable way. I think that data collection will be I don't want to use the will be and I'm searching for the word will be, I don't want to say problematic, but there will be some concerns maybe about data collection for some time to come until there is a new CAD system in place that reflects the ability to capture information from both police fire and the responders unit. And the expectation is that that new CAD system will be in place, I think in 20 sometime in 2024, but I don't know the exact date. So I think in the prior conversations, we've covered everything else that was on the agenda. I have a question. So I think Chief Nelson, when I asked him about the data relevant to why noise complaints and disorderlies weren't included, he said that the police have some data. And so I guess, can you clarify that? Where can we get that data and why it is? So I can't clarify that because I don't really know what he was talking about, like the information that I have about the call types have all come from the Harvard government lab and from the list prior the former director had prepared a list of potential call types and a rollout. And that's the information that I looked at. So I can ask Chief Nelson what he was referring to, but I don't know specifically what he was referring to. Yeah, I want to get more information on that because this is what he stated that some of these decisions in terms of not including noise complaints and disorderlies was because of supposed data that showcased that those can be more violent. So yeah, I want to see the numbers in terms of that. And so again, I understand, I've just kind of pointed out why possibly Earl was being very cautious in terms of his rollout because there was a lot of resistance or go, what happened to him? So I don't think we can go by that, right? We need to go by again the mandate, the mission and what Cress is supposed to do. And so for me, when you said, I think you did throw out there, you said 20 calls per week that they're responding to, I mean, that's not a lot of calls. But then what are they doing with the rest of the time? If they're just responding to 20 calls per week, that's not what again was envisioned for Cress. I mean, again, Cress is being, basically it's kind of like, you know, you're being told to wash dishes with no arms or what have you, you know what I'm saying? Or with one arm tied behind your back or whatever the case, I forget what the lingo is that people say. It's just like, you're really not allowing Cress to grow and to do what it's supposed to do. So then you have even five responders, right? And then you're going to have eight responders, you know, responding to what maybe, you know, once a dispatch starts like 25 calls per week, you know what I'm saying? I'm like, what is going on here? You know what I'm saying? They're getting hampered and not being able to do what they're supposed to do. So is their response to why are they only responding to 20 calls per week? Okay, so I'm not sure that I understood your question. So I will just say that the 20 calls that are recorded here are calls that come in directly to the Cress department or interaction that are coming directly to the Cress department. So I would anticipate that when they are being dispatched that that number would increase, like that's the total number that are currently coming in to Cress directly. When I would anticipate that when they're receiving calls from dispatch that that number would increase, because it would be a combination. I think that the plan had always been that that they would receive calls from dispatch or they would be, yeah, they would be dispatched to calls from dispatch and that individuals or departments or whomever would also have the ability to contact the department directly. Yeah, but what I guess I get it. I do know that obviously the 20 calls has been because of calls made directly to them because they haven't been dispatched, right? But but in terms of the list that I saw that you all are gonna the calls that are going to be dispatched, I don't I don't foresee it increasing by by that much in terms of the fact that you all haven't added the other some of the other matters that we discussed earlier in this meeting. And for me it's just kind of like so they've been in place for like about 18 months soon enough close to two years. And so then what have what has Cress been doing, right? And so that's why we have been pushing for this patch and for them to be able to do everything that they were created to do, which was anything nonviolent non jillable offenses. When when it's 20 calls per week, let's say that they're getting, you see what I'm saying? I'm just kind of like yes, there would be problems because you know, when people are just idle or not able to do what they're supposed to do, yes, there'll be issues. So I guess that's my question. So what are they doing? So I think that the narratives provide an overview or some of the types of calls that they have that they've been responding to. In addition to that, the leadership team has been conducting and service trainings with them. We have been inviting in different service providers so that they can learn about the types of services that are available. They have been going to different trainings that are provided. So I talked earlier that we have a responder who's attending the 40 hour crisis intervention training. So we have been providing them with lots of professional development opportunities and other types of activities to I think, in our opinion, prepare them to do the work that they are called to do. I think Evel, do you have your hand up? I do. Miss Young, in terms of the training, has there been any training offered or provided by Amherst PD as a way of best practices or this is how we've handled these situations in the past? They've received, they have, well, during the last four months, they have not received training directly from Amherst, from the Amherst Police Department, but they have done some received training from some other law enforcement agencies. The crisis intervention training is a training that's done through a regional agency. There's another training that's coming up in January that's done through a regional, you know, or through a group, some sort of regional group. I'm not, I'm not recalling the specific name right now. They have also been gone over and done some training and shadowing with dispatch and they will, they're renewing, they did that previously early on, some shadowing and some training with dispatch and into, and there we have set up for the, for all the responders to have another opportunity to shadow with dispatch again beginning I think next week. Thank you. And if I may make a request, even if you're not here for the next meeting, can we get a report of trespassing, disorderly conduct, noise complaints, and city ordinances like open container calls for the last two years? And if we can also get a breakdown, how many of those calls actually led to an arrest? Okay, so I will have to request that information from the police department, obviously, because I don't have it. I understand, you know, if I can get it from them, I, you know, but I will make the request. So it's trespass, disorderly and what's the third one? Noise complaints. Town ordinance typically covers like open containers. And from those calls, how many of them turn into arrests? Okay. Thank you. Are we feeling like we're ready to move on to DEI updates or is there more on the PowerPoint that I'm missing? I think we've covered everything on the PowerPoint. Great. So I'll just roll into the DEI update. So the DEI department and the Human Rights Commission held their annual universal declaration of human rights event on Sunday. And it was a small crowd, which I think is typical in the Bang Center. Upcoming events, Jennifer's already talked about Kwanzaa. We will have plans for Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration, National Day of Racial Healing, Black History Month, and Lunar New Year are the cultural events that are coming up for the DEI department. So we're pretty jam-packed between now and February with planning of cultural events. The youth survey was revised to include information for the demographic data that you all commented on the last time. And Ace is on the call. I'm not sure whether that has been distributed or not. I'm not, but the survey was revised to include the information. So Ace, could you talk just a little bit about what the plan for rollout is? Yes. The plan is to send it out to clubs at the Amherst High School, Middle School, the club leaders for them, and have them help send it out. The end of this week and into the next week. I'm also going to be contacting the American members that work regularly at the high school to send this out. I know it's been a little bit delayed. I've been mostly working on data work for Crest for this past couple of weeks, but we're going to get back on track. Okay. Thank you. Can I just add, Ace, so it's not so much that the club leaders, it's the staff liaisons to the club. So the guidance, whatever teachers are responsible for the club, as well as will be going to the high school and to the middle school around their lunch periods, which is the time that all the students filter through that space and have the survey available, hard copy and available for the QR codes so kids can fill it out as well that way. I was talking to somebody recently and they said that the high school has changed their schedule around so that the end of the day everybody has advisory block or something, and that sometimes they have been having guest speakers and stuff like that come in. That's through a particular class that's happening. So that's through an individual, one of the teachers classes. So it's not just? No, they have a weird block period, it's like 80 minutes, but it's that's a particular teacher. So all the different teachers have different things that they're doing at that time. And so it was suggested by the assistant principal that we come at lunchtime because the children all filter throughout at that time that that would be the best time. So Jennifer and I will be training Crest members and members of the core equity team to service facilitators for the national day of racial healing, which is the same program that we did last year through the Kellogg Foundation. And then we will be working on finalizing our DEI training for town departments, which is, you know, we in, let's see, I think it was September, October, all of the town, we completed the first round of all town departments. And so we are a little delayed, but we will start our second round of all town departments with with workshops. And then we'll schedule create a schedule for our monthly workshop. So on the third Friday of each month, the department host, a DEI related workshop that is open to all staff. Those have been in person. And I think one of our challenges for the next year will be to think about how we might be able to do some of them hybrid or recorded so that members of, from various departments who are unable to do the in person workshops have access to that we can start to build out a library. One of the one feet one topic that has come up repeatedly is to do a workshop on bystander awareness and so that will certainly be on the list. And we'll be thinking about what the other workshops will be for from January until June. In this past fall, we had originally scheduled two workshops to be conducted by our colleagues at Amherst College. And we'll probably reach out to them again to see if we can again utilize some of their services for conducting workshops for our staff. And I can roll into the Rob conversation. But before I do that, Jennifer, have I left out anything? Okay. All right. So the resident oversight board, as I think we discussed at the last meeting, a consultant was hired. The consultant is holding four public forums. The first one will be on Sunday from one to three. It's in the town hall room and will be conducted as hybrid. So both in person and online. There is a survey that would be available for folks to access online. And there will also be paper copies available for individuals who want to you know, want to fill out the survey. She has a range for translation services and three two or three primary languages. I'm not remembering all the details at this point. So there but there will be translation services available. We have not we did I think on the on the flyer advertise that we could provide childcare. But to my knowledge, we have not had anyone indicate that childcare would be needed. The four open forums are an opportunity for members of the community to express their desires and wants and experiences around first, the Amherst police department and then secondly, the resident what they would want in a resident oversight board. At the conclusion of this consultant's work, which will be I believe the last would be like mid January is when the last form is scheduled. The report will be written and then presented to the department and and then that report will be shared with there will be a second. I'm going to get the acronym incorrect because I'm tired and a little brain dead at this point. But I think it's an s e q or s q e I can't remember but um there'll be a second procurement process to hire someone with technical expertise to do the onboarding of the resident oversight board. So someone an expert who would write the policy for the resident oversight board do the training of the first um individuals who are selected for the resident oversight board with an anticipation that those individuals on the board would be up and running before the end of this the town's fiscal year. So before the end of June 30th. So I have some questions. Oh, did you want to go Avril? I just have one question. So based on that, does that mean that the town is actively moving forward with forming a resident oversight board? Yes. I mean the so there was prior to your joining the this group there was an RFP that went out. I can't remember the dates um but um earlier this year that was a very comprehensive RFP which sought to have a consultant do both phases to do the community outreach and then to roll right into the technical expertise. Through that process we were not able to contract with a consultant to do both phases of the work. So then as a result it was asked by the town manager to envision two separate processes. So working with the finance um the prior finance director um the current process was developed where once um I can't remember what it's called but I want to say it's like solicitation of qualified or experts or whatever it's called it might be SQE. The first part was to do the the community engagement piece and then following that the design is to have an an expert do the technical aspects of writing the board's policies training the board um and getting it up and running. So the large RFP was divided into two separate processes and we are you know we're by the I would say the end of January early February probably at the latest we would have the complete report from the from the first process that we're we're in the midst of. Thank you. Thanks April. So Pamela I have some questions in terms of this um which is and I've already you know spoken about this but I'll continue to be on the record and continue to speak about this that CSWG had done this the work on the resident oversight board so and I and I said this to Rabbi Deborah too when we spoke that again that getting feedback from the community when we had already gotten feedback from the community that saying that this was needed um I I don't understand why again you know the step is being taken which again like I said before is more of a delay tactic so as not to you know have one establish the resident oversight board and have the resident oversight board do what it's supposed to do which is something that we're seeing happen with Cress right because then it's going to be the same argument well this is new we've never had this before and so we need to take baby steps and so on so forth right um so uh instead of this time being utilized to actually look at how the resident oversight board can be truly independent how they can have subpoena power and how they can actually do their work so that when they do their independent investigations and make their recommendations those recommendations can actually be put into place given the strong police union that is in place so instead of us spending our time focusing on those issues right we're spending our time going back to the community and asking whether a resident oversight board is a good idea so again and I've posed this to the town manager so I guess Amherst who always says they don't have the money I guess you all have the money because you gave us money it says WG to hire consultants which we did and we came up with those the data from talking with the community but now you all are spending money to do the same thing so so you say you don't have money but then you have money to kind of spin the wheels right so um so my question is this report and I both pose as to Rabbi Deborah she's going to do a report and I mean what was the timetable I know you said you know by the end of the fiscal year by the end of the fiscal year what is exactly going to happen are we going to have an independent body that's going to be able to investigate with subpoena power to be able to do the work that they are going to to you know be able to do so that they're not intimidated by the police so they can truly be independent and are their recommendations going to be taken seriously once they do have recommendations because then the police union is going to intervene and so on so forth so so again I want to I want to ask this right timetable is that what's going to happen because if you all are not dealing with those issues then I don't see that being a reality I don't think I can have the capability to answer your question and why not because I don't have a crystal ball that would allow me to look into the future to determine whether there would be a subpoena power at the end of this process so what I can say is that the process is that a report is going to be written and the recommendations of the those reports will go forward and it is anticipated that before the end of the year um there would be a resident oversight board um up and running given the assistance of the second part of the process which is a technical assistance from an expert hmm so so up and running that up and running is what I want to know and and and pamelettes I don't need you to have a crystal ball everything had been already written in the cswg in terms of what it was that this resident oversight board was supposed to do again I want to you know chief nelson and you and others keep on on on having issues with us bringing up um um these concerns we were put in place to look at the recommendations that cswg had made and right and to continue making other recommendations too but to make sure that those recommendations were not put on a shelf to collect dust it was to look at those recommendations and make sure that those recommendations were put in place like for instance I didn't even waste the time to talk about youth empowerment and the fact that there's no center that there's no budget that we haven't even gotten to that right yeah because again I'm a broken record but this is why csjc was was created and I'm sorry if it's a problem to you if it's a problem to others but this is why we were created to ask these questions to bring it up and to really talk about the delay the delay the delay that continues to happen and then what what what is the outcome of that then the community and specifically BIPOC community members who again are being intimidated and terrorized don't have a place to go to complain about the police I mean that's the outcome right no place for community members to go and to file because if they file complaints with the police right now they will then be harassed and so where do they go in the time being in order to be able to to file these complaints because we saw what happened with July with the July 5th situation it was nowhere the file complaints there was nothing that that occurred afterwards besides a lot of talk so I think the one option is the post commission although it's limited in scope to what types of complaints that they can hear but that would be an option a second option would be if there are issues of police misconduct to bring them to the attention of the district attorney so those are the options that I can think of off the top of my head exactly because we're spending time doing things instead of actually putting that resident oversight board I want to remind this committee and remind you and remind others that are listening that these recommendations were made again back in 2021 and we're about to go into 2024 and we're still having town forms around the resident oversight board as opposed to actually focusing on the issues that are that leap consultant that we hired right that the town spent money that town says has no money but that were hired and and and seven generation collective movement collective that gave us the information for us to make the recommendations that we did and we're about to go into 2024 and we're still nowhere miss young are you able to answer if there was a recommendation for the resident oversight board to have subpoena powers are you able to say whether or not the town would adopt the recommendation I don't know if I can I don't know if I have the ability or the authority to to to answer that question I mean I the tasks that I've been assigned and my role in the DEI capacity is to go through this process to have recommendations and a formal and to hire someone to bring to to stand up the resident oversight board and that's what I'm doing whether whether the town manager and the town council will follow the recommendation is the rec if the recommendation is to have subpoena power I that I can I cannot say I don't I don't know if I have the ability to answer that that's fair I can just tell you now that you mentioned if residents are unhappy with the police they can complain to the district attorney's office while they can there is a close relationship and there has to be a close relationship with the district attorney's office and so it puts them in a very bad slash awkward position for them to actually do anything so a resident oversight board I think I would probably be welcomed by the district attorney's office because again it removes them from the equation of having to do something that they have to work with day in and day out so I just want to put that out there yeah I I agree with you it's a very awkward but in answer to the question of where are the opportunities for people to file a complaint the answer currently is the district attorney's office or the post commission those are the those are the only two options that I that I know of so and I'm just assuming that any board that would be created would have to go through the town's legal council and spend whatever arbitration with unions and whatnot or right exactly yeah you know there would be especially if the if the board composition or the board's authority is to have the ability to discipline police officers that's definitely going to have to go to collective bargaining it's going to be impact bargaining for sure I mean I just I think about D when we when we talk about the resident oversight board because of her hard work in doing the research with seven gen and how passionately she spoke about the need for having subpoena power and and so it's it's something that I see as being really important as a suggestion from the css jc for the resident oversight board to move forward and I did say that to rat i deb when we spoke I'm also just kind of struck by Deborah's comment that you know the the initial recommendations were made in 2021 and here we are 2023 but one thing that hadn't happened yet when the initial regent recommendations were made was the july 5th incident of last year and I think about how important it would have been for those families to potentially have an outlet and I will say I did file with the post commission and I have not heard anything back to date and that has been almost a year so I don't think justice would be swift with the post commission because it is statewide and I don't know if it's you know it's still working out its kinks itself but so I did what I did was I forwarded her the document that the families had put together for our final meeting with town council that included the voices of the youth and the voices of the families and how they perceived the incident that happened that night so that she had that as part you know maybe she can utilize some of that for her report since I think it was a pretty thorough picture from the youth's perspective of what had happened um but I think I think it's an important thing to move forward with and I think one of the feedbacks one of the pieces of feedback that we heard at the in person forum that we held about Cress was the town's need for some sort of place that wasn't just a resident oversight board but a place where residents can bring their complaints and about any civil rights or human rights issue and again with the human rights commission being an option but an option that doesn't really have the power to to yeah so don't mean to cut you off but I mean it's so the human rights commission has the broadest possible purview for hearing complaints but absolutely very little authority for adjudicating anything um and I um I think that the members of the HRC are are looking for ways well they're looking they've been in communication with the general council the co-chairs have met with the general council to look at revising the bylaw um but I believe that they're going to encounter some obstacles some hurdles to the ability to do any adjudication of any any types of cases regardless of what the way that the bylaw is currently written anyone can bring forth a complaint from any time period there's no statute of limitations so 20 years ago five years ago what if you felt like there was an issue involving um any sort of a civil rights or um our allegation of discrimination you could bring forth a complaint um and the HRC could hear it but there's very little action that they can take and um you know the existing forms for adjudicating um complaints so the primary agency is the mass commission against discrimination but it is limited and um as you noted the post is still trying to work out some of their processes I think the uh the um the advantage of having filed um if someone chose to file a complaint with post is that they create a record and there is hopefully the state is actually tracking that but but the post legislation limits the types of um the types of complaints that they look um that they're receiving to allegations of um uh racial discrimination there's something else in the racial discrimination category um use of a of a firearm or weapon um and um you know serious bodily injury or death so very limited in the types of cases that they're that they're reviewing. Deborah? Yeah so Pamela now that you know we've discussed this a little bit more to kind of you know go into more details in terms of of why I started you know this with with the remarks that I made um the fact that and you know that is my world mass commission against discrimination because my background in terms of diversity equity inclusion title nine um harassment discrimination those anything statewide federal takes a very long time for the most part so we're talking about people and there's those that that unfortunately because of the color their skin or their income or their background are getting continually harassed by the police on a weekly monthly basis because they're already on their scope they're targeted so what are they supposed to do in the meantime? So I don't I don't have um and a good answer for you I mean I am in the same situation as everyone else who's a person of color who's living in this world with with you know those limitations all I can say is offer what I've said previously which is that the process is in place and it is my great hope and expectation is that there will be a recommendation that leads to a resident oversight board um you know coming into fruition by the end of the year but as you also have pointed out there are um it's not simply a decision that this office shepherding can do alone it's also going to involve other officers and offices and departments in town because so we'll have to do impact park pardon I mean one of the one of the first questions that I um asked actually last year when I started was whether someone had engaged in impact bargaining with the departments about these issues because their contracts were in discussion um and you know for some reason that had not occurred but it's not within you know that was not a duty or responsibility of of my office and unfortunately we had a transition in the HR department so you know I don't I I can't provide you with anything other than the facts of of of what have occurred have the facts that I've that have occurred during the time that I'm here so for me you know and I hear you obviously um in terms of of your limitations but for me in terms of being on this committee then I am feeling failing as a committee member if after almost three years after those recommendations were put in place we're still at square one in regards to this which is exploring asking questions so on and so forth then I'm the failure in terms of not moving this phase along right and so I I'm putting it out here again publicly ad nauseam multiple times for paul bachmann to come meet with us maybe he can answer some of these questions because you know you are limited in terms of asking and answering um these questions so paul we'd like to invite you again you know we've invited you in writing we're inviting you verbally to come meet with uh with us so that we can discuss some of these issues some of these issues because right now as you stated hhrc unfortunately doesn't have that that capability you don't have that capability no one's going to the police because obviously for for obvious reasons and so there is no no place and then you all are not moving in terms of this resident oversight board because where things are at is not a good place it really isn't so since you're limited I'm putting it out there paul or Lynn Lynn town council because town council when I contacted them they said that it was paul that's in charge of making these things happen but it since things are happening and paul is not willing to come meet with us then you know I invite I think Dorothy is there in the audience I know she's listening I'm by the town council to um have a joint meeting with us so that we can with we can have these conversations because this is not acceptable so anything any other reports Pamela in terms of of your area because I know that you wanted to leave after yeah I think that I mean we've gone through Cresty the youth empowerment um and the resident oversight board if there are other things that you other questions that you have um from me about any of the other things on your agenda I'll try to answer them but as I stated earlier like I'm not involved in either the police chief or the Crest director search um so I don't know if there are any other questions for me doesn't appear that way all right so I have asked my um before I sign off um as the two things as a takeaway which are um to ask chief nelson for the information that he was referring to and to ask um the police department for two years of data on trespass disorderly um noise and town ordinance um complaints yes thank you and yeah that led to arrest so yeah so all right well with that oh one last thing so in terms of data you said that you are lying between data for Crest so when will we be able to get some data on on Crest so I I I don't know because right now we're in the process of trying to acquire the qualtrex system um which is what was recommended for the department and everything is proceeding um you know for that purchase to go through but we don't have um a data system that's up and running that in my opinion is fully accurate um the other issue as I spoke about earlier is that the current CAD system which would be another place where data would be collected about the work of the responders does not have the capability to capture um um robustly the the work that the responders are doing and it is anticipated that there will be a new CAD system purchase that will include a category for responders so once we um purchase qualtrex then at least we will have that part of the system up and running um but there will all there there's still going to be a miss a missing piece because of the the limitations of the current CAD system well thank you Pamela for joining um um just hopefully for the next meeting um you know the interim leadership team can attend that you know I just like to say it'll be a good idea for just until you all phase out to continue to to to come and present to us so that we can continue to engage in this dialogue well I am really hoping that for that that will be the January will be the last meeting like I hope um you know I am hoping that that search is moving quickly enough that there will be a higher before the end of January so okay thank you have a good evening all right thank you I know it's been difficult but thank you for the work that you're doing and thank you for being here and answering or very at times difficult questions so we're very much appreciated thank you sure thank you all right so we probably need to do a time check a regular yes it's 907 um so we have the police chief and crest director search updates we have review of budget letter we have the multilingual parent advisory council and then that we have the debrief from forums um hopefully the multi parent multilingual parent advisory council should be quick um I don't know about the other things so um well I think I think if we could do like the police chief and crest director search update I think that'll be important and then the the budget letter by when do we need to get that in it would be good to talk about that tonight if people have read it and have suggestions um the multilingual parent advisory council is time sensitive so but it's also for it should be pretty quick so can we do those those three because I think we can debrief um the forums afterwards if if anyone who has notes though on it if they could please share that with us with our committee so that we can talk about that because obviously we want that you know still to be fresh in our minds um but I think if we could um do folks have the bandwidth to kind of try to do those three pieces so the police chief search one will be quick um we met um I believe last week and we did not believe at the time we had sufficient applicants from the applicant pool so we made a recommendation to post the job to wider networks and we gave the town an opportunity to give them some time to um advertise more posted in different areas um arguably um looking to get in um a direct recruiter and so the meeting was adjourned until in January so that is where we are right now we do have um some interest but the committee felt as a whole we don't want to just make this decision so we wanted broader applicant pool we wanted more candidates so that's where yeah a quick question um that's great to hear because that's definitely the right way to go in terms of um adding you know and reposting so when you say if you can provide more information in terms of like direct recruiter wider networks because for me obviously I'm interested whether a recruiter or posting a wider networks is actually going to get those that have innovative uh out of out of the box thinking lived experience um you know obviously diversity uh more diversity and that sort of thing and and for that to happen that means either this recruiter or the networks that are being posted are places where obviously these candidates um you know would be at because you know part of obviously my experience in terms of doing the work that I did um and continue to do with the university for these many years is that the excuses that I hear all the time which is oh we can find them they're not around they're not no it's they're there it's just about making sure that you're actually outreaching sharing and recruiting those candidates so that's a very good point and and that was what um the community decided as a whole so there were a lot of um people on the committee that are part of um law enforcement groups I mean we're trying to find a chief executive in a police captain so it is a specific job so um I think what the goal that's what we said to the town was okay here are these additional police groups that um you you know may have chief executives in their pool like I don't want to say social networks so to speak but you know police have their own fraternities so to speak and so it wasn't being advertised to all those fraternities or those additional fraternities so um we're looking we're not just looking in Massachusetts so let's add that there we're moving beyond Massachusetts and we're also saying post this job in these other groups some of them you know like women women police leadership um people call it police leadership things like that um extended not to say that they weren't doing those already but um there are some additional groups that were mentioned that the jobs were not posted in and in terms of for recruiter um we're saying expanded beyond your traditional indeed or career builder or those kind of job post-ins just um push where we think that we'll get more traction and if that is still not working maybe get a like a head hunter or something that was part of the consideration is have we talked to any head hunters who you know in that kind of narrative so the town took it back um with understanding that they are going to push it and we gave them sufficient time because we won't be back until January to see okay did that expand our applications and do we do we gain more applications and if we think we have sufficient applications then we're going to meet and discuss how to go through and navigate those applications we've agreed to across this whereby there's a couple rounds of interviews um but we won't start any until we think or feel that we have a sufficient pool to start with so if you come back in January we think it's still too small we're ready to say expand it a little bit more right yeah because it's best to do it you know the right way and it seems like you all are taking that time which is good yes good healthy um diverse pool of candidates to choose from as opposed to trying to rush it and then you know not not get what you know that that kind of healthy diverse pool to choose from and when we're talking about recruiting and I'm glad to hear that it's it's going beyond Massachusetts because obviously there's a lot of areas that there are more diverse communities and diverse constituencies and so you know the the the advertisement needs to go to those you know cities and towns and so on so forth that have you know large populations of folks from other backgrounds and cultures and races and and ethnicities and orientations and all of that right um so hopefully um you know I'm heartened to hear you know your report so far yeah so um until we meet again um we um we decide holiday break no one's going to be doing much over the holidays so I think we're back January 9th so I think the meeting whatever meeting we have after the 9th I can make another update thank you thank you um so I can give a brief update about the cross director search and Jennifer please feel free to jump in if you have anything to add we have had two meetings the first was just kind of go over the process and then actually earlier today we met to review candidate resumes and figure out who we would offer a first interview to um so there were 19 applicants in the pool and we have extended interviews to about half of them and it's um I don't know what else I'm allowed to say or can say about it's I it's a good pool I'm excited about yeah and that's the question that I wanted to you know when I posed to to Pamela it's not like I wanted details but is it a good healthy diverse pool that's basically you don't have to go into details I would say there are options that bring lots of different things to the table right um so our hope is to schedule first interviews over the next coming weeks understanding that it is the holiday season and getting 10 people together in one space at the same time can pose its challenges um but the timeline that was given to us by HR was hopefully to have a suggestion of the top three candidates to move on to the second round by the end of the first week of January does that sound right Jennifer yeah we'll see if that happens with people's schedules and scheduling interviews but hopefully so I guess like for the for the three finalists for the crest director what's going to be kind of the final rounds of interviews who's going to be in the final rounds of interviews um in order to kind of get a sense of how these folks might end up doing like so for instance right before when the the original director was um hired obviously there was no community responder or anything so will this person get to meet all these people get to meet with the community responder so that they provide feedback uh will they meet with other folks um who have you know other you know kind of um agencies that that this director would work with so that they provide feedback um possibly would these directors meet with us you know CSSGC I don't know you know is there because this is a key position given everything that just transpired with the first director um and let's not forget that this person hopefully because that'll be my next thing right once the director is hired is hiring the assistant director because we do not want what just happened to happen again um so this person's going to hire an assistant director and hire more responders and build crest you know hopefully the budget and so on and so forth so how what what's what's the game plan for for these three finalists let's say so my understanding is the finalists will interview with the town manager and then we'll have the opportunity to make the team of responders and that's it and then and then you all based so you you all the search committee will be able to make a recommendation or how so we will recommend the finalists that will meet with paul so you recommend the finalists but then you don't have any other kind of recommendation power after that so let's say after the so are the finalists meeting with the search committee paul and the responders i guess i'm trying to see if there's like feedback you know other than i guess paul's paul just being the ultimate he'll be the one to make the decision but if there's feedback also around those finalists so that it can inform paul's decision making that is a good question and i don't have the answer to it um but i i can clarify yes if you can get more information on that because i think it's important i have other questions so i did i cut you off a little oh no no i guess we can move on to the next thing um i'm just gonna do the multilingual parent advisory council quickly because that is a short thing um so one of the interpreters that was at the in part while she was at both forums but we spoke at the in-person forum more um is in charge of coordinating the multi parent multilingual parent advisory council is that correct that's how you would describe her role jennifer she coordinates that group for the schools i would say she's pretty equivalent to the staff liaison perhaps um so the meeting of this group of parents who are affiliated with the schools and speak multiple languages is next wednesday and she has asked if we would present regarding chris um i would be available it's at seven is that correct seven to eight is the time that's blocked off i'm sorry i keep on asking you questions and i can probably just find it in my email but i believe it was seven to eight next wednesday the 20th oh i should have put it in there i'm sorry i'm just trying to find answers to debora's question originally the email from brawl yeah um so i don't know if anybody else is available or interested in joining that meeting with me debora is unavailable um and i can do it myself if nobody else is available i understand it's the week before a break so yeah and just so folks know i'm going to be traveling out of the country actually back to my home country um as of the 23rd so yeah it's going to be really busy for me that week so that's why i can't take the song so if anyone else um can take it on that would be great because usually i like when i usually do a co-present and everything which is very helpful and the meeting is via zoom so that makes it easier for folks and it's a great opportunity to work with a community that we are not necessarily connected with at the moment so i will try to attend as well although i think i have another meeting on the 20th i think the hrc meets did you say next wednesday yes yes you said from seven to eight yes can we commit to a hard stop at eight yes okay i don't even think you guys have to be there for the whole thing i think it's like 10 to 20 minutes of like a overview of what the cssjc and then the recommendations from cswg just to inform the community and then some questions and answers and then that's it you don't have to be there for the full meeting okay you can put me down and send me the link perfect thank you uh Jennifer would you be able to connect us with alisa via email yeah i can she sent me the link do do you have the link um i might but if you want to just send it to us again that way it'll pop back up into my understanding all right so that's done review of the budget letter did that did anybody read it yes um do we want to can we screen share can i screen share i can screen share but i have to find it first i'm sorry it's one of those situations where we've been on for a while they go to the meeting packet thank you um do you want me to screen share i have the packet if you have it up then yeah can you all see the packet yeah i'm not going to read it out loud because we're all grown ups but um did anybody have any glaring concerns or any additions or subtractions they would want to make i only had a question yes um is the intent to attach the numbers to the letter before sending it i think so my only caveat was that i would want to put in like a footnote or something saying this was based on the f y i think it was f y 2021 at this point um unions or non-union salary scale so to just say like we would expect that whatever is funded at current levels which i couldn't find i so yeah these are so if you need those they should be online if they're not just let me know when i can get them for you because they are open to the public i just wasn't sure since the responders we now know are in the union that is dispatch i just wasn't sure where they actually now fit in in the real-time list because i was looking at like the seiu numbers because i think that's the union that represents them i just couldn't figure out what they would like would they fall under dispatch or would they fall under something else in that and and my other question um was when the proposals were made with those numbers was there um was it figured out that was within the budget like the town's budget could absorb those numbers or at any point did the town ever incorporate these numbers in their budget so i think that obviously it's not very comparable to what was proposed because there are so many other layers of employee that are in there um i mean i think that the answer has been no we don't have that in the budget and i think there was concern about funding things via grant versus via a town operating budget um yeah and to kind of add to that um this was to it was a budget that was proposed you know through cswg through the work that we had done in the research um to really fully staff crest and to in thinking about it as a 24-7 agency right independent department um and so you know when when folks are throwing around fully staff thinking that these eight responders and one director is fully staffed that is not that is severely understaffed in terms of the ultimate goal for crest and some of these other um departments that was recommended in cswg so i think that that's the thing it's just kind of like if we don't provide some type of budget and we just provide a statement saying okay this is what we need you know even if you know even if there's resistance as there will always be right from the town and saying they don't have the money we still need to provide the budget in terms of okay this is what we think would actually meet the needs of what these departments would you know could function a lot better as opposed to being severely understaffed as they are right now um because a lot of times we do provide statements but then there's always that question the budget the budget the budget and that goes to the heart of my question when the recommendations were made was there any pushback to say that this money was not in the budget or was there a conversation that says this is something that the town may could potentially come up with in the budget well our contention is yes the town could come up with it in the budget but their contention was that no they couldn't come up with it in the budget because they weren't sure in terms of the calls that the police were responding to and what crest would respond to for instance crest as an example um so until they knew what was the tried and true then then that's when they would up the budget you know so on so forth so the the usual types of of counters so that's why they landed on just the budget that they landed on like let's say for crest and they didn't land on any budget right for the youth environment the eye two positions um you know and haven't moved one pretty much anything else I think to the part of the conversation that hasn't happened as much is the idea of if crest is operational in the sense that it was conceived to be an alternative to policing and there are some ways in which the police force is reduced then can that money be reallocated to crest and that was something that I think that is something that I think there will be resistance to um so but I I do think that that would be one way of providing funding for the department if and when the data shows that calls to police are reduced and that's because crest is responding to these things instead and there were other like pockets of money I think it was like I don't know if it was marijuana money there was like all these other kind of pockets of money that we had brought up um during that time which again was just dismissed besides the budget though uh Allegra I just feel like we could if we could add a little bit more around the resident oversight board um area just in terms of besides the stipends just again for them you know just to say that the need in terms of them being independent and then I don't know if we added anything in terms of um the youth empowerment um and the fact that there's you know still no budget for them there's still no home us a center uh for them and then we did talk about multicultural center right yep so yep but those would be my two kind of thoughts too just to kind of add a little bit more in the leg or all of the contracts are available online okay under the human resources department and then I think it says like labor and wages or something similar to that so would there be a way to figure out where crests actually falls like which line and step and everything that they actually are oh I just had it up they have their own they have their own line they're on their own line okay so it says community responders it says community responders I think they're an f1 and then the next levels f2 perfect sorry I I was not able to find out on my own so thank you for that um lisa hi um just a question for the second regarding programs recommended by the cswg requiring fiscal support um are we leaving it like that or are we adding like what the actual additional programs are so I think there was a formatting issue but that would be that would be like the following being youth empowerment multicultural and resident oversight board so it'd be the next three paragraphs of that okay I think I can make that not be big space hello I'm gonna send you the link to get to the page perfect any other feedback so the fiscal year ends on June 30th is the intention here trying to get all these things into the budget for the next fiscal year yes okay and so the the forum for public input already took place and this is the time during which the town managers usually like meeting with different department heads asking for their budget requests and so it seemed like a good time for us to try and get something before him on behalf of the recommendations because I think May first is when the budget is due and then there's a presentation mid-May and then by mid-June I think the town council has to vote on the approval of it so given that um press doesn't have a director who would be take the department head um could be state in the letter that you know as the cc since jc um understand that crest does not have a department head and to be um in line with the mandate as proposed by csw g and we think that this budget represents the original mandate as envisioned by csw jc for crest um for it to be fully operational um it warranted to be fully funded at these levels and here are the projected numbers of course it's two or three years later so it does not include inflation um or anything like that but at least you know just point out that in absence of a director you want to bring it to the town's attention that crests is in need of funding and further initial recommendation these are the levels that are recommended and we highly suggest and recommend that crest be funded at these levels I think that makes sense uh fricke I just wanted to know how we arrived at the figure for the civilian the stipend for the civilian oversight commission yes actually supposed to be the resident oversight board right um yeah I don't remember this uh this uh document that kind of describes um the amount and I think it might have been based on you know what the like town council makes and and other committees that that you know will need to that meets and does that type of work because remember we wanted to have people a lot of times especially in terms of being inclusive and diverse and getting people from you know all economic backgrounds too we want to make sure that they're able to right take the time to be able to do this type of work and usually not having a stipend is very prohibitive um towards them being able to do that right to like buy food because a lot of times you know this board might be meeting at different times weekends so on so forth right if they need to hire a babysitter or something for the kids or things like that that would we uh make it so that they're able to do that um so from my recollection that's why we ended up being at that figure yeah a lot of times people who serve on these boards um obviously now we're starting to have other folks on which is great from other backgrounds and universities but for a long time it was only people who actually come from a certain income level any other feedback because it's getting late and I know I need to have a child that I need to attend to so what I can do is I can do the one more like one incorporate the suggestions one draft that goes out to Jennifer or goes out through Jennifer and everyone responds directly to that I feel like I haven't done this in a while um like people can just respond directly to you or to you and Jennifer however you want to kind of indicate for us to do it not to to yeah as long as it's not reply all yeah to you and Jennifer and then just the deadline but when but you so people have I mean the thing that you guys need to figure out other than the suggestions you just made now needs to be finalized because you can't make decision making over a document even if it's one-on-one via email right so if there's other stuff you should yeah is if there's nothing else I will take a suggestion I will take the suggestions that Everold Lissette and Deborah gave to me I will fluff those out and then I will also look at the budget that was initially put and I will make the best adjustments that I am able based on my ability and math skills to make it look like what it should look like in 2020 $4 does that make sense yes um and then I will send that out all together um and people can respond only to me yes this looks good or no let's table it until January wait but Jennifer what do you mean why can't we just provide feedback on on we can't provide any edits on it we used to do that at CSWG if we just responded to well you guys used to send me the document and I would made edits okay so then how can we do that so then that's then then that's what you would need to do is you would need to send me the changes in the edits I think you guys can't do it as a group because then you're making decisions without being in a public setting like without being in a public no meeting yeah but that's what we want to know is this how can we move this along but provide edits because we want to make sure that people can provide edits after Allegra's next rendition of it so then what you what so that we're in terms of follow the public meeting laws so we just send the edits back to you yes and then so individually not as a group yeah and then you incorporate the edits and then what and then you send it to Allegra and then I send it back out but then like you guys so the problem is you can't like vote and say this is the way that we want it until you're in your next meeting wait you said send it to Allegra and then what because it you for I didn't say send it to Allegra um you what I'm trying to say is that you guys can't make a decision on how to to find you can't finalize the document outside of the meeting um because we need to vote on it is what you need to vote on it why do we need to vote on it because none of you individually have the power to be to speak on behalf of the group you all have to do it together and the things that you guys do together are done in a public meeting I get that but if we if we are saying that we already talked about this we already discussed it she's going to do another rendition all we're doing is providing edits we provide the edits to you if we're in agreement that we're okay with the edits and for her to follow through why do we have to talk about it yet again so what I would suggest that you do to avoid any of it is vote on it now and say pending I mean you can't even do that if you haven't seen her revisions like that was the part of like we I think you guys were hoping to get through this now or in person or like during the meeting now so that you didn't have to worry about it but you have to vote on sending the and having the letter itself sent out to town council you can't vote on the letter unless you do something like if you give a leg road specific if you give her specific recommendations for it and then you guys vote now say based on the specific recommendations then that would be fine but you can't just vote after she makes some changes yes or no like I don't know did that make sense so yes so if for example emotion was made that we will vote to send this letter to town council once the paragraph beginning with second becomes joined with the following paragraph the paragraph that begins with the resident oversight board you can just say what the edits discussed now like I don't even know if you have to go through all those details just so do we want to vote or do we want to know just send a good question we're going to still we have to give folks time to do the edit so we'll just have to do it the next meeting that's fine whatever it's ridiculous but you know not to follow these you know situations so so everybody send their edits to Jennifer is that yes okay and then and then and then you kind of get the edits together send it to Allegra and then Allegra you'll have a final kind of copy for us to look at in the January meeting sounds good put it in the packet for the meeting yes all right so we are tabling f of debrief for four from forums for next meeting we have public comment if anybody would like to make a public comment this is your last chance to do so in this meeting please raise your hand all right we have three hands raised starting with Laura this is Lauren Mills I'm a resident of Amherst and I'm also a community member of the board of health and I'm just speaking on my own behalf but I hope that the board of health will take up some of the things some of the issues that you guys are working on I had a few comments from your meeting tonight one is the conversation around Cress Cress permanent space is the bang center where Cress is now located going to be are they going to move from that space because I thought it was actually you know put put together it was actually made for for Cress so that's a little I'm surprised to me that that's not going to be that's not going to continue to be their permanent space I also think that Miss Young is doing a really good job so I just really would like to publicly publicly encourage her and just hope that we all you know can remain a little humble because we all need to collaborate and work together if we want to see changes and I also think that you know we have to remember that recommendations are not demands and it kind of feels I definitely feel the friction in the town as far as pushback from the town council but I also feel that we as community members and those representing the community have to be more specific and more detailed in the vision that we're putting forward I'll just lastly say it's always been in my mind like is the youth empowerment is it programming is it could it be in the cultural center that we will also want to see like I feel that there is not enough detail in in the the things that we want to put forward as community and I would just hope that we all just remain a little humble and and continue to keep the pressure but remember that we all have a part and a role to play in making these changes for the community thank you thank you thank you Lauren hi everyone can you all hear me yes yes I want to one thank you all for your time and energy I realize it's almost 10 o'clock so I'll be brief I want to direct you all's energy towards Cress the presentation tonight was really alarming and I'm glad that you all brought up such critical points and asked critical questions I understand that Rome was not built in a day but I hope that Cress does not lose its mission rooted in anti-racism and really the way the community envisioned it it honestly pains me as a former CSWG member to hear more surveying and more forums because I feel like the community is tired of repeating the same stories and repeating the same narratives for change so I hope that you all can continue to push for Cress to be implemented and to execute how it was envisioned originally thank you thank you hi miss pop oh okay miss that did I lose you guys nope you're there I can't okay okay good evening I know it's a long night I won't speak too long I have so much emotion going on as I was listening first of all I'm gonna thank miss young um the fire chief and all of you tonight for your time I will say that I'm not surprised about what is happening I knew this a few years ago when I served on CSWG I knew that Cress will be set up to fail because we're talking about white supremacy in our town Cress is not a priority for our town government meaning our time manager some of the town councilors the finance committee and the police union the power holders in this town are threatened by the fact that Cress will benefit marginalized population in our town that's the underlying issue the second issue is any type of government is very inefficient whether it's local government state government or federal CSWG did all the research that needed to be done here we are several years another research has been done on resident oversight board on you know training and training endless training on the responders this is all waste of tax dollars money like Deborah you know rightly pointed out where is all this money coming from when finance committee refused to fully recommend fully funding Cress for example all of a sudden we have money to waste when seven gen already did that we have leap did the same work and I decided to leave CSSJC but will continue to support the work just for my own mental health like I needed a break this is set up to frustrate you know folks who are brave enough like you guys and other some community members who want this to work it's we're going to be discussing same thing many years to come what frustrates me is that our time government are using BIPOC and marginalized population in our town to travel all over the country for something that is not benefiting the population they're claiming to do they're going and talking about Cress and yet the services are mostly social services instead of public safety that you all had you know discussed tonight I want to quickly mention that Laurie thank you she um has sent me um the December 7th um finance committee meeting where they're supposed to recommend guidelines for town council and when it came to Cress program we have lean president saying that you know that for anything to happen that the Cress program needs to be evaluated but I've never heard anybody in this town say we want to evaluate the police for example the implication of that is that perhaps they don't want to fully fund Cress 24-7 and that really disturbed me a lot and the last thing I wanted to say is that when we talk about collaboration in our town to me what I've observed is that the power holders want to push stuff into our throat and if we don't follow what they tell us they were not collaborated so I think we need to rethink what collaboration means in this town who is pushing collaboration because what is happening with Cress SJC is that your committee is not being respected by the town manager by lane by the finance committee by the police union they're the people who are not collaborating with you guys and yet they use that word all the time collaboration collaboration collaboration I just I just want that to sink in to people so that when people start talking about collaboration who is pushing it who who is pushing it and to whose benefit it is and I refuse to be Tom uh uncle Tom I'm sorry I will not be one of those I would just stop there because I you know I don't want to repeat what most people have said in terms of banks community center this crap about it's not open 24-7 24-7 why can't we push to have banks community center be open 24-7 so that Cress can be in there who made the rule to close the building at 4 p.m we need to push we need to push and advocate that less banks community center between the first seven and the very last thing and I will shut up is when I heard the fire the fire chief stating that he knows the best to me with the CSWG that worked on recommendation we have professor in that group we have successful business owners we have people in law background we have school administrators people who have worked in non-profit and to disrespect that our recommendation doesn't doesn't have to be what to be followed it's like insulting CSWG and I'm hearing that also with CSSJC you all come with very strong background so who gets to define expertise who gets who get to define smartness I feel everybody is smart in their own rights thank you thank you miss Beth thank you miss Pat um so our next meeting is going to be in January I will look at the exact date it is January 10th I had invited chief Ting to come speak with us he has graciously declined that offer but did send me this afternoon some information about the co-responder program some of the I think policies from them and their log over the last year as well as some information about some of the stuff they're doing in schools so that was supposed to be on our agenda it seems like the crests and DEI and youth empowerment updates are taking a long time so I might suggest we keep that and debriefing as our main agenda items and if things come up between now and then to email me and we can add them on unless any anyone else has anything pressing at this time and I will um get the information that was sent to me by chief Ting over to Jennifer so it can be in the next packet and it's 9.59 and we can adjourn unless anyone wants to stay on any takers no okay sorry one quick question yes I'm sorry Allegra no that's okay the legal woman voters you said that's January 18th where's that taking place so that is also by zoom okay yeah and I will send the promotional materials to Jennifer as well okay um and to you and miss moist then I will try my best to be in attendance on the Wednesday the 20th oh great awesome thank you all right so now it is 10 p.m. and and okay that was not the hand raised that was a goodbye Deborah okay we are adjourned goodbye goodbye everyone