 It said it was ended. Okay, so everybody's in the main room now. I say Jose. Yeah. Okay, and then I can add me as an interpreter. Awesome. Yay. All right. Excellent. Well, welcome everyone and thank you for your patients. This is our first time doing a translation service zoom meeting. So we're very excited and I'm excited to be able to welcome the UMass translation services here. And I'm going to go ahead and share my screen with the PowerPoint so that folks may be able to see. Although I think I need rights to be able to see where you have to make me the co-host Camilla. I'm not used to that. I'm just. Thank you. You can do it now. I can. If you know me, you know, I love a good PowerPoint. And so I'm so excited to welcome the UMass translation center here to our meeting translate to educate. So I'm going to go ahead and let the interpreters introduce themselves and let folks know how they can connect to their channel. Good evening. My name is Maria Camila. And to hear this meeting in Spanish, click on the globe icon on the bottom of your screen and choose the Spanish channel. Good evening. My name is Rafael. I and Alisa are going to translate to Portuguese. Tonight, if you'd like to access this presentation in Portuguese, click on the globe icon at the bottom right of your screen. Thank you very much. And so I just wanted to make the announcement that this meeting is being recorded. So it may appear on the town of Amherst YouTube channel as well as possibly Amherst media. This is a Zoom meeting. So if you'd like to access this presentation in Portuguese, click on the globe icon at the bottom right of your screen. And so if you'd like to access this presentation in Portuguese, click on the globe icon at the bottom right of your screen. This is a Zoom meeting. Only panelists and community members speaking will be seen. There's no community chat function. And please help us prevent background noises. Keep yourself muted. Click on the microphone on the lower left side of your screen or star six on your phone. If you wish to make a comment, please raise your hand and click on participants at the bottom of your screen. Choose the raise hand icon star nine on your phone. We would like to start off by letting folks know that this is a safe place and we will practice confidentiality, compassionate listening, respect. We will speak from our own experiences, no judgments and no shaming. I would like to introduce the members of the community safety and social justice committee. We have our chair. Actually, I'm going to stop screen share now so that folks can see everyone. And live. And we'll start with a legra. If you could just tell us your name and why you're interested in becoming a community safety and social justice. Committee member. So my name is like Clark. I am a co-chair of the community safety and social justice committee. I joined the committee. In part because of the work I'd been doing in the community organizing with defund four one three Amherst around reallocating funding from police into. More community based services. And also from my experience as a social worker working in. A. In the court system and seeing people. Who. Have been serviced by the police that could have probably used more compassionate services. In the community. So those were my two kind of motivations. For joining. Do you want us to continue? Sorry, I said depth for error, but I was muted. Okay. Hello everyone. My name is Deborah. This is really exciting. I'm really excited to have the translators on. This is epic that we're having a virtual forum with translator. So we're really, really excited about this. And hopefully it will mean more inclusivity and more people. So I'm going to stop here. I was also one of the original members of community safety working group. One of the main reasons why I joined was after the George Floyd murder. As you all know. Unfortunately it wasn't the first time that a black person was killed. By the police. And unfortunately it won't be the last time either. Right. And so for me, it was very important for me to. Do what I could to try to prevent these types of incidents from occurring. And of course I went out protesting. But I wanted to do something that was more long term and more long standing. I also am a mom of two black males. One is 19. One is 19. One is 19. And the other one's 14 years old. And I was very concerned for their lives. Right. And whenever they walk out the door, I'm always concerned for their lives as being black males. So for me, I joined. Because I've been part of Amherst for over 25 years. You know, I've worked within the arena of diversity, equity, inclusion, my entire career. And I think that Amherst needs to be a place for everyone. For all people, BIPOC from all cultural backgrounds, LGBTQIA plus all abilities, all everyone from every ethnicity and cultural background. And so I want to do what I can. And every inch of my body and what I do to make Amherst and inclusive and in a place that everyone belongs and can be who they are. Thank you, Deborah. Dr. Ette. Hi, everyone. I think I joined the committee because I wanted to supplement my understanding of politics, which for most of my life has been what I studied. It's been what I went to graduate school for. It's been what I taught. And I had this feeling that there are things in the community that I couldn't learn just from reading books. And I had to learn that by becoming part of the town in that way. And I thought it was also an opportunity to get to know Amherst. It's one thing to connect with students, but it's another thing to do. It's one thing to connect with students, but it's another thing to connect with other members of the community. And I've been interested in different ways in which we can learn a bit more about diversity and ways to be more inclusive. And I joined the committee both to learn and to see how I could serve in that area. Thank you. Hi, good evening. My name is Lissette. I joined the CSSJC due to the reasons that I grew up in Amherst. I've lived here for the last 23 years. My career isn't the criminal field. And I wanted to see what kind of issues the town of Amherst was having in terms of race, inclusion, and social injustices. And that is one of the biggest reasons why I joined the committee. Thank you. And Everett? Hi, everyone. My name is Everett Henry, my attorney in Amherst. I do work in the criminal court system and so I represent clients who are poor people of color, people who cannot afford attorneys for the most part. And I joined this committee as I see this as an extension of the work that I do. Activism matters to me and representing people who cannot normally speak to themselves is important. And so I read that. I just wanted to make sure that you were finished. You broke up a little bit. You're all set? I'm sorry. I'm having some internet issues. Yes. Thank you. So in addition to our interpreters and the CSSJC members, we also have the director of diversity, equity, inclusion here, Pamela Young, as well as Asa Stanley, who's the DEI office is a mayor corpse member. So the CSSJC is supported by the office of diversity, equity, inclusion. And so we all welcome you here tonight. I would also like to mention that former members of the CSSJC are Ms. Pat Anani Baku and as well, Phillip Avila and the late Dr. Demetria Shabazz, if we could take a moment to be thankful because she was our social justice warrior. And if we could just take a moment of silence, I think that would be great. Thank you. And so for those who don't know, my name is Jennifer Moyston. I will be your host tonight, working with the CSSJC. And so we're going to move further along here. To our next slide in theory. There we go. So Deborah, this is the community safety working group. And I'm going to let Deb for Eric. Go ahead and have an opportunity to speak. Deborah, do you prefer that I stop sharing the screen or do you want me to keep the PowerPoint up? No, you should keep the PowerPoint up. It'll be easier for me to follow in that way. Okay, great. So if you could keep the other slide though first, I can talk a little bit about the members. Thank you so much, Jennifer. And thank you for facilitating. I mean, it's awesome that you always agree to do these town forums. And we're so thankful to have you. As one of our champions of diversity equity inclusion. Thank you so much. So I want to talk a little bit about community safety working group. This was the group that came together. Back in November of 2020. After the George Floyd. Murder and after Amherst. Did their proclamation basically stating that they would. Be anti-racist. Dismental racism and be an anti-racist. You know, town structure, right? And that the structures would be anti-racist. And so our group came together. We actually had Paul Wiley as our first chair. And he, he was with us until about April. But then the rest of the members that you have here, right? Brianna Owen, who was a co-chair, Alicia Walker, who's councilwoman Alicia Walker was also a co-chair of the community safety working group. And there's also Darius Cage, who also was part of the community safety working group. And he was our youngest member, a youth leader and youth member, which we were so happy that he was on board. And he was part of our community working group. And basically we met from November, 2020, basically every week. For about two hours until November. And we had a charge to really look at alternatives to policing, as well as looking at reforms to the policing, police department here in Amherst. And so we worked together, you know, diligently to come up with two reports that we came up with a part A and part B. I'm forever thankful to this group of people who were fearless during a time of great pain, of great sorrow, especially during the pandemic, the height of the pandemic. And we were meeting and we were going through everything together to bring about these alternatives. So I want to say hats off to them again. And thank you for the hard work. If we can go to the next one. So as I mentioned, we had a part A, two recommendations that we made to the town council, to the town manager and as part of our charge. And one of the main recommendations that we made was to create the Amherst community responders for equity, safety and service, which is called the Crest department. Right. So I know you all have heard about Crest. This is our community responder department that is their own separate department that is unarmed. Right. And go out into the community and basically assist with anything that is nonviolent. So if anything is not violent or not seriously criminal, the Crest department should be responding to it. They have their own number. And they also should be getting dispatched by the police department and getting dispatched calls. That hasn't happened yet. So that's one of the things that if you all want to discuss this, please feel free to do so. But we wanted to make sure that the Crest department as their own independent department were able to receive calls through their own independent number or through dispatch at the police department. And as I said, a public safety, they are a public safety department and responding to it, which includes right assisting anyone with alcohol, drug abuse, mental health issues, houselessness, but it's first and foremost a public safety department. And as you all have heard, there's been a lot of transition and issues going on right now. And regards to Crest, they have a temporary leadership team right now that actually the director of the AI Pamela Young is the lead on. And then they have Kat Newman and then someone from the police and then someone from the fire department on this leadership team. There was a director that was on board up until August, but then was put on leave and then resigned. So a lot of transitioning happening. So this is one of the things that we want to hear from the community about how has Crest been working? How can it be improved? What can we do during this time, right? Of transition to make sure that that Crest stays strong. Because, you know, from the feedback that we've received, right? As far as that it's a very pivotal department. And so we want to hear more from the community. We have a survey on our website and also on the, I think what is it, community, community page, Amherst community page that asks questions specific to Crest. So if after this you have more input that you want to provide in regards to Crest, please go to that survey. And I know that Jennifer will share with you the QR code in regards to that. And then I'll move quickly through some of these other ones. We recommend it to create an Amherst resident oversight board. This is a board that is independent again, created with residents from Amherst. That would be an independent place for people to go. And if they have complaints or concerns around the police department, they can go and file these complaints concerns. Because we heard while we were creating this, these recommendations, we heard that there wasn't an independent place to file concerns or complaints around the police. So this is something that we included in the report. However, this board has not been put in place yet. I know that there's some work that has been happening. And actually there's someone, I believe a consultant that was just hired to, that's going to be putting town forums in place to gather more information. But this is something that I know the community has been asking for for a long time. So hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later, but we want to hear from the community about it. There's a department of equity, diversity equity inclusion that Pamela Young and Jennifer Moisten are the leads on. As I stated right now, Pamela is actually leading his crest. So, you know, it's a little bit more work, you know, for Pamela in terms of crests and then DI, but, you know, so we want to hear more in terms of feedback around, around all of those that we also recommended a creation of BIPOC led Amherst Youth Empowerment Center and Amherst BIPOC Cultural Center. If you go to part A of our recommendations in our report, you'll see that we even have a budget for each of these departments. And the budget was a lot more that we were recommending, but these departments did not receive as much budget and as much staff because we wanted them fully funded. So that's something else that we want to hear about, right? If you have any feedback around budget and how much these departments should be getting. And so for the Youth Empowerment Center, I know ASA actually and Jennifer is working on doing some programming for that, but we want a space for the Youth Empowerment Center. We want a budget for the Youth Empowerment Center. And so those are some of the things that still need to happen. And again, we haven't heard much in terms of the Amherst BIPOC Cultural Center and what's been happening in regards to that. We also recommend that, recommend reduction in size of the Amherst Police Department. From what I know there's been more hirings in the Amherst Police Department. And our recommendation for that was obviously if there was in retirements or if the police left, you know, because they left their job that they wouldn't be new hires. But from the information I have that there has been new hires at the police department, even though there is Cress and Cress has obviously been responding to a lot of other incidents that the police would have normally been doing before Cress. So we want to hear more from the community in regards to that. Continue the ongoing work of community safety working group. And obviously that's CSSAC. If we can go to the next slide. Some of the other things, so I'll just skip around with this one because I've already, so this was a part B, which we kind of repeated some of the things in part A, but some of the things that were new was really looking at the policies and procedures of the Amherst Police Department. So some of the policies in terms of use of force, consent searches, low level and pretextual, pretextual vehicle stops and so on. And then we also wanted the dashboard created, right? So that we could have data easily accessible to the community so that a community could know, you know, what is happening within the police department. So, you know, that has not occurred as far as I know. We also had a recommendation around traffic control and enforcement. You know, one of the big recommendations we had was move traffic control from the Amherst Police Department to a separate traffic control division under the Crest Department, leaving only jailable traffic offenses to the APD. And we made that recommendation because we know that a lot of times, you know, especially BIPOC individuals will get stopped because of pretextual stops, right? And when they're driving their vehicles. And then that leads to other issues, right? In terms of arrests and so on and so forth. So this was one of the reasons that we stated, you know, move traffic control to under Crest as one of our recommendations. You know, and then we had some of the other ones, which has informed the drivers who have been stopped and why they're being stopped and giving them that information. And then, you know, pilot confirmation of racial identification, pedestrian safety committee. And then one of the other, you know, pivotal recommendations we made was to engage our town in an extended process of community racial healing and visioning. I know some steps have been taken towards that. Barbara Love was contracted and as we're done doing a train, the trainers, of course, we're interested in finding out how is that going to be rolled out and how is it going to be engaging the town, right? We want everyone, not obviously not going to be able to get everyone, but we want all those that usually are not engaged in the process or whose voice we're not able to hear to take part in this visioning process. So, you know, we want to hear more about that. And we want to hear from the community, you know, some feedback in terms of this healing process, because we know that you can't continue to build if you don't heal from a lot of what we had heard before, which is mistrust and pain and not being able to really really depend on the police for assistance, right? Especially when it comes to BIPOC population within Amherst. So how can we, you know, heal this? And this is something that we have recommended. And then lastly, but most importantly, of course, is developing an anti-racist department, culture and Amherst police department. We really want the Amherst police department to come out front and center and say that they are anti-racist and to really showcase what that means, right? And as we know right now, there's a search for police chief. And that's one of the things that I know when we were having these different town forums to hear about the police chief search, it was to find a police chief that is anti-racist. And what does that mean? That there's not just to say anti-racist, but what do you mean by being anti-racist? Because if you are anti-racist, you'll be within embedded, within every part and structure of the police department. And how does that look? And we want to hear more in terms of what that means. So I think I'll stop here for now and hand it off to Allegra. So the next slide. Thank you, Deborah. And again, thank you for all your hard work on both the CSWG and the CSSJC. So I'm just going to review a little bit of the community safety and social justice committees charge. The overarching theme is to incorporate and continue the work done by CSWG for systemic change and to ensure the implementation of all CSWG recommendations adopted by the town council and or the town manager and track progress, such as the community responders for equity safety and service, the diversity equity and inclusion department, the youth empowerment center and the BIPOC multicultural center to support the work of DEI and Cres programs and employees that address the needs of BIPOC and other marginalized groups, including the disabled immigrants, LGBTQIA plus assist the town in exploring resources such as buildings for the youth empowerment center and the BIPOC multicultural center, recommend funding sources, including grants focused on targeted priorities for marginalized residents with the most impactful and sustainable projects, ensure that the town implements a robust translation service. So I'm so grateful again that we have the interpreters here from UMass and that we are able to hopefully model to the town how a translation can be incorporated into a public meeting and also to provide input to the town manager during the budget process. Go to the next slide. We have one more. Yeah, there's the last one. And so that brings us to tonight. Why are we having this forum? Our group has spent a lot of the last year and a half focused on the aftermath of the incident that happened on July 5th last year with a group of Amherst youth and the Amherst police department. And it became even more clear how important the CSWG recommendations were and how important it is that all of them are implemented, not just the two that have been put into place. So in reviewing some of the groundwork from the CSWG and from the various consultants that they used, including the seven gen movement collective and the LEAP, which is law enforcement, law enforcement agency that does consulting work. They had suggested that community engagement should remain an important work of the CSSJC as it had been foundational to the CSWG and recommendations and the implementation of the recommendations. And the LEAP report that was specific to Cress did also recommend that the successor committee to the CSWG gather community input on the implementation of CSWG recommendations. So this is a forum for the public to share their ideas. We would love to hear if anyone has had experiences with Cress or what they would hope that Cress could help with in the future. As Deborah had mentioned, Cress is kind of at a transitional point. And so I think this is a great time for us to be having these discussions since there will be some new leadership and some new responders coming on board. It hopefully will be a time where we can all sit down together again and say, you know, I think the community thinks is important and hopes to see from the program. And so hopefully the community can support the town in moving forward all of the CSWG's recommendations to ensure racial equity and community safety services in town. Just wonder how long have I really been doing this in meetings and I still forget to unmute. So we would like to open up now to the public for any questions that anyone may have. So again, if you could please raise your hands. If there is a comment that you would like to share or statement that you would like to share. And again, as Allegra has stated and Jennifer, anything that you want to share, you know, please feel free to do so. Not just on Cress, anything that we've talked about so far or anything else that you want to share. And obviously we thank you for your bravery in coming forward and sharing with us. And I think just to piggyback off of that, I think if people are concerned about sharing in a public forum, the survey would be an alternative method to do so. Because those I don't believe will be collecting any sort of personal data. No, they will not be. I guess we could start off by just seeing in the audience if you could attendees could raise your hand if you've had interactions with Cress, perhaps we could start there. So I see Orlando Roof has raised their hand. I just want to make sure Orlando, are you raising your hand because you've had interactions or do you have a comment? Hi, I had a question. Sure. How will you guys influence Cress as it goes forward? I know you guys make recommendations, but will you have any like power in influencing how they like set themselves up as a transition? So I can start to try to answer that. And obviously anyone else on CSJC for free to jump in. So as you stated, we're an advisory committee to advise the town council and the town manager and others within the town structure. And so for us, we meet once a month and we obviously do work outside of that monthly meeting to make sure that we're again, you know, keeping up to date with what is happening around all of CSWG recommendations as I just went over those recommendations, but particularly around Cress because we know that that's one of the main departments that we recommended that CSWG recommended. So for us, we're going to continue to, you know, monitor, you know, ask questions, make sure that we are, you know, recommending, suggesting, you know, bringing the feedback. And that's why we're having this town forum, right? Because if you or Landau or anyone else has other suggestions, we want to bring it forward since we are that group, right? To make sure that the town is staying focused on making Cress the best that it can be in order to provide what it needs to provide to the community around racial equity, around making sure that it's around making sure that it's de-escalating situations and not escalating situations and really providing those resources to the community, which before, you know, obviously because of whatever the case may be wasn't being provided. So we're going to continue on our task to make sure that these things happen. Okay, thank you. I guess I would just, um, I think looking forward, I would like for Cress to have as good public engagement as you guys do, which is why it was interesting in your collaboration. So thank you for answering the question. Yeah, and that's one of the things that we want to continue to do is to collaborate with Cress and make sure that we're being supportive of them too, right? What they need, we can also help with and vice first. Thank you, Orlando, so much for your question. And anyone else from the audience have a question or a statement or experience to share? Don't be shy. So this form is about more, oh, here we are. There's a couple, yeah, a couple just came up. And Birdie? My name is Birdie. I'm mostly just here to support the work that the CSSJC is doing and to get more information from the presentation about where all the different recommendations are at. Some specific things I've been thinking about is for me getting Cress hooked up to dispatch being a really big priority. I think that's a huge part of how they can fulfill their role as an emergency response service. I was also thinking about the question about what it means for a police chief to be anti-racist. And I would love to see the town hire someone who is open to a departmental shrinkage, which I know is a big ask because people who want to be police chiefs tend to be passionate about policing. But I would love to see someone who is open-minded about services being switched over to Cress and watching the force go down in size. And another thing I've been thinking about is Earl Miller's leave. And I know that personnel business is very private to the town. But I've really been hoping that there's someone in the government who has had the information needed to look into that and make sure his leave and resignation was handled in a way that was just and that was appropriate. Thank you so much for holding this forum. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Birdie, for your comments. And they were very good. Thank you so much. And Lydia. Yes, hi. I'm Lydia Spiegel. Can you hear me? Yes. Hello. Yes, hi. I'm a resident of Amherst for over 25 years. And thank you for providing this opportunity and sharing what parts that are that we think are important among others. I'm thinking for, I guess, both Cress and the department's new department in town to have the resources available and making sure that I guess the town council and managers can be advised in their budgeting request to, to ensure that there is enough resources that will actually go where, where we, where the town say our priorities are and that the resources needed for both departments would be important to have in order to survive, possibly strive. And those can be, you know, for appropriate space or human staff with power or financial support. So that, that was one, one piece I found important. And then the other, another part is also for both for Cress and the accessibility to, to all, to be able to find the place and the space and the people. I think we, we often hear, you know, people say, come and talk to us or even the website may say walk-ins are welcome, but doesn't include where the place is. And it, things that seem mundane are to become difficult for people to, to, to find somebody brings himself up to, to wanting to come to one of the offices, for example, and not finding the place or space or being sent to different locations or walking up in the bank's building where they're now both located and getting on top of the stairs and the door is locked and having to go back down and people at the front desk don't know who they are. And those are not trivial. And they're often presented or pushed by people. Everybody's very nice. Everybody's very kind. But yet again, you know, if it takes three or four steps, somebody just might not get there. And, and so the importance of, of having that accessibility and promoting it or in some ways that are more easily, easily foundable. I think it's an important piece. Another piece for Chris that, that I believe important as well is being able to, to keep, keep into the original mission. I don't know if the mission is the word, but that it does remain a public safety broader concern and doesn't focus or tend to focus then only on mental health, which is the very important part, but that it remains, it remains a broader encompassing of what the community at large is needing and it's been requesting in the original, I think, sharing that the town needed or that people needed and that maybe as somebody was mentioning also to take, be able to take on more of what the police department is, is doing and some of the more and more of the of the situations that are, that appear that can be addressed by Chris. That would be an important piece and then including youth and students and people, you know, other countries and national students and others. So in the broader sense. Thank you. Thank you, Lydia. I know everyone do you want to say something. Thank you. Thank you. I want to say thank you to everyone that is here. And one of the things that I want to highlight is that while the committee here is working to get all these things implemented. I think the public as a whole has a lot of power. We're fortunate to live in a small town where you have easy access to your government. We just had an election with existing members were reelected some new ones. So I think it is important that when you think about these issues, you call the town manager, you call your counselor and you say these exact same things that you're saying here. So they know that not only do you have a vested interest, but you pay attention to what the town is doing and you're keeping them accountable to making sure that they are doing the things that are required. So thank you everyone for being here. But again, just to remind you that. We need your support. And a big part of that is keeping the town council accountable and that starts with not only us, but with you guys again, reminding them, calling them, writing them, speaking to them to say these things need to be done. So thank you. Thank you for that reminder. That is so true. And another reason in terms of us also doing this, right? So it becomes an end both, you know, calling in, texting, you know, going right to your town folks, but also, you know, sharing in this town forums and obviously we thank you all again. Like I said, it takes a lot of courage to share. And Lydia, you brought up so many important, you know, topics in terms of the budget and, you know, and really being for Crest and other town offices to be, you know, welcoming. What does that mean, right? In terms of being welcoming and promoting and making sure that people know where Crest is at and where DEI is at and, you know, and how accessible are these offices, right? And other offices in town too, because that sends a big message as well as what is Crest about. Like I said, right? Crest is to be responsive with public safety department to be responsive to anything nonviolent and dealing with a plethora of issues and concerns. Mental health being one of them, right? And we know that that's obviously a big and important topic, but it's not the only topic that Crest is responsive to. So thank you for bringing all of those up. And again, that's why we're here. So please keep providing the feedback. I think there's someone else, Jen, Jennifer. Welcome, Liz. Hi. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much for having this forum. My name is Liz and I work for the Wildflower Alliance. And I wanted to share a little bit of some of the work that we've been doing in Amherst. We were brought in by Crest and we are funded by state dollars. And what we do is we're an organization that's connected to anti-racism and anti-oppression. And we connect with people in the community and offer support around if someone's in emotional distress or extreme states or dealing with psychiatric diagnosis, surviving trauma, substance use. There's a lot of different ways that we connect with people and sharing from our own lived experience with people in the community. And I wanted to talk about the, the work that we do. We really try to do things through a non-punitive, non-carceral approach and really connect with people and build community. And I just wanted to mention what we're doing. If anyone's curious or wants to connect with us more, you can email me. My email is Liz at WildflowerAlliance.org. And I'm wondering, you know, what can we do to support the anti-racism work of the CSSJC? Because we're, you know, we're here. We want to offer our support to the community. It's really important to us and, you know, what can we do to support all of you as well? Thank you, Liz. You know, I know for me, I think one of the important things, and I think someone else from Wildflower had also contacted me is just that things have been so busy the last couple of weeks. I haven't been able to reach back out to her. But just so you all know, you all are critically important to the work that has been done, especially in terms of your focus and what you all are about, which is incredible. So I think for me, and I'll just speak just for myself, obviously other members of CSSJC, please chime in. I think the important thing is to know more about it, right? I think now is when I'm learning more about Wildflower, because I know that there's some issue, possibly of budget being cut in terms of Wildflower, not being able to move forward. And so obviously for us to know, to be able to advocate or to be more supportive of Wildflower, we need to know more about what you are doing, how you've been working with Crest, because I think some of the things, how we can be supportive with knowledge, right? And I wasn't aware of what Wildflower was doing for Crest, to be perfectly honest with you. So I think if I know, and if others know, then we can collaborate more and be more supportive. So for me, I think that's what would be beneficial that then I can be more helpful, and be more helpful in a way that would be beneficial to all, that's supposed to be kind of like guessing about what Wildflower does. Yeah, those are all really good points, definitely. Yeah, what we do is like so broad, and I would absolutely love to talk a bit about that. We connect with people individually in the community if they want support around all kinds of different topics. It could be someone is overwhelmed with school. It could be someone is having trouble connecting with people in the community. Sometimes it can involve, you know, connecting with someone over coffee. Sometimes I've met people from the community of Amherst in Cooley Dickinson Hospital and maintained those relationships as people have got out and connecting people with resources. Another piece of the work that we do. And we are a large organization that does a lot of other things as well, but specific to Amherst, we have four different support groups that we're doing right now. So there's one that's a hearing voices group at the Unitarian Church on Thursday evenings. We have an all recovery group, which is an alternative to a typical like 12 step type of approach to substance use conversations. We also have an alternatives to suicide group on Fridays. And we have a group that was like a walking group that now that the weather is colder has turned to coffee and cards as a way to play cards, connect with people. And sometimes those deeper topics can come up there as well. So those are a few pieces of some of the work that we're doing. And I would definitely love to chat with you more about, but what we're doing at Amherst for sure. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. I think we have another hand up, Jennifer. Hi, I was interested because I haven't heard of wildfire either. And if I look on the crest website, there's no mention of it, which is surprising because I feel like that's wildfire is pretty emblematic of what crest should be doing. And I think that just kind of shows the main problems with that now obviously it's going through a transitionary period. But I think the just the website itself is very lacking in its like engagement. I think it's kind of surprising that the first time I'm hearing is through the CS, the CSS JC, which is affiliated but separate. I think just integrating all of these parts would be the first thing that's really key going forward. Thank you. I know that's a really good point. I mean, this is why we want to have these rights so we can hear more about it and get these information. And then of course, implement and, and, you know, like you said, communication, right? How can we communicate to the community? If the community doesn't know these things that are going on, how are they going to take advantage of these wonderful programs like wildfire just shared? So obviously these are some of the things that we'll, you know, we're sharing with the town so that it can be implemented. Thanks so much. Any other audience members have questions or comments? Or any of the CSS JC members? Are there things that you would like the public to know as well? Someone just. Welcome Tim. Hey, thanks so much. While there's kind of a gap in the conversation, I just wanted to take an opportunity to also represent another program. My name is Tim McCarthy. I'm the executive director of Craig stores in town. We are a be low threshold shelter in the region. And have really committed ourselves to. The sort of. Tim, we can't hear you too well. You kind of got muffled a little bit. Not this laptop. Sorry. Can you hear me now? Yeah. We're also hyper committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, particularly in our space as long as well as compensation, redistribution between executive. Executive leadership and frontline workers. Crest helped us fund our transportation initiative. We're the only shelter in the nation right now that's providing full and free access to all of our guests. Via public transit system. And Crest was really critical in that. Again, just kind of wanted to plug that we're out here super soon. And I'm really supportive of the work that you all are doing. Desperate to be supportive in any ways that we can. If anybody wants to reach out to me directly, it's Tim at Craig's doors. And I also just want to take a moment to plug Kat and Tim and Tia and Janet and, you know, everybody over at Crest right now that is sort of sticking with the mission and trying to move things forward and really reframing. So thank you, Tim. Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity and just to kind of celebrate their work and their commitment and sticking around through this transition. Thank you, Tim. These are pivotal partnerships. So I'm really glad to hear about what you all have been doing with Crest. And obviously, you know, just how we can continue to be further cemented and strengthened. Because, you know, we've been working with the mission of what Crest is about and making sure that these partnerships are strengthened. So thank you for continuing your collaboration. Thank you so much, Deborah. I just want to say I'm happy that people, you know, while there's a little law, right, that people are, you know, chiming in and, you know, and. Providing their feedback and their knowledge, because that's why we wanted to do this, because if we don't know what's going on out in the community, then we're not able to really be as supportive as we can be. Just by some of the speakers that came forth so far, we've already learned so much, which will, of course we're recording this and also we're taking notes that we'll share with the town so that they can be improvements. And so I think that's a good point because, you know, during this time, not only Crest, but all of those other recommendations that we discussed, we want to make sure that the Crest and DEI and, you know, youth empowerment and BIPOC cultural center and all those other recommendations in terms of the reforms to the police department are also put into place. So by, you know, as whatever was saying, by hearing your voice was strengthened by that, right? You know that you all are out there, you're hearing us and that you're utilizing these services so that then we can get more budgeting, we can get more support and collaboration for these services. And are there other CSSJC members that would like to add? Well, there's actually Ms. Pat just popped up. Oh, did she? Okay, great. Hello, Ms. Pat. Good evening. Can people hear me? Yes. Hi, Ms. Pat. Okay, I didn't plan to speak tonight, but I decided to chime in. First of all, I want to thank you all for organizing tonight's public forum. I think it's very important. And Jennifer, thank you for the moment of silence for Dr. D and Deborah Allegra for your presentation. Everyone on CSSJC, I know this is hard job. I used to serve on it. I think I need to make some couple of comments. One is transparency with our town government. Why is it now that we're learning about white flower services? Why are we now learning about press involvement with helping Greg's door? They're all noble, like good services and programming. And so I will hope that in the future, whether it's DEI or press program or any other program that, you know, it's very important that CSSJC are informed. And through CSSJC, the public will also be informed as well. So transparency is very key. Second thing, I want to name the elephant in the room. And that's racism. CSSJC is not a priority to our power holders in our town because of the issues that CSSJC are working on. The town council deliberately last year did not fully fund Cress program. Cress program never ran the services like 24-7. That's what CSWG, which I also served on, recommend there. That did not happen. There are other projects that we recommend there. The youth center, the BIPOC cultural center, none of those, resident oversight board, none of those. Majority of CSSJC members are people of color. Thank you, Allegra, for being a diverse member. It also, the systematic issue with the committee has no power. It's an adversary role. I would like to see someday to have your committee to have some power to make some decisions like some other town committees that are able to make decisions. I think it's possible, maybe during the charter review, to put it in. We are very lucky. Our town is very lucky to have a committee like this. Also, Human Rights Commission, very, very lucky. If we're really serious about systemic change, your committee needs to have more power in making certain decisions. I also want to remind people that this is budget season for our town. Please show up at every town council meeting, the public, and whoever will listen to this video in the future, and speak up and advocate for services, for CSWG recommendations. This is one of the ways you can support CSSJC work. The town council has the power to approve projects. And we can never, projects, CSSJC tasks cannot be afterthought. We need to continue to push for your center. I'm repeating myself, Bicorto Center. And even the work that Dr. Barbara Love is charged to do. There has to be funding. There has to be funding for resident oversight. I'm sick and tired of making excuses in our town that we don't have money, but we have money to build duckback. We have money to do other stuff. What about people's life? And this is what, you know, Chris is all about. This is what you guys do. So I just want to put that out. It's all about racism. The work you're doing is not being appreciated. It's not a priority. The same thing with DEI department. It's not fully staffed. Let's name what it is. And I'll stop there. Thank you all for the work you do. I appreciate you all. Don't give up. We will continue to support you. Thank you, Miss Pat. Your words are always pivotal and important. Thank you. You remind us of why we do this work. The focus that we have, because like you said, it's not easy. We do get a lot of backlash for doing this work. I remember even comments at the last meeting that we're, we're trying to be, we're trying to get into the operations of crests. And things like that. When it's like, no, it's like, no, no, no, no. And I think that's one of the other recommendations as CSS, which you made are actually put in place that they're fully funded and that they have, you know, what it takes in terms of staffing in order to be able to do what they're supposed to do. So if crests is not getting this patch, right? If there's no dispatch for crests, then it's not able to do what it's supposed to do. Right. And so for us at CSSAC, this is exactly what we're, we're, you know, we're tasked to do, right? Is to bring these things to the town, to let them know that these things need to be adhered to, right? So if the director's pulled from her job to do crests job, then the director is not doing her job, right? So, and if they had, and if they, if, if the town had fully funded crests, crests wouldn't be in the situation it is in today, which is having no number two to take over when the director was not able to, to, to carry out their responsibilities, right? There was no number two. So that's why we're in the situation we're in, because as Ms. Pat, and I thank you Ms. Pat for bringing in, for, for, for reminding us again, right? That if they, if the town had listened to what CSWG had recommended in terms of funding, we would not be in the situation, right? So then it behooves us to think like, why are we in the situation, right? Why did the town not fully fund crests so that, right? It, life is life. There's a lot of times that a director's not going to be able to move forward, right? And so why wasn't there a number two to be able to, to carry on, right? So then it really does make us think, you know, why are we in the place we're in with crests, right? And so for us, and that's why we're having this town forum is for us to say, no, we're not going to let crests fail. We are going to make sure crest stays focused on its mission. And we're going to make sure that it gets, you know, a director that is able to move the mission forward, that they, that an assistant director is hired and that all responders, besides the responders that are there, that there's additional respondents that are hired for crests and that all these other recommendations are put in place and all the recommendations that I talked about in the beginning of this meeting is pivotal. So, but it's, it's, you know, it's one thing to put out a proclamation to say that the town is going to dismantle racism and be anti-racist. And then it's another thing to actually do it. And when you're, and then when you have a council like us, a committee like us that's actually trying to make you do that and then get pushed back because we're trying to actually have you be anti-racist is really something that I don't know. I don't know how I equate those two things, right? But as you said, Miss Pat, we're going to continue forward when I'm going to quit we're going to continue forward and, and make sure that the town understands that this is important to us because it is life and death situation, right? Like I said, I have two kids and I want them to always be treated with respect, equitable and racially equitable and not just my kids. I want all kids and Amherst and beyond to also be treated that way, right? So, so a reminder of why it's pivotal that we're having these forums and why we do this work. Miss Pat, did you want to make any comments in response to Deborah? No. Well, I mean, yeah. I agree with everything you said, Deborah. And I appreciate your leadership, you know, with Allegra and you guys should not give up keep pushing. It's just if it's frustrating that you guys put in so much hard work and it's just been ignored by power holders. For example, last year we talked about upper funds for black businesses and it's been more than one year, no movement, but it was very easy to do a lot of money to white businesses to Drake, for example, $300,000. And yet the most marginalized group of businesses in our town has not received a dime. A system business is a dime. And yet we have 4.9 million dollars left. CSSJC, thank you. You guys did support and advocate for my group, BBAA, but nothing. Nothing, our time manager, no movement, not from the time council. It's not even on the agenda. And this time council session is going to be ending soon. Nothing. Because black lives doesn't matter in our town. If it were white businesses, it would be a different story. That would be an urgency. The money would have been handed over to white businesses easily. So I agree with everything you said, Deborah. The fight must continue. Thank you, Miss Pal. Thank you. Everything you just said, so, you know, it's on point. That's what it's about. And the thing that, as we know, right, it's just like diversity, when we say diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-racism, we're saying this, not just for people that look like us, we're saying it for everybody. Because what life, what would life be like if it was just monolithic, right? If it was just a group of people, we wouldn't have all of the wonderful bounty that we have. And so we need, we need people from all backgrounds, all languages, all, you know, areas of life to be able to be fully themselves in our town. And this is what we're striving for, right? And so for us to always get the pushback in terms of doing it, that's what's difficult. But I'll stop here. I don't know if anyone else wants to chime in. Well, I just wanted to remind people that while we have been focusing on Crest, there are the other recommendations from the CSWG that if people have any input on progress or not progress on any of those areas, we'd love to hear about that as well. Yeah, especially around areas, you know, concerning our young people, because, you know, I know that a lot of our recommendations also focus on young people. So any feedback around how we're doing in terms of, you know, making sure that our young people feel that they belong, please feel free to share. So the other recommendations are the youth empowerment. Oh, go ahead. If I may just respond very briefly to what Miss Pat was saying. So small businesses, I mean, it's one of my favorite shops in town, Asian restaurants, and just going back to what you were saying about the town allocated money to the Drake. So I don't know where that fund came from or, but if it's a fund that's designed to help small businesses, there has to be very direct criteria. And if for any reason you have costs to say that the town is not following or a business qualifies but didn't get anything, I think those are things that should be addressed with town council, whether it is this sitting town council or the next town council. I don't like people walking away because they feel that there's no other avenue. But if it's, I think it's something that should continue to be pressed because as a voter, your own answers, if you have those kind of questions, they should be answered and they shouldn't just be put to rest. I don't need to lose hope or just say, it's going to be a different council next year. Next year, they're still responsible. They still work with town of Amherst. So I think if you have something that qualified but didn't get justice, that should be followed up on. And again, just piggyback into what I said earlier, it's absolutely paramount that people like yourself come here and be heard and have those voice. And I think it's, you know, to Debra's point, we live in a small town where diversity benefits everyone. So while this committee talks about BIPOC, it's having these things in place will benefit Amherst as a whole, not just those small groups. So diversity does benefit everyone. So I'm very excited to see that there's so many different translators here for the different groups of people that represent. I think that's absolutely good. We live in a town that majority of the population are students. And so, yes, they should all be feel welcome. They should all feel safe that they have somewhere to go and voice their concerns. And so, again, just progress does take some time. And as Debra said, we, you know, we go out of heat sometimes a lot of pushback, but do not get discouraged. You should look into the push and as long as allies change has to happen. And Miss Pat, you have your hand raised again. Yes. Thank you, Evaldi. Did I pronounce your name correctly? I mean, it's Edward. Edward. Okay. You asked a very good question. First of all, I have been very impressed since you joined CSSJC. I'm very excited. Continue the good work. Okay. Thank you. I'm cheering you on. So the answer is the upper funds. Was supposed to mitigate. Businesses, residents and town government. Negatively impacted by COVID pandemic. And the other thing that I was very impressed with was that MS was allotted $11.7 million. And one of the issues was that it's an issue of access. So power holders in this town who are used to talking to their fellow white people were able to grab money. And so by poor organizations, like one of the ones that I mentioned, we didn't, nobody approached us. We didn't, we didn't get anything. So that's one thing, access, they grabbed the money. The distribution of the funding was very inequitable. For the business community, it was like $700 and something. $1,000. And a nightclub. We got $300,000 from that amount of money. And then like $100,000 was like for so many businesses. And yet we have a black nightclub. Hazel that went out of business because they didn't get the help that they needed. Your question is about legality. I'm not in any way saying that. I think the direction I've gotten any money, but I think $300,000 is greed because it's run by wealthy, wealthy land owners, commercial landlords. I think it's too much and everybody kept quiet because it's all about money and power in our town. It's not right. And yet we have BIPOC business is not just black. Who are still struggling as we speak. Some members have helped other members just to sustain. There are people who are struggling to put table on, to put food on their table because of the impact of pandemic. And the tank also thinks it's okay to just hold on and wait and drag and do other agenda items. Like we still have money. It's tax dollars money. Distribute the money. What are you waiting for? BBAA is a nonprofit organization who are legitimates just like BED that got the money, business, improvement, district, whatever they're called. We have other white-led organizations that got money in our town. The housing, for example, the voucher with the upper funds, they make people until you get eviction notice. That's the only time you can get help. Who wants to get eviction notice from the alien lord before they can get help? I think the rules are bent. They did not include stakeholders who need the money in their decision making. So transparency, access and decision making. Those who need it the most were not involved, were not contacted to be part of it. So we're not giving up. We will keep pushing. And I thank CSSJC for elevating this concern without this platform. It would not be possible. CSSJC had several meeting agenda that included upper distribution. We had a meeting where our town manager ignored us. The town council didn't want to go there. They did have something during summer where BBA members came out. Like what you guys are doing now for public comment. They saw the people. We invited our town manager to one of our meetings. We meet monthly. Third Sunday of each month. Ms. Marston was at that meeting. She saw, you saw how men were crying. Like they need help. People were crying. We need help. For the businesses. This was back in March. Ms. Pamela Young has also came to a meeting. So we're not, you know, we're not just like, I'm not making anything up. It's my point. First of all, they wanted to dismiss CSSJC and said, BBA didn't exist. So I invited people come over, come meet my group. And then the next thing was, oh, we shouldn't be giving money to organizations. DEI department should be distributing the money. But you did not say that when you give money to Drake, for example, another white led organizations as well. So my point is, the town illegally distributed some of the upper funds. And I stand by my comment. It is true. If people can research upper funds in Amherst, BBA, the truth is out there. Everything is out there. I stand by what I said. It's all about power, racism, access, transparency issues. And we're still asking for the money. I hope the town councilors will, will watch this public comment and do something before, before the end of this year and urge the town manager to start distributing the rest of the money. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Pat, for the application and for letting us know more about this information, because it's completely important. Like you said, in terms of transparency and then, you know, for us, that's one of the main things that we're always asking for is transparency. I know CSSJC, we're always asking for that. We've also asked the town manager to come and meet with us and, you know, till this day we've been in a group over a year. He's never come to meet with us. So, you know, that's, that's the part, right? It's about talking, communicating, collaborating, discussing. And the more you can communicate and collaborate with one another, the better it is. The more you share, the more knowledge you have, the better it is, right? Because if not, we're going to be making things up in our minds, right? Making things up in our heads. And we don't want that. We don't need that. We want to deal with what's happening. So why isn't it the easiest road is to go to the meetings and share the information so that then we can talk it through and get a solution. So thank you, Ms. Pat, for always sharing those. I know that Marcy has been waiting to talk. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for having this forum. And I wanted to just piggyback on something that Ms. Pat said earlier about this being budget season in the town. And I wondered if one of you, maybe Jennifer, I don't want to put anybody on the spot, but if more could be said about what this budget process is. And how, sorry. What the budget process is and what, what are the things that residents and citizens can do. It's, it's going to town council meetings, but I believe there are also budget forums. That come in place where people's comments are heard. Letters or comments to the finance committee. I don't actually know the whole process myself, but it would be a really cool thing if the folks who are listening tonight could hear about what that budget process is. Thank you. That is a very important question because even though I've been serving in these town groups and town committee since November 2020, it's still a mystery to me because it's so convoluted and because a lot of times again, transparency sharing, you know, when meetings are happening and when we should be at meetings is always a mystery. So Jennifer or anybody else, can you all kind of shed some light on that? So I just quickly pulled up. Can't quite catch me out there, Marcy close, but I just pulled up a budget presentation that we had. Not my intention. And so I can share that to give a little bit of insight. It's, you know, it's not the most complete, but I can share my screen with that so that people have an idea. And I would say the things that I've seen in the past that I've seen really efficiently is when the community speaks out. So to the town council. So that's either by email through public comment. I mean, email seems to work a lot too. And so that's just a constant like flood of emails. And in support of whatever it is. And then also speaking at public comment have been very useful tools and resources for the community to use to make the public comment. So I'm not sure if you would like to see in local government, but I will stop now and share my screen. And so this is the presentation that we have used. Can you all see the town budget that we have used previously? When we have new boards and committees to give them an outline or an understanding kind of have how the town budget process works. And I think that's a very important part of the community preservation act kind of, and I'm probably not the best person to explain all of this, but so there's kind of a set up of when things are due. And so the most important is that in November, there's the financial indicators, the capital request. I mean, this is where the youth empowerment center would fit in the BIPOC empowerment center because that's going to be a capital request most likely. And then as you can see the financial indicators, the budget forum, this was for 2022. So I'm not sure if these dates are still held, but this is an approximate. We go through the guidelines, budgets are due. Town manager's budget is due May 1st. So that's the things that you want to see. And the changes through the budget need to be submitted most likely, I would say closer to December or January and February to get them to the town manager. So that it can make it inside of the town budget. And to the next page. So you can always have things done through your staff liaisons. The schools, the libraries, the town council, town manager, engage Amherst. And this is the 2022 final FY23 budget. So I'm going to go ahead and move on to the next slide. Which is here. So I don't know if I can click on that. I don't know how helpful that just was, but it does give a roundabout idea. Allegra. I was just going to say, for example, if a committee were wanting to put forward some. Of their priorities for the budget. It would be a good time. I think it's helpful to have a draft of a letter to send. At that meeting. Yes. And that, that letter would go to the town manager to say on behalf of this committee. These are the important areas that we would like to see funded. Yes. This chair. But I thought though that Jennifer said October. I think that would probably be already one of the time months that, that some of that information should be kind of going in, in terms of how much funding we do need for each. Service that we're requesting funding for. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Allegra. I was going to say just to clarify, I think that October. Was like for a capital request. So if we were going to say we want $5 million for the building. On the corner of praise street to become. Before our youth empowerment. Yes, we do. Right. So that would be under that like. Specific part of the budget, but then. Again, and this is, I think from my remembering of last year, like. The budget forum did happen. It happened on. Like last Monday, I think. So they had. I can't remember dates, but there was the public forum on the budget. And it was followed by a public forum specific to the library budget followed by another town council meeting. So it was a lot of meetings in a row. But my understanding was that like, this is the time when the town managers meeting with all the different departments to hear from them about what. Would need to be happened. Would. Would the funding needs that they would have for their department. And that all gets put together and finally presented. As a document in May, but if we really wanted to have any kind of. The sooner, the better to get something to him. Is my understanding. Cause I feel like when the CSWG was putting forward their. Initial kind of requests. It was almost getting to the point where it was too late in April to even make an impact on what he is. Am I remembering that correctly? Yeah. Yeah. So I will make a note to myself to try and find the actual specific dates for this year. But I think. I think it would be reasonable to try and draft something. For our next meeting to send as a group. Yeah, we can. But again, you know, it's just a reminder in terms of, you know, especially, you know, again, like you said, I think that we can do still for this year we will, but also to kind of have, I think we need to, to put the, the, these timetables into the next round, the next calendar year, just so we can make sure, because one of the things is to get space for the BIPOC youth empowerment as well as the BIPOC cultural center. Those capital needs, right? That we would have had done in October. So it's kind of like, Oh, okay. You see what I'm saying? So it's very important as to why is why this information is not made easily accessible and, you know, made aware to us so that we are able to ask for these things. But like you said, it's not, everything is not done yet. We can still ask for some other things, but I just want to point out that two of our big asks. Time has already gone by. But thank you, Marcy for bringing that up and Jennifer for sharing that information. We're going to build that into our meetings moving forward. So I just wanted to take a time check because it's eight oh three and we have time budgeted until eight 30. So we have about 30 more minutes left of the forum. And again, if anyone has any comments, they want to make use the raise hand function. And then we will hear from you. Yeah. And just to kind of go off of what you said, we do have a hard stop at eight 30 because obviously we have the translators and everyone involved, which hopefully people have been utilizing. And again, we have been showcasing how to use translators so that hopefully the town will will do the same moving forward to show that virtually you can use translators so that you can be inclusive and have people other voices be part of the conversation. And also we probably have about 20 ish meeting because we'll probably stop wrapping up around eight 25 so that we can do any final comments ever. Thank you. I do want to make one more announcement given that we have a hard stop at eight 30. The town of Amherst has a low income housing project before the ZBA. And I'm happy that there's so many translators here. There are weekly meeting schedule. We took a break over the holidays, but they're back on starting tomorrow. The week of December 21st is a very crucial meeting that meeting talks about how people qualify the financials. And things of that nature. So I would encourage everyone to spread the word to attend that meeting and ask as many questions, make as many public comments as you can. The intent behind this housing development is for low income and BIPOC people. So it's meant to benefit the community as a whole. So again, I'm encouraging people to attend those meetings as well. I'm starting tomorrow, they're at six o'clock, but the one on December 21st, I think would be most beneficial. The ones between now and then is just really talking about the nuts and bolts of the development rather than how do you qualify for this? So I'm happy to provide any information that I can to anyone, but I would encourage everyone to do that. And I think that's again, just pass on the message spread the word that you may qualify for one of these housing. If you're looking to purchase a home. Thank you. Thank you, if you can, you know, at our next CSJC meeting, and I know you did it on the last one, but if our next one, if you can also share it again and share any links or information, I think that would be great. Thank you. And so as we're wrapping up, I just like to turn to the audience again, to the attendees and see if anyone has any questions or comments or experiences that they would like to share. I'm going to give a few announcements in the meantime, while we wait to see if anyone would like to raise their hands. So I'm going to go ahead and share screen again. And let folks know that this is the QR code to the CSSJ survey that's up right now. There is also another in-person community form on Saturday. From 10 to 12, I believe. Yep. So the in-person community, I'm going to go ahead and share screen again. And let folks know that this is the QR code to the CSSJ survey that's up right now. So I'm going to go ahead and share screen again. The in-person is on Saturday, 10 to 12 p.m. If you need care for your child in order to attend, there's a number, right? Jennifer, what's the number that they can call? Yes. They can call the DEI office, which is 413-2590-360. And it's at the town room, which is 413-2590-360. And the doors are being worked on the front steps. People can enter on the main street entrance and take the elevator up to the second floor. Excellent. And I'd also like to announce that the, there will be a series of community forums regarding the resident oversight board that are starting on December 17th. It's the first one. It will be at 1 o'clock p.m. And then the second will be on Wednesday, January 10th at 6 p.m. These are all in the town room. They are all hybrid meetings, as well as January 18th at 6 p.m. and January 21st. We will be uploading a flyer shortly to the community calendar and to the news and announcement page on the town website, which is on the front page of the website. Jennifer, just going back to the Saturday in person town forum, I just want to make sure that everyone that's listening in, please share to all your networks this in person opportunity. As you all can see, these town forums are very important for us to get information and for us to get feedback so that we're able to share with the town and obviously, you know, work towards making things better here in the town for everyone from all backgrounds. So please, you know, share that we're having this town forum in person. There's going to be translators there again. At this meeting, there'll be, you know, just some light refreshments too. I know that's also always a draw, right? When you have an in-person meeting. And then, like I said, care for children, because we want to make sure that, you know, as many people that want to attend do attend on Saturday, 10 to 12 p.m. town room. And I would like to offer this time for the CSSJC members. Do you guys have any comments as we begin to close or? You all know I can talk, but I'm going to let other folks talk first. Well, I just would like to extend my gratitude to everybody who showed up tonight and those who made comments and those who listened. You know, it takes all of us to do this work. And it's been really nice hearing perspectives that haven't been brought yet and hearing about some pretty concrete ways that might make engagement with Cress a little bit more accessible to the community. So thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you to the CSSJC members that might want to say share some of your comments, feedback around this town forum. I'll make a quick comment. So I am a new member. I am trying to get very familiar with the rest of my members, the whole committee, Cress. I know a lot of things that were raised by the public today are new to the rest of the members that have been part of Cress for the last X amount of months. So that's pretty shocking, but I look forward to continuing to be a part of the committee and learn and be able to look into Cress and other topics that were raised during this meeting. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you. Thank you. I think that's a really nice thing to as much as useful as in person online meetings are in person kind of brings back that a little bit more of that unity. So it'll be nice for you guys. It'll be the first time that you guys meet as a new committee in person. So that'll be very nice as well. I'm Dr. Do you have any comments? That actually was what I was going to make a comment about and how to speak and also to listen. And one of the things about these meetings is sometimes it can seem as if we are speaking into a void. And so I thank everyone for their time tonight and I look forward to seeing everyone and even more on Saturday. And I'd also like to thank the translators and the committee for really pushing this idea. I'm really proud. Thank you. I don't know if you wanted to add anything else. I do want to say thank you to the translators and also Jennifer for the work that you've been doing. I know it's been taxing. And I think it also would be good that we actually have this in person on Saturday. So thank you to the translators for the work that you've been doing. And I look forward to that as well. And for everyone who shared, thank you for that. Because while we're trying to do this work, the things that you say to us also opens our eyes because we don't know everything that goes on. So when you say something to us, you're also informing us of things that we don't know about. So it's, I appreciate that everyone comes here. So thank you to the translators for the work that you've been doing. Thank you to the translators because those are things that we need to know about so where we can, we can address those with talent leadership. So thank you to everyone. And I just like to add, you know, it's really wonderful that we had as many people as we did today come forward and take their time. Because we know time is most critical in everyone's lives. And it's important for us to hear your voices. And I think we've all said that, right? Sometimes it might feel lonely for us to be out there, right? You know, doing this work. And so it's important to hear from the community and to hear that there is, right? There's more to be done. There's more that can, that can get improved. And that can be made better. And we know that it's a relationship, right? And a relationship is based on trust. And we've talked a lot about transparency. We've talked a lot about, you know, sharing information and knowledge. And I think that that's what this is about, right? And the only way that we can share this knowledge is in this information is, is making it as accessible as possible to as many people as possible, right? And that's what we're trying to do with having translators, which we're again, you know, and I, again, thank you all because it's so important to showcase that, right? Because a lot of people have always had a wall put in front of them for them not to be able to take part in this meetings. So accessibility and feeling included in feeling this feeling of belonging is, is, is what we want. And we know that we still have a lot more to learn. We know that we still are making mistakes. Us, all of us, you know, I'm a learner. Everyone's a learner. Everyone's a learner. So wherever we can improve, wherever we can do better, please let us know that's what we're about, right? It's not about being perfect. It's about, you know, how can we improve it? How can we make things better? So thank you all again for trusting us, for sharing with us. It's the only way that we can move forward is if we move forward together. So thank you. Allegra. I don't think I have anything else to add. I just want to echo everybody's thanks to the translators as well interpreters for being here available to help broaden our reach. So maybe we just want to see if anyone else wants to chime in before we could also wrap up to now. If no one else wants to say any other comments or ask any other questions. I just want to again, make sure that we thank the interpreters for joining us tonight. This is a big step forward for the town of Amherst. And so I don't know how many necessarily it's hard for me to track who's where. So hopefully if we keep offering more people will come. And so again, we greatly thank you. And this is looking forward to a great partnership with all of our community. Thank you. New Mass Translation Services and of course always the CSS JC and Pamela and Aisa. And of course you, the audience, and I just have to kind of echo whatever old was saying that it's so important for us to hear from the community because we don't know everything and we can't see everything and we don't hear everything. So it is extremely important for communication to come from the always open here at the Baying Center. So much appreciated and I hope that everyone has a good night. Jennifer, one more, one more question. I just want to thank you again for all of what you did and your facilitation. We're very, very thankful to you. And also one thing you just said, right, which is, you know, I don't know how much the translator's got used today or not, but I hope, like you said, it's not an indication of anything if they didn't get you, utilize a lot. I think it's about, you know, like you said, keep using the translators, they keep putting it out there, keep promoting and marketing, because the more people know that the town is willing to utilize translators in a variety of different languages, not just these languages that we have today, but a variety of different languages, the more it'll be utilized. So hopefully we will continue to do it, because as we know, this was a meeting and we're very happy we got the amount of people we did, because this was a meeting right after the holiday, and we know how it is, right? People are getting back into the swing of things, so it's difficult to get people out. So this is not an indication of anything. It's an indication of, yes, we got people out and we have translators. So let's build from today. So and we will have childcare if needed. So we are trying to break down those barriers to welcome the community in. And I think that you're right, Deborah, once the community realizes that we are trying to invest in them by having translation services and childcare, then they will feel a little more appreciative and a little more welcome to come in and speak. So with that being said, I'm going to go ahead and ask the chairs to call the meeting to an end, and I'm hoping that everyone has a good night. They don't hopefully don't have anywhere to drive to, so I don't have to say drive safely, but I like where you can do that. Yeah. All right. Well, I think this is a CSSJC first and that we ended early. So congratulations to us. And it is 8.19 and we are adjourned. Good night, everyone. Thank you all. Good night. Good night. Bye.