 All right, so before we get started, I just wanted to take a little time. I sent you all the draft minutes from the July meeting, and I wanted to kind of do a little bit of level setting around what we're doing and give you some other context around the letter and what more importantly, ultimately, what is old. So as to the minutes, I'm sure you all read Brian's well-summised piece at the end where he talked about one of the things that the board really wants to do is be a provocateur and move this conversation around structural racism, funding for human services needs, and you know, policing, community policing, and the need for reform to the council. And so I think that that's something that we need to keep in mind as we think about this letter. I think the other, you know, other context to think about is ultimately what is the goal of what other parts of the goal do we need to consider as we as we look at this letter. And then also last night, there was a presentation to council, and I'm not sure if you were all if you all had a chance to see it around the city's finances. We are currently in, we currently have an 11 million dollar shortfall for 2020. And so we think about the consequences of asking, you know, 10% of what that will mean for overall budget issues, and particularly the Public Safety Fund, including and up to the laying off of police officers and other points of staff. So I think we just want to make sure that we we think about what is the ultimate goal of this letter and what do we want to ensure that happens. And then there's the last thing is what what other options do we have as a board around how we move forward the conversation around equity and diversion and inclusion and ending racism in our own, you know, for lack of a better word, our own home. Yeah, so those are just things to think about as we move forward with this conversation. With that being said, I love to one or how do we want to do you want me to pull up um, Madeline's letter the answer, so I just kind of wanted to get from the board when I open up a discussion and then also guidance and how do how do we we look at those letters or those revisions? I mean, I think I would be in favor of looking at Madeline's letter first. Okay. All right. So I'm going to I'm going to pull up yours first, Madeline. Okay. So it'll be on the screen here. So I'm going to scroll back up and we'll just scroll down slowly. And so I'll give a chance to everybody to read. Oh, that was a little too fast for me. I'll bear tail. All right. Thanks. I'll go back. So I really like that. Madeline, I think the only thing I'm worried about, you know, based on the feedback, as I understood it from the meeting was that there was a strong, I think at least a couple of people really felt like we needed to completely separate the police aspect, which is not my view. But if it, if that is the conscience of the group, then we probably need to address that first. Did you guys have a different impression than I did about that? Do you think everybody was on board with, with suggesting that the funding come from the police department? I don't know that everybody was on board with it. But I felt like people were open to that, but just had some concerns about it. But maybe there were a couple of people that were hesitant to that. Okay. I thought they wanted to, I didn't get the sense that they wanted to back away from that. I got the sense that they wanted us to be a little more, a little, put more teeth in, in not demanding it, but be a little bit more direct in what we were asking. That was my take. Okay. Well then it could be wrong. Yeah, I, I, I, I got it. I felt that there was at least a couple of board members that did not, did not think that, that having a direct ask from the police was the best way to move forward. And to, and to, you know, in all honesty, my concern is that again, going back to the question about what is it that we want to achieve is with, with doing that, would that make it a non-starter conversation at council? Yeah. So I think the letter has two primary goals. One is to increase funding for human services. Right. And second goal is to ask council in the community to consider the value proposition as a community where the money is and that I think it's the conscience of, you know, this inflection point in society that funds be moved from the standard policing model into more of a human service model. And I think we have to put that in somewhere. And that's why, you know, I like your, at its memattle. And I wonder to satiate the people who are like, no, we, we can't attack the police. We add a clause in there that says, you know, hey, our primary goal is to increase human service funding. If, you know, we don't want to create a non-starter by bringing up the police department. But maybe we do. I mean, maybe, you know, people just need to get over it. Yeah. The majority of people were, I mean, yeah, there were a few people that, a couple of people that were very leaning very heavily towards not touching anything police related. But then I thought the majority, the rest of the group basically said, you know, they didn't disagree with them, but at the same time they didn't stop us. So that brings up a good question. You know, this letter says the board unanimously. Oh yeah. Yeah, you can take that. Yeah, I think that's a great, a great thing. Yeah, just take out the word unanimously. And then all we need is a majority vote. And then we'll get right. If that's the case, go ahead, Ellen. No, no, I just said we did have a majority vote, but it wasn't. Yeah, that was just strike that. Well, you know, because at the same time, the people that were still very sympathetic towards the police and not touching it at the same time, they didn't absolutely say unequivocally. No, don't do that. But they just said how they felt and actually how they felt was no different than how we felt. They've done a great job. Yes. And yeah, they've done a great job. And, you know, if they're if the if we're going to look at, you know, refunding by definition of what that means, then I didn't get the sense that they were just, I don't know. I didn't get the sense that they were like 100. No, you can't do this. Don't do that. They were like, well, you know, they've done such a great job. And I don't know. I didn't get the sense that they were, I don't know. But yeah, you're detecting unanimously out because they did voice concern to people that I remember. If I'm not interrupting you, Madeline, but my thought was that if we end up getting unanimous vote on this, we can always move to amend letter to the word unanimous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not I'm not hung up on any part of this letter. I wrote it as a as a as a platform for a starting point that springboard so we didn't have to start at ground zero. It's great. So yeah, I guess we could just take out the word unanimous and if by chance it is unanimous, we'll add that back. And I think, you know, the the reading that Polly sent that, that email and having some clarity around the funding that a lot of the programs that people like about the police department like lead and core and angel initiative aren't funded with the money we're asking to be pulled from anyway, that it's grant grant funding, those those programs. So as far as I can tell all the programs, people are like, this is a great though, we want the police department to keep doing, it's not attached to the general fund. Well, that's good. That's good. Which means, I mean, so to to this letter's point, right? You know, I I don't think it's a one size fits all solution approach that Longmont public safety provides. In other words, you know, the lead and core are are are grant funded, and they do provide a different level of service than necessarily straight out police service that would come to a call. You know, they do bring them in. So I want to be careful about that. I mean, I understand what you're saying, Marilyn, that you get the police, but in Longmont, you get the police and right, you get you get a mental health provider along with them. So I just want to make sure that we were careful about about that. And again, I'm going to go back to your point, Graham. So if if can you can you speak a little more about that value proposition piece? I mean, I understand the increased housing human services and funding, but I'd like to learn a little more about what the increased value or the value proposition conversation is. Right. So what you can tell what people care about based on what they spend money on, you know, you want to know where somebody's values are. Look at their checkbook or look at their bank statements, you know, and I think it's all the more true with a society or the city of Longmont. Where do we put our money? And so I think I vaguely remember somebody reading in the meeting that there's like $25 million allocated to the police department and that when there are budget cuts, that department doesn't get cut. And the community service and safety fund or whatever and probably misnaming it only got, you know, like 300 or 400,000. And so to me that signals a value proposition or it tells me where this community, you know, wants its energy, its money, its attention. And so I think this ask is not just about dollars. This ask is about saying this community values meeting the basic human needs of its people first and foremost. And that is inevitably going to reduce crime and increase safety and be a more genuine expression of, you know, what we value, you know, and that is taking care of each other. So let me let me let me just say a couple of things. One is, and I don't know what I would need to go back and look at the public safety because that $21 million dollars may also include EMT and fire because in Longmont, those are police, fire and EMT are all combined. So I had some notes from the meeting. I mean, I don't know if these figures are correct, but I had written down that 25 21.5 million per year, but that including public safety, it was 53 million a year. Right. So I don't. Yeah. And so I don't know that I would I would look at. And then as far as our human service funding, we get, we got 2.37 and we're looking at 2.7% of general fund this year. It was around one points. And I'm, I'm thinking it's I need to go back and look, I think it's a one point something million. And of course, half of that is going to homeless services. And then the other half went to the human services funding that we have. Right. So I just want to make sure that we, you know, it's much more than 300 or 400,000. That being said, I think it's important that we share that the board is very much committed to increasing human service funding. I just want to make sure that we, we know what we're, we got our facts straight, you know, as far as what our funding is. Yeah. And I, you know, I understand the drive and the burden to get, you know, have informative detailed information here, but I also feel like on some level, that city council's job to work that out. And that this is just, you know, like Madeline said, a springboard to start the conversation. So maybe, maybe we lead lead the letter in with just saying, Hey, a human services needs more funding and before it, but now it's all the more true. And we know this because we're having a needs assessment done and preliminary top line report show that we're headed into a crisis. And so it's time for, you know, city council to, to send money to human services. And we think that it should come from the police department. So if we perhaps focus on paragraph one, two, three, four paragraph five. Scroll down for a celebrity. Thank you. Did you guys, I didn't, did I send you guys a letter? No, just, just to me. Oh, okay. I'm okay. Oh yeah, I was thinking, yeah, I didn't want to, I wanted to hang out, you know, decide how you wanted to distribute it, but I don't have a problem if you want to Well, I think part of the, part of the issue is, is, is, and I don't understand the whole Colorado sunshine laws, but I think part of the issue is we want to make sure that, you know, this is being done in like this and a noticed meeting. You can have individual things, but if we're going to discuss something that's going to the board, I think we need to discuss it as a group that's, you know, in a recorded meeting. So I think it's just trying to make sure that we, that we stay in those boundaries. That's why I didn't send, that's why I asked them to send it to me and I, I could, I could show it. So, which is, is that So I was thinking that you, what you were talking about is, is would be more probably, um, probably leverated on that more in paragraph five. Two, three, four, yeah, five. Talk about time to serve members of the community. I mean, that says, I think we need shorter, shorter is better. So I think the other question that I would have for this group is, and maybe it is council's job, maybe this group's job after this, but, you know, I have a, I have a concern about, you know, the work that police is doing in particular with core and lead, I believe is what is mentioned in that first sentence, you know, trauma informed de-escalation and heart reduction. And then the question is, if not them, then who in my mind? So can we add a sentence there that says we recognize and encourage the police's work along the lines of lead core and angel initiative and do not want to see funding pulled from those programs? So if I can speak to that, that was actually in my letter. That's one of the things I added. So what I added in my letter was that we recognize that certain programs, such as lead corn and the angel initiative are excellent programs, which should not be terminated. And then I added in however council should explore whether these programs will be better operated by another department or by an outside nonprofit, something like that, I think might work. But Graham, did you say that the funds that support those programs are not associated with what we're asking for anyway, right? Well, it is grant funding, but then Ellie Berto just said that it's police and the, so which leads me to believe that maybe they're, you know, somebody who's on payroll for the police department spends 20 hours on a grant funded initiative that justifies their full time employment. I guess I just don't know about the details there. But yes, in general, yeah, they're funded by grants. Yeah. Am I wrong about that, Ellie Berto? No, I think they are funded. And I don't mean this is part of the challenge, right? I don't know details of how much of that funding for core lead is an angel initiative. How much of that is general funders, safety fund, public safety fund, and how much of it is grants. And so that's, you know, that's where it starts getting a little complicated to just do a blanket statement of 10%. So, But I also think we're not really like that's council's job to sort of sort this out and figure out where funds may come from, our purview to be able to figure that out in a letter. This, you know, that's not, that's a huge project, right? Our job is just to make them have this conversation and get the ball rolling. Right, right. I think that the email that was forwarded from council member Christensen, I think, said that I thought it said 874,000 for those programs came from city funding and the rest of the 2. something million was through grants, but I don't know the source of that funding. But regardless, I mean, obviously we don't want those programs to be terminated. Maybe we don't have to even reference those programs. I don't know. I like the sentence you mentioned, you know, that was in your letter. I think we can cut and paste that right in there and just say, Hey, these are the kind of programs that we want to encourage. You know, that's, I think your sentence was was right on and that that's the kind of policing and community service that we're looking for, not the violent, aggressive approach that we're trying to get away from. So I think so, I think that's a good point. I think the other thing I would say is about Longmont PD and, you know, and I think so recently Madeline, your sister and I, and I haven't listened to all of it. I need to listen and Mike Butler had a really good conversation. And so I just want to be careful that we why yes, no police force is immune or from these issues, you know, Longmont has been a longtime leader in in really collaborative community policing. They've been recognized for many years and a lot of us do with Mike and we want to make sure that that work continues. So we can think about what our role as a board is in the crafting the attribute for the next public safety chief piece. I just want to make sure that that that's not again, I agree that no police force is immune from what we were talking about. And Longmont has years of working toward improving their community policing and collaboration with the community. So I want to be careful with that. Do you think this I don't interpret this letter to condemn this police department. I interpret this letter to say there are just things that police are not necessarily best trained to accomplish. And if we transfer funding to people who are better trained to do those things, everybody will be better off including the police. But I don't know, maybe that's just because that's my own bias in reading this letter. I mean, I will also throw into that, you know, one of the things I had suggested at the meeting and that I had added into my letter, and maybe this was just me and if it was, I'm not going to belabor this, but I had suggested that we consider asking the council to request feedback from groups to see what their experiences are with the police. And my goal on that was twofold, right? Like I already believe these things are happening and to a lesser extent in Longmont, because I think Longmont has a better police force than some places like say Aurora, right? But I think that other people need to be convinced of these problems. And one of the ways you convince people is to show them how other people that don't mirror them are experiencing things. So I thought that was one way that council could perhaps have their eyes open or open members of the public's mind to some of the issues that are problematic with policing. But I'm not stuck on that idea of them doing that. And as I said at the meeting, I do think I, you know, as a white person have a tendency probably to overly study things instead of just getting it done and pushing the envelopes. So maybe throwing in a request to do some community information gathering is a bad idea, because it might sort of slow things down. I don't know. You know, I think maybe we have a call to action section at the end of the letter that says, you know, here are the here are the call to action points. And maybe one of those is, you know, solicit feedback from the company about their interaction with the police department. And another one is, you know, analyze the budget of the police department. And, you know, there's a couple other ways. I mean, maybe just to couch all these things, we feel like should be added to the letter without feeling tied to just stuff it into the pros and still make it flow, right? Because when you just the more you edit some of these things, the crazier they get. So maybe if we just have a call to action section, where, you know, if you need just a bullet point, here's what we're asking the council to do, you know, pull money from police and evaluate the situation on that. Well, I wonder if, so I guess my question is, again, I've been pretty straightforward. I'm concerned about, you know, that first that that second paragraph is how far will they read beyond that before dismissing it. So maybe if we say something like, and the call to action, what you just said, Graham, analyze the budget and see where, if that's possible, or where would it be possible, you know, and would that give it more of an opportunity to be a conversation starter? I think there's a high value in ensuring this letter has, makes people uncomfortable, that it is intentionally unpalatable. And I don't know, what do you think, Madeleine? Yes, exactly. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, that heightened or too high too much of, they need to be uncomfortable. They really do. I think that's what they meant when they said we needed to put more teeth in. And I think that's what Karen was alluding to. And I just know that based on my, my experience, and many of these kinds of things says that you get one shot. So if we, we got to go in and do a bang, you know, from Jump Street, and then otherwise it will get pushed off and we, you know, and then took us to bring it up later, it's not going to have the same value. So yeah, we, yeah. Yeah. Graham, Tansy, your question? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I don't know, there may be, based on how I structured it, perhaps you will want to reverse, reverse paragraphs here. The first and the second? Yeah, the bottom, go to the bottom. I can't even get my, okay, here we go. Let me pull up my copy here. We strongly believe that the repurposing of funds would be a major opportunity for cooperation and I believe between the, and the community. Somehow, that's more of a summation. Um, and yeah, to keep in line with what you, what we're saying, maybe some of the stronger points were made at the end rather than the beginning. I don't know, what do you think? I mean, the letters only, it's only one page, right? Like, is council really going to read the first paragraph and just toss the whole thing? Like? Well, I wouldn't say that. I'm talking more about if, if definitely the 10% is a glaring aspect of the letter, like you said, like Graham said, it will make them uncomfortable. And I think the question. I mean clearly it's provocative. Right, it is provocative. And you know, and the truth is, I don't know what, you know, council will completely respond to this. I'm just, my goal and I think Karen's goal is, well, is we strongly want to support the board or feel at the board that, that the underlying goals of the letter are important. I also want to make sure that we address what, like I said earlier, what is our role, right? So at this point, this is very much focused on Longmont Police Department, this letter is, and what role do we have in this effort? You know, I was telling Karen, I mean, I'd like to see the board take a deeper look at what, you know, equity inclusion diversity is beyond just, you know, we have a, we have a table and people say, yeah, I have a person of color on the board, which I think is important, but I think it needs to go deeper than that. For example, in my mind, we could add a question in the application around, so what does equity look like in your programs or what, how is there equity in your outcomes type of question to have our nonprofit partners think about it? So I guess that's what we're thinking about, we want this to be a successful effort and maybe success is not defined, maybe success is the uncomfort, I don't know, but I'm just, I'm just, I'm going, that's my perspective. I don't know, I think there's a lot of value to pushing it and making it uncomfortable and having it be provocative, because otherwise it's just one of those like, yeah, yeah, we need to not be racist kind of letters, right? Do I really think that council is going to take 10% out of the police budget and give it to housing and human services? No, but I think it's a hugely important conversation to have and hopefully this is incendiary enough that they will have that conversation. And if they say no, they're going to have to tell us why. Yeah, other alternatives, if they say no. You know, which is why I think like a call to action section might be helpful too, because then like we can try and accomplish some things, although it might water it down. So I kind of went back and forth on this issue, I don't know. So I think, Ellie Berto, this, this group is saying we want to kick the door in. Yeah. No, and that's, and that's why I think it's important to remove unanimous, because it won't be, and that's okay. Yeah. And we'll have to see what the outcomes of that are. Can we make sure and get all the key edits that were from your letter, Deanna? Yeah, so let me, let me, anything else on Madeline's, and then I can switch over to Deanna's. I mean, I wrote stuff down that I will try and I mean, I may not be able to worst miss it, but I will at least put comments on it around, you know, call to action around, do we potentially, what I wrote down is do we, to Madeline's point, do we restructure the letter or, you know, move paragraphs around and things like that. That's what my notes are saying right now. And then maybe we have a final conversation at the next, the board meeting next week that we have to still set up. So is there anything else about this letter before I show you? So before we move on, I guess, can we just step back to this restructuring of the letter a little bit, like, and sort out to Madeline's point, whether it makes sense to move the, okay, so if we have the 10%, I'm not speaking complete census, but let me give it a shot. So if we move the 10% request to the end of the letter, is it more likely that people are going to read through it and have an open mind, or do we want to start it off with like a pal 10% and here's why? I don't know. I'm trying to pull it up. I think you got to start with, with the pal. I mean, and you know, that's why I put it in the first paragraph was that, you know, you lead in with what, what are you asking, you know, in the first five to seven sentences, you can't communicate the core of your issue, then you lose my attention, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Can I move that long? So to that end, in terms of restructuring it, I think, I agree, like, I want it to be confrontational and, as I said, incendiary to a certain extent, so I don't know that we need to restructure it to move paragraphs around too much, in my opinion. Yeah, yeah, I wrote it that way on purpose, but, but I, no, I was just saying if it, I don't have any vested interest, if we need, if it could be more effective to move a sentence or a paragraph, then, and it's going to work, you know, I'm not, I don't have anything tied to it. I think it flows really well the way it is, Madeline. Well, thank you. I'd like to see, I'd like to see yours. I just worked off of grants and added a couple of sentences in. I added a paragraph about, you know, under some feedback from groups who have experiences with the police department, and I had added in that those couple sentences about maintaining programs such as Lead Core and the Angel Initiative, but that's really the only difference from Graham's letter. Yeah, that's probably going to be a concern. So if we could find a place to add it, because I did, yeah, I used grants basically as the basis for it, you know, everything I wrote. So yeah, but I think to add, because that's going to be, that was a concern that was expressed during the meeting, but I don't think people knew that the funding, you know, was aside from what we were asking. Did you think that they were able to separate those, or did they know that, or what? I don't think the group knew that, and I think that's why Councilwoman Polly had us read that, had it forwarded. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So to add that and somehow, somewhere. Here's the piece. I like both of those. I like them. Yeah, I say we just add those. Yeah, yeah. I realize I said people experiencing homelessness, and I know that that may not be the correct term that maybe we should be using unhoused. I just basically copied this from the minutes. Yeah, that's the general term right now. It's not the previous term was homeless people, and then it's now people experiencing homelessness. I put them both in. I do a slash unhoused, because I think it the unhoused is too politically correct to me. Yeah, it's not a politically correct condition. Exactly. Yeah, unhoused sounds softer and homelessness is real. It's just like this letter. We can't can't dress this thing up. No, we can't. Yeah. And that's what's going to go. Unfortunately, that's what is going to take to get their attention. You know, it's just the way it is. The truth of the matter. And that's we want to get their attention. We don't want, you know, we don't want it. Like we said initially, we this needs to be uncomfortable. What about the undertaking of comprehensive analysis piece? That's the other piece that you added. I mean, that really I just added to the to Grant's final paragraph. But like, I don't know that we need to like reiterate that somewhere else in Madeline's letter, right? Like, because I already suggested it above, like, I don't think we necessarily need to say it twice. Okay. So just really add you're saying really add these two pieces. I mean, that's okay with me. I wrote them. Yeah, I say we add those. As long as it stays under two pages, right? Yeah, I gotta say this conversation didn't go the direction I thought it would. I thought everybody was thinking the letter was too strong and we had to soften it. But maybe, you know, a week of everybody thinking about it sort of come with a different perspective. I mean, I spent a lot of time thinking about the 10% issue grant, like I allotted the grant over the last, you know, however long it's been. So it was provocative for me as a human for sure. And we've been thinking and talking a lot about it too. And I still have my concerns and maybe that is okay. And Karen will have her concerns. And other board members will have their concerns. And again, which is why we're removing the removing the unanimous piece, because we may not reach consensus on this. You know, it may have to be a majority. Ali Berger, will we be able to pull up the document? Will we be able to pull up the document like you have and edit it in real time so we can get to something we can get through? Yeah, I think so. I don't see why not. I mean, this is easy enough for me to do. I mean, it'll probably go out and it'll also go out with the packet. You know, last time it didn't. And I'm not sure there's anything else on the agenda for this special meeting that we're going to call next week. Check with Brian. But I think this is the agenda. I think this subcommittee was tasked by the board to do what it's doing, revising. But if this is where the subcommittee wants to go, you know, then this is where the subcommittee wants to go. Is our advisor, how do you, what's your read on it? Well, I think I've shared my concerns. You know, so I hope that it doesn't stymie the conversation. You know, it feels a little police heavy. And not as much about our role, the human service side of it. So that's my concern. It just feels very police heavy and almost punitive to a certain extent. I don't think it's meant to be punitive, but it does come off a little punitive. Oh, because like I said, like I said earlier, we're in a budget crunch. They just said we're 11 million a whole. So to take 10%, somebody has to go. Well, I mean, I can't speak to that. I mean, $21 million, you know, I haven't seen the breakdown, but I got to believe there's some large chunks in there that don't don't require layoffs. That was my thinking as well. Yeah. And I don't know. I can't answer that question. I guess that would be a, don't you think that would be, is there any way for us to know that? Can we, what will it take to be so we can know that? Because otherwise, we're kind of going in blindly and saying things, but it would be more comfortable for us, you know, to know. Is there a way to know that, Alberto? That's a great question. I, off the top of my head, I don't know. I could definitely explore with Karen and try and dig that up between here and next week. That would be very helpful. Can we ask the police, the chief of police, and just say, hey, man, 10%, would you have to lay off people? What do you think about 10%? What would this do? Can we invite them to the meeting? That's another great question. I'm going to write those down, you know. Yeah. I imagine a chief of police has some pretty thick skin that he would be able to look at this and us going to him and saying, hey, we're drafting this letter and we want to get your feedback before we send it to council. Can you give us five or 10 minutes of your reflections or thoughts on this so we can make it more effective? Like join with us. And then maybe it's an even more effective letter. Yeah. Not to say he'll agree, but... Right. Oh, we'll get a sense though, but we'll definitely get a sense. Yeah, I can totally, I can talk to Karen about it and see what she thinks. So, but just so you know, right now there's been interim police chief because Mike retired as of July 3rd and Rob Spenlo is currently the interim public safety chief. So, but I can definitely talk to Karen about her thoughts on inviting the police chief or the not just public safety chief to the meeting. I get that right. Public, yeah. Yeah, because he's police is one color safety has both fire and police. Okay, so anything else? Yeah, I've shared my concerns or shared, I've heard yours and I think that, you know, it's, it'll be easy to see how the rest of the board responds. And again, I'm, I will have the conversation with Karen and see how she responds to get her feedback as well. But I just want to make sure that that subcommittee, you know, I've taken some notes and I can write something up and we can put it in the packet and just want to make sure that the subcommittee is good where we are now. Adding this, adding these two pieces to it, we're going to leave the structure as is in Madeline's so going back to Madeline's I'm going to stop sharing this. I'm going to go back to Madeline's are we saying that we don't need that call to action that because of what we're doing, we don't need that call to action. I'm going to go back to Madeline's. I think that's right. We don't need it because we've included Diana's paragraph about soliciting feedback and includes those items. I was thinking there, so that's good. Okay. And where do you think just just to help me because I'll put this together, but where do you think that between which two paragraphs should we add those? Let me see. And then I have a question about this sentence. I mean, I read it, but now I'm reading it again. And Madeline, I'd love to get your thoughts on what is in your mind. What does this look like when I highlight it here? I think it's not because of our arms, not because of the extended effect on the rates of our heart working well intended and much needed police force. Saying that in those particular situations, yeah, like it says, in situations that are more health related, I mean more mental illness related as opposed to crime, we need to have that special, there's another element of employee or a worker that would address those kinds of situations. And it's important that we identify that, identify it and kind of restructure to fit those situations. I'll give you the perfect example in Memphis. There was, and this was a few years back, but to show that police officers were not trained to handle calls that were more related to mental illness as opposed to crime. And they ended up shooting the guy because they thought their interpretation of what was going on was completely different and was totally in line with what they were trained to recognize. They were not trained to recognize mental illness. And so when they perceived him to be coming toward them, although there were many, many, many feet between them and him, they took it that their lives were in danger. When in fact, if we looked at that today, probably not. That situation, that man would probably still be alive. Maybe that's where it belongs. I guess the reason I asked is because where I'm struggling is, so I totally see what you're saying and how do we recognize, so that's exactly the situation where lead and core would fit in. That's their role to have a mental health provider to address someone going through a mental health crisis or substance abuse. And so I guess that's, is that where we put it in? We were just saying, while we recognize that Longmont has these great programs, you know, and then, you know, we still recognize the efficacy of taking police out of the equation. I just want to make sure that those things are not too, I would say what I want to use here, that they jive well, right? Yeah, yeah. So we're saying here in this statement, we're saying that we got to get police out of it, but then we also say, but we recognize that police has really good programs to address mental health and substance use issues. After I wrote this, I had a conversation with someone yesterday, I think, or day before. It was subsequent to me writing this. And they told me that when they get calls where it's suspected that it's more of a mental illness situation, that on calls like that, that the police don't go out alone anyway. Right. Is that true? Yeah, well, that's what core is all about. It's called core responders. Okay. So if police get a call that says, you know, we have someone that is doing that is associated with mental health issues, then dispatch and the police officers immediately get connected with the co-responder. And I've seen it happen here and I was going to go get coffee and there was a gentleman outside Ziggy's and you could definitely tell he was having some type of psychotic event. Mm-hmm. And there was a police officer there, but more importantly, there was a couple of co-responders, mental health professionals there as well, trying to de-escalate the situation using their mental skills. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's my, how do we jive that together? So I totally recognize that's a true statement. And it's also true that long months a little different because we do have these programs. Well, maybe there we would alter it just a bit to say, let's create a partnership or let's state it as a partner effect would be more in line with what we're suggesting, what we're thinking. Yeah, so that, yeah, let's alter that. Just in red, just for me, for notes. And then maybe add Deanna's stuff is the next paragraph. Yeah, yeah, there we go. And I think those are great programs and I give a lot of credibility to the police department for taking the initiative on those, but I don't think they're great programs necessarily because the police are involved with them, right? Like those would be great programs without police involvement. So I think they could be administered by somebody else. Right, and you put that there and again, I think that's a, I don't know if we can address it completely in this letter. I have my concerns about who else could do it. Yeah. You know, in particular, and this goes to a bigger issue. So let's talk about that grant money, right? You know, the police got that grant money because those, whoever those grant makers are doing it, there's been a lot of grant money that goes to police to that larger conversation that Graham's talking about value proposition, right? Part of the reason that the police got that grant money is because those grants are specifically set aside for police assisted diversion, right? And they can apply for those and there's a lot of commitment to integrate police with mental health services. That's not just in long, but there is there is a movement out there around that. So a regular nonprofit couldn't access those grants is what I'm trying to get to. Okay, so the police weren't administering those programs. But you know, honestly, this is a problem for city council to sort out, right? Because I'm not in the council's budget. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. And there were, you know, along those lines, there were a number of things I read in the minutes and I wrote them down as sort of Highline things that might be edit worthy. And I think that, you know, I'll read them off here that how much money are we asking for? How is it distributed? Where from the police fund does it does it come from? Et cetera, et cetera. Those I feel like we're the answer is that city council's job to do that. And we could spin our wheels trying to figure it out for them. But we're just trying to say, Hey, there's a human service crisis here. And we need, you know, we need to move the funds from the militarization militarization of departments within the city to the support and care of basic human needs. So, yeah, we didn't let the city, if council wants us to figure that out, then that's another question. Let them ask us. Let them ask, yeah. You know, one other thing I was, I was thinking and I said it the other night and it keeps coming back as much as I try to shake it out of my head. It keeps popping back up. And that is, what if they say, well, you know, we can do maybe 2% or 3% from the police safely from the police budget, but over in XYZ, XYZ's budget, we have a lot more flexibility. So are we really limiting ourselves by identifying where we think it should come from? Or should we have a caveat in there, some kind of way to say, well, yeah, well, this is what we recommend because however, if you know somewhere else, if you are aware of a source that we'd be able to accomplish this and yet, and you know, basically I'm thinking we don't really care where it comes from. As long as we are able to, of course we care. I didn't mean that literally, but are we locking ourselves? You get what I'm trying to say. Absolutely. And I think we should add that in the end somewhere that, you know, that says, you know, the main point of this is to get funding for human services. So if people who are wiser and more knowledgeable than us can find some other place other than the police department, then great. So be it, have it. So, so be it, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because that's what, you know, I really, in all my years, I much, I appreciate it much more as somebody giving me the problem and don't tell me how to solve it. You know, you give me the problem, let me come up with solutions and then we come back together and you tell me why my solutions or my suggestions are not feasible. And then let's work up an alternative to that. I always appreciated that much more than being dictated to. You know, so that's, well, as long as you get what I'm trying to say. Ellie Berta, I would like to add to that main point clause, if you will, that this need pre-existed COVID, but that we have evidence that says that there is a exaggerated or escalated urgency and a need in human services because of COVID. Because of COVID, exactly, yeah. Yeah. And then maybe we're saying that this is at least for 2020. Maybe we don't touch on, I mean, 2021. Maybe we don't touch on the duration and let council figure that out. But you could make an argument to say, you know, is what we're asking for the next two fiscal years or whatever it is. So that's a great point. I actually was talking to Karen because she was asking me, so what do I think? And I said, you know, again, I have my concerns about the 10%. I've made that clear. So I want to respect that. That's where the subcommittee wants to go. But my suggestion to Karen was what I would ask council is can you keep us whole? Right? I understand that there is a huge budget issue crisis. Not only is there a human service crisis, there's also a budget crisis in the city. Right? $11.1 million in the general fund and other funds is nothing to shake a stick at. And we were scheduled to go to 2.7% in 2021. But 2.7%, while it's an increase in percentage from 2020, doesn't mean much if the general budget goes down by 10%, right? And so my suggestion is we counsel and again, to Malin's point, I don't care where it comes from, right? So, you know, the lease had extra funding that would be great. But could council keep us whole and at least keep us at 2020 numbers? Or whichever is higher, even though I sincerely doubt, and Karen said, why don't we ask for the 3% straight out and skip the incremental growth? But even 3% doesn't mean that it would be the same amount that we got this year, right? Because it's 3% of less. And so my suggestion would be keep us whole at 2020 levels or 3% whichever is higher. Sounds good to me. So I'll put that down. Yeah, I'm just thinking out loud, Virginia, and wondering, you know, yeah, yeah, it's just kind of meridating in my brain right now. And I'm thinking, but what if you went across the board? And what would it do to take 0.055005 from 746 budgets, you know, after analyzing, you know, the everything, I mean, there, there, there are more ways to do this. There's no, I think that, yeah, I think if we don't lock, lock them in to one thing and allow them to just, you know, explore possibilities that make it more feasible to get it accomplished, it could be a lot easier, you know, than what it feels like right now. That's what I'm thinking. Right, but, and I'm going to go kind of against, well, okay, so how do I do this? I don't want to contradict myself because I do have a concern for time. So the point of 10%, if I understand you all correctly, is that it's really to make council uncomfortable, right? To kick in the door, as Graham said earlier, on the conversation on what? The structural racism, the need for increased funding, what, what, so I guess that's my question. What is the goal of the temper asking for a, you know, a transfer of 10% from the Long Police Department's budget? 10% seemed like a good round number to me. You know, 10% of anything is not, you know, I mean, you could probably remove 10% on my body and it'd still be functional. You know, it just seemed like a good round number, but, but definitely impactful. So, and I understand that, and the point is to fold it is, I mean, I, you know, Brian was very good about making the point of, you know, there's a funding issue, right? And then there's a police issue. And I get that you can pull those apart, but in, in the sense that it is a value proposition, I think that they're wet. I think that they're, they're together. So, for me, the biggest issue is the funding, you know, I'm a member of the human, you know, the HHS, SAB board, and there's a funding crisis and we need funding to care for our community. And then the other part of me says, where should it come from? Well, not knowing anything, just being, you know, a member of the community, I would say, well, get it from the police, right? They, they're here to protect and serve. And there's a whole segment of the community that needs to be protected and served with dollars and then police have them. And you know, there's this, this inflection point in society where we're revaluing our police departments and really trying to hold them accountable and say, you guys need to stop being racist and killing people. And so the way to do that is to take their money and that will force that reevaluation, right? So that's why I think they're connected. Okay. I just want to make sure that we don't, I'm trying to thread a very narrow line, right? Because I totally agree with the human services. And I also totally agree with the continued reform and improvement and anti-racism work that needs to happen in the PD and in fact, in all of us. I mean, I think we need to be very honest about, like I said, when I talked about earlier, our own home here, our own house, how do we make sure that equity and how do we, we, we break down structural racism within our own work? So, so I'm very committed to that. And I also am very committed to, my concern is when they, when, when they, in this letter, the way that they're, they're married, to lack of a better word, I'm just concerned about how it's going to fall. And I could be totally wrong. And I totally admit that. And ultimately, it's not even my decision. It's, it's yours. And I think you guys have made yourself clear. I'm just trying to, trying to ask the questions and, and, and advise the group on like, we need to be very, very clear and thoughtful and around where is it we want to go? I think the takeaway from this letter has got to be we need more money. I mean, that's the simplest part of it. And 10% from the police department is, you know, a good way to get everybody's attention and get them to think about it and, you know, do the work that needs to be done to figure it out. If there was nothing in there about the police department, then council would be like, where are you going to get the money and where do you want us to take it? You know, give us some direction, right? Yeah. You know what? I was, yeah. Yeah, that's it. Another thought was, do we, yeah, I want to make sure this is not a part of our thought process, or it is, is or isn't. And that is, is there any portion of us that, that's identified the police department as the source to pull from because of the state of affairs of our nation and particularly with the, to hold them more accountable with what has, you know, what sparked out of this in the first place, which is, you know, the Black Lives Matter. We try to make a statement in that regard to hold them accountable or, or not, and just say, you know, here's what we want. We want more money toward going toward the human services aspect of our community, and we don't care where it comes from. Is it? That's my struggle, Madeline. I think those things are linked, and I don't think you can unlink them, right? Like part of the problem is that as a society, and maybe this problem is not very pronounced in Longmont because we've had a great chief for a long time, we don't know who the new chief is going to be, and we don't know what's going to happen, right? I mean, I hope it's going to happen to you, but I think these things are sort of linked and that we have prioritized funding police to do things that police shouldn't necessarily be doing, right? And so if the police aren't doing those things, which is a whole sea change that is difficult to accomplish logistically, I understand that, but I don't know, to me, these things seem to be sort of linked and that you have to sort of reframe how you're thinking about how you address social service needs. Yeah, I mean, just think about, you know, the new PC title of the police department, Public Safety. I mean, we could be the Public Safety Board, really. I mean, if you want to, if you want to play with meaning and names, feeding people and tending to their mental health and their education and their addiction and all the things that this board seeks to fund, that's public safety. And so this letter should, I don't want it to look punitive, LA Barrito, it's not punitive. It's about, hey, the police department and Housing Human Services are working on the same problems. And right now, we need some of those funds to shift to the side of the coin. And they, yeah, so they are linked, Tiana, and trying to communicate that is a real art here because it's a positive message here. It's not, I don't want it to be anti-police, you know what I mean? I want it to be anti-militarized group of people running around La Monde, you know, bringing force where there needs to be brought care. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what, Graham, with you saying that, something else just hit my brain and I'm thinking, okay, we don't want it to be punitive. On the other hand, we do, at the same time, need to send the message, and I don't know if it would be in this effort that we would do that, but we do want them to know, we do want that accountability. We want, we do want that up. We do want that to be prevalent. But we don't, however we do that without being punitive, and maybe just, I don't know, a little more thought and more work, maybe I could come up with something or we could come up with something, but given the state of affairs, you know, we're saying change has to come, you know? Are we going to use this reallocation or as a part of it? If we do, and if we are, I think we need to be real subtle in that element of it, but on the other hand, really, really structured and focused and decided on the flip side. So, yeah, yeah, it's kind of tough, you know? But we don't want to be punitive. We don't want to come down, come in, you know, come down or make it a hefty semblance of appearance that that's what we're doing, because I don't think we are. I don't think that's our intent. But I guess the message, you know, I think it's going to be broad enough, you know, so I'm going to think that regardless. Agreed. You know, so we just, we can't really be overly concerned about that. But at the same time, we got to, we have to, you know, just state it as it is. I mean, you know, there was a man that was shot last week, African American man in Longmont by the police. I mean, it's still happening. And then when you, yeah, so, yeah, it's a lot. But I think, I think, I think our direction and for what you said about, you know, well, what's our charge? What's our charge? And that's pretty much where we have to stay focused. Otherwise, it's so easy to slip into all of those other very necessary categories, you know. So, I don't know. Yeah. I feel that, that I think we have done a great job though, you know, identifying and adding teeth, a little more teeth into, you know, what we were trying, what we set out to do. And I don't know. What do you think, Ella Bertha? Well, again, I'm going to continue to struggle with this and continue to read through it. And I will take the changes that you all made and we will bring it back to our whole meeting. And during that meeting, if you all see like, if you think that I didn't you know, faithfully implement what we talked about, they feel free to speak up and say, well, no, I think this is more what we were thinking. I will do my best. I've captured notes. This is being reported. I can go back and listen to it as well. But I will do my best to capture what we've talked about. And then at the same time, like to Grant's point, try to keep it to under two pages. Yeah. So I will do my best to do that. Yeah. And we have faith in you. We know you will. Believe in you, Ella Bertha. Absolutely. I have one last request. Do you think it would be possible for us to see the final draft? Yeah, I think so. I'll ask you. Yeah. Before you present it to the council, before you present it to the board, the board. Yeah, I was going to say the council, of course, you guys have to vote on it. Yeah. But yeah, I think you can do that to the subcommittee. And I'll send it to you, buying copies, you can all see it, and then you can all respond to me. I think that that's possible. Okay, good. I'll check with Karen to make sure and if I can't, I'll let you know. Okay. Yeah, I just like to see what we what's going to be given to them. That's as a result of our effort, the subcommittees effort before, you know, before it's been so we can just communicate among ourselves and to you directly if there are any significant changes before being presented to them. And I think that's the concern is if there's, so the concern is are we having an email meeting, right? You mean just us, just the four of us? So I think that you could email me, but you couldn't email each other. Do you understand what I'm saying? Okay, okay. There's too many of us and we'll trigger the sunshine laws. Exactly. So if you reply all or if you if you include, let's say, Malin, I write it and Malin, you have issues and you include Deanna and Graham. All of a sudden that's an online meeting and then that becomes an issue. Oh, they'll call the police. They'll call the police on us. So we just want to stay clear. We just want to stay clear of any of that. So, so for example, if if maybe we can, the way they can work is I will send it to you individually and if you all have, if you all have, you know, suggestions or whatever, you can get them back to me and I can try and incorporate them and then you will, you'll all see it together when the board sees it. Okay. And that's fine. I just, I don't like getting surprised. That's all. I like to avoid any surprises, especially among just us, you know. Right. So I think I think I can do it that way. I would just ask that you only communicate with me. Yeah, that's good. And then that again, that that that keeps that I think that keeps us in within the spirit and letter of the law. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that that that accomplishes what I want and that's just to know before presenting to the whole board, you know. Yeah, I'll try to get it out before the end of, before the end of this week sometime. When's that meeting? I'm eating. Well, we have to decide. I think Karen and Brian need to decide that. We said it was the week of the 20th. So I suggested that I suggested the Thursday night, which is kind of a regular, but I don't think that that's been decided yet. Okay. That's Brian and Karen decided that. Okay, that's fine. Yeah. Okay, that's fine. I just, I just like to know, you know, what we're doing before being, before being put before a group of folk. Because if we don't disagree or anything like that, I'd like to do that privately among us, just the four of us, you know? Yeah, not that we would, but I'm just saying. Yeah. Ellie Berta, if I may make three suggestions, you could carry on to Karen and or Brian. One is that if we get this thing finalized, Brian read it to council, because he's our chair president. Yes. The second one would be to invite the public safety chief officer. I haven't had enough already. Okay, cool. And then the third one is, you know, this is an easy to group out of the document. I recommend that in terms of formatting, we do a screen share like you've done here, so somebody can in real time delete and type. And then there's a, there's a function on zoom where you can like put a thumbs up or a thumbs down. And if we utilize that throughout the editing process, just to keep a running tally of where the votes stand on the letter, so that any given changes we can see, okay, we have a majority now, oh, we added that, now we've lost some people. There's still three people who thumbs down. Okay, those three people need to speak and tell us, you know, what their issues are with the letter, you know what I mean to really make it, because we're only going to have, you know, a couple hours, not a couple days. So, right. Okay, I'll talk to Nicole about that, about that function. I admit I am not a zoom expert, so. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's all doable. I agree with what you said. I mean, in terms of features, Alberto. That's great. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Wonderful. Well, thank you, guys. Thank you, guys. All right, thank you all. I will try and get this out as soon as I can. Okay, great. All right. Thank you, guys. Great work, guys. Thank you. All right, thank you all. Have a good day. All right, you too. Bye-bye.