 Here we go well hello everyone and welcome to one of our feedback sessions that we're holding with the residents of Durham about the upcoming search for the next Durham police chief. I would like to first hand over the call to our Spanish interpreters so that they can introduce themselves and give instructions to our Spanish speaking residents on how they can participate in this session. Good afternoon everyone, welcome to one of our feedback sessions that we're holding with the residents of Durham on the search for the next Durham police chief. First, we will have the introduction to the interpretation for the people who speak Spanish. As you can see, the organizers of this event have the firm determination to facilitate bilingual communication in today's meeting. My name is Mojde and my interpreter today is Susan and we are representing the Cooperative of Justice of the Language Tilde. Estaremos ofreciendo interpretación simultánea en inglés español y español en inglés. Good evening everybody, as you've seen the organizers of this event are firmly committed to facilitating bilingual communication in today's meeting. My name is Mojde, my interpreter is Susan and we're representing the Tilde Language Justice Cooperative. We'll be providing English Spanish and Spanish English simultaneous interpretation. Si usted se unió a la reunión usando su teléfono, por favor, asegúrese de entrar con el app de Zoom para poder acceder a la función de interpretación. Esta función no está disponible en los Chromebook. If you joined on your phone, please make sure to join on your Zoom app so that you can access the interpretation function. Please note that this is not available to Chromebook users. Si usted no es bilingüe, puede seleccionar su canal de idioma yendo abajo a la derecha en el globito o los tres puntitos si está conectado por teléfono. Haga clic en el botón de interpretación, seleccione español y luego picarle en done o finalizar. If you're not bilingual, please select your language channel by going to the bottom right, click on interpretation. It's a globe or three dots if you're connected by phone. Select English and click done at the end. It's important for you to activate this option if you're not bilingual since some participants will be speaking in Spanish. Algunas pautas para crear un espacio multilingüe, a few guidelines for creating multilingual spaces. Por favor, no hablen muy rápido. También si no están hablando, por favor pongan su audio en silencio. Please don't speak fast. And if you're not speaking, please mute yourself. Por último les vamos a recordar que por favor hablen una persona a la vez y en un idioma por oración. Lastly, remind you to please speak one person at a time and with one language per sentence. Estos espacios se crean con el apoyo de todos. Por favor comunique cualquier problema por la ventana de chat o habilitando su micrófono. We create these spaces with everyone's support, so please communicate any issues by chat or by turning on your volume. Thank you for creating this multilingual space. Thank you. Thank you very much. And as I said earlier, this is one of our feedback sessions. We are holding with the residents of Durham. About the search for the next Durham police chief, we have another one that is scheduled for tomorrow, May 26 at 1pm. Several years ago, we conducted a similar feedback session during our search for our current police chief, Chief Davis. Chief Davis has done a great job here in Durham. And as she moves on, we will have to some big shoes to fill. And I said that we did a similar feedback session in the past. And back then we had a physical public meetings. But in our situation has changed quite a bit and for safety reasons and due to COVID, we are conducting these sessions in virtual environment. Before I introduce our search team that will be facilitating this feedback session. I want to make everyone aware that there are several ways to provide your feedback. We have a website that provides a survey that you can fill out. These surveys are in both English and Spanish, and will remain open and able to collect resident feedback until June 15. And a specific website will be put into the chat feature shortly. There is also a phone number that you can call and leave any feedback. That phone number will also be put into the chat feature. And the number is 919-560-4273. That number again 919-560-4273. The survey feedback and the phone feedback will be collected and reviewed by the search firm that is conducting our search, Developmental Associates. I strongly recommend that using these alternative methods of giving your feedback as we have limited time during this session. This session will be open for one hour and 30 minutes. And in order to give as many residents as we can the opportunity to speak, we will be limiting the time for each speaker to two minutes. To provide your input as succinctly as possible and know that we have other avenues in which you can provide your feedback. Please know that if any inappropriate or offensive language is used, that participant will be blocked. When someone is speaking, I will let you know when you have 10 seconds left in your time so that you can complete any final thoughts. To speak and provide your feedback to the search firm, please put your name into the chat feature. Make sure that the name in the chat feature is the same that you have on your screen. Sometimes they are different. The chat feature is the icon at the bottom that looks like a word bubble on the bottom of your screen, and we will then call your name, and you will need to unmute your line so that you can be heard by all. Now I would like to introduce our facilitator from the Executive Search firm, Developmental Associates. Please welcome Dr. Steven Strauss, who will give you all some information on his organization and give you further details on the information and feedback they are seeking. Dr. Strauss. Thank you so much, Jim. Yes, Developmental Associates is a local firm. We work throughout the state of North Carolina and the Southeast, working particularly with local governments and other organizations with emissions such as universities and nonprofits to try to help them find executives. I want to introduce our team that will be working actually taking the lead today. First of all, Pat Baysmore is the retired police chief in the town of Cary. Pat is the first female, was the first female chief of a large municipality in North Carolina. Also, Kerr Putney, who recently retired as a Charlotte Mecklenburg police chief. He was the second African American chief to lead the Charlotte Mecklenburg police force. They're both going to be facilitating the session and they're going to be asking questions and taking notes and so forth. But I wanted to start off by giving you just an overview of our process. Yes, five years ago, we worked with the city of Durham to help find CJ Davis as their as your police chief. Things have changed dramatically since then. Not only in terms of running virtual meetings like this, but the whole nature and the sense community sense of what law enforcement is all about is changing dramatically, we are in the midst of that change. It's very hard to figure out exactly where that's going to come out. This is again a time of a lot of turmoil in the in the profession and in communities and not to be forgotten is that this is the one year anniversary of the George, George Floyd incident. And we've all taken that we're all taking that very much to heart. So, we understand and the city council recognizes that there's a new paradigm now for law enforcement. We want to understand where the community is with respect to those issues so that we can do the best job we can in terms of a search process for this position. So let me describe it very briefly to you. Based on the input that we receive from the community. We will be and the input we've gotten from a variety of stakeholders including the police department the council the managers. We will be designing a recruitment screening and assessment process. Again, recruiting probably in about a week to 10 days once we're able to get all the input together and finalize a job ad will recruit using four methods will search out individuals that we think would be good candidates for the position. The method will use as we will. There's some lists serves that involve a lot of police chiefs and police executives across the region in the country we want to get engaged with those will use social media. And we will also post the job ad on a variety of professional websites, including for example the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and there are a variety of other organizations that particularly will enable us to get a diverse pool of candidates. We'll recruit again for about 30 days, we will then put that information together, share that who are the applicants. And what are their credentials with the city managers team. We will ask them to reduce the number of candidates down to no more than 15. We do not make any decisions in this process we simply try to provide the best information possible to the decision makers who are the manager and her team. And they will identify up to 15 candidates. Those folks will then go through an intensive screening process that includes two particular methods, one a structured telephone interview that will involve structured questions structured rating criteria. We will also have the candidates answer some electronic questions short essay types of questions as well. Based on that information, which will take us about two weeks will meet again with the manager and her team will ask them to reduce the number of candidates down to five. Then we will develop what is called a skills assessment, where we will have the candidates go through a variety of exercises that simulate the kinds of things they would be doing as police chief. And I want to talk a little bit about why we use this approach. The traditional hiring approach relies simply on an interview. Sometimes it's coupled with a public presentation. There's a significant problem which simply relying on that approach only we believe in interviews we're using it for screening. The city manager is definitely after we've run our process is going to narrow the number of candidates down to two or three. Those folks will then be interviewed and also appear before the public and have the public have an opportunity to ask them questions and respond. So interviews and public presentations are part of our process, but we add another stage, and that is skills assessment. And the reason we do that is we want to get beyond what a candidate knows and how well they communicate and their charisma and their judgment, which is what you can assess in an interview or in a presentation. You cannot find out the way I always like to put it, you can hear in an interview you can understand the talk of a candidate that doesn't mean they walk the same way. And we want to see what their skill set is, and we can assess that by using a variety of exercises that simulate what it takes to do the job. Just as an example, five years ago when we ran our process, that doesn't mean this is what we'll do today because we're going to base our process on what we learn. But five years ago, we had a mock press conference where the chief had a deal with a major community event and develop responses to that and also get interviewed by folks acting as the media asking them asking the candidates questions about the after during the event and after. We also had all the candidates do a presentation. I'm sorry, not a presentation that was essentially a presentation we also had them running a community meeting. By the way, some of the issues that came up in the community meeting were issues that we heard about during our sessions five years ago with the public. So for example, there were some folks who didn't want the police in their community at all or didn't trust the police we built that into our exercise. They actually had to meet with folks acting as community representatives and put together a plan with them for how they were going to respond to those key community issues. We also had them carry out a coaching role play. Obviously, this is may not be quite as important to the community, but we want to make sure that they can manage their staff effectively and so we had an interaction with someone acting as a deputy chief whose performance wasn't what it needed to be and we saw how they could work out those issues with that person. And then last of all, we had them put together a written plan. We carry out these exercises what we did five years ago is we had a combination of some community folks, as well as law enforcement executives and also a few folks that were city administrators. We trained all those folks. We have about three to five folks per exercise. We trained them for half a day before they begin seeing the candidates we train them not only on how to run their exercise, but also on how to rate candidates objectively based based on predetermined criteria, which again are determined by what we hear in our focus groups and our community sessions. They then assess five candidates, and they will then meet with the city manager and her team and provide them with feedback on how the candidates performed on all those exercises. They have all the candidates take a psychological. It's called the emotional intelligence inventory it assesses essentially leadership skills, like how they deal with people how they problem solve how they handle stress. And we cross correlate what we learn about in those exercises with what we learn in the instrument. All intended to try to provide the best information to the manager and her team so they can make the most informed decision possible. So that's essentially our process. And I think at this point we want to transition to getting input from you all. And so I'm going to turn it over to Pat incur to get input from the public. So we're looking forward to hearing from you all. Thank you. Before we before we start in I do want to just reiterate how folks can submit their questions or provide their feedback so again. Please put your name into the chat feature, which is a bubble shaped icon that is at the bottom of your screen. And again please put your, your name, and make sure that the name that you put into the chat feature is also the name that is on your screen. So that we can identify you. We will then call your name, and we will then ask you to unmute yourself. And when you do then your line can be heard. I will be recording the comments that you are making and her put me is going to actually lead the initial part of the feedback session so I will turn it over to him. Good evening everyone. Let's jump right into it we want to hear from you. What exactly you're looking for in your new police chief let's start by talking about specific challenges that you see and opportunities that you see for the new chief. What particular skill set are you looking for. At this point will open it up to responses from you. I don't see any names that have been submitted. I'm sorry we do have one name just came in. Please, Mr Larry Smith, if you could please. Amber if you could move Larry Smith over to the microphone and unmute him. Can you hear me. Yes, we can. Okay. Yeah, my name is Larry Smith and I'm currently the spokes spokesperson for the Durham County FOP. And I'm also a retired deputy chief from Durham. So I'm speaking on behalf of the Durham fraternal police and one of the things that I think that the police department is really looking for as a chief that can come in and be an advocate, not just for the community we know that community police relations go both ways. And so we're going to be looking for a chief who can come in and instill a sense of confidence in the officers and find the balance between supporting the officers in the job that they do in a very incredibly difficult environment right now for police and police administrators in particular to find that balance between standing up and supporting the officers in the job they do and being an advocate for them, as well as challenging to the issues that are facing law enforcement today. And so that's one of the things that we would really like to see and that chief, the new chief candidates be able to find that balance. And the question about that is how will they find that balance? How do they intend to instill some confidence? Durham has a real struggle with recruiting right now. Staffing is way down. And as we have talked to officers who have left the Durham Police Department, it hasn't been as much about pay as it's been about support. The police department's here in the triangle. And what's happening in Durham, we're hiring officers, we're giving them some of the best training in the state just to send them to other agencies. And we would really like to see that stop. We'd like to keep the good officers that we have and train and get good officers in to be able to increase recruiting. And right now that challenge for that chief is going to be to instill confidence that the department will support them when they're job and doing it correctly. Okay, thank you, sir. We did hear some of that from the session we had with this one personnel today as well. What are your other comments around challenges and opportunities and what you want to see in your next chief? Who's next? We don't have any other names right now. There we go. We have another one coming. No, at least for right now we have, we have no, no new names again, if anyone would like to provide their feedback directly to our consultants here. Please just put your name in the chat feature and we will call on you. You will need to unmute yourself, and then you can provide your feedback. I don't see any names, but again, if you want to be called on, please put your name into the chat feature and we will call her while while we're waiting for some way if I can ask you I know. Obviously, you and both Pat have have held this exact, you know, similar position and other municipalities here throughout the city. What sort of areas do you see being the most kind of critical for the next chief in a municipality the size of Durham? Sure, Jim, I'll start and pass it over to Pat for her perspective. I think mainly it's just a change in environment right now. The level of accountability expected of officers, the great responsibility they have, the also the advent of camera phones, smartphones, so that everything can be recorded. I think I've always encouraged people to use those tools of smartphones, because it's easier to present and apply and allow for accountability when you have those interactions recorded but mainly I see chief is needing to be innovative, needing to be creative, needing to be a person of the people, engaging as I know chief Davis did with the community, hearing all voices, and allowing for all sides of every conversation and debate to be heard so that the next chief he or she can continue along those lines and the relationships and building that trust and legitimacy that we all have come to expect of our police and our police officers. Anything from you Pat? To say one of the things, to compare with what Chief Plutney has said I would say that being accountable and being present is particularly important, being accountable both internally and also to the community and to the city leaders. And that's a very, that's a huge responsibility for a police chief, and especially when you sometimes can be pulled in all different directions but the support internally and in the community is extremely important. How do you approach such change? I mean as Dr. Strauss mentioned earlier, you know it's the political environment, the sort of environment that we live in right now is very sometimes always not overly friendly to the police force etc. I mean how does systematic change happen within the police force? I believe it starts with listening. I believe you have to have your finger on the pulse. You have to have a deep understanding what I like about the way developmental associates goes about our businesses. We're going to create a profile that obviously gives information of Durham and of Durham Police Department, building the specific expectations we've heard from officers. The executive team and also the first line leadership today. We're going to hear from officers and civilians over the next couple of days, but making sure you hear all sides and the expectations coming in to a new department. If it's not someone from within, you're going to need to really get an understanding of that culture but more importantly balance the needs of your elected officials with your community leadership. And truly the cops. It's not an easy job. If it were easy, everybody would do it and do it well, but it's a job that I think Durham expects to see of that next chief coming in after a dynamic chief like Chief Davis, fulfilling some of the initiative that have been started and being innovative creating some for that continue to build that trust with the communities, especially those who are underserved. I think that's key Jim. And I agree trust is critical. Pat, what are your thoughts about sort of instituting change within within the within the within the department. I think that again you have to be engaged you have to engage the community. What is it the community needs wants and expects from your police department. That's what we're there for us to serve our community serve and protect. Then to as she put me said listen to everyone all of your stakeholders, what one particular group may need it may be very different than what another group needs and to be able to formulate plans that will allow you to be responsive to the needs of all the community is extremely important and again what's developing those expectations and holding your officers accountable for what they what they do and what you expect them to do and how you expect them to respond to situations is extremely important. We did get a question in the chat that asked would like to see a chief that is willing to create advisory board or boards that represent the entire community. This could include having having representation from officers in the department. I guess how how have both of you seen that instituted at other municipalities. I'll tell you Jim I think that is indeed how you you achieve the expectations and 21st century police. You have to have your advisors who are going to give you the feedback internal who also help you truck the course. I don't think it's reasonable to expect a chief who comes in having all the answers, which is why you got to understand the specific culture of of any agency and the city in which you're you're serving. That is making sure you you come in and create an external advice as well stakeholders who are committed to the community who've been there who have roots there and who can help you understand what the expectations are across the entire city. The only way to get that type of information is having the people there who have the information within the organization and without establishing those relationships and giving them the opportunity to talk freely. Not only be heard though, those things that make sense for an organization in the city have to be acted on as well. And Pat, what were your thoughts on advisory boards. Sorry I'm typing as well. So I do believe that having the advisory board, obviously people have different opinions and different ideas about what what they need or what they want and as police chiefs we do not always understand. We may think that we understand what our community wants or what our department personnel need, but having created giving people an opportunity to be heard to have input. I think it also allows us to think about things in a different way than we may think we again we may think we know what they want but I can tell you they're often been times as a police chief that I thought I knew what a community want when I went out and spoke with them and heard what they needed. So I do think it's extremely important to have that input from every aspect of the community and internally. Just so that everybody knows again if if indeed you have a comment or you'd like to present your feedback please just put your name into the chat feature. And another person had put as a comment that they would like to see a safe city, and that sort of is obviously a broad term, as far as during being wanting to be a more of a safe city. Mr. Putney, you had mentioned sort of in relation to the advisory boards, how do how do you communicate with those advisory boards to sort of promote what's best for everybody to sort of include as many diverse groups within Durham as possible. It depends on it. I, my experience has been I had some official advisory board had a cross section of people from all walks of life who would come and meet me quarterly and another opportunity though is those informal credible. And again, people who have roots there in Durham to listen, hear them out in official and unofficial conversations, so that you really understand what's really going on and what the needs are. And it's going to it's going to vary, but internally as well you got to hear not just from your executive staff, but you got to hear from your command, you got to hear from your corpus your, your sergeants and you got to hear from your civilians and your officers. So, it's going to be a very diverse group a dynamic group. It's got to be of all ranks, it's got to be across the entire organization as well as across the entire community. It's hard to meet with everybody who lives in the community. But you know who your credible leaders are. That is job one of any new chief finding out who those people are establishing those relationships and committing to affecting the change that needs to happen and building on the many successes that you've already experienced there in Durham with Durham PD in particular. Now I know there was some comments. I think earlier in the week about the survey that we have that's on the city's website. I believe we're going to put that that link into the chat as well, so that people can provide their feedback through the through the survey, but one of the issues that came up was that the issue of gun violence was not listed as specifically as one of that survey as a top concern to people in Durham. Clearly it goes sometimes hand in hand with violent crime and some other you know gang issues etc. I guess, was there any, and I don't know Pat or Curry if you were involved in setting up those questions for for the survey, but I guess what were your thoughts on how to address gun violence in particular within within Durham. Again, Jim, not to disclose everything that was said but our sessions already internally. A lot of our young people young leaders there in the organization have some good ideas. I think though you have to blend those ideas for how you go about enforcing laws around gun violence with how you actually connect with your community so you're being strategic in the exact people that you should focus on. It's a lot who are who are innocently going about their lives and that does not build a trust that we need in policing so that teach again turnly and externally but you also got to listen to people who are there are a lot of innovative ideas that I heard today in particular about violent crime but the other thing is officers get frustrated when they don't hear directly from community members about addressing those things. It's a difficult situation nobody wants to be ostracized or or attack but establishing those channels of communication so when you're going out to direct officers to do work as a chief, you have the confidence that the community works the type of work that you're doing, and then it's going to get your outcome to truly reduce the violence, not just create more issues that you have to deal with as you potentially harm relationships. Mr. Don I believe we have comments in the chat session I don't know if you want to address those next. Yes, that would be great. So I know one of the questions that came in was about having or hoping to see a chief who believes in that black lives matter embracing change, as well as, you know, being able to and being prepared to address concerns about, you know, in the in the media and the press it is sometimes listed as bad apples within the within the department. So again that is more of a comment than some feedback but clearly, you know, it is an issue that needs to be addressed and discussed within within the department. Any particular feedback from from either of you. Yeah, not no surprise at all. I think if you were to survey virtually any community across the state across the country and you're going to hear that very thing. What I what struck me to was the culture change and talking about really understanding what that looks like. I would really encourage the new chief to really dig into that I keep mentioning culture but, as we all know, culture at the end of the day is going to be more important than even the strategy that you employ, even your philosophy don't have a strong culture, and that culture change is making that connection with people so that, ideally, your next chief makes the term black lives matter irrelevant. It should be a foregone conclusion, and it's a tough conversation. It is that you need somebody who's going to be courageous enough to have that conversation on the general and do it genuinely. And not just a check the box conversation but something that demonstrates that you care about everybody that you're going to serve. So I just, I think it's a very reasonable request. And he's surprised if that was a press request that you'd hear in any city anywhere across anything back. I will say that when I was in carry it. We started a program with building bridges and engage the African American faith based community. I was absolutely amazed at how much how many people came into the department how many people were able to connect with and started a program that's gone across the country for how to engage with the underserved in our community and to really listen to what they have to say and sometimes because we don't give people a voice, we don't hear what they have what they have to say. And when we don't listen to people then they put us in a situation that they're going to be heard they need to be heard so giving people a voice giving people opportunity to be heard and then be responsive to what they're saying. I will tell you that I worked on a board with the state training standards for the state to come up with a process that we could what we could eliminate bad officers may have to go from one department to another department and it takes a lot it's, it takes chief standing up and coming forward and saying this is not acceptable behavior and pass that information along to other departments so that we don't end up hiring. We don't have gypsy cops that are going from one department to the next. And again as Chief Putney said being courageous you have to be as the police chief you have to be courageous enough to make those decisions to not allow those officers that are that are not what do not embrace the culture of the department and do not serve and protect the community. And again, all aspects of the community all everyone everyone deserves to be protected, they deserve to be heard, and the way we as leaders, put those expectations out there makes a huge difference and how our officers respond, and then when they do not respond in the way they're expected to them we need to hold them accountable. Thank you. Another comment has come through about the basic law enforcement training. The comment was that it basically is the same as it was back when this person went through it 30 years ago. I guess how important is it to you both and their recommendation is that the chief needs to understand the needs and a willingness that reflects the 21st century and strategies from academia. Especially when it comes to communication skills emotional intelligence etc. In other words, break the mold of teaching law enforcement and the same manner and be open to other tools and experts who can offer strategies that meet the needs of today's communities. Any thoughts any feedback on that. Yeah, I think even further more than just understand the 21st century six pillars you need to apply. You need to measure you and your yourself and your organization against those those pillars because that is the future of policing. Another piece of that is and it goes back Jim to a conversation we had earlier, your internal and external advisory councils, then get the feedback from both of those organizations both of those entities, all stakeholders that are members there. And then asking your community. I think the, the, the biggest takeaway from those pillars and 20s 20th 21st century policing in the first place is around that trust and legitimacy starts there. And from there, you just because the basic law enforcement training. It lags behind I think some of the innovative departments across the state does not mean you can enhance your own training in your own organization. So opportunities to have additional training and, and, and the way you deliver it. I think that's another important part that's been touched on, instead of just generally electro format, you have to have hands on because most of the cops are going to be bodily kinesthetic learners, and you have to challenge them around their emotional development as well as their physical development when they're new officers. And then you allow your best of the best train those, those new cops. I think though the foundation in the application 21st century policing philosophies Israeli was going to make the difference in your new coming in, doing what they need to do and Well, I can tell you the BLET training has changed significantly since I went through 35 years ago. And again, serving on training standards and we are constantly they were training centers constantly looking for the training that's needed and how how training needs to adapt to meet the needs of the community. I will say that, as she put me said bringing training BLET is just the beginning of your law enforcement training. You have to have consistent training throughout the throughout the years. You can't just get your basic law enforcement training and then only your state mandated training you need to bring those new techniques and those new philosophies into your department and what the experts that that do know those bring them in and teach your folks. One of the things that I can say that that we have heard a lot from the internal Durham Police Department is because they are so short staffed right now that it's that all they can do to cover their shifts they don't have the opportunity to engage in the extra train that they need in order to to be the best police officers they can be to meet the demands of the community. I don't know if you want to reflect on that at all. I think you covered it well. Again, the state BLET is the basic. And that's that's exactly what it is it gives you that foundation. I do think reviewing the manner in which you're training, especially in house, and I can't say that enough because that gives you a lot of flexibility. It makes you target the needs directly to your community. And what we would do also in the past is we'd have community members become a part of that training on going. Be it your cultural diversity or your training around just dealing with different populations. Therefore, you're having a specific influence that is yours and yours alone. That's building up on the basis of basic law enforcement training that everybody. Thank you very much. I know there was a comment about whether or not we would in the in the in part of the process, whether or not the community will be able to meet with and address the final candidates. I know just and I saw Dr. Strauss she just got on by all means go ahead and chime in. Yes, that's that is what occurred last time it was the city and aired their candidates down to two. And those folks did a press conference did public forums met with the police department and so forth. Whereas we have not fully designed that stage of the process. That is something that the city manager wants to do. We just haven't worked out all the details but there will certainly be an opportunity for the public to meet the final, not just the final candidate but certainly the final two or three I'm sure. Thank you. There was a question in the chat about any sort of upcoming issues that you might assume would come out of or be, I guess be created by the growth that we're seeing in particular where things like Apple and Google jobs coming. And whether or not that new influx of people and money and jobs. What challenges might that create for the new chief of police. I would say that some of those challenges are you these are people that are coming into technology jobs and they are, they're high paying jobs and they are going to want to be in a community where they feel safe. Not just that they are safe they need to feel safe and when you are constantly seeing in the media issues about the violent crime increasing and you see the constant stories of the drive by shootings and innocent people innocent by Sanders being, being taken in, being hurt in this job by shootings, those issues will not bring those people to Durham to live or to visit the community if they do not feel safe going there so creating a community where people feel safe to live work play and raise their children will be significant. I'll say it again, if you have questions or if you'd like to be unmuted. We asked that you put your name into the chat feature, and we will call on you. At that point you will need to unmute yourself and we can hear your feedback. Let's see. One of the, one of the questions that also came up was about whether or not, or how the information gained out of these question and answer periods or these feedback sessions. Dr Strauss, it maybe is more specific to you but how will this information be incorporated into the overall structure of the of the search and of the assessment centers. Well I gave an example a little while ago, I mean, we are we are very we want to know, in fact, are all of our job ads include here the major challenges that the next, in this case police chief will be addressing. We give them information about the community we give them information about the department. We identified competencies based on what we learned from these focus group sessions. We identify the top priorities that are anticipated that the next chief will need to be addressing. And as I mentioned earlier we designed them into our exercises for the example I gave a little while ago was a community meeting where that represented a lot of what we heard from community members which was five years ago which was some of them didn't even want the police police in their community or did not trust the police and we built that in to the exercise so that candidates didn't don't just talk about it they actually had to deal with it. And so we get an opportunity to directly view their competencies when they're dealing with differences of opinion lack of trust and so forth. Thank you. See, so we still are not getting any brave souls who might come to the microphone. And I hate to hear myself keep keep talking. Are there any other folks out there who would like to address our development associates representatives. So while we're waiting Mr. Dono I'd like to just say that it would be very nice for us and meeting the needs of the community. If we could hear from the community members for what it is that's important to them sometimes we hear from the most vocal people in the community we don't hear from the people that they may have concerns or issues but they don't want to come forward if they're and we do have those folks with them to go and fill out the surveys, provide us with that information so that we can make sure we are looking for the right person to come into Durham as your police chief and to meet the needs of all the community. Any other comments or chats that are coming through and I don't see anything right now. Well, we don't have any any specific information. I know it was brought up earlier about the staffing and some sort of feeling of unknown of open positions and the sort of stress that that can put the department under. If either one of you could sort of express a little bit of your own experience I guess and how you've managed staffing issues and in your own departments. I'll tell you that is, it's a big concern right now. Our sessions today. They were very telling it's on the forefront of everybody's mind recruitment and retention getting the right people and getting enough of them to meet the needs of a community. And they were throwing out some great ideas about even the shift adjustments to shifts, which I know sometimes feels taboo but it gives people the opportunity, even with a lesser amount to have the opportunity for work life balance. We about that and obviously everybody knows that that impacts morale, but also impacts officers not just physically but emotional. You can't perform your best you can't meet the demands of the community that you serve if you're exhausted. So, there's some innovative ways it when the new chief comes in starts to talk to his, his or her people innovative ways to look at how officers on in the field are deployed, looking at taking a look at that shift work. And, and also though, being able to have the community celebrate the positive that that is going on that area. I mean they're sometimes community members are the best advocates for police department. Make that whole city, a more inviting place. And the way the chief Dave is handled a lot of the unrest and the pandemic last year is amazing. It is deserving of of applause and applaud and I think the citizens of Germany to celebrate those kinds of successes so that they show that it's an inviting city that values the services of So I'll say one of the pillars of 21st century policing is officer well being and again not just physically but mentally emotionally and when officers are overworked. And what we understood today from quite a few of the feedback sessions was that the officers are being required to come back in on their days off and are being required to to come back in two days of their days off they're being required to be on call having to come in for extra events. And there is not a work life balance for them and they're mentally exhausted physically exhausted and one of the things that they brought up is that when officers are that when they really are just exhausted that we are putting them in situations where they may not be make the best decision so surely taken care of your of the officers and making sure that they are fit for duty is extremely important but you have to have our primary responses 911 calls. So if we don't have the enough personnel to go out and meet the needs of the community other than 911 response, then the community is going to continue to not meet those needs for people that want to that want to be involved they want to be engaged but they are not a, but they're, they don't have emergency calls or they're not, they're not having particular issues they just have. They just would like to be engaged and would like to be involved. Thank you. Well, I know there were some some comments that came in about, you know, again, looking to add more officers and again the staffing challenges that are within our own department as well as across the country. One question that did come in how, or the feedback was that we need more police to be engaged with the community, and not just patrolling the streets. You know, I guess, what are your thoughts on, you know, and it sometimes is kind of a throwaway term of, Oh, community engagement. How do you make that real. And frankly, Jim, it has to be part of your culture and truly your philosophy. You can't sacrifice that it has to be a part of how you how you go about doing business. And I think your former chief laid the groundwork to do just that. But it's again, it harkens back to the question before you can have a lot of opportunity to freely engage if you're tied to the radio because you're so short. So, recruiting, getting enough and enough well trained and officers who are in this work for the right reasons is key. And the way to do that is to make make this an appealing opportunity. And, truthfully, I those those two issues are very intertwined. I will also say that it's extremely important that as law enforcement that we're able to go to the community and not expect them to always come to us to build those relationships because that's that's truly the key to success in anything is open communication and relationship building and you need to build those relationships before you need the community or before the community needs you. So the relationship building going to them as opposed to wanting them expecting them to come to us is extremely important. I think there was another comment in the in the chat feature about how we might get feedback and input from folks that aren't able to attend this this video or zoom call. I do want to reiterate, we do have two surveys that you can log on to and complete and fill out your feedback and provide information on what you want in your next chief of police at Durham. Those surveys can be found on our website. They can be put in the chat, but it's on the city's website. There is also for folks that may not have access to a computer. And if they, you know somehow are able to to get this they are able to call in, and we have a specific line at the city hall. The telephone number for for feedback on this search. The telephone number is 919-560-4273 that telephone number again 919-560-4273. One other quick question is about whether or not. How would an internal candidate be considered I know again I work in the human resources department here at the city of Durham internal candidates are usually some of the best candidates that you can get. How would we address internal competition for this for this position. I strongly encourage it in a couple of ways. Number one, all the candidates are assessed. Equally just like an outsider or an internal person all get assessed equally throughout the entire process if an internal candidate makes it to the assessment center they're evaluated just like anyone else. And it really provides an opportunity sometimes because internal folks sometimes their leadership does not emerge because they're being very loyal to their boss. And so those skills do not do not necessarily emerge to folks outside the department. And so having an opportunity to directly demonstrate those skills in a process like a skills assessment exercises really gives them an opportunity to step up and show what they can do. We've had that happen a number of times, not just in law enforcement but for other positions like city manager and so forth. And now what add is we also provide feedback to any internal candidate that goes through our process we will give them feedback on on what we saw as their strengths what we what we observed is there is as Mary's for there to approve upon. And that happens to be at the assessment center we actually provide them with feet the feedback that the assessors provided, as well as the results of the emotional intelligence inventory, and putting those two together really provides a really powerful tool tool for professional development. And the basic idea is if the city wants to invest in this person and invest in their future. And so that's all built into the process to reinforce and support internal candidates. Steve, I hate to put you on the on the on the spot here. Could you describe what emotional intelligence is a little bit. I think that's a fascinating term and it's used more and more within recruitment. Tell us I guess how developmental associates handles emotional intelligence. Yeah, we. Say what it is it's essentially whenever you're hiring any person for any job and I don't care what the job is school teacher, you know whatever the position is police officer. You're always concerned about two different sets of competencies whether you're thinking about it this way or not. One you want to make sure that the candidates have the technical capacity to do the job. And the other is you want to make sure they have the emotional intelligence to do the job. And emotional intelligence in this case, for example in lot let me let me go back technical competency in law enforcement. You know, for example, I told you about an exercise we had last time managing a press conference well that is a very, very technical skill. It's great to be able to speak to a group to present information to answer questions, particularly a lot of technical questions where a police chief needs to know is this information I should share legally or not. And, and do they are they aware of how they need to reinforce and support the community and so forth. That is a very technical exercise on the other hand running a staff meeting really focuses a lot on emotional intelligence, or a coaching role play where they focus is more on emotional intelligence. And those competencies have to do with how the candidate problem solves how they handle stress. Do they how well they handle conflict. What is their self confidence. How much meaning do they get from their work. How do they interact with other people do they engage. Are they someone who is collaborative in a team player or they more of an autograph. Those are all the various components of emotional intelligence essentially the way I look at it is these for an executive position like this these are leadership competencies that are assessed. These assessment two different ways. One is, we have all the candidates as I mentioned earlier take a validated instrument called the EQ 2.0 it's validated for employment purposes. It has indicators in there for example to tell whether a candidate is being honest or not and their responses. So, observe those competencies in our skills assessment. So, for example, in a coaching role play, we'll build in some conflicts and see how the candidates resolve those conflicts. And then when that's over, we not only get feedback from assessors about how the candidate handle that conflict, but we cross validate that with the results of the instrument, all of which is intended again to give the city. Two different data sources, which typically both confirmed one another, if they don't that's that's another matter but for the most part they tend to confirm one another. And that can give the city a lot more confidence that what they observe from the candidate in the skill exercises is what they actually do on a day to day basis. What do you mean by validated. Can you explain how that adds in really pushing me on this now. Yeah, my am I apologize. So, there are actually two different definitions about validity in the process that we're recommending. One of those is what's called content validity and that has to do with the exercises we design do they in fact represent the types of real life situations that a chief would deal with again like a press conference after a major incident. Like running a community meeting like managing a staff member whose performances and what it needs to be putting together a plan for some sort of initiative and writing. These are all things that police chiefs do. And we would. So as a result, they're these, if they're designed appropriately or content valid exercises. And by the way also rating criteria that are based upon again what we learned from the public, the department and the management team with respect to the key competencies that this person needs. Just as an example in this case they really need to be a change agent, which is something that we weren't necessarily looking for last time but that's just representative of a key competency that has emerged over the last four or five years. And the other definition of validity has to do with the test of emotional intelligence. That is done through statistical processes of administering the test, cross correlating it with other validity factors and effectiveness of folks for example and on the job and so forth. And so that that involves an in depth statistical analysis that the publisher has to use to legitimate what they do and it's. And that's so as a result it's a it's a very in depth statistical process. If there are any other feedback or any other comments that anyone would like to make by all means please either put them in the chat, and we will call on you or we will express them, you know if they're in the chat and you wish not to speak. We can sort of call those out and ask our guests. The question or a chat just came in that asked when are we might estimate when the new chief will be named. And I know that I have worked with developmental associates I'll maybe give Steve a slight break and I know we have a calendar of projected dates up on the city's website so by all means please go on that website and we will we will update it periodically so that we know and you will know where we are in the process. Steve, I'll let you sort of I'll let you commit to a specific date. If you wish, but as I said obviously this is a very fluid process things can change. Even even in the best of circumstances things can change not to mention the pandemic winding hopefully winding down etc. What are your thoughts, Steve. Well, I want to be a little bit careful because we haven't finalized this with the manager and it's ultimately her call but I will say my guesstimate at this point is that we would be evaluating the candidates in this those final five candidates and the skill assessment around mid August. There's a lot more involved after that though, particularly for a police chief because the city, if they did like they did under Tom Bonfield's leadership will narrow the number of candidates down to two or three. Those folks will probably have a background investigation before they're invited to come to the city for final interviews. That's an intensive FBI type background investigation, not only looking at criminal history and financial history but checking references in depth, not just the references supplied by the candidate following a chain of references. That tape typically takes at least two weeks so now we're talking early part of September. They would then come to the city probably middle of September sometime mid to late September. And then at that point the manager and her team would make their decision. So I'm guessing probably the first of October. The candidate, the police chief for the city will be known. They may well need to give a 30 day notice if they're from outside the organization. So it could be first of November or so before that person is actually on board it takes quite a while. Very careful process. Thank you. I've asked to put the website back up in the chat. So thank you, Stephen and we did just put up the website so again to keep updated with where we are in the process by all means please go back to that website. It's also the exact same website where you can provide any feedback or information that you'd like to submit in the in the form of those two surveys one in English one in Spanish, as well as the telephone number that's 9195604273. I will say it one more time, whether or not if somebody does want to provide feedback and come up to the mic. All they would need to do is put their name into the into the chat function here, and we will call on you and have your, have your sort of account unmuted, and then we can have you speak. Right now we have, see, I see, I guess we're also we've put that the website and the web link also in the YouTube chat. So I know we are live streaming on YouTube as we speak. We are in there as well and again the website is posted as well as the voicemail number that we have for folks who may not want to fill out the survey or may not have a computer at home. See, I don't know if there are any other comments or for feedback that I'm seeing. I still don't see any see. So, Dr Strauss and his organization, as I said earlier we did work with both the some of the senior executives here at the city to provide feedback as well today and I believe later on this week as well we are going to be working directly with different folks, different different folks within the Durham Police Department as well to solicit and get feedback on what they are looking. I know, Kerr and Pat I believe you were out there today, speaking with different folks who are you, who are you speaking with today. We met with the executive command staff, the captains and lieutenants, the sergeants and corporals, and we will meet with officers and the civilian employees as well. All right, any, any, any words of wisdom that came out of those sessions or any, any specific feedback that was of interest to you. I think we've expressed a lot of the information that particularly about the staffing levels and the pay and the work schedules, just the officers being exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally and lack of support. They feel, whether they're whether it truly is there or not they feel a lack of support. I'll just throw this out to Jim, I was surely impressed though, a lot of good people who really are committed to Durham as a city and police department in particular, and they want to make sure that their voices are heard so that we can get the right person who can give the community what they need so a lot of good people who are willing to come up and share. Unlike this session they were very vocal in the conversation went on, but I just applaud the caliber of officer and leader that we talked to today, because it just shows that Durham is still in good hands. And we just need to get a good leader who can continue to lead them in the right direction. I will say that the staff was very complimentary of Chief Davis and the changes that she has brought about they just hate that she's leaving so same. Thank you. We do have another session tomorrow again there are, we're trying to provide multiple different avenues for people to provide feedback. So we do have another session that is tomorrow. One o'clock in the afternoon. So again if, if you want to provide feedback of course you can do that using the zoom call setup for tomorrow. And again we do have the true surveys on our website and we have the phone number where people can submit their feedback. Are there any other sort of comments or feedback that anyone would like to present. If so please put your name in the chat. Anyone. I do have a comment from your perspective. What do you think is the most challenging or the hardest part of a search, especially at this level. In the human resources section myself or area myself and having hired a few people myself. I know that obviously there are parts of the process that are looking at the job description and really tweaking it to exactly what you want, and what you might need and what is critical for success in any role. But then it moves on to a sort of a sourcing section or part of this search of any search in which you're just accepting resumes maybe looking at them and screening them. There are usually levels of screening. You know whittling a candidate pool down to a select few, and then of course the final, you know, most of the time it's an interview. In this case it it's very intensive and in depth assessment center. What do you find to be the most challenging part of that whole process. For me, I'm confident enough in our methods that I don't worry about our ability to screen and to evaluate candidates. It's the analogy I always like to use this like fishing the whole recruitment process, you know you can have all the best equipment. I'm not a fisherman by the way I can never catch any. But when you can have all the best equipment, all the technological bells and whistles that people who are fishing use today and that doesn't mean you're going to catch any. And so what I always worry about is who are we going to get to apply. You can use all these methods you can reach out to great folks and so forth but there's no guaranteed that they're going to be interested in. They're going to want to be part of the process. So that's always my biggest anxiety is who's going to apply, and are we going to get good quality candidates if we do that. I feel like the process will be very effective in terms of eliciting competencies, making sure that they're a good fit with the city of Durham, but we got to get those candidates on board first. And I know Steve you and I have worked on other positions. We worked together for Chief Davis, as you said five years ago. And I know I've heard you say this. Durham is a great city that has gotten a lot of great press over the years, as far as the growth and some of the absolute wonderful things that we do here in Durham. And sometimes that is a great help in the recruitment process, being able to stand up and say, you know, and be proud to be working in such a great community. So, let me see. I'm trying to think of other. No other feedback has come in. I don't see anything else. I think what I'd like to do now is because we're getting up at about an hour and 15 minutes or so. And clearly, you know, feedback has not been coming in at the rate that we thought it was going to be. But I do want to thank everybody for those who did provide chats or feedback in the chat or questions in the chat. And there are other ways. If if tonight wasn't our night and we needed to, and you wanted to provide feedback and maybe you missed the session. These sessions will be recorded or are recorded and will be posted on our website as well. We have those two surveys, again one in English, one in Spanish, they are both on our website, which the link to our website has been posted in the chat several times. But not least, we have a voicemail that we have set up at the city of Durham, 919-560-4273. And again that you can leave your feedback on that voicemail system in English or in Spanish and it will be translated and sent over to the good folks at developmental associates so they can absorb that feedback and make sure that it is incorporated into the search and the assessment centers that they that they do so well. Let me see. I believe that will be it for this evening we will end a little bit early. Again, I want to say thank you to our, our friends at developmental associates for helping us out with this. And for being so, so kind and so free with your, your perspective in particular Pat and and Kerr who, again your perspective on on this job in particular is just been outstanding. So thank you very much. And again thank you to the folks who made this soon call possible. And I wish you all a very good night.