 I'm Brian Pete. I really sincerely appreciate all of you all taking time out of your day. I know there's a lot of things going on in this world and in our great city and I'm just really ecstatic to be here and looking forward to getting any feedback, any ideas to answer any questions, any challenges that you see that our department, things that we can do better to serve and that's what we're ultimately about and then again as I move move into this hopefully within the next two or so weeks I know we have a city council meeting that's coming up in which the one of the primary topics is going to be discussing the Montpelier Police Department. So I'm in the process right now doing an initial assessment on the department. I'm talking to external stakeholders that are, appears other agencies, the state's attorney, I just spoke to the US Attorney Chris Nolan today earlier this afternoon, spoke to the FBI and I'm trying to get feedback as to what our department's doing well, what our department can use some help on, talking to folks inside our department and most importantly I want to talk to the people in the community and find out again what it is that you expect and want from your department because we're here to serve and so with that I'd open the floor to any anyone has any questions, comments, complaints or concerns that they'd like to ask or to discuss. We had started listing some questions in the chat area. Okay. I don't know if you want to address some of those first or if you want to go with conversation. Traffic is one of the things that that's been mentioned to me several times before and it's something that we definitely want to address here. So our department currently has 17 sworn officers which includes myself. So for traffic enforcement we need to find ways to be proactive when we can so that we're not in certain areas and the other trick to that is is we want to make sure that we're enforcing traffic in a way that's not punitive to people that we don't want the citizens to feel threatened but we want to make sure that we have an emphasis on safety. So when we stop folks we don't know nobody needs to hear the lecture you could drive in too fast XYZ it should just be more or less the you know talking about the education of what's going on what we ask people to do and leave it there we don't need to make sure that we berate people it's just that we understand sometimes people have they're running late anything can happen so so we want to again our goal here is to to make sure that we have safety and do it in a way that's dignified and mutually respectful to everyone so this is a priority for us and we're going to have to figure out internally what we can do to try to see if we can come up with a traffic mission especially without making even coming close to something of a quota-based system. Oh I'm sorry Mrs Santana. Yes sir. Hi it's a pleasure to talk to you I just sent you an email today. Okay. So yeah so yeah this is this yeah this is I remember when you brought it up at the city council meeting and and so thank you very much for that question. You're welcome. And thank you for your service. Thank you sir. I'll reply to your email. Yes ma'am. I just I guess I don't really have questions. I am a basically a lifetime Montpelier person. I was born and raised here moved away a couple times but I'm back here raised both of my children more or less here. One of my children who's now 34 had was diagnosed with autism late in her in her learning years and had a lot and still has mental health issues and so forth. One thing I found to be very helpful to me was to be able to have conversations with people within the police department so that they were aware of my daughter in the community or a small enough community that we can do that I think so that if she happened to pull a stunt of some sort or she'd gotten into any trial the police department was already aware at some level of the challenge of how to approach her or if she had a seizure how to approach her and I think that we've had we've had a couple instances in the last couple years where we've had people who have mental health issues mental health illness and ultimately they were they they died at the hands of the of the police and so I I'm really wondering about the when you're talking about the police department the training on on working with de-escalation and and so forth but also connecting with our other community agencies that are more in tune to that like the mental health screeners the oh they're the ones I think of immediately and you know therapists that might be connected with the police department that can come in in situations like that and help out so that it doesn't end in the death of someone oh I am a huge proponent of of working through this and so currently what the Montpelier police department has is what's called team two so with the washington county mental health services with with mary with gary gordon they have their mental health screeners so when when there are instances in which that we're called to a scene during a mental health crisis the whole goal is to so with team two and with the training that we've received as a department is to make sure that we recognize what we're seeing and that that helps us to de-escalate de-escalated by by asking questions and trying to trying to figure out what do I need to do what am I going to say that's not going to um um over stimulate someone who's going through a crisis the last thing that any of us wants to do is when you call the police you you've called us at a moment of desperation and you want us to make sure that we bring we help your loved one we don't hurt your loved one and and and so that's the whole goal so with team two training our officers do have that as there's also a state mandate that requires every law enforcement officer within uh vermont to go through mental health training what I've found since I've been here of what with that being said uh in conjunction with the washington county mental health uh Montpelier police department as well as barry um they we've just I believe as a group effort I believe they have identified and hired a social worker that will be embedded within the county so within Montpelier within barry and this is something that my predecessor had had in the works that mary's had um for the last several months so um the city did not uh even through covet they realized how important this is and so we've made sure the city made sure that it was it's a funded program so somebody I believe has been identified hired and now it's just a matter of making sure that we go through all the same mutual training and then we figure out what the um what the expectations are and moving forward with um what I've noticed here one of the best practices within law enforcement and mental health services is CIT so which is crisis intervention training it's based it's something that was developed in memphis and it's a best practice and it's it's something that uh 40 hours worth of training and it's something that um I want to bring here I understand that the difficulties here have been because of logistics um funding a whole different issues a set of issues but I actually have that training on the usb port and I plan to um train our officers here in Montpelier and provide that training statewide at free or for very extremely reduced costs for other agencies so officers in Montpelier can deal with the crisis and if you and your family say go to burlington or you go to um stowe or any other place and hopefully we can get all other law enforcement officers to have this training so that we can recognize what it is that we're seeing and that we're trying to bring um trying to de-escalate so I have very robust plans for this and um and we're not going to stop till we till we get it right and and with that being said as well I think it's incumbent upon us um to partner with other agencies schools social service systems um everybody to make sure that we have dialogue uh constructive dialogue dialogue with one another so we can understand so we can identify folks and understand and make it sure make sure that families have the resources they need to get the help before it becomes a crisis situation and and that's the whole goal is to make sure it doesn't get to that point but if it does we need to make sure we're trained and we're prepared to respond to it to have to make sure that the people we're trying to help are safe families are safe and that we're safe in those responses yeah I think trauma-informed training that trauma is such a deep um seated thing within a lot of the mental health and behavioral stuff that um and I know I worked with the family center for many years and that has been our course of training over the last two or three years is trauma-based um teaching and working with clients and so forth so being aware of where trauma can bring out a whole bunch of other stuff so I'll yield the floor so to speak okay thank you so much for your question um I saw that uh representative Hooper uh was uh had a had a question or raise hand yeah hi chief pig I'm really happy to meet you and thank you for having these forums I think it's a great way for us to get to know each other uh one of the challenges that we've had in Montpelier with um responding to mental health related um issues within the community is just having time to get officers to the academy for training we had a pretty good record at one point where everybody had the training and then we really kind of slipped do you know where we are now in terms of the numbers of you know the percent of officers who've had the training and what's the plan for making sure that everybody's getting it I've been working very closely with Drew Bloom um up at the academy since I've been going back and forth I even got the scars to prove it but he uh he is um he he is extremely passionate and as far as the the training especially with with mental health is concerned so I believe that the academy is I don't want to speak out of turn for him but I believe they are making sure that all departments stay current with that mandate but I don't think that they have the funding nor the personnel to to to be more aggressive um and more in-depth with that mental health training to to bring it to advance it to the next level they're doing at the minimum the state minimum and beyond in my opinion but I think that they're they're very hungry and eager to take it to the next step I don't think that they have the resources to do that and in light of that that's where he and I have been having those conversations about trying to establish a CIT program um that can kind of take some of the stress off them I was wondering about our police department and how many of our officers yeah each of our okay I apologize about that ma'am each each of our officers are current and updated with their um with their mandated training for mental health and then we're going again we're going to take that up we're going to kick that up several notches that's that's really terrific to hear um thank you and can you just generally I mean you're coming from away and looking at us with fresh eyes because what what do you think we ought to be paying attention to what kind of pops out to you um I don't know it's um what I've seen as far as as far as Montpelier itself or as far as statewide or both well I tend to think with a statewide hat now but everybody sitting here is interested in Montpelier so we should talk about Montpelier okay well with Montpelier I think Montpelier has been doing um a lot of it has been doing 21st century policing before it was defined by the task force and uh it's uh it's and with that with the evidence based practices that the task force has done it's only brought out more more different specialized way best practices and how to do things um but I think Montpelier has in my opinion has been a national leader I've had the opportunity to look at um to be in several departments I've had the opportunity to be part of a a consent decree monitoring team in Chicago and and they're doing everything right here and in the culture I think the biggest to me the biggest thing is the culture and um when you don't have a culture that that starts off with a whole bullying aspect that when you go into the academy and it's a we're already off the top it's you know who are we going to ostracize and push away I don't see that um as far as law enforcement is here I see everyone's mutually trying to help each other and and establish a culture and not being part of of what's ugly about our profession at times um so I'm actually very um for the state I'm extremely impressed at the culture and for Montpelier I'm extremely grateful and impressed with um the level of professionalism that I see with the officers and what they expect from themselves and from each other there's definitely an established culture here and those who don't live up to the high expectations of our city um are kind are weeded out um so uh like Liz had mentioned earlier she has an adult daughter with disabilities I have an adult son with disabilities um and um I would certainly I guess like to bring him to the police station just to meet people since there's a whole new crew he used as a as a child he um he knew a lot of the police officers and now a lot of them are gone um anyway so I didn't know what you thought about that idea um and then the other thing is um the other thing is what the other thing is oh I just I don't have a lot of experience interacting with your police department um which is a good but uh there was a car accident on the estate street Mike I wasn't in my car it was parked on the street uh so somebody was coming up the street and somebody was coming down the street and my car kind of got smashed a bit but the most wonderful thing was um that every officer that responded was so kind to every different person in that triad uh somebody had been drinking and you know did the crashing and another person had gotten crashed into and was injured and then there was me who came out to find out that their car was a little smashed up but every officer was so kind to it to everybody in the situation I was so impressed with that that the next day I went down to the police station I wrote a letter to I guess the chief at the time and I just and I spelled out what had happened and I I don't know I was I just wanted to share that because like I said I don't have a lot of experience interacting with individual police officers but that brought a lot of officers together and they were super nice and compassionate with everybody involved well I definitely thank you so very much I appreciate that feedback and I'll make sure to send it out to the other officers um uh I community outreach and community policing is huge and it's something that all of our all of our citizens are rightfully demanding from the department and uh we're looking at different ways that we can make sure that we're out in the community as much as possible so that when you see us it's not a traffic accident it's not something that you see us on the best of days so that when those worst of days god forbid happen we have that compassion we know okay it's Kathy Kathy's my friend we've spoken several times I have a very strong vested interest to make sure he's safe her family safe her property is safe and that's what the whole thing is about so we're working on ways to make sure we establish those bonds and and by all means bring your son down this station your station anytime let us know um one of the other things that we that we're also looking at doing is doing partnerships with places like NAMI with um folks who do the you know the national organizations that do specialize in an autistic or in autism that we look for best practices and what other places have done so so one of the things that we know some folks who who are autistic there's a draw to water so oh yeah so how do we know so if we do an outreach with folks you know with families who are autistic and okay who's your what's your daughter your son's name where's some places they may like to um that they like to visit but they wander off from home we can help with those look and the first things that we're going to do is you know we're going to go to different places you know like to the rivers and to the dam all different places to make sure that we do that and again some other departments do have like identifiers so um if a child's autistic um and they're higher on that spectrum scale they may have that purple wristband and once the officer gets there they see we know what we're dealing with we're not dealing with somebody who is who has malicious intent we're dealing with somebody currently in crisis so those are the different things that we want to make sure that we pump up a notch to well that was brilliant and my son does have autism and i've been an autism specialist for the last 30 years and um and i'm not saying this at harlene i know i apologize but i would love for you to come in and tell us your stories i'd love to come in and give us that the other thing is my son's black so you know there's just all kinds of experiences here you know the more we speak with each other the more i think we learn from each other the more i agree we're all the same and it's not different and that's what what we have to do especially in montpelier we have to make sure that the example for what this job can be and i think it's nice that you connect in with the agency you know different agencies that have this experience but tapping into the families the people who live it that's where that's where some good information comes from too that's where i learned that's where i got the power of the stories of people's experiences and and it boils down to i remember you know even the first day in academy when i went to um to flezzi and the first thing was who do you want showing up when your mom is going through crisis do you everybody knows that one person who shows up and escalates the situation well now we we need to make sure that we you know there's no more um that it's incumbent upon us it's written in law now that we have to make sure that we de-escalate and that you know that we do those things when we see those happening within our ranks um that now it's actually spelled out in law but but that's the the majority of the crux of the people in this profession we need to make sure we remember that and again that community policing aspect of it is getting in with the families and learning and listening and um that's what we're we're aiming to do and to continue to do well there's great families with uh kids with autism in this town and liz and i know everyone and we're ready to learn okay good i'm sorry mr gale mr gale or how do i pronounce this yes i want you yeah okay i want you no no problem i just uh well i wanted to tell you i i have some background in that i worked in far west texas as a crime victims coordinator as a part of the border prosecution uh unit and part of da's office and um i did a lot of trainings with the various police forces out there and i've actually volunteered i actually offered a while back to be an interpreter and i was called out um this year in the middle of the snowstorm actually and we went out with i went out with some officers i was really impressed truly impressed uh it did a very good job i mean obviously you can always have improvements in training but i was very impressed and uh so i want to encourage you to continue when people volunteer and offer to take them up on it and have people um especially people don't know this but we have quite a few people that speak uh as a first language uh you know some of their language and uh if you have somebody in the community that's uh willing enable and has the training or capacity to so to take them up on it instead of having a phone interpreter working on the case um i think it's it's always good to have a person there um but anyhow i have to say that i was i was impressed it was it was a difficult situation and and i think that was handled quite well um and the other thing is i i wanted to you mentioned it already but i want to encourage you you you have this uh coffee with a cop and getting out there and i think that that's been great and i think something like that to expand on that idea i know we my family have been at these and they're great um you know it just uh it's a face on the officers the community and they meet the local community so it's great and i guess one uh i have my little my little uh complain is that there's always and i know it's difficult to police it but the intersection of a state and main you know people just i don't know how we can maybe there's some examples out there what can be done to sort of uh enforce it a little more where people don't just cross in front of vehicles we've had some people that injured further down on main street in the past and maybe there's a way to improve because i you know i don't know how many times i've been going down the hill and suddenly somebody just crosses right there and you know it's concerning i'm gonna end up hurting somebody who's just uh going across so thank you so much and welcome to tam well thank you so very much thank you for what you're doing because that that job especially in texas what you did my wife did it in chicago and there were nights that she came home and it was time for me to just shut up and just listen so i can understand i can i can understand i had a the largest district in west texas so it's cool yeah it's pretty brutal i was i was i was i was actually the clerk of criminal jurisprudence in the legislature and i wanted to have a hands-on experience you got a real good hands-on experience yeah more than because it was something else wow thank you so much and i will make sure we bring this and that again we know traffic is is uh i'm hearing it repetitively and repeatedly throughout these these meetings and it'll be something that we make sure that we do our best to to try to get a handle on thank you so much thank you i'd love to ask a question yes um thanks for having this i appreciate it my name's meredith um i i'd like to just bring the the national conversation into the space and talk a little i'd love to hear your thoughts about accountability and repair within the context of police work you know i'm really i'm i'm curious about your thinking on how we move forward on um really better integrating um a culture of repair when a police officer does harm not not necessarily with intention but you know police officers are human we all work different kinds of jobs things happen that shouldn't some you know you know and we all know that profiling is an issue and i'm just really curious about what you're thinking is on what does repair look like when when harm is done by an officer and and what accountability really looks like um i think that is that is a very good question thank you for that and it's an extraordinary one um i i think to me if i could boil it down to the simplest way that i understand to me repair is writing a wrong that i've done and um i can think back to relationships in my life that i um things that i'm not so proud of that i may have done something that i have uh just burned bridges with people and um so i i think that um it's one of those things that whether we did it directly or whether it was done by something in our profession we as people tend to just say there is an institutional problem here or or you know we need to make sure that first and foremost we don't paint ourselves or paint each other with the same broad strokes that being said the institution of policing has needed a long do it's just needed work and um and it's to the point now that i think that people who have wanted to come into this job and fix it from the inside out are now they have power to the voices now it's not just well that's not the way we do things here you go over there we force you out we make things bad for you and that's the end of it it's like those are the chargers that are coming up and and and so so those people we have to continue to give them the opportunities to make those types of changes while being cognizant of making sure that we earn that trust and that we're held accountable um so i i think it's it's it's going to be getting our butts out there proactively um taking every opportunity we can to make sure that every engagement that we that we have with someone is a positive one is as positive as possible and anytime that we're called into a situation that's crisis that it's dignified and it's mutually respectful um but in repairing that i fall back on how hard is it to gain someone's trust once you've broken it and uh and i think that's that's the challenge to it is to where we are um and that's only done by showing people that you care and the trick is to actually care and uh so with culture um our our department or our institution has had a culture that have you ever heard of a have you ever heard of a convert or what what's sometimes in our circles is referred to as a warrior geared mentality and you have this warrior geared mentality you have to be a warrior and you know and you're the sheep dog and and society is the sheep and your job is to protect society from that wolf that's ever present and this that i know a lot of sheep that can handle themselves better than i can so i don't see the population i serve as sheep i see them as people i see them as capable people so when we have to look at our institution as nationwide as our profession we have to get out of that mindset we have to get away from the us versus them because once you do that you can start because the job is dark enough already but if you start that way it's easier to start treating people like crap it's easy to start being disrespectful to people and it's easy to dehumanize them and once you do that things just go downhill from there and that's not what any one of us should be doing when we get into this profession so i'm sorry about that soapbox i feel extremely passionate about that but as far as answering your question i think that that we have to take the lumps um but we we are also begging for the opportunity to make sure you hold us accountable but if it's something that our department is is doing then by all means i need to i need to be smacked up for doing what it is i'm no pun intended i need to be to be dealt with i need to be held accountable to it but in the interim if our department is striving to become better because of the human element that you had mentioned and we're trying to look at ourselves internally to do reflection to look at things like implicit bias training and and everything to that fact it's it's it's internal it's knowing yourself i think ultimately when you come into this job so the it doesn't change you for the worst so um i just need that opportunity uh to show everyone what i'm passionate about and what i'm doing and to be held accountable to those standards but again in answering that question it's just you know we have to have those candid conversations with each other as a chief when i go to the chief's conferences i have to be able to stand up and speak truth to what it is this is where we've come from and this is what we're doing i'm not going to sugarcoat it we've treated treated people like crap and now here's our comeuppance and it's incumbent upon each of us to do something about it so we just have to be part of a national trend to move it are you seeing um other departments uh that are talking about different models for accountability that really are shifting what we have right now um i i think that there have there have been roadmaps that talk about transparency and accountability and they've been there for a long time they've been finalized in 2015 the most recent which is a president obama's uh a task force on 21st century policing so it's i i there is some pushback to that some of it's political some of it's just like well this is the way we've always been doing things and nobody who's not a cop is going to tell me who is a cop on how to do my job um so so i am seeing um departments especially the larger departments um that are moving to these directions but unfortunately there's still some we're doing things the way that we've done them before and unfortunately that means not necessarily getting out into the community and knowing your community and um getting out there and um and treating people and making sure that your culture weeds out those who who just aren't service oriented thank you i appreciate it thank you i'll sit over next to you george can i jump back in yes ma'am yeah so that was a great question marida thank you very much for asking and i think it's on all of our minds um following up a little bit on that but kind of looking down at what we're doing in montilier i'm curious if you could talk about how you plan on working with the community justice center um senate that we have um i see them as an important part of that relationship with the community and a good way to have the dialogue i'm not sure they've ever been called in when an officer um it may have had harmed someone and that there's been a dialogue there but it occurs to me that they they are excellent at doing that sort of work but but just generally i'm curious how you imagine working with them and if they have enough resources to do the work we ought to be doing in the community um that i've i've met with them online and i've met with them in person during one of the um well in person and and we're slated to have those those were more like introductions and we we've kind of crazed the surface on those but we're we're about to dump into a deep dive i think next week i have another appointment to meet with them to speak directly one of i think that to me it's a trifecta it's the it's the police department it's the state's attorney's office and it's the cjc and a lot of people have made it abundantly clear that in some of these cases in evil we agree to that that law enforcement doesn't need to be in the middle of disputes that we we should be we should have a lane and we should steer more of a lane towards um de-escalation and working on criminal aspects rather than disagreements or things that that don't require us so it's huge to me i think that it's it's something that um it is i guess more normal in this state than i've seen any place else every place else talks about you got to have a restorative justice place and maupilier has it and so i think that by making sure our officers know who's part of the cjc that um we know that we're all working towards the same thing and we have those same interactions that we realize that this is an issue that hey i'm not gonna we want to make sure this is resolved i do know the people in the cjc i do know what their what their capability are capabilities are what they can do the success rate that they've enjoyed um so i think with those relationships with stronger relationships between us and them um that we can become that whole family and that it will be easier to make sure that we can pass on information back and forth to um to to to promote restorative justice i think the police department has been pretty good at working with them and there's been a nice relationship there between the pink cjcs i we need to um help the state's attorney see that um what a great resource it is and to use us and they're in a transition now um so we we need to be careful that we build that we maintain a good service there yes i whole harley agree and and and in talking to rory um the state's attorney here for watchin county he seems very um very receptive to making sure that issues are are you that the cjc is utilized um uh as much as possible and um and even in conjunction when there's something that may be more of a criminal element uh well it's all in those cases but even like the more severity the more severe the topic or the incident he still wants to see some kind of involvement from that so i'm just going to take that and run as far as i can before that lease chose me well can i just since i work at the justice center i just thought i would point out that we do get um you know a lot of people have in their conditions of release they they uh participate in a restorative justice process so we do work with criminal cases also and not just neighbor disputes and um we do mediation so even if it were a police officer in the conflict um he or she could come in and use the services of the mediators um to work on that internal cultural stuff that you were talking about and we really want a restorative community so there are practices you can apply everywhere and not just in some particular instance so um yeah i'm in favor of what mary said and thank you for that because when we all first met that first time my impression my experiences with restorative justice has been and is probably coming through in the dialogue um which is why i need to get smarter and more in depth and immersed in it but our processes have been when there's a resource like that it's normally typically been oh here's a very low level misdemeanor take it and kind of go away rather than what the full capabilities of this is and if you're looking at restorative justice to me it's a multi-layer thing and if you want to reduce recidivism if you want to to make sure that people have the resources they need and going forward and that whole thing clicks what i did you know it hurt so many people on different levels not just myself i think that um a CJC is extremely important in that equation to me it's that trifecta of looking at how we can how we can better our community rather than be punitive to our community and i i um look forward to i think our new director and i and our re-entry person we all want to talk to you about all that we do so you know because yeah we could use a nice one i want and there are some new officers who haven't we've talked with a lot of people mike fulbrick has worked with i've worked with a lot of your officers but um we could use some talk with the new people so they know we're there and what we do i i am so looking forward to that yeah we will make sure we do that yeah i just wanted to say that i would like to introduce my brother george here hi hi did you want to say something to the chief yeah i got the i got a problem chief yes sir well i was in the back seat officer okay you were in the back seat i was in the back seat uh my seat belt came off okay yeah it came off oh oh it did yeah it came off in the back seat i had to ask that it were in the back seat was was that when when we were in north carolina yeah body was looking with a stop sign well yeah and were you hurt hurt yeah but you were hurt from the seat belt right with the chest on your chest yeah anyway that was a scary time for us that's very true i'm sorry that happened to you are you doing better now yeah mine's okay he's all better now and we got a new car out of it all right is that do you want to say welcome to yeah welcome up here you chief thank you so much sir i sincerely appreciate it i like to have a medal from you or a badge a medal or a badge will do i told him that probably wasn't possible but he likes to make sure you know he doesn't want to listen miss out on how i want to be an h i will say that when the covid thing is over george gives some of the best hugs as i'm thinking now is i'm thinking now i'm thinking hopefully when covid goes over there's nothing more than i'd love to do right now and throw like the biggest barbecue for this city one at the statehouse lawn so um yeah oh no or something like that well maybe not at the statehouse lawn we'll find someplace else better you know we're not better but you know someplace else but uh i i think it's i think we all need to get away and and get out and see each other again yeah so thank you all all for your comments in the chat um i sincerely appreciate them and thanks for the feedback are there any other questions or and it's great to see you guys all again as well are there any other questions uh complaints concerns challenges anything that i can bring up well i'll have one and that is uh discussed with friends and we've wondered where what's your position on officers walking a beat downtown rather than just being in their vehicles i know there used to be a pretty regular event of officers being on bicycles and i think that that goes some way and also wondering if if there is more of a presence on the the street if that would be helpful uh in dealing with our growing homeless population uh and you know who sometimes settled into places that are awkward for businesses and awkward for passersby and just i guess how in general you approach that that dimension or see that as a as a strategy uh it is um it's a huge strategy for us the um the the challenge that we have is just the with the bike patrol i know that we've been wanting to try to uh relaunch that but in light of everything that's been going on with covid um it's been more difficult but we're trying to figure out creative ways to make sure we get out there and to make sure that we are seen we're present especially in the downtown area that we are walking the beat since that's not because it's that's the that's you know the tourists or the or the but that's where we can meet the most people and introduce ourselves to the most people um so we're trying to definitely figure that out but our challenge has come into when we maybe may only have one or two or two or three officers on a shift um we were just we're finally up to full strength but if we only have one or two officers on a shift and they're all dealing with calls or they're going from call to call uh then it's an issue on how when we can get back down and walk through but that doesn't mean that we don't try and and that's that's a huge um expectation of us right now here and and so we're going to find a way to make sure that happens and um i don't know what that's going to look like just yet um but it is going to happen and and and we'll figure out a way to to do that and and yes i'm a huge proponent in that um because again people need to see who we are and we need to see who it is that we serve and meet everyone oh it does seem to be a really really good way to make that contact a larger contact with community thank you all right thank you you know what and i mean if you know if that means that and part of the other thing about something like that uh it kind of just gave me an idea um i appreciate it but um it's it's um yeah it is a it is a community and it is a connection and we just we have to show that and and and to make sure that that goes as part of a you know you've got to have that informal culture and that formal culture that professional culture and to make sure that you um instill a culture that it doesn't go back the other way it's incumbent upon us to find ways to make sure that this is a professional fit so in things like um yearly assessments or you know quarterly assessments or feedback those types of things i think that it's essential it's a best practice to say how many times have you been out in the community how many times have you gone to the school while you run shift how many times have you read a book how many times have you stopped when someone in the street and said hello how many times have you had those interactions and make those things uh give those a higher pointed value system to show that's what we value so when you're looking for promotion when you're looking to go off to different training places when you're looking for internal opportunities that it's one of those things that we we continue to promote so we have to make sure we instill that professionally and uh and the idea i think he gave me was just like seeing if we can do like a i don't know maybe and that's what i've asked other people in the department to do is what are some creative ways that we can get back out to the community and i'm thinking me myself right now i might just call shawls up and just ask them um during my lunch break uh in next month if i can just come up there and bag groceries in uniform um i think i that that sounds actually pretty fun oh we get in your line for sure just not with any heavy heavy things oh thank you yeah i would yeah thank you very much for the for for that comment and and we will find ways to do that how many officers are actually employed by my player i don't know there are 17 sworn officers including myself and so when it's sworn that it's just a you know that they have powers in inactive to them by the state um so uh so i will i try to get out to the streets as much as i can especially when i become fully certified it's a longer process within this state that i can actually work on my own at this point i have to have somebody riding in the car with me if i'm in uniform uh so that's another potential issue but with the state they're they're wonderful drew bloom and their team at the academy are doing an awesome job and and i'm learning a lot from them so there's 17 uh full-time officers the city of montpelier doesn't have part-time officers one of the biggest things especially explained to me by my precious by tony was that when you have unfortunately sometimes you may have part-time officers that don't have the experience or know the expectations of what it is um in in the community like montpelier with very very high expectations and um so we want to make sure that we have people who are devoted um full-time who have that time who have the who understand the community understand the resources here uh to work so we don't typically employ part-time officers unless they may have been years of experience from this department are going forward but i don't think that we have many part-time officers here i i do have one other question which which i hope when not throwing bombs here but oh no please as as a long-sense retired former motorcyclist he mostly rides bikes now uh what what is your take on loud mufflers and pipes which is often a late night event down main street and out elm street which goes right right by where i live um yeah i've heard that there have been some people have it down to the time and i've heard there's one gentleman especially around three o'clock and around seven o'clock in the morning who comes speeding through those areas with a very very loud muffler slash engine on the bike um so my um it's i understand the need for them to be heard but uh because i used to ride myself until i been to too many yeah i used to ride myself but then i scared myself out of it but um no i think that um in those cases that uh i have to look to see if there's a municipal law that that that that has a requirement on sound um but yeah i think that especially during uh in in high in neighborhoods or high density areas uh it's more of a disturbance or a hindrance um right right yeah just as you're settling off to sleep it's oh yeah and then the adrenaline keeps you up for another 30 minutes like uh oh yeah thank you thank you okay we are coming up at 7 20 right now um are there um any other uh questions comments complaints anything else that i can answer i'm very very grateful to have this opportunity to speak with everyone sounds like my husband would like to say something okay hi chief i was wondering could you tell us a little bit of how we are so fortunate to have you here how did you come to be here uh well fortunate give me a few weeks i might hope i don't do anything to make you upset but um i've had the um it's it's been an extraordinary trip and uh in coming i came out from from new mexico and and when i was when i left new mexico in the mcgordo um uh we were looking for for different positions and when we saw that montpelier came up um it was kind of like a boom let's i got to put in for it i got to put in for it and uh and one of the reasons is when i was in chicago and we were working towards the consent decree um we were looking at best practices what are some some things that other places are doing that chicago police department can do and implement and so i i looked at each different state and and when i looked at verman and from the east coast it's like oh montpelier that's that's pretty interesting oh the chief was part of the you know was uh was at the white house talking about 21st century policing and and it's like wow they you know this is kind of unbelievable on paper and then the opportunity came up and then i applied and and and and by grace is i'm here and and when i came here it's exactly everything that i've read it was and um and i don't don't give that one out lightly and it's um so yeah i'm just it's it's it enjoys to anyone in the circle who who researches policing um knows that montpelier is one of the strongest places in the state of vermont and um and then coming here and talking to all of the other professionals um other peers other investigators other agencies it's yeah it's it's definitely a great place so if i can tell you a weird story about that one too i screwed up big time i was uh i put in for laguna beach california um at one and so as i was working on my um cover sheet yeah i i was like okay i've made the changes made everything you know kept a lot of the information the same but on the whole thing i said you know hello mr bill frazier to the city council i would love to serve laguna beach as its next police chief and i was like yeah that's a that was a job killer i thought because i i screwed up and put that on my on my cover letter and when they called me and and asked me to do an interview um the first thing um the first thing i had to build frazier's mouth was so tell me why do you want to be why do you want to come here to laguna beach and so then it was an uphill battle for or it was a climb up from there it's pretty funny but um no i just um i just appreciate this town i appreciate the people um and and then again i'm part of this other rant not only is the department that i like but the people here um very very engaged very very just involved and i think that strength i think that strength also brings other opportunities in that when we when there are some things that we're working on to try to improve in our department we can reach out to the community for help because i i think there's a lot of voices and people who want to help us to get better and to uh to get stronger so i plan on tapping into that and all of us becoming uh just a huge family it's the city that loves each other well i think everybody with us tonight appreciates you also thank you so much you're welcome well i didn't say i would be happy to ask questions i'd be happy to listen to anything you have to say okay um well let's see i see well first mr mr girdle uh i hope i'm pronouncing that correctly uh okay yeah if there's anything that i can do for you um by all means please contact me let me know i'd love to answer any questions that you that you may have um but um no i i um as far as just uh i think that in the in moving back uh towards i guess policing i i do want to say that um the state of vermont um is geared towards um i think is is defaulted towards having a lot of provisions on law enforcement to make sure that it that it doesn't have mission creep that it doesn't overstep its bounds and and i've and i've gotten to learn that since i've been um in the academy and seeing the differences in how what the culture is in law enforcement in this state is compared to other states that i've been to and i i think that um you know it's it's it's a very uh fortunate place to be in and um i just want to make sure i do my best to contribute to it to uh to keep it going in a positive direction and to keep it stronger it's i've met a lot of wonderful people here and i've been told by several others you know there's a lot of great people here but at the same time i remember that you know uh vermont is is a sampling of of everything that's going on in the state so while i don't um discount anyone else's experience that may have been negative in the state especially for people of color um mine have been overwhelming very positive and open um with those with those folks who do um want to make sure that professionally um that we make ourselves transparent and we make ourselves accountable and i by all means uh intend to make sure this department remains that way but it's been a very welcoming city and a state and i'm glad to be here if i could ask a question that's a little broader than montelier you've been all over the country seen policing all over the country are you hopeful for the future yes absolutely absolutely i think that um i think that right now when when the emotions came out um you know you don't you don't get to see i want to say this very delicately insistent it's not every day you get to see someone who was violated in the way that and what happened in minneapolis yes and i think that that turned on a light bulb for a lot of people and and a lot of emotion came out of that so they think there's two directions we can go with it we can we could shut ourselves off and circle the wagons and just wait till it blows over and keep doing the same crap that we've been doing before or we as a collective group can be better than what we've seen in the past and i am extremely optimistic with with where our societies are going with where our communities are going and with especially with where our profession is going and so i i think policing is going to change for the better and in some cases it's going to change very quickly other cases it might take some time but i'm very positive on where we're going to go i know we can do this oh so i i i said actually the pronunciation is girdle the girdle i've gotten over since it was only really tough in middle school when i had a teacher who throughout the year never got got the pronunciation right of girdle but thank you very much and what will definitely be in being uh touch and following things along so i'm going to check out all right take care enjoy your night okay bye and if there's no one else left i won't keep you any longer oh it's all good you you have a good day sir you do the same and thank you for coming here i i really appreciate that you chose montelier i really appreciate that shows me okay all right take care okay bye bye bye now i can figure out how to get off this uh that little red button at the bottom right that says in yeah yeah i i do usually do it on my uh laptop not on my wife's phone um so i'll have to bring up i think he left me no maybe not i'll um i'll bring it to you dear i think he's still there looking at me that is a lovely shirt you have all right let's see what we can do here okay you take care thank you goodbye everybody bye everyone it's 7 30 i'll go ahead and sign off too everybody take care