 Okay, we're recording. Thank you. Good evening. It's November 14th, 2022. Based on the revisions to the open meeting law, we are allowed to meet both virtually and in-person. This meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom, by phone, and on Amherst media, and you are also welcome into the town room. Given that we have a quorum of the council present, I'm calling the November 14th, 2022 Special Town Council meeting to order at 6.30 p.m. I'll call upon each councilor by name. Please unmute, say present, and then mute your mic again. And I'll come back if I'm missing somebody. So, Shalini Balmillan. I don't see her yet. Pat D'Angelo's present. Anna Devlin-Goth here. Present. Lynn Griezmer is present. Mandy Jo Hanneke. Present. Anika Lopes. Present. Michelle Miller. Present. Dorothy Pam. Here. Pam Rooney. Present. Kathy Shane. Here. Did that work? Yeah. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Taw. Present. Alicia Walker. Here. And Shalini Balmillan. Present. Thank you. Let me just mention, at this point, there are 12 people in the audience. There is no chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please make sure that you let Athena and me know. And we'll decide what to do at that time. With regard to announce that on the screen, you can see how to join the council meeting. You can also see how to join by phone. And how to make public comment. There'll be two public comment periods today, one general public comment. And then one later on after we begin discussing possible emotions. So are there any announcements at this time that anybody is wanting to say? Let me just mention. Next week, next Monday night, 6.30, we have our public forum on the FY24 budget. And at 7 o'clock, we will begin the regular meeting. We posted at 7, but frankly, that meeting will not begin until we're done with the public forum. On December 5, we'll do a joint meeting, which is the state of the town and a regular town council meeting. And you can see the committee meetings on the calendar. With that, I'm going to ask if people would like to make public comment to please raise your hand at this time. So I'm calling for a public comment at this time. We will have another public comment period right now. There are 15 people in the audience, but no one has raised their hand for public comment. We have two action items tonight. The first action is the appointment of the Human Resource Director. I'm going to call on Paul Bachmann to just speak briefly to the candidate and then on Anika Lopes to share with us the town services and outreach committee report. Paul. Thank you, Lynn. So Melissa Ludici Walker has been offered the position of Human Resources Director for the town of Amherst, and she has accepted the town services and outreach committee reviewed the appointment on Thursday and Anika will respond to that. The Melissa brings a lot of experience. She has a practicing attorney. She has a master's in social work. She has a bachelor's degree from the University of Massachusetts. She is currently the HR director for Berkshire Community College and has been working in private practice as an employment law attorney for about 10 years before that. She interviewed for our team multiple times. We really put this group through a pretty detailed process. Our committee was very strong. Pamela Nolen Young, our DEI director, chaired the committee. Everyone who interviewed her, including the subsequent interviews that I had with the temporary HR director after the fact recommended Melissa over the other candidates, I think she's going to be a really dynamic addition to our staff. Pamela is really excited about being able to work with her. I think we're really fortunate to have her as a candidate. And so I hope that you will welcome her to our communities as I do. Anika? Yes, so we also had a very nice discussion in the TSO meeting and the vote to appoint to rather refer that the council appoint was unanimous. OK. Thank you. And so with that, I'm going to place a motion that we don't appoint, we approve the appointment of. And please state her name again. Melissa? Melissa's the easy part. LaDitchie Walker. Melissa LaDitchie Walker. To the position of human resource director for the town of Amherst. Is there a second? Second. Rooney. OK. Is there any other further comments or questions? Mandy Jones. I just wonder whether we wanted the standard motion that was in the packet last week. That's fine. Let me quickly go find that. I found it. So I can just read what that was. Why don't you read the standard motion? That's what I was missing. In accordance with Charter Section 2.11A to approve the town manager appointment of Melissa LaDitchie Walker as the human resources director as filed with the town clerk on November 4, 2022. And I'll second the motion. How's that? Or that's my motion and who wants to second it? Pam, thank you. That's the actual motion. And thank you very much, Mandy Jo, for quickly finding that. Are there any other comments or questions? Seeing none, we are going to move to a vote. Shall any of all known? Yes. Patty Angelis. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Lynn Griespersen. Aye. Mandy Jo Hanneke. Aye. Anika Lopes. Aye. Michelle Miller. Aye. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Aye. Jennifer Taub. Aye. Alicia Walker. Aye. It's unanimous. And we look forward to meeting her. So let me just, we are now going to move to the various motions that we have. And I'll explain that in a moment. But prior to introducing that whole section, I'm calling upon the town manager, Paul Bachman, who has requested an opportunity to speak. Thank you, Lynn and members of the town council. So as I reflected back over the past weeks and months, since we first learned of the incident on July 5th, I want to acknowledge errors that I regret both on that evening and more importantly in the days and weeks since then. While I typically refrain from speaking about matters where there exists a risk of litigation at this point, I feel the need to address this matter important. I feel that this matter is important enough to contribute and it will hopefully in the process hope to contribute to the long process of building trust. First, I think there's agreement that the police officer statement to the minors regarding their individual rights was incorrect. The second officer on the scene recognized this immediately and corrected it, for which I am grateful. The first officer has acknowledged his use of those words and has said that he regrets them. The police chief addressed the matter through the town's established personnel and collective bargaining processes consistent with his obligations. Now our established processes are important, but there is more to a community than process and obligations. I want to talk about what we didn't do that night and in the following weeks and months. We acknowledged the mistake, but did not apologize to those whose trust we had violated. In failing to do so, we left the impression that this mistake was acceptable in our community. It was not, it is not. Our failure, my failure took a negative situation and made it worse. Much time has passed, but that failure still must be corrected. To the youth present that evening, I apologize. You should never have a moment's doubts about your rights or about the obligation of the police department to protect those rights. In all the town services, we need to approach youth with the same courtesy and professionalism with which we approach older adults. Second, I want to apologize to the police department. I have great respect for the department and its officers. They're professional, dedicated and work every day and night to make the right decision in difficult situations. My failure to act quickly cast doubt on the department. That was unfair. Our concern about what occurred on July 5th should not be used to undermine the value of the department's important service to the town. Third, I want to apologize to the town council, the community safety and social justice committee and the human rights commission. You have devoted significant time, energy and emotion to moving us toward a safer and more just community. Your challenge, our challenge is daunting, but above all else, success requires trust and respect for the members who bring their own experiences and doubts to the table. I can see that my failure to acknowledge our error on this issue may have contributed to feelings of mistrust and I truly regret that. Lastly, I apologize to the larger community. Amherst is a caring community committed to progress. You recognize that no one is perfect, but when public officials make a mistake, you rightly expect us to admit it, take corrective action and learn from it and become better. Moving forward, I will be more explicit about how I am learning from this incident and how the town will improve through all the lessons learned. I'm reaching out to each individual involved in this incident. For the youth, I would like to meet with you individually with your parents or if you are willing, if you and if you are willing to help me understand more about the incident and its impact on you. I along with the DEI director and police chief are available to meet each of you to understand your experiences, reactions and ideas for restorative work. I hope you'll take me up on that. As our DEI director reminds us as a community, we must have the courage to admit a mistake and act to correct it. The strength to do the hard work of reconciliation and the capacity to forgive and show grace and offering my apologies, the late that they may be. I ask that we continue to work together as we move forward to do the important work that has been for us. I thank you for the opportunity to say that. Thank you, Paul. We're going to continue to move on. There is a motion on the floor, but let me explain how we're gonna proceed with the evening, okay? Oh, okay, can you hear me now? Got it. So I'm gonna ask the clerk of the council to place the motions that are on the table up on the screen. The motion that is on the table is not the one that was originally printed in the agenda, and that has been corrected as of this afternoon. So the motion that is on the table is in fact the one that you can see right now, okay? Since then, various people have submitted either amendments to this motion or they've submitted new motions. And I wanna make sure that everybody who has submitted something speaks to it, doesn't make the motion but speaks to it so that we understand what the variety of motions are that may come on the floor. People may also withdraw motions and other people may still make a motion because that is allowed as long as the motion is relevant to the discussion on the floor, okay? So with that, let me ask if there are any questions from the council, all right? Kathy. Lynn, just so I understand, it looks like the original motion may have been amended, well, it's amended twice in a similar way. As we go through it, will we know who did the amendments? Yes, are there any other questions, Pam? I might as well clarify, since there were several different things in the packet, we have a proposed amendment number one, which was page three of seven. We have a proposed amendment number two, which was page five of seven. We have a proposed amendment three, which was page six of seven. And then we have a substitute or additional motion, which was on page seven of seven. Am I looking at the right documents? That is the correct document. Athena, would you like to show that document so people know that that's the document we're dealing with? So this is as councilor, as Pam just said, this is the proposed amendment one. And in the text, it shows what has been deleted or added in red. And then at the end of that, as we go through it, you'll see the motion written with all those red marks taken out, okay? Then we go on to a motion proposed amendment two. Again, taking the motion that's on the floor, this proposal shows various places where things have been deleted or added. And then at the end of it, shows without all the red marks what the motion would actually be, okay? Then we have a substitute motion, which is to some extent picks up on the previous motion, but doesn't include all the red marks, okay? And then we have a substitute or additional motion. I believe that this is an additional motion and not a substitute motion, but we can debate that if and when we get to that, okay? Dorothy, I tell you the thought of dealing with this pile of motions, I printed them all out, I read them, I made notes on them, is to me such a daunting task that I just don't want to do it. I feel that the town manager's apology was heartfelt, was complete, and I feel that we've already heard that other things are in motion. Some of the things that have been mentioned in these motions such as working on the oversight board where we're told that that is in fact on the plate of the new DEI director. I believe that the police are reviewing their protocols. I just the thought of trying to keep track. I mean, I've got all of these with marks and stuff. I really, I don't see how it gets us anywhere except to be a dithering confusing council which the public cannot follow. So I am kind of hoping that we don't do this. Thank you. Are there any other comments? Kathy? I just want to echo Dorothy's appreciation for Paul's apology. Both the depth at which you went and also admitting it would have been better sooner. I think as a parent, I can think of many times that as the person in power when I thought about it a month later, I should have said I'm sorry really earlier and it takes a lot of humanity to do it. So I just want to thank you because it really sets the tone for tonight and also for moving forward. So thank you. Are there any other comments or questions before we move to the motions? Anna? Sure. So I appreciate Paul what you were saying earlier and I guess I don't agree with Dorothy on that's enough. I think we as a council have a huge responsibility here in identifying what things we need to champion. And while I recognize that many of these will need to be the initiative of individual counselors or a few counselors stepping up with motions that need to be made, I do not think that we should stop at this point. I think there's a lot left to do. I think we've started, we've scratched the surface of this, a mixing metaphors here, but of this road that we need to travel and to stop now would be a huge mistake. So I'm looking forward to this discussion and to voting on some motions today. Jennifer? Dorothy, please correct me because I don't mean to put words in anyone's mouth, but I don't think you and Dorothy maybe are that far off because I think what I heard Dorothy saying is to maybe get to your motion of what we're gonna do instead of debating all the different language changes. I'm not advocating for one or the other, but I think that's, I think your motion was getting to some action. I think what maybe Dorothy was trying to avoid was getting into debating each sentence of every amendment. All right, I hear that. Thank you for that clarification. All right, are there any other comments, Shalini? Can you clarify what are we taking each motion? Because when I read through them, I felt there were at least six action items that all the motions and amendments had in common. So I'm just wondering if that's a good place to start is we start with what are the commonalities across all the motions? And then they can be, I don't know, did you have a process in mind how we're gonna go about it? I do have a process in mind and it's the one that we followed that's basically prescribed by Robert's rules of order. And that is you have to deal with emotion on the table. If there's a motion on the table, you can move to amend and friendly amendments are also accepted. But at some point you have to then either vote the amendments and then you come back to the original motion and vote or not voted down or voted to approve. Athena, I'm calling on you because I always and we always respect your opinion. Thank you, I just wanted to note that we now have 30 people in the audience and they might like to know that we've already been through general public comment but there will be another public comment period later in the meeting. Thank you. Okay, are there other questions about the process for the evening? All right, then the motion that is in front of you was actually made by myself and seconded by Anna Devlin-Gothier. On your motion sheet, we're gonna now go up to the next motion. On your motion sheet is this same motion with a lot of red lines and a lot of things added. Instead of going through each one of them, what I'd like to do is tell you in general what I tried to do because this is my redlining all over the place. So when I spoke to this motion on November 1st, I gave you various reasons for it and I have since submitted revisions based on the discussion to some extent and also the attorney's opinion. I removed AHRA as part of the committees involved. They have a significant charge with the deadline and at that point, the AHRA finishes their term. I believe it is important for them to focus on their work and I will speak to the role of the CSSJC and HRC in a moment. While I modified the language in the motion, it still includes items regarding community vision, creation of a resident oversight board with possible assistance from a consultant, reviewing public safety protocols, continuing to develop protocols for Cresc and various training options and a communication plan. I eliminated all language related to a justice compensation fund because I do not support spending time on this and I eliminated exploring options for a youth empowerment center because I believe the council should discuss this further before staff spend much more time on it. The amendment includes a much more defined role and timeline for CSSJC and HRC as well as the town manager. However, please note while the timeline is short, something we may wish to change, we are asking for a report on actions and or progress from the town manager and we are asking for written advice from CSSJC and HRC. And so if you'll go to the clean motion which is the amendment, that is what it now looks like when you take all these corrections and additions and subtractions out of it. And we'll give people a moment to look at that and then we'll go on to the next one which I believe is one that was submitted by Mandy Jo Hanneke. Okay. Mandy Jo, please. So basically, mine does very similar things to what Lynn did, which was I took a combination of three of the proposed amendments from the last set, read the attorney's opinion and said, can I combine these? And so that's what I attempted to do. I mean, I can explain everything but that was basically what I attempted to do was to try and combine the thoughts of, I think it was the first three from the last packet into this one being cognizant of the advice from the attorney. And so certain things were removed because of that advice. Michelle, do you have a question? I do, yeah. We've now referenced the attorney and the attorney's opinion multiple times or at least a couple of times here. And I'm just wondering for the public's purposes, is that opinion in the packet for tonight? I haven't had a chance to look. It did get added at the last minute. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Yes, I realized it wasn't in there and it would be referenced, yes. Kathy. I just have a question of you, Mandy. Since I didn't do a word-for-word read, is there anything in your list? And I can see one of your items has four things in it as opposed to a numerator list that isn't in the revised LIN list. So just if I try to, I can crosswalk several, but is your impression there basically the same just formatted differently? The biggest difference was I left the continue exploring options for youth empowerment center in there. I would say that's the biggest difference because my understanding is there's already work ongoing and so that number four is to just continue that work. And then I did not have the big explanation that Linn does at the end about where reports go and when they have to be available and all. Thank you. Okay, Shalini? Yeah, so I feel that we do need to have a discussion about the youth empowerment. I personally am in complete favor of that and support that, but I feel like we need to keep that separate from the discussion around July 5th incident and which is why I'm not in favor of including the youth empowerment center in this discussion. And that was a comment. And then I was curious about what you had in mind when you said proposed to the town council a racial healing and reconciliation plan for community visioning with a focus on public safety and social justice. Are you asking that of? Yeah, amendment one and I guess amendment two also. So there is a community visioning plan. And why I asked that is because I really do believe in the competence and skills of our DI to director and department to put forward before us. And my understanding is she's already organizing some healing workshops and whatnot. So again, I just feel anything we're putting, it takes time for people to look through study and then implement and then come back to us. And so it just takes that takes time away from what we want them to really do with my feeling and what I'm hearing from everyone that we're all on board is we want the residents oversight board. You know, what happened on July 5th, there are a lot of different versions we're hearing and the youth are not able to come forward or don't want to come forward because of legitimate reasons. And the only way we can prevent that from happening in the future is that there is a process and a committee and a board in place so that the youth can address that. And so, you know, those are the reasons I feel like putting additional things just because, I don't know, because we think it's a good idea is taking away from what that focus that is needed to get the residents oversight board. So if that's why I wanted to hear what your reasoning was and what your visioning was to put that there. I'll be glad to. My list initially started with the demands from CSSJC and I included and those demands in many but not all instances were derived from the CSWG's recommendations. And so in my motion, I included those that either I thought we were already working on or it picking up on and I excluded those that either I don't support or I feel that the council should have more discussion about because of the enormous commitment of resources that they would take. And I really don't want to see the staff spending time on things that we're not willing to commit those resources to. So the visioning, for example, comes straight out of the CSWG report and straight out of the demands from the CSSJC and that's why I put it there. Amanda Jo, you built on that motion so you may have something else you wanna say. Yeah, I built on that motion. I removed the wording of racial, I don't know what your wording, racial healing and reconciliation plan and just went with community visioning. Throughout these conversations as well as others that I've seen happen in CRC and not just within CRC but from comments received by CRC as it relates to rental permitting and rental housing and neighborhood issues. I think we have some areas that need discussed as a community regarding public safety. The one example I've mentioned before that I will mention again now and it's potentially a minor one, it might be a major one is surrounding noise complaints where we hear from a lot of residents in neighborhoods that they want more enforcement and more ticket writing of that. Yet during these conversations with regard to this particular incident we have heard potential requests that noise complaints should be responded to in a less police type manner. And so I think that my thought on a community visioning plan that would focus would really get down to those issues and figure out where we want as a community our public safety resources put that includes CRS resources, that includes APD resources and AFD resources. While talking to a much broader swath than we've yet talked to in any one situation where we've talked to people and we have talked to people but we've never necessarily had them all together in the same room to work through those potential differences. Okay. Are there other questions? Kathy, you have your hand up but I think it might have been from before. So I'm gonna go to Michelle Miller. That was a mistake. Yeah, Michelle? Thanks, Lynn. Lynn, in your first motion, like the one that's actually on the floor right now, you had put some, I'm sorry, let me see, that's where we are here, I think. You had put some language in there about identifying resources inside and outside to address the various actions that you were proposing. And so, and that's been removed. So I was just wondering if you could speak to that piece. If we, for example, are to approve this motion and the actions that are outlined, is it innate that those resources that would be needed would be available per the town manager, whether it's staff or budgetary? It would be my under, first of all, it's my under, we hire the town manager to run our town. And in this case, we're asking him to do various things. The reality is he knows how to do them. He knows how to get them done. And if he needs some additional motions or resources from us, he'll come to us. I don't think we need to be that prescriptive. And in fact, in reviewing the legal opinion, we were reminded that we don't need to be telling the town manager how to do his job, but just what we would like to have done. And I frankly would even change some more things in the motion regarding that. Okay, just to follow up, just so you know, from my perspective, the suggestion to identify resources actually put more of the action items into and sort of the ways in which those action items would get done into the town manager's lap. So I sort of saw it in the opposite way than the way that you just described it. And I can understand why you'd see it the opposite way, but the reality is that when the town manager goes about doing something, he knows if he needs resources or not, and he knows how to assemble them. Sounds good. Okay, thank you. Okay, so we have those two proposed motions. Then we have one more. I believe Shalini, you are the author of the next one, which is a substitute motion. And would you like to speak to it? Yeah, I think I was just building off of what Kathy and I had proposed last time in our motion, which was really giving, indicating to town manager that we fully support his allocation of funds if needed in hiring a consultant to support the DI director and department in creating the residence oversight board. And then perhaps having an independent view from the consultant to look at this, take this as a case of what happened and what could be improved in terms of police procedures, especially as they pertain to minors. So that was another focus there. And then to give us an interim report that would be the town manager would provide to us the timeline for that. And then looking at what we were hearing or what I was hearing last time, it felt that it's also important to clarify the role of the crest. So I added those three other additional points, which are there in all the other motions as well. The protocol to clarify the protocol for crest and to continue to have racial equity training and rights and added responsibilities training as well, because when we're stopped into different situations, I think it's important to know our rights, but also what is our responsibility? How do we respond to the police or fire or a crest, like what is that? And then developing and sharing the communications because I'm surprised that even now there's so many of my neighbors who don't know and I spoke to a couple of black youth recently and I spoke to the Amherst College students at the reparations listening session and none of them knew about the crest program. So I think we need to do a better job of sending out communications using and even though crest has been amazing, their folks have been at different community events. So this is not a criticism, but just that what can we all keep doing to create more awareness around that? So those were the reasons why I created what I created and just to keep it focused again on what we can get accomplished in a very focused way. Okay. Dorothy, you have your hand up. Yes. I just wanna say that I am not in favor of any motion that includes hiring a consultant because I think unless one of our new agencies or existing agencies asks for that, we are undercutting them. In this past year, we have just done an incredible job of setting up staff within the town government and of new committees that can provide us with much of this information. So I just say, let's give them the time to decide what and how. And if one of them, like if the new DEI director says, yes, I would like to hire a consultant for this, then I would certainly listen to that. But I would feel that hiring a consultant at this time would seem like I'm undermining or undercutting her work. So that's why I liked a lot of the things that Shalini said, except for the part about the consultant. Thank you. Can I respond to that, Lynn? Please. So the reason why the consultant, if necessary is put is because the creation of a residence oversight board is a very specialized. It's a very critical process and board that has, and there are people who are specialized in creating that. And we are a department of just two people. So this would if, and this is just again indicating, again, Paul knows what to do, but this is I think letting him know that if indeed our DEI director does ask for that, we're signaling to both of them that, yes, we support you. We want you to be successful in your goal of creating a functioning effective residence oversight board. Dorothy, do you still have your hand up? Well, I wanted to respond that I agree with that sentence if the DEI director asks for it. So that's a different matter. I just wanted to keep who's in charge of what a little bit clearer. So thank you. Thank you. And then there's a final motion which is a substitute or additional motion and does not build off of the motion that's on the floor. Michelle, you submitted this motion. I wanna make sure people are aware of it, but in and what your intent is with a motion. Would you like me to speak to it now? Yes, please. Okay. In considering a motion for tonight's meeting, particularly in the context of the motion on the table, I felt it was necessary for the council to reaffirm its shared values, along with any action it asks the town manager to take. Just like values spoken without action are symbolic, actions which are not guided by values that have been embodied are systematic. It is also critical for us to acknowledge when something occurs in our community that does not meet our stated values as Paul did earlier in the meeting. Affirming and reaffirming our values and acknowledging when they haven't been met reduces the likelihood that we will repeat the harm and gives us the greatest opportunity to meet our shared goals. Thanks. Okay. Are there any other comments particularly at this point from counselors? Then I'm going to go. I'm sorry, Andy? Yes. I'm going to follow the conversation very closely. As I read all of the motions, including the last one, I was trying to think about what is it the principles and values that I wanted to apply in reading each of them. And having given it some thought, I'm just going to say very quickly, one is that I had decided up front that I did not want to support a motion that made any conclusions about July 5th. I think that there's a lot of unknowns that may remain unknown about it that we don't adopt the findings and conclusions of other groups that haven't been, that we need to come to our own conclusions based on facts. I don't think we've done that. I don't think we're in the position to do that. The second one is I was trying to be very careful in reading and I don't think that we've overstepped bounds in the motions that I was looking at, but I did have it, which was following on the legal opinion that we received that we don't direct the executive branch to take any action we may request or suggest, but we cannot direct. I don't think we've done that from what I can read. Third is that I was concerned that we not create unreasonable expectations in any of the motions of things that might be achieved in the process because of their unreasonable expectations. It can lead to disappointment and possible accusations of broken promises. So I was trying to be very careful in reading of that. And the last one is that I wanted to have a motion that I thought was realistic. And by realistic, I was referring to budget, legal, and capable of implementation. And I think that Lynn in her opening comments about the amendments she made to her own motion was addressing some of that because recognizing budget limitations and realities of what could happen that some things we just have to recognize are gonna be very difficult. And being the one who spends probably at least as much time and probably more time than anybody else looking at the budget and the consequences of the budget and what our future resources are over a long period of time. I'm very wary of making additional commitments of either capital or significant new operational expenses because we have to then have a discussion about whether that's realistic and how it's realistic and what it would take to make it happen. And I don't think we're prepared to do that. So those are principles that I created. And as we go through the discussion, I may refer back to them. Thank you, Andy. Pam. I think I need to ask Councillor Steinberg if he means that none of these action items should be promoted because they might involve expenditures. I'm not clear on what you're saying about that. I think the bullet I was trying to say was not that they don't involve any, I just said be realistic was my lead word. And if something is going to cost into six figures or seven figures, then I think it really does call for a real careful and thoughtful discussion about what the consequence of that is. But not everything that we're talking about doing is really of that nature. And so I ask you to focus on the word realistic. Okay. Are there any other thing I'm gonna ask you to take the screen down for the moment? Okay. Shallani. Yeah. Could I get a clarification of what Michelle was meant to say in her motion? There are two things I was hoping to get clarification. The first one is the statement up front in the motion that says the conduct of law, wait. We affirm the constitutional and human rights of every resident, including you, then agree the conduct of law enforcement on July 5th does not reflect the commitment we have made in the resolution, affirming the town of Amos commitment to end structural racism. From what I have understood from listening from different people, parents, kids, and of course we still don't have the complete information because we've only heard from one parent anonymously through a CSS JC member. We've heard from the police chief. We've heard from one parent who wrote to us but admitted that he was not there to witness. What had happened. And then I have heard from parents who have their version of what happened. And these are all very different points of view. And so, and then the fact that we're bringing structural racism, the group consisted of youth that were white and BIPOC and there is no reason to believe that they were treated differently. So I'm not sure why we are talking about this incident in the context of structural racism. And then the second clarification was with respect to the ask at the end, which is asking the town manager to ensure that this conduct never happens, that recommendations made by committees charged with matters related to human rights, social justice are heated and that our youth are always, okay, the youth is of course, we're always heated, but is that saying that asking the town manager to act on the recommendations of the CSS JC? Michelle. Thanks for those questions, Shalini. To the first question, so the particular resolution that I'm citing there actually is much broader than just anti-black structural racism. And I've specifically stated the whereas or actually this was to be resolved to condemn any effort to interfere with the unalienable rights of any human being. And so that's the particular line that is relevant to the July 5th incident in, so it's not to say that the incident and anti-black structural racism, it's not evoking that, it's evoking that particular clause in the resolution, which has much broader effect if you read through it. And then to your second question, I guess, could you ask the question again? I know you went through the three asks, but what was the question? Are you asking the town manager to heed or to act upon the recommendations of the CSS JC? Oh, okay, yes, thank you. So heed is to consider and pay attention to. So what I'm asking is that the town manager pay attention to and consider the recommendations that are brought forth by committees that are charged with focusing on these relevant issues of human rights, social justice and community safety. Does that answer the question? It does. And can I just, again, just to share my perspective on, I understand that the end structural racism, what you're referring to is a broader context that no one's rights should be taken based on age or, and all of those individual things. However, again, based on the fact that we've received different pieces of information filtered through the lens of different people and it's absolutely fair to say that what people are saying are sharing their authentic experience. However, we have not yet heard from, and I'm hoping that the youth will take up Paul's invitation to speak with the DI director or maybe with Paul, whoever they feel safe, or, and if not, it's totally understandable that they wouldn't want to, I totally get that. And which is why, again, it's an unknown. And to declare that those rights have been taken, I cannot agree with that just because what I've heard is in the context of what happened, it feels like, yes, a mistake was made in the statement, but it was in the context of explaining to the youth that you do not have a right to refuse to share your ID. And that's called a Terry stop or a Terry investigation, which I had learned about from speaking to a judge and a lawyer, and they said that if a by-law has been violated, like a noise by-law or not driving within a certain age, it does give the police the right under the current system to ask for the ID. And the youth were okay, they were justified perhaps in asking like, it's our right to not share the ID. And so it was in that context of that exchange where that statement was made and it was corrected by the following officers. So I do not feel we have enough information to make that statement. Lynn, may I please respond to that? Thank you. I think we should be careful about getting into litigating the matter, even sort of talking about judges or lawyers that we've talked to. I think the one fact that we have here that was on camera was that the police officer attempted to take away the rights of the youth. He said, you have no rights. That is a fact that is undisputed. And so what this is saying is that we condemn that. And I stand very, very strongly behind that. To me, it's deeply, deeply disturbing that four months out from this process, we are still debating that fact. Annika. Yeah, so I have a few just overall comments just in regards to the motions, there are a lot of them on the table and they are packed. And so I just want to speak also just personally as someone who grew up here, who myself, I experienced harm here. I come from a generational family that experienced an in abundance of harm. My aunt can tell you about her grandfather on Snail Street who was a slave and wasn't able to share stories with them because it was just too painful. We've some of us in town have celebrated like four times a great grandfather Christopher Thompson who participated in a military act and slavery in America. And he died in Amherst at 79 as a pauper, not as a celebrated person. And so I know we have a lot of work to do, but I also know that we have a gem and a top tier DEI director and Pamela, Dr. Pamela Young and she is our staff as town council. And it really is our responsibility to ensure that we save space for her to do the work that she came here to do. She has a broader vision than we've all talked about here. Then we've heard in meetings and I think it is our responsibility to clear a path to let that happen. This incident, I don't know that anyone has really debated what had happened or what was right and what was wrong, but it has become so politicized that I do hope that we can get it off a stage and put it in the hands of professionals that are used to and deeply familiar with dealing with these issues over and over again. We are in a place like, look what has been done here. I just don't see the conversations we've been having as progressive. What I do feel as progressive and what we should all be proud of is that we're in a town that is one of the leaders in the reparation movement and having a DEI department and a Crest department. And I think that we need to allow those who have broader vision and a different vision to have a seat at the table. So I do hope that we could be careful and mindful with any motions that in any regard dictate or direct to precisely how the DEI director should begin her work, what she should do, what she should bring forward. I feel like we need to let those voices come through and let's hear it and let's allow someone room to spread their wings and show us what she's got. And then if after that people are dissatisfied for whatever reason, we're welcome to do so. But in a sense, we've really been silencing some other voices coming to the table and doing the work that we're really fortunate to have here and a leader in the region to have. So I hope that we can kind of move again, move off the stage and get back to the broader conversation. There are so many of our larger movements, even reparations included, that have kind of been stalled around this subject. And it doesn't mean that it is not important because it really is. But I think that we need to get it into the hands that can take it where we can't. Because we're not, our hands are tied in many regards, not that we don't want to, but that we cannot. Thank you. I'm gonna ask if there's any more counselors who have questions. But before I do that, I am going to ask Athena that we do use the clock so that we can keep the discussion moving. Okay, Alicia. Thank you, Lynn. I don't have a question, just a very brief comment. And it's that, like my personal belief, and this is partially in response to the conversation we're having, but also a general comment that it would apply to any motion that has been presented tonight. And I think that, like, we're talking about a specific incident, but also overall, we're talking about structural racism, like eradicating racism, dismantling white supremacy. And this is huge. This is not the job for any one person. This needs to be a collaborative community process where all people, all departments, all things are working towards anti-racism, not just we put it in the hands of the DEI director and that is all. Like, yes, absolutely, I agree. Like we are so fortunate to have an amazing DEI director. I am so excited for the work that she is going to do. That cannot be the only work that we are doing as a town and we cannot put everything on her. That would be completely detrimental to our overall goals as a council and as a town. This needs to be a collaborative process. We need to be coming at it from all angles. I am, again, very thrilled that we have such a well-seasoned DEI director and I'm very excited to see the work that she will do, but I think it needs to be supported by other people, other departments, other initiatives at the same time for us to see the kind of effects that we want to be able to see. Anna. Sure, so I have a question for Michelle about the motion. I'm curious, one of the things that we've done in the past is we've done, actually, you and I wrote it together. We did a reaffirming of a prior resolution and when I'm reading this, one of the things that it reads to me like a reaffirmation of several other resolutions and I'm curious why you chose this route versus doing a reaffirmation, I don't know if that's that word, but reaffirming of those prior resolutions and partially one of my reasons for raising this is I'm concerned about the actionability of the ask. I think that when we read the, I think it's three things, right? So taking steps legally and procedurally viable to the town to ensure that such conduct never happens again. I don't know what that means, right? And so I think that there's so many directions that it can go. Is it one step? Does it take all the steps? What are all the steps? Similarly, recommendations made by committees charged with matters related to human rights, social justice and community safety are heated. I'm picky, but I know I don't want other committees to feel like theirs are not being heated because we haven't necessarily made a motion but all recommendations from committees that are tasked with making recommendations which many of our committees are heated. And then again, the actionability of our youth being considered in decisions made by the town. I agree that that's how it should be and how is that actionable? What's the product of that? Like what do we see that shows us that that's happening? So I think those are my two questions are is this actionable in your opinion and how and why this form versus a resolution? Thanks. Thanks for that, Anna. I do, this definitely could have been in the form of a resolution and reaffirming some of these values and referencing previous statements that we've made with respect to the actionability of the three items. I think that I am asking the town manager to take steps to ensure that this doesn't happen again, to take steps, to heed the recommendations or to pay attention to the recommendations of these various relevant committees. However, I agree with you that there may be other committees that I didn't specify that may have relevant or should be heated in the context of this larger discussion. With respect to the last request, I think that that's something that we've been circling around in a way for a while now with respect to our youth. And even in this four months of discussion, we have in my mind focused so little on the actual youth involved in the incident and the broader youth in our community. And so that's a call for us to really turn our focus and when we're making decisions budgetary or otherwise to be keeping the youth in the forefront of our mind. So I do think that's actionable. However, I'm open to if you have suggestions about wording that would in your mind make it more clear or find more clarity, I'm always open to that. I hope you know. Are there any other questions before we go to public comment? Again, we are not debating the motions at this time. We are asking for clarification. And there is no motion. The only motion on the floor is the one that was left on the floor on November 1st. Okay, then I'm going to go to public comment and ask people who would like to make a public comment to please raise your hand. Are there any other people who would like to make public comment? I'd like to gauge how long we need to have for public comment before we move on to motions. So far there are three people who have said that they would like to make public comment or are there any other people who would like to make public comment? Then let me just say that residents are welcome to express their views. And in this case, we will say for up to three minutes. The council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during general public comment. So we'll begin with Vera Cage. Please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Vera Cage, 12, 9, 10 drive from 21 Amherst. I just quickly, it's not particularly germane to the topic or content of the meeting, but I just wanted to notice that the chair when she spoke about time limits, it was between two black women who were speaking. And I want to say that looking at the legal opinion that was just put in the meeting packet, it talks, just wanted to read it. Let's see. So it's in the last paragraph. And just having served on the Amherst school committee, the regional school committee some years ago, I think that there may be a conflict of interest in using the same attorney for the town manager when it comes to issues arising around what the body of the town council is able to do or not do. So I just wanted to put that out there because the superintendent can have their attorney and then the school committee, certain points can have our own attorney as well. So I just want to read the last paragraph of the letter submitted by Lauren Goldberg, KP Law. Finally, the additional motion directs the town manager to seek a legal opinion on the options for compensating the youths involved in the matter, whether and how the town manager uses legal counsel is within his power as the executive. Further, where public funds must be spent for public purposes, the town cannot simply provide the youths with monetary compensation in my opinion, in order to do so the payment of such funds would need to meet a public purpose, for example, be used to settle a lawsuit or the town would need special legislation to specifically authorize such a payment as a public purpose. So I'm hoping that a counselor would attempt to clarify that last part about the special legislation, is that locally or is that with the state as we've heard before? So the other general comment that I want to make and I see that I'm out of time, is that correct, Chair? Please go ahead. Okay, just quickly, I also want to notice that I did hear the apology from the town manager. And I know that comes from a place of deep reflection and I would want the town manager to keep that same energy and commitment but also even go further and be more courageous in your words and in your action because there are so many lives that are listening and paying attention, such people who are children who are forming their own judgments about this world and the people that are part of their community. As all of you on the town council, because your words are in the public record and it's gonna go down in history, how each of you decided or not decided about the matter that has come in front of you. And just really just remind yourself, whatever you decide and however you want to formulate your opinion, that these are nine families with a lot, a lot, a lot of thoughts and a lot of care and a lot of feelings and a lot of love for their children and also the peers that are also watching, right? You guys hold an important role in this town and your words do count and they matter. So I just want you all to be sensitive to that, thank you. Thank you for your comment. Allegra Clark, please enter the room. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can, Allegra. Hello everybody, I'm Allegra Clark. I am the co-chair of the CSSJC, although I'm not speaking here tonight in a formal capacity in that role because I know that many members of our group are tired of having this conversation and feeling like we're not getting anywhere. So I think that there were, I honestly liked motion six or whatever we're calling it these days, the original motion that was moved to tonight in its original version the most. And I think that some of the amendments water it down and I understand maybe that's personal preference on the president's part. But I think that it's important to think about, again, making direct amends around this particular July 5th incident and living amends for the way that policing in Amherst and structural racism and all the departments are held up. So I say that because I think that leaving out the Youth Empowerment Center when we've had four months of conversation about an incident that happened with our youth is a mistake. And I just, from my understanding and looking through ARPA plans and everything it appears that half a million dollars has already been earmarked for the Youth Empowerment Center. So it is something that we are indeed having conversations about in this town. So I would hate to see that be stricken because I do think it is important. And just, I wanted to thank counselor Pam, Dorothy Pam for her comments regarding the consultant and really wanting to make sure that the DEI director is given the freedom and faith to do her job and not putting something in place where she might not need it and letting her shine. And I do think that that's important. And in our meeting or CSSJC meeting last week it did sound as if that might be something that she was on board with budgetarily. So I do think that having a consultant to expedite the process of creating the resident oversight board would be helpful in having the foundation for how to address any of these incidents that might come up in the future. So those are my two cents. And I thank counselor Miller again for putting forward her motion as well. Thank you. Deborah Herrera is into the room. Hello everyone. I'm Deborah Herrera, district two, also a member of CSSJC. Can you all hear me? We can. All right, great. I'm back in my car with my kid practicing, but here I am again. So I wanna say first and foremost, thank Paul Bachman for beginning the meeting by apologizing. I just wish it happened several months ago, but he acknowledged that. And I think that that is a great step forward in terms of modeling the fact that, hey, we made a mistake, we acknowledge it, and we want to rectify that mistake. And hopefully that means that there'll be some steps, some actual steps taken to do that. And he's modeling that even though for me, as we've stated, and I've stated, I'll just talk as myself as resident within CSSJC, that there still needs to be more accountability. The police chief also needs to apologize on behalf of his department and his staff, as well as take accountability and those police officers need to be held accountable for what transpired on July 5th. And then, clearly, our demands, the CSSJC demands were very clear. Whatever motion that waters that down, I'm not in agreement with, which is to take out the youth empowerment, which is to go down that path. No, there was already clear list of demands that were made. And it's basically, get that done. And I, like Michelle Miller's motion too, where it was having some deadlines, really having some deadlines for putting these things in place. And in terms of Dorothy Pam's statement about the DEI director, possibly not needing a consultant, as Allegra said at our meeting last week, she did say that she probably would need a consultant because she spreads very thin, right? A lot going on, there's a lot that she's involved in. And so we need that oversight board put in place ASAP. And that's why young people haven't been able to come forward, the families haven't been able to come forward because they're afraid, they're intimidated. They're not going to show up at the police chief's office to go talk to them. No, because then they feel they're gonna get tracked and they're gonna get monitored. So we need that oversight board up ASAP, like yesterday. And so for a consultant, if you need to spend money to do that, let's spend the money to do that so that we can make sure to get it done. And then in terms of the emotions, none of them have it because I know you all vetoed the other one last time, which is really to kind of say that there should be active deliberation consultation with CSSJC, HRC, and the reparations group to really make sure that we're involved in it. I understand the DI director's on, but she's spread thin and she's new. We have been in this community for years, decades and we know this community. And so why aren't you going to utilize us to make sure that you utilize our expertise and our experience to deal with this situation? So right now, Emerson's very divided. We need to see action. We need to see you all do what needs to be done. And it's tonight, not another meeting and not another meeting until one o'clock in the morning where no one's on besides us, right? This needs to happen now. So hopefully, I'm not sitting here in vain again listening and that some actual steps are gonna be taken with deadlines that we're going to see some outcome that's gonna help out the young people and their families and the community. Thank you. Thank you, Deborah. So with that, we're going to move back to the council. There is a motion on the floor and so now we'll begin the official process of the motions, okay? So the motion that is on the floor, Alicia, yes. Give your hand up. Yes, sorry, thank you, Lynn. I apologize just because I've been in transition for the beginning of this meeting and so I'm just now actually settling into my office at home, but I have a number of motions that I wanted to propose tonight. And so I didn't know. I know we already passed the period where everyone was speaking to their motions. I just unfortunately was driving at that time. And so I didn't know if I should or could propose them now or if I should wait until we go over the other motions. Are they amendments to the existing motion on the floor? They are not. They are separate motions. Okay, then I think we should probably expedite this by dealing with the motion that's on the floor. And then if there are additional motions which would include the one that Michelle did forward, then bring them forward at that time. Now, if there's somebody in the council who would like to proceed differently, let me know now. That's okay with me. Okay. Thank you, Lynn. And meantime, would you please make sure you send them to Athena so she can put them on the screen when we get to them, okay? Yes, thank you. Great, all right. So, yes, Anika. Okay, so excuse me with all the motions, I'm getting a little confused if we have additional motions coming and there would be one to pass. It seems a little awkward that we would have to, we won't know what the additional motions are until afterwards. Maybe this is just me. That was where I said, unless the council would like to do it differently. And if you would like to. I don't know if other people agree, but it just seems like we wouldn't know the whole package of loading things up or down. Then in that case, Alicia, have you sent the motions to Athena? No, I have not yet. I'm working on it right now. Okay, Michelle, you have your hand up. I just wanted to clarify what Anika said. So, we can vote more than one motion, but what you were saying, Anika, is that we should, in case there's overlap of motions, look at everything, is that the point there? Or like, I guess I'm clarifying, there's no, we can vote more than one motion tonight. It's not just one motion. We can vote more than one motion, but what we don't wanna do is vote motions that address the same thing and cause confusion with regard to what we're asking. Yes, okay. Yeah, Mandy, Joe, you have your hand up. You know, before we hit public comment, each of the people that had potential motions got to summarize them, but not put them on the floor. So, I wonder if Alicia could summarize hers and people could ask questions before we move back to what you were going to do. Right, and that's exactly where I think we, I'm getting the sense that that's where the council would like to go. So, Alicia, do you wanna talk about the motions or do you... Yes, I can talk about them really quickly. It shouldn't be take too long unless people have questions because they're short-ish motions, but I have five of them. And so, I think I just took a separate approach in terms of looking at the motions that have been proposed that include a bunch of different things and I wanted to propose all of the things separately so that it's not one chunk of motions, but five separate steps, if that makes sense. And okay, so the first motion or the first steps that I would want to propose would be the town council issue a statement regarding the situation, reaffirming our commitment and our commitment to ending structural racism. Sorry, I don't have the exact language in front of me right now, but our commitment that we proposed as a town council, so that was my first motion is that the town council issue a statement regarding the situation. The second motion would be to recommend the scope of responsibility, membership guidelines, complaint procedures, referral to the district attorney policy, the ban on retaliation, the contracts, details, fundings, meetings, confidentiality trainings, early agenda items, and also, okay, recommend those things in regards to the resident oversight board that came directly from the CSLBG to the DEI director, so that she can have all of those things that have already been completed to look at when she is working on the resident oversight board, because all of those things have already been done, and also to instruct the finance committee to begin looking at options for funding for the stipends of the resident oversight board members. So that would be the second motion. The third motion is to recommend that the town manager work with the APD to review and update selected policies and contract provisions of the APD. Their review should include but not be limited to the use of force policy, consent searches, low level and pretextual stops, the APD contract which expired on June 30th, 2022, and so I don't have the new contract, but that as well, the APD discipline policy, the personnel information release policy, so that would be the third motion. The fourth motion is to recommend to the DEI director the extended process of community racial healing and visioning with Dr. Barbara Love as documented on page 41 part B of the CSWG final report. There has already been an entire outline submitted by Dr. Barbara Love who agreed to assist the community in this process. And so I recommend that we recommend that the DEI director have these documents and take them into consideration in her planning for the visioning process. The fifth motion would be to recommend that the town manager assist the APD in developing a proactive anti-racist culture in the Amherst police department. And you're in the process of... Yes, I will send these all to Athena. Writing these all down. Okay. They're all written. I just have to separate them and I will send them. Okay. Are there questions at this point of Alicia, Michelle? I'm wondering if we can take a couple of minute recess once we, or I would like to take a recess once those are sent to us. Absolutely. Are there any other questions, Kathy? It's not so much a question, but I actually read the reports really carefully that we received. And I never thought when we were asking for reports that we would do exactly what was suggested. And with resident oversight board as an example, Alicia, I've been pulling down examples from around the country. And there's a rich body of information that is evolving. And one of the coalition's statement was, if you've seen one, you've seen one because towns, cities design it to fit their needs. So I think we need to proceed the way we proceeded with Cress with an idea and a concept and really develop it. So just in a reaction to, we've already been given an exactly how to do it. I don't agree with that. So I just want to, I'm not sure how long we want to be here tonight, Lynn, but some of this goes way beyond what I think we were starting with. And we also received some of the other reports. We actually received them and we read them, we heard them. And I think we need to keep our discussion fairly narrow. That's my comment, but I urge it, and I can send some links. It really is a rich, evolving, almost put to people ways of taking complaints, the ways small towns do it versus big cities do it. It's complicated. So it's a big job. That's a comment on the package that we received. Thank you. Dorothy. Oh, sorry, I respond, Lynn. Sure, Alicia, go ahead. Thank you, Kathy. So I was, as most of you know, a former member of the CSWG who for months studied many resident oversight boards across the country. And so we have looked at many different models and we have met with Leap who also helped us come up with some of the recommendations. So this is why I put the wording to be that we recommend that they use these as a guideline, not that they follow them exactly to the TN that they do everything in it, but there is already framework for all of these things. So to ask someone to start from scratch doesn't make sense when the CSWG has paid for a consultant. So again, talking about paying for consultants again has done the research and has put together recommendations. I am not proposing that we take up every single recommendation as is, just that we use them specifically as the guidelines to move forward. So for example, we have already proposed a scope of responsibility for the resident oversight board. There is an entire written charge with membership guidelines, with complaint procedures, with referrals to the district attorney. All of these things have been vetted by the town attorney already with the CSWG with the help of the consultants. My recommendation is that these things be, my motion is that these things be recommended as a part of moving forward, like as a starting point. Thank you, Dorothy. Whether I agree with every detail of her five motions, I find that I can handle something where we deal them one at a time. The, these composite motions that we have before us, it's so hard to tell one from the other. I find that it's just to me, not a way to do business. So I recommend doing things one item at a time. Thank you. Alicia, you still have your hand up. Is there something else you wanted to say? No, I'm sorry, I will take it down. I'm just working on getting these over to Athena. Okay. So are there, is there sufficient information at this point to understand while we wait and receive Alicia's motions? I also want to note that it's eight o'clock. We normally try to take a break about this time. So why don't we take a 10 minute break? And maybe we will have received the motions at that point. Okay. So we're taking a 10 minute break. Please turn off your mic, turn off your video and put your video back on when you return. It's a 10 gang, let's go. Please return to your computers and your seats and turn on your video to let us know that you are back. Athena or actually Alicia, have you been able to send anything to Athena? Yes, I sent them all over just like one minute ago. Okay. Then Athena, if you can, we'll put the motion that's on the floor up on the table. Somebody turned their sound up over there. Okay, thank you. Okay. So this is the motion that was on the floor when we can, as we concluded our meeting on November 1st. The first motion after it is an amendment to that motion. And I have spoken to that. And so in order to move forward, I would like to move to substitute this motion that's on the floor with the next motion. Second. I was just gonna say, is there a second? There's a second, okay. So can we go to, so I moved to the motion that's on the floor. I've moved to substitute it with proposed amendment one. Okay. And I'm gonna suggest we look at the clean version unless people feel otherwise. Okay. If you would like to look at the red line version, please let me know. Okay. So this motion is the one that continues to mirror some of the recommendations of the CSWG. It's the motion that also speaks to some of the demands from CSSJC and it provides a process at the end that includes CSSJC and the Human Rights Commission. I would like to actually amend the motion by just not saying two months, but three months, just to be realistic. And even that's not realistic. And other than that, the only other thing I would probably do, please go down to the very bottom. And then it says, and that the town council will determine to its next step by motion. The reality is it will come to us and then we'll decide whether there are necessary motions or not. So I would end the whole thing with that includes public comment period. So that's my suggestion, but I need Athena to change two months to three months. She's, okay. And then amend. Okay, that's perfect. So that's the motion. Andy, do you accept those changes? Yes. Okay. So that is the motion that's on the floor. Are there comments about this motion or other things? Dorothy. I would like to add to continue to work on the Youth Empowerment Center. Particularly, I mean, if money has already been allocated towards it, it doesn't say when it gets done. We know we've had the four capital projects, but that we keep that on the plate is something that we've committed to. So I'm gonna give you a suggested motion and then let's see if there's a second. The suggested motion would be somewhere around, it could be like a new four or a new five, a new five. And then the others would get renumbered and it would say, continue the work already begun on exploring options for a Youth Empowerment Center. Do you accept that motion, Dorothy? Yes, I do. Is there a second? Second. Okay. So a motion's been made and seconded. I actually will accept that as a friendly amendment if Andy accepts it as a friendly amendment. Please read it one last time and then I'll answer. Continue the work already begun on exploring options for a Youth Empowerment Center. I'll accept that. Okay, so we're taking that on as a friendly motion. So that is the new number five right there. I'm just trying to keep it a little consistent with what it was before. You said begun rather than done. I thought that was better. Continue to explore. This work already begun. Already begun, yes. Already begun, not done. Already begun, right. Thank you. All right. Other comments? Shalini? Yes. So in my mind we are drafting these motions in response to the July 5th incident. And again, I completely support the work of creating, not even like starting and beginning. I'm like, we need that based on the inequities I've read about in our school system with respect to BIPOC youth. And so I'm totally in support of that. But if we are talking about how to respond most effectively to what happened in July 5th, then I feel that that needs to be a separate motion and I'm happy to propose that motion separately though. I don't feel that's, even if there was a youth center, this happened at 1230 at night and it didn't really, the youth center does not speak to this incident in my mind and relating it to this incident is just like, oh, let's also do this and we should also do that. I mean, let's talk about those separately and focus on this is about that encounter that happened. There was processes in place protocols that perhaps need to be changed, that need to be investigated. How can we do a better job of responding more equitably and all of those? So that's where my focus is. Okay, so let me try this another way. Essentially, this motion is a response to the letter that the CSSJC sent us back at the end of July. And in it, they mentioned the Youth Empowerment Center. In addition to that, the Youth Empowerment Center is already has our money allocated to exploring the options. And so it's paralleling something that's already in process. I might add that the resident oversight board is already in process because it's been charged to the DEI director. And there is already, know your rights training that's being discussed and so forth. So think of this as a response to the letter. That's why I would include it. I would also include it if that's what we need to include to have a good consensus around this. Alicia. Thank you. I just would like to offer my friendly disagreement to that statement and that I think the Youth Empowerment Center is a central part of our response to this incident because this is an incident where youth were or felt disempowered. And that it is the responsibility of our community to continuously build our youth. And I think it is great that we will be holding know your rights trainings, but imagine there was a Youth Empowerment Center where we could hold them on a regular basis and not just the teens who are teens right now can benefit from them. Imagine there was a space where they had outlets because we all know that they have experienced trauma and that they are moving through those things and that this is a, I think this is a greater response. That would be a greater response to this specific incident and it also responds to other things. So I think it is essential that we include the Youth Empowerment Center in this initiative. Okay. Pam? In looking at the, I would support the addition of that continued work on Youth Empowerment to be added to proposed amendment number one, which raises the question that perhaps when we get to it, proposed amendment number two might be dropped because it now has all of its elements included in proposed amendment number one. So we would have one less to discuss and work through. Thank you. So did you have a motion? Okay. Michelle? With the inclusion of the Youth Empowerment Center, what do we still have that's different between this motion and, or this amended motion and the other amendments? What are the outliers that we still have? The ones I'd have to pull up the letter. I'm sorry. I didn't say anything. I was just waiting for an answer. No, the CSSJC and the Human Resources Commission are included in this motion. They are not in the other, right? And then, but I think, Michelle, were you asking what's in this one that was not in one of the others? Well, just if we're looking at all of the amended motions, now we have one that we're starting to work with. I think we're building support for. We've added in the Youth Empowerment, which I very much support. And so now I'm wondering like, what else is not in this motion that is somewhere else or what is been reduced from something else that is in this? Mandy Cho, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this motion now pretty much reflects everything in yours. Yes, with slightly different wording. So as I indicated to Lynn during the break, I have no desire to have competing motions that are nearly identical considered at the council. So if this one, whether it passes or fails because it's basically the same, I would not intend to ever make my motion. Okay. And then, Shalini, I'm looking at yours and trying to see if there's anything yours that this motion doesn't accomplish that's in yours. And frankly, I think they're pretty much covered the same ground. Shalini, do you agree? I just need a moment to look again, but I think I do prefer the amendment to language around the community visioning plan with a focus in public safety and social justice. So that's one, one different, it's like you, it's there in the amendment one as well, but I prefer the language of the second one. And let me just look into my own and see if there's anything else. So that would be... It deletes the phrase, a racial healing and reconciliation plan. Okay. So it would be for opposed to the town council. Sorry, it doesn't delete the word A, a community visioning plan. It would have the word plan after that. A community visioning plan. With a focus on public safety. I am fine with that as a friendly amendment, Andy. It would remove racial healing and reconciliation. Plan four. Plan stays in. Oh, yeah, you could say, you could leave. It would remove what's now in highlighted. I'll accept that. Okay. Then we go to that. Anika. Oh, thank you. Does this leave room for, excuse me, if it's in my face, does this leave room for a DI director to work with a consultant? It does. It says, propose to the town council a plan for the creation of a resident oversight board with possible assistance from and higher as appropriate a consultant to help with the development of that plan. Okay. And I also do like how it leaves what actions around racial healing that it is not coming from counselors that with the best intention do not have that experience as a DI director either with a titled lived experience or as a person of color or otherwise I think that it's great that we are allowing Pamela and the consultant and the DI staff and whomever else they're consulting with to establish those things. Thank you. Thank you. Pat. I have a small question about three months. It was two months before. It goes on to say that two weeks before that period is up the report has to go to other committees. So we're really only giving him two and a half months. That's right. But the other was only two months. I know. So it's great. You did agree. But I think we need. I want to just point out one thing it says. Okay. It just doesn't feel realistic. Okay. I mean a lot of these things are in process. A lot of them can be directly reported on in the town manager report as things happen. And it just seems to me to do everything that's being asked to give the other committees real and ample time to review what and to comment. And for us to get those comments and everything and review it, I think it needs to be a longer period than three months because that's really only two and a half months. Okay. Would you like to propose a change? Four, five, six. I don't know. Paul, my question would be what do you honestly think? I would say as much time as possible but not too late before the budget gets spent because there's so there'll probably budget implications that'll have to be included into the budget. So no later, I mean, no later than April one because our budget is delivered to you on May 1st. So maybe four months. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Andy, do you accept four months? Yes. Okay. We're doing great gang. Let's keep going. Alicia? I'm just wondering, does this motion propose any new initiatives or is it just referencing initiatives that are already in progress? I'm sorry. I didn't hear that clearly, Alicia. Would you please repeat it? Is this motion referencing or initiating any new initiatives or is it referencing only things that we already have in progress? It's referencing things that either are in progress or things that were recommended by CSWG. And I think all of these appear in the CSWG report. And then in every instance, they were reiterated at some level in some way by the CSSJC's letter to us. But the only thing that might be slightly new is develop a communication plan to raise awareness in the community about these efforts. Okay, thank you. Okay. Any other question, Alicia? Not right now. Okay, Michelle? Yeah, I really liken Shalini's substitute motion, number one, in that it specifically references to review information concerning the July 5th incident to recommend potential procedural changes. And so I think that correlates to number three, is it in yours? This is similar action. Is that right? If number three says organize a review of public safety protocols for responding to and handling public safety calls involving all residents, including minors, in order to recommend changes to those protocols, if appropriate. So if I could just ask Shalini, with yours, Shalini, and number one, was that a similar action that you were hoping to take? And did you have anything with respect to having concerning the July 5th incident? What was your intention with that? Yeah, my intention was that, we're hearing from different people, different things. And so, and if we had a consultant, and generally when I go in as a consultant, I look at existing cases and what are the challenges that communities are facing. So this could be an opportunity for the consultant to look at this as a case of what are the kind of challenges we encounter and what could have been done differently based on this specific incident. So. May I speak to why I wouldn't narrow it? We've had one other incident since then that people have questioned, although everything was done according to protocol as they presently exist. There's been some recent incident not under the town's purview. I don't think you learned from just one incident. I think you learned from many and none of us are going to forget the July 5th one for a long time. So I really don't want to just confine it to referring to July 5th. And I just respond, Lynn, I appreciate that. And I agree that those other incidents are equally important. But I just feel like right now, this motion doesn't reference July 5th at all that I can say. And frankly, I purposely like it that way. And the reason I do is because I think July 5th highlighted some of the issues, but it is not the only issue that brings some of these issues to light. And I think that we have probably, that's all I need to say. I just think there's much more to be learned by looking more broadly than just July 5th. Okay. Kathy? I like the wording of this a lot. For a couple reasons, I listened to Pamela and Olin Young talk to the Human Rights Commission actually after the meeting that I missed. And she was saying they're already using these incidents when they come up. One incident as well as others as case studies. And they were informing when you think about protocols. So broadening it, I always felt we should be as broad as possible because we don't want to have six, 12 and 30 hour meetings each time something happens. So we really want to sort of identify how we can work towards change. And the other thing, I think I'm right that our DEI director as well as staff, they have all the reports and results of the hard work that Alicia's, the predecessor committee did. So nothing is starting from scratch in terms of ground zero. Those reports, the citations, and am I correct, Paul? They're all working. I mean, it's no, I liken it when I worked for the federal government under one president, we opened the file cabinets from 10 years ago, not because they had all the ideas, but some of the ideas were still relevant or they were the base. So I think this is written more broadly. And my only question was the question I think Anika asked earlier. I'm assuming that staff will prioritize among these because if you're trying to do all of those at once, none of them will get done very well. I love it that we got the Cres program up and running, hired people, and they're on the ground. It was an enormous amount of work for a lot of people. And so I wouldn't want to short change some of the things we think are the big ideas. So I'm just would trust if we do a motion like this, that we have a smart staff. And it'll be a bit like when CRC and the council somehow got all those zoning amendments to the planning staff at once, and they did what they could, but they came back with pieces because they couldn't all be done on the same timetable. So I think that's the sense I have. I'm glad Pat asked for the four months that I trust that we will have this done in a thoughtful way so nothing is shortchanged. I also just want to point out, it says, we'll report on actions to be taken and or progress in addressing the above. It's not a final, you know, if our town manager comes back with all of these solved in four months, then I think we need to go into executive session and figure out what his real bonus would look like. So especially for those people, myself included, who have said the job is already impossible. So are there any other comments on this motion? Motion's been made. It's been seconded. Shallony. This is a really small one, but I personally think it's important and it's about the know-your-rights trainings, offer racial equity training and know-your-rights. And I also added and responsibilities because I think while we have rights as residents, we also have responsibilities of how we show up and what would facilitate the police. Like it's a two-way encounter. There's always two, there's an interaction that happens in these rights and responsibilities at both ends. So whether it's youth, whether it's adults, when I'm stopped by the police and I'm asked for my ID, what is my responsibility and what are my rights? So I think I want to know both. Okay, so you would like to take in number six. You would like to after the comma say know-your-rights and responsibilities training. Andy? I agree with the suggestion. I think that my experience in legal education programs that I've done is that rights are paired with responsibilities. Okay, Michelle? So I'm sorry, I guess I'm confused about this. I thought know-your-rights was a training and that was the title of the training. Are we talking about developing our own know-your-rights? There's various know-your-rights training. There's not just one. I think what Shalini's trying to say is that it's a two-way street. It's understanding that yes, they have the right to ask for identification and you as an individual should produce it without that. I mean, I don't know what all is in there, but there is no one know-your-rights training. I understand that, but how are we, unless we're developing the training, I'm just, I am not clear on this at all. So I know there's a know-your-rights training that that's what it's called. I do not know about a know-your-rights and responsibilities training. So how can we put that in here unless we're planning on developing one that's called know-your-rights and responsibilities training? I'm just very confused. I'm gonna go to some other people and then I'll come back and respond. Okay, Anna? Well, you might not wanna go to me because I have the same concern. So similar concern, you know, I mean looking through things like the ACLU, looking through other organizations, know-your-rights is such a clearly outlined area and topic. So I think I have just the same question about time. If we are asking, when we say to hold, sorry, I'm lost on the page here, if we say to hold a know-your-rights workshop or a know-your-rights and responsibilities workshop, I guess I have the same question of, you know, time. Are we asking folks to generate something that exists or not? And because the know-your-rights training I'm more familiar with and so I've seen it and I know that that content is packaged and accessible and available. So I think that that's, yeah, my question is about, is this something that we are now asking folks to generate new or does it exist? And I just suggest that I think that's what management does. They look at what's there and then they say, gee, let's do this, maybe we can add, you know, a half an hour that also talks about responsibilities. It's without, it's not like starting all over completely. Yes, thank you as a professional facilitator. I do know that. I'm sorry? As a professional trainer, I do know that. I was just curious about the timing that we're asking of our staff. Yeah, okay. Mandy Jo. So I'm torn on this motion or any motion because in one sense, I feel it's important for us to do something. In another sense, I read a lot of this and I feel like it's micromanaging our professional manager. So I don't know what I'm gonna do, but in response to what is being said about rights and responsibilities, the whole sentence is develop and offer racial equity training, know your rights and responsibilities training and other options for additional training to employees and members of the public. If we get any more specific, I think we really are delving into micromanaging and I don't want, I'm already concerned enough that we are that I don't wanna get any more specific. What I read that sense, that clause of know your rights and responsibilities is to make sure that any training we offer talks about not just, you know, and I see it as sort of two sides of the same coin, a right to, you know, when trainings and when lawyers and other facilitators and other activists and everyone talk about what your rights are if you're stopped by say the police or something, part of that also includes what your responsibilities are. It's normally not one-sided. And so I just see this as recognizing that without being too prescriptive of anything. So I'm not concerned about that language per se and I don't develop actually concerns me more instead of just offering because it implies that we might be asking our manager with doing something specific instead of just pulling that standard training place. But I trust that our manager, as Kathy said, I have to just trust our manager knows how to do his job and do his job well and prioritize well. And through all of these conversations has gotten an idea of what we're looking for and we'll execute that appropriately. Elisha. And sorry, I have the same concern, mine is more specifically around the word develop also because to me that implies that we'll be making our own training. And so I was just wondering if that was what this was suggesting that we come up with a specific training or if we are just going to be like hiring people to offer trainings that already exist. I think that becomes a little bit unclear because I also know of a lot of know your rights trainings. I've never seen a know your rights and responsibilities training. I don't know if those exist or if we're asking for that to be made and developed. And while I think I understand what Shalini's asking, I think like what Mandy Joe said they kind of go hand in hand. I don't know if anyone has ever been to a know your rights training but I did go to the ACLU know your rights training and those things are explained to you in the training. Like if you are pulled over you have the right to show your ID. You do not have the right to refuse to show your ID. Like those things are told to you at the training. And so like it's not framed as like your responsibility is to do this but that like what rights you specifically have in those situations. And I just, I don't know. The wording of that whole sentence is confusing to me. Also, so I don't have any specific suggestions just clarity as to what we mean in terms of develop and if it is actually necessary to add the responsibilities or if that just makes it more confusing. We could change the word to identify instead of develop. Does that help? I have another suggestion. Yep, please. You know I'm at hands. Andy, go ahead. Yeah, I was so wondering about provide training about racial equity and rights and responsibilities. I accept that. Did I capture that correctly, Andy? Provide training about racial equity and rights and responsibilities and other options for additional training for employees and members that the sentence doesn't read well anymore now. Provide training regarding racial equity, comma, rights and responsibilities and other options for additional training for employees and members of the public. Additional training to employees, okay. And members of the public. All right, I'm fine with all of that. Andy, provide training regarding racial equity, rights and responsibilities and other options for additional training to employees and members of the public. Does that work for you? The word additional. The other options for training. Yeah, we can take the word additional out there. Okay, Alicia, does that help you with regard to the training? Yes, thank you. Okay. Andy, did you have anything else you wanted to add before I go back to Michelle? No, I'm lower my hand. Okay, Michelle? Yeah, I personally still am not comfortable with this. It doesn't indicate when you say provide training, are we developing the training? Are we going out and seeking the training? There is training, know your rights programs that have been very thoughtfully developed and that empower and provide a just and equitable response to the matters that we're discussing. So if we're saying that we're gonna provide training regarding racial equity, rights and responsibilities, again, are we which training? I'm not gonna, excuse me, hang on. I'm not gonna blanketly support a sort of general provide training without any specifics about whether we're developing it or in the other piece, I just have to say is that adding responsibilities, just it feels very subtly like we're once again coming back to, well, if these youth had done something different, then they wouldn't have had their rights put at risk. And I just really stand strongly against that. And maybe that's not Shalini's point, but that's what it feels like to me. I'm gonna only speak to the first part. I'm not gonna speak to the other and that is provide training, leaves the door open. Is there existing training? Do we need to develop it? It leaves the door open for our town manager and his staff to decide. And getting any more prescriptive than that, I think it's not our job. Pat, you haven't spoken in a while. Oh, no, wait a minute. Nika, you haven't spoken since we've come back to this one. Go ahead. Okay, I just wanted to say also too, yes to Alicia's point that, well, first these know your rights trainings are not a new thing. They might be new here, but they absolutely like you really can't tell someone their rights without telling them the consequence. So they will actually go hand in hand because you have to let people know what could happen to them or what the police department or whichever entity you're talking about could have the right to do what that consequence could be if you do not follow XYZ. So they absolutely do go hand in hand without necessarily condemning anyone, but just letting people know this is your right. If this could happen to you, if this happens to you, this was a violation whichever way it goes. So they, it really should go hand in hand, but my question is also just, I have a quick question around the we when we're saying if we're developing because isn't the we going to the town manager and the DEI department and other staff, consultants, if need be, and if there's any other we required, then they would alert us if there is more support needed or XYZ and would there also be any room here for either addition or emissions from the department? So we're not saying, this is the program you have to use. This is the exact training you have to use because there are so many out there. Thank you. Yeah, Pat. And then Leisha, I'm going to come back to you. Pat. Thank you. This is kind of short and echoes what Anika was just saying. I have been arrested countless times. And generally speaking before I'm arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience, I like the drama of saying it how I said it. But what's important is in preparation for any action we have in all the groups I've worked with going back to the 70s, we have trainings about what our rights and responsibilities are. Because I as an activist and even as a youth in that situation, if you know what the responsibilities are, you are then able to make a decision about whether you're going to follow that or not. So I don't particularly care whether you call it rights and responsibilities because the responsibilities are always included in the training. So I think we're wasting a lot of time on this particular thing. Alicia. Thank you. So I do agree with Pat that we are spending a lot of time on this one very small part. And so I apologize that I'm going to continue to talk about it. But it's sort of just, it's bothering me honestly. And I know I said I was okay with it, but I'm looking at it more and thinking about it more. And the word responsibilities also doesn't sit right with me because I'm not sure that any single person has any responsibilities per se when it comes to being stopped by the police. It's the police's responsibility to know certain things, people should know their rights. I think it's, I don't think that wording is necessary. And I think it implies something that it's not, that like we have the responsibility to do X, Y, and Z, which I think is personal opinion and perspective there again. And so I think just the know your rights trainings would be sufficient because they are a specific training that already exists that we know we can find and provide if the town manager needed to. So again, I just have an issue with the wording as it is being proposed there. Shalini, go ahead. Cause it's your word that you wanted to put in but I was going to make a suggestion, but go ahead. Yeah, I think as part of any compassionate training, it always comes down to what are our rights and what are our responsibilities. So as we are training, whether we're talking in the context of youth right now, it's really important that we empower them with what their rights are, but they are also contributing to a situation. And they have to be aware of the causes and conditions but also the consequences of how they're showing up. And as they're gonna go out and be leaders in the world, I think that's just a general training and compassion that everyone has that all of us in this room right now are contributing to, so by what we see and what we don't see is contributing is gonna have an impact. So just making our youth aware of what are your rights and what are your responsibilities, I think is a very critical part of education and it's lopsided if you don't include the responsibilities and just show them the rights. So I absolutely insist on it being there. Okay, Alicia, do you have your hand up? Yeah, thank you. I still just think it's like, I understand what Shalini's trying to say and I don't disagree that it's a two-sided coin. I just disagree with the wording and the framing of it here and just for like one specific example, coming back to what Pat shared with her experiences with being arrested, like was it her responsibility to not do so and to follow comply so that she wasn't arrested or was she had a different purpose and a different intention in knowing her rights and knowing what could happen in that situation was probably a lot more helpful and useful. I don't think responsibilities is the right framing. I don't think any individual has a specific responsibility in any of these situations with the police. Like we should just know what the rights are, what the consequences are, what happens if you do this, what happens if you don't do this? To any one individual person, that is their personal choice. I, Andy, I'm okay if we just go back to know your rights and not add the end responsibilities because it seems to conjure up in some people's experience, not a positive way of thinking about this. Your thoughts, Andy? For the sake of moving this along, I probably would accept that, though where they started out with was having done training, they do go together. And when you, you're trying to make people, help people to understand what their rights are and what the limitations of their rights are and so that they go together. And so there's been the statement that know your rights training in the, when you put that into a quotation mark because it's referring to a very specific training. It apparently does that. I think that I would, I was trying to actually do, in my suggestion was to move away from adopting any package as a statement because I want to, to the greatest extent possible, provide the manager and the DEI director who's probably gonna be working with the manager on this wide discretion on the training that's going to be provided and trust them to know how to proceed and by if know your rights training is a very specific thing, which I hadn't really focused on very much. It actually almost sounds like you're mandating a specific package. And I guess I'm uncomfortable doing that. Right. Okay, for the moment, well, let's leave it the way it is. Alicia, you have your hand up. Sorry, I think my hand was just still up from before, but I could just add the other framing of my reasoning for not wanting to add the responsibilities here is because also in regards to the specific incident on July 5th with the youth and the police officers, if you do a Google search for laws in Massachusetts, it's actually not required that you show an ID unless you are driving. And so again, I think the framing of like what is your responsibility in this situation is misleading. Okay, Mandy, Joe. May I suggest that it sounds like Alicia would like to make a motion to amend, to remove the words and responsibilities. And then if that's the case, we could actually vote on whether those stay in or out. And then we might be able to move this conversation forward to somewhere else. So Alicia, shall we make that motion to amend this phrase by removing the words and responsibilities? Yes. Okay, is there a second? A second, okay. The motion's been made and seconded. Is there any further discussion about the motion to amend that's now on the floor? I'm looking for comments only on that. Mandy, Joe, you have your hand up. Jennifer? I may want to respond based on what someone says, but I'll take my hand down for now. I'm sorry. Okay. Kathy? Just a quick observation when Andy flipped the wording, rights and responsibilities could refer to the employee as well, that the employee's got a responsibility. So we were all talking about it as one side of the confrontation. And I know I'm not supposed to do this, but I Googled know your rights and half of the ACLU pamphlet split up said your rights, your responsibilities in their training session, they were linked. The title was one thing, but it always had both. And one was immigrants in Southern California. One was Minnesota. So I don't have a strong preference about this, but they are linked. And the wording could be that the employee has rights, but also responsibilities. It's an artful changing. I mean, it's about training. So it's an observation. Thank you. Shalini? Yeah, I appreciate what Kathy just said. And my understanding is that the Terry investigation or a Terry stop allows a police officer to ask for identification. So if you're going into the technicalities of this particular situation, then it does allow the police officer to, and in which case in this particular case, there was a noise bylaw violation and then they were minors driving. So there were a couple of reasons why the police had the right to ask for identification. So again, so these are all the intricacies and maybe I'm wrong, maybe Alicia's, but that's the whole point is that I think part of that. And what I'm also hearing is that the know your rights already includes any kind of training like that is going to include responsibilities. So why not say it? And also I think for me personally, it's an important aspect because again, like I said, in creating a compassionate city or town, we all have a responsibility. It's not just about rights. And which is why having that statement and from the employee and residence point of view, I think it just provides a more balanced offering. Thank you. The motion has been the amendment. Yes, Jennifer, go ahead. I was going to haul you. Thank you, I'm sorry. No, okay. I think if there are no your rights is a kind of training that includes responsibility. So I don't think we need to say responsibility because I mean, we all know there are incidents in this country where people are just stopped and asked to show ID. And it is not their responsibility to have to do that. And I'm not a legal expert, but I think that the Terry law may actually be a part of stop and frisk, which is a whole, I don't think we want to go there. So I could not support the rights and response, but I just don't think we need to go there. It's a know your rights training. In small caps, I mean in small, not in caps. Okay. The motion has been made and seconded. It's an amendment to the major motion. Would you please just put it back up on the screen for the moment? No. Yes. To remove the word and responsibilities. All right. We're going to move to roll call on this. Pat D'Angeles. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Lynn Griezmer is an aye. Mandy Johannity. No. Anika Lopes. Aye. Michelle Miller. Aye. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Andy Steinberg. No. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Alicia Walker. No. Mm-hmm. Alicia, this was your motion. You wanted it removed. Oh, we're not, we're voting on the whole motion, just the amendment. We're just voting on that amendment. Oh, okay. Yes. Okay. Shalony Baumann. Okay, wait, wait, wait. I think I had it till I got confused. Okay, so this is no. Okay. So we will be removing the words and responsibility. Now we're back to the main motion. Okay. I'm sorry, the vote was 10-3. The vote was 10 in favor of removing it, three opposed. Okay. Thank you. Can we put the motion back up on the screen? And can I ask, are there any other questions, comments before we move to a vote? Seeing none. Okay, Kathy. I just wanna be on record that I voted for this because I need this to move on. But I am seeing every time it's rights, it is responsibility. So I want people to be thinking that those two actually are linked. Okay. No, responsibilities, yes, is removed. Okay, thank you. Are there any other comments or questions? Seeing none, we're going to move to a vote and it's a vote on the entire substitute motion. Does anybody need to see it up on the screen again? All right. I'm gonna start with Anna Devlin-Goth here. Yes. Lynn Griesmer is an aye. Mandy Johanicki. Aye. Anika Lopes. Aye. Michelle Miller. Aye. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Aye. Jennifer Taub. Aye. Alisha Walker. No. Shalini Balmillan. Yes. The vote is 12 in- Pat Denbow. I'm sorry, Pat DeAngelis. Aye. The vote is 12 in favor, one opposed, none, no abstentions and no absence. So it passes. Can I go on to assume that motion proposed amendment two and proposed amendment three have now, substitute motion three have now been absorbed into this motion? Yes. Okay. Then in that case, the next motion that we will consider and if Michelle, it's yours. Yeah. So I want to consider this motion tonight. I would like to withdraw the motion and I would like to work with Alisha. We will check in about that more thoroughly but work with Alisha and any other counselor that may be interested in, so this would take care of Alisha's first motion, I believe, but she can confirm that. So on a statement that would then go through the usual process of being referred to GOL and then come back to the council for consideration. Okay. Motion's been withdrawn. There, my understanding is that the town, the clerks of the town council has a document with Alisha's other motions. Would you please put that up? Okay. So Alisha, these are your emotions. Let's go to the very top though. So Alisha, you spoke about the motions briefly. Is there anything else you would like to speak to with regarding to the first motion, which is the town council should issue a statement regarding the situation that occurred on July 5th between two ABD members and nine Amherst youth reaffirming our commitment to ending structural racism and dismantling white supremacy. Michelle has suggested that her motion and what she has withdrawn and yours might end up in something that would be more of a resolution or a reaffirmation of a resolution and that you would bring that back to the council. But Alisha, I need to know how you would like to proceed with the first one. Yeah, that's fine with me. So I did like the first piece of Michelle's motion that was withdrawn that had recommended language for a statement. I, most of these motions are very basic and might need some building upon. So I would be happy to work with Michelle and or any other counselor who would be interested in building a said statement. This motion is just that I firmly believe that as a council we should issue a statement. Okay, so that motion at this point is withdrawn. We're going to move to the next one and this was recommending that the DEI director consider the scope of responsibility membership guidelines, complain procedures, referral to district attorney policy, ban on retaliation, contracts, details, fundings, meetings, confidentiality trainings, early agenda items proposed by the CSWG Part B of the report can be found here. Recommend the finance committee begin looking at options for funding the stipends of ROB members as proposed by the CSWG. So. Do you want me to speak to this, Lynn? Sure, I, yes, please go ahead. Okay, so I also, again, this is very short because if you click on the hyperlink there's just detailed information on all of these things. And again, I am just, the motion is to move that we recommend the DEI consider all of these things that have already been put forward by the CSWG in terms of the work on the resident oversight board. The list of things that are included in the recommendation are here. So that is what the one through 12 were. And then 13 was supposed to be a separate thing that like in addition to recommending the DEI director consider these things that we also recommend the finance committee begin looking at options for funding the stipends of the resident oversight board members. I put that in there just because I know that our funding and budgets are tight. And so that I think that we should be thinking about these things proactively as a future expense. And how we would be able to fund those things moving forward. So yeah, I don't know if I, if there's more explanation that needs to be heard for any questions. So, well, I need to get a second to the motion. Oh, okay. Second. Who was that? Michelle? Okay. And so, Alicia, you spoke to the motion are there now councilor comments? Mandy Joe. So I can't support the motion tonight. The way I interpret this motion is that, well, there's a couple of reasons, but the main reason is I interpret this motion is basically the council saying all 11, 12 or 13 of these items as proposed by CSWG as written by CSWG, we support in that particular language. And well, first of all, it's been months since I've read every single one of these, but I, you know, and so on that ground alone, I wouldn't, I'd have to vote no if we're forced to vote tonight because I won't vote on something I haven't read in months. But I vaguely remember from my reading of that that I didn't actually support all of the language in all of this. It's not that I don't necessarily support and that I don't support the formation of a resident oversight board, but the way it was proposed, I didn't necessarily support in those exact membership guidelines, particularly I remember that one. And so I can't vote to recommend something that I take as saying this is the council's, so this is what the council wants you to do in specifics when I don't actually support those particular specifics. And then as to number 13, the referral to the finance committee, we have so many things that need funding. I think if we're going to look at any type of funding of any one offs, we need to put it together with other looks of funding that we need to look comprehensively at our requests for funding, not throw one after another to look individually at funding options because I think we're running into problems with funding that we want to fund so much. And then on a individual level, it sounds great. But then when the next one comes in that we might support more, well, there's no funding for that. And so, I think if there's a lot of things councilors want to fund that we should potentially just put that list together and send it all to the finance committee for them to consider comprehensively any additional funding initiatives not to consider them one at a time. Andy? Well, I did look at it and it does say consider. So I guess the word consider allows for interpretation in lots of different ways, but I'm uncomfortable also with the motion because I think that there's a point at which we need to trust the town manager working with the DEI director to then will consider anything that is relevant and important as they follow through with the motion that was just passed. And this almost seems like getting into the micromanaging of how they're to go about doing what we've already asked them to do. And I have full confidence that they will look at the recommendations of all of the committees and I even think we've already suggested that. So I think that it's unnecessary. Dorothy? I think that until we raise the salaries of the town councilors, we are keeping so many good people from being on this board. Anyone watching this meeting knows the kind of hours and meetings that are required. And it's a great cost for personal life. And those who have jobs and families find it very challenging. So there's a whole lot of good people that I would like to see on this town council who at the present aren't even gonna consider it because this is a really almost a full-time job. The stipend must be increased. So I would wanna deal with that before I started paying people on one committee and not paying on another because then at some point that begins to be an unfair mishmash. So that's my thoughts. Thank you. Dorothy, I'm sorry, Michelle. I would like to support this, but suggest Alicia, I'm wondering if 13 on here, if it makes sense and maybe it's not tonight that this motion would come forward so we could give it further consideration, but that we attempt to look at all of, as Dorothy was speaking, the stipends that are available for the council and for particular committees. I know this conversation has come up in the CSWG, in the CSSJC, in the AHRA, and maybe even in other committees. And so I'm wondering if you would be willing to remove that for now and then work on a motion that we could bring forward that would be more holistic and look at a broader scope of that. And then the other thing I wanted to say is I think the word consider, if I'm understanding this correctly, really does give a lot of leeway. It's in my mind putting these things into the awareness of the DEI director so that they're not lost. And so I'm completely comfortable with that. Alicia. I would be okay with Pam and Kathy speaking first because I just wanted to respond to some of the concerns that were brought up, if that's okay. Please proceed. Oh, okay, Pam, Rudy. Thanks. I really appreciate Alicia putting these together. I think we spent quite a bit of time, seems to me sort of keeping the town council action tonight at sort of the 40,000 foot level and tried hard not to get into the details. So I appreciate that there is so much work that is going on behind the scenes in preparation for item number two or item number three that we just voted on. It feels like there may be another way to convey this background information and these next steps in a way that perhaps isn't necessarily a motion tonight, but I really appreciate the work that went into this and the fact that we don't wanna lose this information. Kathy. Trying to understand where Pam was going with that, but I don't think we need this, Alicia, because we just asked to move forward on it and I know the DEI director has the report. So she has this outline and this is the outline of what would typically be in this approach. So I wouldn't do this at the beginning. When this comes back to us, we're gonna have lots of questions and ask how come, what about the way this city does it? What about the way that town does it? What about, do we need to staff it? Let alone the board so that you get an independent visor. So I can't support this level of detail and emotion at this point. I do want whatever we get back to have this level of detail in it so that we can discuss these elements. Anika. Yeah, so I definitely as well appreciate the effort that has gone into this and my question is, where I certainly cannot recite the CSWG reports, I definitely have to refresh with some of them though, I especially lately have been reacquainting myself. I'm wondering if there has been a conversation with Pamela ahead of time, Alicia, and if some of this could, is this already on the radar and would obviously be considered because I do have a bit of concern as well with a bit of micromanaging and also just to prevent what we've seen is just like the hurt and frustration as when a lot has been brought forward from both the CSWG and the CSSJC and they're not implemented as exact. There's a lot of hurt and frustration around that. So I guess just in a nutshell to stop rambling, has there or is this something that maybe could have, could there could be a conversation first with the DI department? And yeah, that's it. Thank you. Alicia, our Pam, you still have your hand up. Okay, Alicia, did you wanna go ahead at this point? Yeah, so just a couple of things to respond to some of the concerns that some of the other councilor members had. So again, I thought I was being very careful in choosing the wording in terms of consider because we are not saying that we want you to do all of these things exactly. We are just saying that look at all of this work that has already been done, please use this and consider it in your planning for the following. I brought this forward more specifically because at our last meeting, there was a lot of discussion in terms of the other motions in regards to what the resident oversight board would look like and how much work needs to go into creating a number of things that has already had a substantial amount of research behind it. And so to provide that stepping zone to the DEI director in a formal recommendation, I think would be making a huge statement, especially when it, especially in regards to responding to a situation like this where we think having a resident oversight board would have been essential and would have changed the outcome of the situation. Again, I think it's more of because this is not recommending anything specifically it's more of making a statement as a council in terms of our support of the work that has already been done for our town and our support in moving it forward. And again, not to say that anything would be specifically exactly how the CSWG has laid it out, but that like a scope of responsibility has already been looked at membership guidelines has already been considered complaint procedures. Like this is a significant amount of work. And when we're saying like, has there already been a conversation with who about what? Because unless you want me to go by myself and have a conversation with the DEI director, I was hoping that as a council we could say formally, these are the things like passing down the things. And I get that there is upset when things are not done exactly as proposed, but I think there's more upset when people do tons and tons of work and it just gets pushed to the side. And we're like, hey, look, we hired somebody new, let's let them do what they need to do because they're great. As if we didn't already have a whole committee look into these things for over a year that were also underpaid just as the council was. And also another thing I do understand the stipends for other committees is also something that we need to look at raising the stipend of the council. Trust me, I work so, so, so much on council stuff that is not paid for and I have kids and I'm a single mom and I have a job. So I understand that the intention here is that recommending the finance committee begin to look into these things. Because again, if we are down the road going to fund this committee or any other committee the finance committee should begin looking at it now because we know that we are behind and it will take time to develop things to look into things. So again, I don't see this as being micromanagy. I see it as offering support saying we have stepping stones and to recommend the finance committee begin looking at things to anticipate things into the future to set ourselves up set ourselves up for success. I know we haven't all agreed upon giving resident oversight board members stipends. So maybe I understand why people don't want that to happen but I think that we need to begin looking at some of these things and what better way to begin looking at them than in response to a situation that deserves urgent responding. And again, looking into things is not making any specific decisions just looking into them. So I did not see this as micromanagy. I did not see this as telling the DEI director how to do her job. I saw this more of like one, supporting the work of committees that have already been done and to supporting the moving forward of initiatives in our town and supporting the DEI director in this substantial amount of work that she is embarking on and giving her things to draw from and pull from that have already been worked on. Anika, you have your hand up still. Okay, so it was up but just sorry, I had left it up but just in response. So my question was more Alicia, was more Alicia in regards to has there been reason to think at this point that this work wouldn't be considered not. And I do understand as a consultant, the frustration that can come from putting in a ton of work and feeling that it's not being considered or pushed to someone else to just start from scratch. And that's not my suggestion. My question was more around has there been a reason to think that this work would not be considered and still allowing the DEI department to kind of roll forward organically as well and looking at what has already been presented in the work that has been done. And I also, I share another frustration in terms of stipends that, unfortunately we do what we're getting into and we signed up and I do believe I do support committees receiving stipends but I think we also have to look that we have similar, we have committees doing very similar work that do not receive a stipend as well. So I do believe that if we're going to provide them that we should at least as well consider committees that are already in action and working. Thank you. Michelle. Alisha, would you be willing to accept an amendment to just clarify the language a bit further to say we shall recommend the DEI director consider the report produced by the community safety working group with respect to the resident oversight board, comma, specifically and then with the numbered items, would you be able, would you be willing to accept that further clarification? Yes. So could that be added to the motion as a friendly amendment, Lynn? Sure. Could you please repeat that? Sure. So after the word consider, it would say the report produced by the community safety working group with respect to the resident oversight board, comma, specifically, yeah, that's it. I just have to use my privilege as a counselor. I don't know if people recognize the milestone that we passed tonight with the previous motion. And so I'm gonna go back a little bit in history, okay? CSWG spent a lot of time doing two excellent reports. The town council basically accepted the reports, but we never made any motions to make anything happen except for Cress and DEI. Okay, those are really the only two follow-up things that we did at the time. Tonight, we made motions that really go into several of the other significant recommendations from CSWG. We've hired staff, they're working, and when we start getting, and they have access to these reports, they have access to the matrix, they have access to all kinds of things. So when we get into motions that begin to direct or ask people to consider, I think we have exceeded our responsibility as a council. I think we've gone beyond what we should be doing. We have hired good staff. I've hired many staff over the years. And when you hire good staff, the best you can do is to say, this is what we'd like done, this is how we work and then get out of their way so they can do their job. And when we start putting in motions like these, we're not getting out of the way and we're not letting them do their job. And so I'm just gonna be straightforward. I can't support these motions because they are micromanaging our town manager and his staff and they are making assumptions that they have not looked at the already really good work that the CSWG has done and they're not considering this. They're meeting with a committee that's charged to follow up on the CSWG's recommendations. Of course they're reading these things. We don't need to put these things in motions at this time. What we need is to see where we are in four months. And then if we need to do follow-up motions, do so. But I really, really strongly urge counselors not to get into telling people how to do their jobs. It's an insult. Anika? I'm sorry, I didn't realize my hand was still up. Alicia? I just do not understand how this can be seen as micromanaging because it's not telling anyone what to do. It is making a simple recommendation which we do all the time as a council on all different kinds of issues. It is not saying that we don't think she has looked at it, but it is also saying that as a council we have not formally recommended that you consider these things. It is a statement, like I said before. It is not telling her how to do her job. She is still free to look at it and say, I don't think this is going to work for Amherst. But at least she knows that the council thinks that this is a good stepping stone because why would we wait for her to be months into the work to recommend that she look at something that could have been a stepping stone for her to work on? Or maybe she looks at this and says, wow, there's one thing in here that I really like and I'm going to take this and I'm going to run with it. She could look at all of this and say, I don't want to do anything. This motion is not telling her she needs to do anything. It's just basically a formal saying that we have these things. They have been turned into the council. There has been work. We have put money behind these things as a town because we have paid for consultants to look into these things. This is what they have given us. Simply that is all. Mandy Jo. I respectfully disagree. I mean, I agree with what Lynn said. I think it's micromanaging to say we recommend this specific thing in some sense implies we don't recommend other specific things that we don't recommend X towns or Y towns or Z's towns. This is the one we recommend you do. I can't do that. And I think, you know, I can't do that on this particular one but I don't think it's our role to do that on any specific one. I would disagree with saying, we recommend you look at this particular one too. You know, I could probably add, give me three days and I can add 30 different towns to this to look at. But that's not what our job is. Our job is to hire the right people, which we've done and let them do their job. And this motion, I think just, it's in the way of that and basically says we don't trust our DEI director to do the work. I've heard Anika ask multiple times, do we have any indication she hasn't consulted or read or looked at or isn't using the CSWG report? And we haven't heard any response that says no, she hasn't. I mean, we haven't heard any response that yes, she has other than we know she's got them. And so without that, I just can't support it. I think it's a step too far that the council shouldn't take. Michelle. Sorry, Lynn, you had said that aside from creating Cress and the DEI department, we hadn't taken any actions that the CSWG had recommended, but we have, we created the CSSJC and their charge was specifically to follow up on the recommendations made by the CSWG. So in my mind, what this does is enshrine and make formal that particular recommendation similar to what we've done with the motion. And I'm just, the earlier motion that is, I guess I'm having a real trouble when we're using the argument that we've stepped too far or that we're directing and that we're not respecting our staff by taking away their leeway to proceed as they wish. We could say the same thing about the motion that we just voted earlier. So I'm just, I'm not, that argument is not really resonating for me. And like I said, the CSWG made recommendations. We formed the CSSJC and I will say and use this opportunity to say that I have heard over these past four months a lot be brought into question with respect to the CSSJC's charge. And I really encourage us all to look at that charge and take it to heart and take it to, and if there's a problem with it, then it should be brought to the attention of the council to discuss because in my view, the CSSJC has been charged with very specific things and they have tried to move forward with those things on multiple occasions in various different ways. And every, there's always a block being put up or a barrier or a comment that that's not within their purview but just go ahead and look again at the charge because it's very specific. And I recommend we have a conversation about it if there's gonna be a questioning of their role. Alicia. Thank you, sorry. So in regards to, I think it was Anika and Mandy Jo's question as to whether or not there has been a conversation with the DEI director in regards to the receiving this information, I have not had a conversation with her. I don't know if someone has or if there has been a conversation. That is not particularly my concern because I don't see this as a trust issue. I see this as providing the DEI director with tools for her toolbox and she can do as she pleases with the tools that are in her toolbox but giving her more tools is not harmful and it's not insulting. I don't see this as an insult to her at all because I'm not telling her how to do her job. I just think we have information that has already been giving to us. Why can't we formally pass it along to her? It's not, again, I'm asking her to consider these reports, this specific information as it is directly related to the resident oversight board. I'm not just giving her the entire CSWG report and be like, hey, look at this, great, read it all. Like this is a very specific set of things. I am saying that, like, look, we have these things to consider for the specific initiative that you are currently working on. That is where I see the difference in my interpretation of this and other interpretations that I have heard. So I just wanted to make that clear. Shalini? If I'm hearing Alicia, your intention is to offer this as a tool to Pamela, then I don't see why it needs to be in the form of a resolution. I'm sure as part of a job she has to look at and she's working with CSS. JC, as Michelle said, they're working closely and that's, so she already has access to the report. So I'm not sure why we need to have a resolution to put it in her toolbox. I think it's just part of a job to look at current research that has been done and the CSWG is such an important report, the two reports. So I am confident that she is looking at it and we don't need to. I'm just not sure what, it feels like you're saying we want to put it in her toolbox, but it's already in her toolbox. So I don't know why we need to have a resolution to further put it in her toolbox. Anna? I'm curious if we can hear from Paul if as to whether or not he knows if the DEI director has considered these things in her work so far, if that's okay. And then Alicia, a question for you is how, how will we know, right? So if the motion is to consider these various things and the DEI director elects not to follow the recommendation, this is not, I'm not saying that would happen, but if so, how would we know, right? Are you expecting a report back saying, yes, I considered these or something else? So I guess that's a two-parter one for Paul and for Alicia, if that's okay. Paul? Thank you. So clearly the DEI director has the report, both reports from CSWG and has reviewed those and is using them as a reference point as she develops the recommendations for the things that we put on her plate tonight actually and because many of them come from that report. I also would just note that, so when the council speaks, people, staff take it very seriously. You know, if you're spending your time on an action, they feel like it must be important so they want to take attention to it. So when you pass a motion, I mean, comments are one thing, passing motions are a different thing. It sort of raises it in terms of the employee's heads that they should be paying more attention to something. If that is your intention, that's okay. But just be alert that your position in the community and for the staff is pretty high in terms of what role you play as the elected leaders of our community. Thank you, Paul. And Anna, your second question was? Just for Alicia, I was curious about how, kind of what the follow-up would be if there was a vision for that or how we would know. Again, I mean, I think I'm struggling with this because I'm airing on the side of it. It does feel, I hear what you're saying about not micromanaging because we're not saying the conclusion needs to be drawn but it does feel like we're giving a directive with extreme specificity to a staff member and that concerns me. And I think similar to what Paul said based on the conversation, if for whatever reason she wasn't looking at that before she definitely probably is now. But I'm just curious if you thought or if you could share with me your thoughts on how we would know whether that would be considered if you were expecting a report back or something else. Yeah, so I think, sorry, thank you, Lynn. I don't have like a specific, like I wanna report on how you used or if you use anything from the recommendations in the development of the resident oversight board but I expect that this will be a process that we will be regularly updated on either way through town manager reports or when we're getting closer to the time of actually like making moves on certain things that we may have the DEI director come to a council meeting and share with us some things. And so I basically again just want this to be like a formal recommendation as things that she can have to work with. And I think that I think she would address those things if we made this a recommendation in her report. I don't think we would have to ask for it. She could say, I took this or I used this and I decided to go this way because I looked at this or what have you, I don't think it needs to be like a specific reporting mechanism. I think it's more again just as a recommendation that she consider these things. Paul, you have your hand up. Yeah, I just wonder if it would be helpful to the council. I mean, another option is to have me write to the DEI director and say, please make sure that you take this, the bulk of this motion in consideration as you start to examine things. And maybe that helps the council move forward on this discussion tonight. And as her supervisor, it would be more than appropriate for you to bring this to her attention. Yeah, I mean, it's a very good question. Make sure that she's paid attention to it actually. I'm sure she is, but if that's an option that you'd like me to do that, I'm happy to do that. There's a motion on the floor. The motion's been made and seconded. A friendly amendment was accepted and it is shown in the motion. Are there any other comments? Alicia. I just have a question in regards to Paul's suggestion. So if we decided that we wanted that to happen, that would be a vote of the council as well. Would that have to happen via a vote of the council? Did you feel you needed that? No, I didn't. I wasn't anticipating a vote. A vote is a formal action. I think I can tell you if you would like, and based on our conversation tonight, I am happy to move this forward as an email and I can copy the council on what I wrote by right to her as an alert that I'm sure that this is being considered. But I'm just hoping to help. Yes, I don't think you need a vote on that. And I would actually, you know, it'd be a directive and I think I would reject that actually, you know, because I can't- So the answer is it doesn't need to be a vote. Alicia. Yes, so can we have a commitment? Can we ask for a commitment from Paul? I'm just unclear as to how this would work. So like the two things I'm thinking, like so would we just ask that Paul make that commitment that he would do that or do we amend this motion in terms of like recommending that the town manager like send this info, like how does that work? So one of the problems in this at this point is, let me refer to federal government. When the federal government passes laws, there's also the accompanying document that includes the discussion that went into that passing that law. And when staff and heads of departments and secretaries that had departments implement those laws, they pay as much attention to the discussion as they do to the actual motion. And I think what we're saying at this point is Paul has heard this discussion as Pamela's supervisor. He is more than able and willing to talk with her to send her an email that says at the recent council meeting, there was a discussion specifically about these items. He's even willing to share that with us, which frankly, I think goes beyond the requirements of a supervisor, a town manager to share a document like that to someone he supervises. But if Paul is willing to do that, that's fine. That doesn't require a motion. It's basically like saying message has been heard. We don't need a motion. But that's how I interpret our relationship and our discussions in the council. Michelle? Yeah, I was just gonna say that, I think that it's understandable that with this particular matter and the response to this matter from the town manager, there is some concern and receiving Paul's apology this evening, it really impacted me and it really just hit home in a lot of ways. And it was also, the other side to that was, wow, like if that had happened four months ago when this occurred, so much of this trouble that we've been having as a council would have not occurred. And so I think that as Paul is really coming forward with this leadership and saying, I hear you and I'm gonna take these steps, I think it's important for us to reinforce that by really acknowledging what he has said and taking him at face value and giving him the opportunity to do that. So I'm just sort of trying to balance both sides that I do think that it's understandable that we have concerns as it pertains to this incident with regard to the response. And it's really fantastic to see Paul stepping forward and leading us at this point in this matter in this way. So that's just what I wanted to add to the mix right now. I think that's a very, thank you, Michelle. I think it's basically saying, our town manager has stepped forward, let's trust that he has heard and he has. So Alicia. Yes, thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Lynn. If there is a commitment from the town manager to move this forward, then I would be okay with taking the motion back or like removing the motion, but it was drawing the motion. Thank you, if that is the case. I just want to be sure that there is a commitment to do so. Okay. And I think Paul, you've already given that commitment. Okay. There are three other motions. They are still there. And Alicia, I guess the question to you would be, do you see these motions in the same vein that we've just gotten done discussing? Their recommendations, you've put them forward. It emphasizes your concern, your commitment, and clearly your respect for the CSWGs report. And basically by bringing them forward, you are alerting, if you will, the town manager that in working with APD or the DEI director, that these are things that he would be paying attention with along with the staff that are appropriate. So I'm really searching, Alicia, as to what you would like to do with the other three motions. So I think that could have been the case for the motion that I just withdrew and that may also possibly be a choice for the fourth one. I'm not sure about the third and the fifth. So the third one is recommend to the town manager to work with APD to review and update selected policies and contract provisions of the APD. This review shall be including, that's what you're referring to it as the third one, right? Yes. Okay, and then the fourth, the fifth one is recommend the town manager assist the APD in developing a proactive anti-racist culture. No, sorry. So, sorry, you said the fifth? That's the fifth. Yes, the fifth, sorry. Okay. Andy, you have your hand. Go ahead, Alicia. No, I was just clarifying that I think that the fourth one could probably be dealt within a similar manner as the one we just, I just withdrew. Okay. So that's part of saying look at the report and particularly consider these parts of that report, okay? And that the town managers already made that commitment. So you're, are you therefore withdrawing the one to say recommend the DI director reference the next steps? Well, I would also like just like to hear the commitment from Paul because I don't want the communication to just be, hey, make sure you look at the CSWG report. I want it to be like, there has been specific conversation regarding the recommendations in regards to the resident oversight board and also like specific conversation in regards to the engaging our town in the extended process of community racial healing and envisioning. And I put the page number because there is a, an outline that Dr. Barbara Love provided us with as to what this process could look like. And so I want that specific, like those two specific sections to be highlighted. It's not just, I want her to read the CSWG report. Paul, is there any reason you don't, you have a problem with this? I guess I'm getting confused by the action that council already took, which mentioned some of these things and what this, if there's a, it seems like there's a difference, but I'm not catching what the difference is because in the motion that council already voted, it does talk about some of these things. So some clarification, I think if it's just saying, make sure you look at what was said in CSWG, that's one thing. But if there's some nuance that I'm not seeing because I think the council's vote, if I have my notes right. Paul, Alicia, is it that you, do you want to make sure that the town manager in talking with Pamela focuses on that page and portion of the CSWG final report? Yes, I think, I mean just exactly what it says that the DEI director reference, the next steps, like that she look at them, the same thing as before it could be changed to consider because again, there's, we have outlined an entire process and extended process that would have taken a few months of community racial healing and visioning. That was proposed by Dr. Barbara Love, but we also had input from the community when we did surveys in terms of what community members would like to see happen. So I'm asking that that work specifically be referenced when taking the next steps to move forward in that process. Because this one is just slightly different than the resident oversight board, which was just research and the committee making recommendations. This portion came directly from community feedback. So I wanna make sure I'm clear, Alicia. Are you saying that this is the way the DEI director is supposed to go by following that exactly and you're trying to, you know. I'm just saying that she referenced that when deciding the next steps. So in many ways you're using the word consider again. Yes, yes. That's why I said this. I see as a very similar thing to the one that we just talked about with the resident oversight board. Again, the only difference for me here is that this, although the proposal that I'm referencing came from Dr. Barbara Love, the need for community racial healing envisioning came from the community. Okay, but it's really to ask the DEI director to consider the CSWG report as we take the next steps in engaging our town in an extended process of community racial healing envisioning. So that's the request. And Paul, he's shaking his head, yes. You can't see him doing that. So he's going to have to say in the mic, yes, I got that one. Yes, understood. Okay. So Alicia, therefore are we removing, are we, we're not gonna deal with that motion. Yes, so I would be happy to withdraw that motion and just for like a final clarification for Paul. I just want to be sure that it's the document on page 41. Again, I'm not just asking that the DEI director read the entire CSWG report. I'm asking for like specific sections for the initiatives that she is currently working on to be referenced. Okay, all right. So that motion has been dealt with and has been withdrawn. Okay, so now we have the two motions that deal with the APD. And again, they go back to, well, the first one specifically goes back to the various recommendations that were made in the CSWG report. And those are still, I mean, we did speak in the previous motion that was accepted protocols, et cetera. Is there any other, what else would you like to say about this motion, Alicia? Yes, thank you. So I do see this as very similar to one of the number points in the motion that just passed which talked about looking at policies and procedures. I would just say that this is referencing specific policies that we already have recommendations as to what type of work can be done to address those or change or review those specific policies that we have at the APD. There's a report from LEAP that goes over recommendations as to what changes in the language, what language changes could be made in these specific policies at the APD. Some of them, the last two specifically which came to play in the July 4th incident as we saw when we were trying to move through the process. And so again, I think this is the time where we would look at specifically addressing those specific policies. And so again, I'm not reviewing, I'm not suggesting there is no concrete suggestion that we change it to this, but that these specific policies be reviewed and updated and that there are already recommendations available to reference and draw upon in regards to these specific policies. Is there, again, this has been put on the table. It directly dovetails into a part of the motion that was already passed. Do you feel that there needs to be an additional motion? Is this a question for me? Yes. Okay, yes, only because this is very specific. So I think it builds upon the motion that was passed earlier and could be in addition to. Okay, so then you're going to put the motion on the table, but I'm gonna ask, I see a couple of hands and I'm gonna ask for people to speak. Shalini. Do I need a second before we talk about it? Yeah, just once they had their hands up even before we got to this. So let me do that. Shalini, and then we'll come back. Yeah, I actually wanted a clarification from Alicia about the last one that we've just asked Paul to convey, communicate with Pamela. And just so that everyone's expectations are the same. So Alicia, were you hoping that Pamela is gonna look at because it was a specific process that's outlined on page 41 and there's a specific consultant that's mentioned there. So are you seeing look at this for ideas of what is needed by the community or are you saying that this is the exact process and the exact consultant? No, I just would want her to use it as a reference point. And so I think that there could be many outcomes to that situation. Could be using ideas, using it to develop her own ideas could be reaching out to that consultant to talk more could be lots of different things. I think that would be up to the DEI director just that I want her to know that that specific thing has already been provided so that as a reference. Thank you. Thank you. Pat, you have your hand up is in regard to this or what? Go ahead. One more follow-up thing, sorry. Can we also get from like in terms of the timing and everything and I don't know what's happening at the back end, I know they're doing a lot of things in the DEI department. And so there's also the timeframe aspect. Do we, you know, is there Alicia and expectation when this needs to happen? Because I'm wondering if you have to give them the opportunity to prioritize the different things or can they all happen at the same time? I'm not sure. I think we have to leave that up to the staff. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I was going to say a similar thing if I might just add, I don't think that I had any thought of how long this would take, just hoping that it will move along very quickly because we did already have a consultant willing to do it and take it on and start immediately. So that's why I thought seeing what that person was going to do and what their outline was might help the DEI director in deciding what or how she wants to approach this. Okay. All right. We're ready to move on to this. Andy? So are we on discussing the motions to remain on the? No, we are not. They're not on the floor yet. Okay, I'm going to lower my hand and raise it again if they come on the floor. Okay. Pat? I'm curious. I'm assuming contract, and this is for Paul, contract conversations are happening with the APD because their contract is expired. So I'm assuming you're already in that process. Is that accurate? Yes, the contract expired. We're in negotiations with the union. Right. I won't ask any questions about that. Another issue is I think that the second motion is important because we're looking, while we're talking about being an anti-racist town, I think we really need to look at our police department because it interacts so directly with all kinds of things people in the community, from cognitively disabled to homeless to people of color to lesbian and gay people. So that I think that, so when it says anti-racist, I automatically include other things as well, which aren't here. I guess my other question is, are you or have you, or is there a process going on in the APD to look at use of force and consent, to look at these issues? Is that, you know, we have the DEI director who's gonna be looking at stuff. We have Earl Miller directing Crests, looking at protocols and procedures and things like that. What is the process in the police department around issues of their procedures and processes? I'm gonna go ahead and have Paul answer that question, but right now there is not a actual legitimate motion on the floor, okay? We're getting there, right? So Paul, go ahead. Okay, Paul. Okay, so, so if there's a couple of things, when you make them, if you're gonna make a motion on this, I need to understand this is an endorsement of this, because of this policy, the recommendation from the CSWG because the council hasn't really acted on the recommendations of CSWG other than creation of the Crest department and the DEI department in terms of having a sort of formal proposal or anything like that. So, and under the CSSJC charge, they're supposed to be implementing, working on things that the council has voted. That's what their charge says. So, I just wanna make sure that the council is clear about if it takes an action, what does that mean? I would have to get back to you in terms of what has happened on these, in terms of where they stand with the police department, in terms of actual reviewing policies. I just, I don't wanna venture it, I guess, on where this is. Yeah, yeah. I don't wanna say something else, that'd be wrong. Yeah. Alicia. Thank you. So, two things. I was hoping that we could, like I'm putting a motion on the floor, so I'm hoping we can see if there's a second so that we can actually have a discussion of the motion because when I tried to talk to a motion earlier, I was stopped because it wasn't seconded. So, like, I would like to talk about these motions, but I would like to put the motion on the floor. Please go ahead. So, I'm gonna move the first motion, the recommend the town manager work with the APB to review and update selected policies and contract provisions of the APD. The review shall be including, but not limited to the use of fourth policy, consent searches, low level and pretextual stops. The APD contract, the APD discipline policy and the personnel information release policy. Second, Miller. I was just going to ask for a second and second is Miller. Alicia, did you wanna speak to the motion? Yes, please just very quickly. In response to Paul's statement, I didn't specifically reference the CSWG report in this motion. However, I know it's very clear that that's where this recommendation came from. I know the council has not moved on any CSWG recommendations aside from the Crest Department and the DEI, which is why I am putting some of these forward now because I'm hoping that in response to this specific situation, some of these things move forward and that we might see the necessity in moving those things forward now. I also think that this just adds more specificity to the motion that we passed earlier in terms of specific policies that were relevant in this situation specifically that may be reviewed and updated. So I don't have any suggestions as to how they be reviewed or updated here. I know that there are some of those things available in the CSWG report, but I did not include any of those things in this motion here. And so I would hope that we would take it at face value as it's being proposed to review and update. Okay, Anna. Sure, so I think that most of this would be covered in the prior motion. If I'm reading my notes right, which was to organize a review of public safety protocols for responding to and handling public safety protocols for responding and handling to public safety calls involving all residents, including minors in order to recommend changes to those protocols if appropriate. I feel like this does possibly go beyond that. I think that there's a little room for interpretation. So something like the personnel information release policy might not have been captured under the previous one. And I'm fine with adding a layer of specificity. My one question, and I don't know if this is a friendly amendment or if I can just ask this of Alisha and Michelle to consider adding, but I think update as appropriate or if appropriate. What I am concerned about is this reading as if these will all be reviewed and updated when some of them may be reviewed and no changes are deemed necessary. So I'm curious if the sponsors would be willing to add the words update if appropriate selected policies. Alisha, that's a friendly amendment. Yes, I would be willing to add that amendment, but I just want to say that these specific policies were picked out by consultants whose job it is to review PD policies. And so some of their recommendations included things as simple as like could use clarity in the language in this policy. It's unclear as to what you mean here. And so there's a reason why these specific policies, like I'm hoping these specific policies will be updated even if it's just clarifying what it's already saying. So although I do, I would agree to that friendly amendment. I just wanted to state that. Thank you. And the second, Michelle, do you agree to that friendly amendment? Yes. Thank you. Andy, you have your hand up. Yeah. I said way back at the beginning of this discussion, I mean really beginning of the discussion that I had four criteria. And I think that I can't support this at least on the last three bullets because I think that they're inconsistent with the policy that I stated, which was just to be realistic in compliance with in realistic meant considering budget legal and capable of implementation. I think that the contract disciplinary policy and the personal information release policy are all matters of collective bargaining. And the charter is clear. Collective bargaining is a responsibility of the executive is not a responsibility of the legislative. There's a long understanding that we don't as a council get involved with collective bargaining because that's the responsibility of the town manager. And I think that this just takes us over the top. So I cannot support this motion with those three bullets included. Do you wanna make an amendment to remove those? Yes, I'll make that motion. Okay, so the motion is to amend the motion that's on the floor by removing APD contract imprints which expired on June 30, 2022, APD discipline policy and personal information release policy. Is there a second to that amendment? Second. Okay, so we need to focus on just the amendment if we can. Michelle? Yeah, I guess I'm confused given this is recommending that the town manager, and I think the criteria that Andy outlined for himself was that Andy you just said that these three reports are within the executive's purview but this motion is making a recommendation for the executive to work with the APD. It's not making a recommendation that the legislative body work with the APD. So I'm not following your rationale there but I'm happy to have that clarified if I'm missing something. Andy, do you wanna speak to that? Yes, there's an implication that you're telling suggesting to the town manager how you conduct negotiations and there's an implication that you're wanting a report back on those specific things. And while the contract may or may not become public in the end, I think it is totally contrary to what we understand that the charter provides and I cannot support it. And I think that there's opening ourselves and opening the entire town up to some legal challenges that are just totally unnecessary. Okay, could I just respond? Cause I do wanna make sure I understand this properly. So like the first three are policies of the APD where the second three are personnel related policies. Is that how you would describe the split on those two? Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Dorothy? I think that I just wanna state the obvious. This is about a committee that did a lot of work and hired a consultant, which we paid for. Okay, the town of Amherst paid for the consultant. And the consultant I assume was a specialist in this field. The fact that some of these issues are contract issues or personnel issues does not mean that we can never or that the town manager or that someone in town government can never look at them. They're not sacrosanct. So maybe Alicia can tell me more about the consultant. When government money and time and effort is spent, so many reports end up in a box shoved somewhere under a bookcase. And it's a total waste, an absolute total waste. And it's often done on things that are difficult and hard to discuss. So I would be for keeping this in because a consultant who obviously was hired because they knew something of this field suggested that these might be problematic areas and include the words, recommend the town manager where feasible and or allowable. In other words, there may be reasons why he cannot check those out. Okay, fine. But to say that things are totally off the table forever, I don't find that acceptable. And to ignore work that was done by a committee that hired a consultant that we paid for, I think it's just kind of silly and which has us going around and around in circles and we do so much waste, so much waste of time, effort in this town that, you know, I think that at least the town manager should be asked to consider looking at these things, maybe soften it. But the consultant brought them up as being problematic areas. And I look at some of them, they sound to me, yeah, maybe they are. So in a positive spirit, not a kind of like, oh, I'm gonna find out where the secrets are hidden or where the bodies are buried. But in a positive thing, sometimes things need to be looked at with a pair of fresh eyes. The motion's been made and seconded and now there is an amendment on the floor to eliminate the last three bullets or dashes, okay? That's what we should speak to at this time and then we'll go back to the main motion. Pam? I'm speaking to keeping the last three items on this list. This reminds me a little bit of the MOA agreement with the library committee of the library trustees where we did suggest to the town manager certain parameters and conditions. And I think as has been said already, there are a number of items that clearly are of concern that simply need to be reviewed and looked at. And I don't think that just because it's contracts, just because it's discipline policies, I think those all really should be reviewed and looked at. Someone at one of our public forums made a very strong statement and they said, change doesn't really occur until you modify a contract. And it states in their expectations for behavior, et cetera. And so we know that that's really an important thing. I think these things deserve to stay on a list for the review period. Mandidja? So I support removing these three. I'm sorry, you support removing those three. I think it exceeds our authority as a legislature. I think we're confusing two different things here. What we want the town manager to do and what we should formally ask the town manager to do. That MOA, they wanted funding. It's within our legislature's purview to do the funding. We have to vote the money. We can put conditions on the money. That's what we can do as a legislature. And so then delegating to the manager to negotiate the conditions on the money is a logical step for the body that votes the money to do. We don't negotiate the contracts. That's charter section 3.3M. No, contracts are, oh, M is, I got it up here. I think it's 3.3, not 3.2, 3.2. You know, the council has no authority to negotiate the contracts. It has no authority to negotiate the disciplinary policies. So we have no role at all in those items. And so to recommend the manager do that inserts our non-role into a role that the charter gives to the manager absolutely. That to me is the difference. That doesn't mean if we say, no, it's not our role that we don't want the manager to or that we don't think the contracts need negotiated again because of X, Y, and Z. It's just saying and accepting that it's not our role to tell the chief executive officer how to do his job. That's what the charter gives us policy authority. It doesn't give us the contracting negotiation authority. Just because we have the policy authority or just because we can sit here and make up a motion doesn't mean we should be legally allowed to or that it's a proper and appropriate motion. But just because we don't act also doesn't mean we don't believe that that failure or admission that or recognition that it's not our place to act doesn't mean we don't agree with certain things. It just recognizes it's not our place to act. So I'm gonna vote to remove those three items because I believe it's entirely beyond our authority and goes against the charter and the separation of a legislative body and an executive body. Elisha. Thank you. I just, I wasn't, there was no intention for the council or anyone on the council to be a part of the negotiation process at all here. It is saying that in respect to these specific areas that there will be review and updated if appropriate. So I don't think that is telling us, I don't think we're telling the town manager anything specifically to do in terms of the negotiation process. Again, sometimes the APD contract is something we can do right away. Sometimes it's not available to the public right away. None of those things are changing with this motion. And I don't see this as outside of our purview. And I see that the last three are actually extremely important. Extremely important things to review and update if we want to address certain issues that we are trying to address. And so I am in favor of leaving them here. Also just, I think Andy said something about things that are realistically implementable. And again, these came directly as recommendations from consultants. The LEAP, which does this for law enforcement agencies around the country for a job, looked through what the APD gave us in terms of their disciplinary policy in terms of their information release policy in terms of their APD contract and said these could use updating. So while we're not saying what specific updates or what even to do with it, like these are very specific recommendations that came to us for professionals who do this for a living, who have done this for other municipalities who have actually made these active changes, which means it is a realistic possible implementable thing. So I just don't see how these would not be possible when other municipalities have already done so. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cough into the mic. Dorothy. I love to come after Alyssa because she is such a clear speaker. The language here does not say the town council is going to run, supervise, read or do any of those things. So that was, I would say, a deliberate misreading of that language. And I did appreciate the clarification that Alyssa gave. So I just wanted to say that. Thank you. Shalini. Yeah, I think Alicia, I wanted to understand better again the intentions that with respect to these three and is it that they were these specific recommendations, as you said, that were made in the CSWG report as provided by LEAP and is the intention here for Paul to, I mean, it feels like all of these recommendations were made and then what happened to them. So is it really just asking Paul that has something being done on them? Are you considering them? Or is that what we are asking for? Well, I know, I think I'm moving to recommend that he review these things because they have, although they were recommended by the consultants to the CSWG and they were put into the CSWG report, also just a full disclosure, this does not include every single recommendation that was made by LEAP. I pulled the ones that I thought were most relevant to this specific situation. But those recommendations came to the CSWG, they were included in the report, but like has been brought up many times, the council never chose to act on any of those things. So that's what happened to them. They're just sitting in the CSWG report. I just found them to be extremely relevant to this situation and thought that now would be a good time to act on it. Specifically concerning the APD contract since it is currently in negotiation right now, what better time to be reviewing and updating if necessary or if appropriate, then when it is in review. If that makes sense. I don't know if that answers your question, Shalini. And yeah. Thank you. And the CSWG was not the council, it was a committee and it expressed its opinions about matters that pertain to collective bargaining. I think that's very different from this council that is created by the charter, it has a very specific charge, a very specific limitation. And so I don't think that they're analogous and for a good time manager to choose or not choose to consider CSWG recommendations during contract negotiations is a decision that the manager has to make. But this council should not be getting involved with anything that is directing how contract negotiations, anything that has to do with collective bargaining should occur because that is specifically delegated to the town manager. And I think that it does create additional problems because of the complexity of collective bargaining. And so I really feel very strongly about this having been involved in contract negotiations and knowing how delicate and important it is in every step of the way. This one I think would be a real mistake and I urge the council to adopt the amendment. Michelle? So I pulled up the report and I'm specifically looking at the recommendations that came in the report by way of the contractor that was hired to make these recommendations. And they're very specific, they're very detailed and they're very relevant to what we've been talking about here for four months. So I can't imagine why we would want these very relevant recommendations that as Dorothy said, we paid for to not be very seriously considered. I'm reading this report. It is completely coming to life for me. It is not 2D any longer as I read through these and it's very, very relevant to what we're talking about. So while I understand the concerns that Andy has and I truly honor the concerns that Andy has, I am wondering if there is some way that we can come to a place here where we recognize that these recommendations that were made to the committee and then to the council by the committee through a third party contractor who specializes in these matters, how we might bring them off the pages and to life. And I truly believe that will move our community forward. And if you have time to read them, I recommend that you do. So I'm asking the question to counselors, is there a way we're at an impasse, can we find a way to take those recommendations that were in the report and make sure that they are considered by our town manager and in the negotiations with the APD? Michelle, I don't have a response to your question. If somebody else wants to try a response, they can. I just wanted to state that. Shalini. Yeah, I was gonna propose something similar in the sense that I think the collective bargaining and that process, as Andy said, is very delicate and there's so many factors that impact that process which we are not aware of. So I would want to leave that separate. However, I do see the benefit and all the work that has been done and documented in that report and to have a way to, where it is at least considered and implemented or not implemented, but for what reasons. So I was looking at our, the motion that we passed and organized a review of public safety protocols for responding to and handling public safety calls. Could many of them, maybe not all of them, but could many of the recommendations be looked at when that particular aspect of protocols is being looked at? Personally, I believe yes, but that's my personal opinion. Pat. I wanna call the question. Second. Okay, the question's been called. The motion's been seconded. That brings it immediately to a vote and that question being called stops the debate and comment and we have to vote on the call, question, and then we go immediately to vote to, depending on that. So there's no comment when somebody calls the question. You have to go to the immediate vote. It's been seconded. So I'll start with Anna. I just wanna know what we're voting on. Sorry, I just need clarity as to what we're voting on right now. Thank you. We are voting to end debate on this motion and on the amendment. We are voting to end debate on the amendment. Okay. The amendment that was removing the last three. The amendment to remove the last three. So all you're doing the first, this first vote is to vote to stop, you know, vote to stop debate. If you vote yes, you agree to stop debate. If you vote no, you wanna continue debating. Okay. Anna Devlin, no, I think I start with me and I vote yes. I was so ready. Mandy Jo. Aye. Anika. Aye. Michelle. No. Dorothy. Yes. Pam Rooney. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Alicia Walker. No. Shalini Balmille. Yes. Pat DeAngelis. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. The motion passes. It is 11 in favor. Two against zero, zero. Okay. So now we are going to move immediately to the amendment. The amendment is to remove the last three items. APD contract with friends, which expired on June 30th, 2022. APD discipline policy, personal information release policy. So that is the motion. If you vote yes, you're voting to remove that. If you vote no, you wanna keep those. I'm going to start with Mandy Jo. Aye. Anika. Aye. Michelle. No. Dorothy. No. Pam Rooney. No. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Aye. Jennifer Taub. No. Alicia Walker. No. Shalini Balmilne. Yes. Pat DeAngeles. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Lynn Griesmer is an aye. That is eight in favor of removing and five opposed, correct? I have nine to four. Opposed for Miller, Pam, Rooney, Taub, and Walker. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm sorry, I missed one thing. Okay. All right, so we are removing the last three items if we take that off and now we're back to the motion as amended. Are there any further comments about the motion as amended, Michelle? Yes, and this is going to appear that it relates to what we just voted off, but just bear with me for a second. In a recent CSSJC meeting that I attended, the Pamela said that she is not involved and has not been involved in contract negotiations with the APD. And I'm just putting a question out there really to Paul and to others about what sort of best practices and standard practices are when there's a DEI director in place that interfaces a great deal with matters that relate to community safety, social justice. So wondering if what Pamela reported was in fact, is still in fact the case and if there's any commentary that Paul can offer with respect to that. Paul. What she said is true. Before she started, we had a negotiating team established. When you negotiate with a union, you each have your negotiating team. We are typically represented by an attorney and by the HR director. The town manager makes the ultimate decision. Okay. So yeah, go ahead. That's that briefly. Okay, so Paul, at this point, could she be added to those negotiations at your discretion? I will not discuss. We're in the middle of contract negotiations with the union. I wanna, you know, clearly disavow the discussion that I'm present in, but I'm not participating in the discussion about collective bargaining. I don't wanna have unfair labor practice charge against me. So it will not discuss contract negotiations to make up of my team or while we're in active negotiations. Okay, just bear with the fact that we aren't aware of all, I'm not, I will speak for myself. I'm not aware of all of those components. So I'm asking from a very genuine place and not a place of trying to, you know, metal in the middle of that, really just trying to understand. I understand that. Thank you. Mandidra. In looking at the motion as it now stands, I wonder if because the prior motion passed, the motion to amend passed, if we could get a friendly amendment to remove the phrase and contract provisions from the first part, I think it was just overlooked in the motion to amend since the remaining three bullets are not related to contract provisions at all. And I'm trying to save another motion to amend. That's, and I appreciate that. So Alicia, it's your motion. The suggestion is that we remove the phrase and contract provisions. Yeah, I think what I think we have to now. Yeah. Okay, so we accept that. Michelle, you seconded, you accept that? Okay. So we are now back to the original motion that has now been amended. Recommend the town manager to work with the APD to review and update if appropriate selected policies of the APD. This review shall be including, but not limited to use of force, consent searches on low level and pretextual stops. Kathy. So I just wanted to make a comment on these three areas because I like Michelle, I've got the leap report in front of me. So people know what's in that report. One of the things they said in some places, the wording is just not clear that if you read the policy, you would say, hmm. And it needs to be clarified. In others, they're making specific change recommendations. So I think I'm more comfortable with these three areas because they were flagged as places where other communities have basically cleaned up the ambiguity and also made some changes. So I think all of this, Alicia, if I'm right, is coming from the leap report and the specifics that they were focusing in on. So it's a positive statement on my side with these three, but I'm just wondering whether these aren't already under review. So it is a question because these three were flagged and I know Cress and others have been sitting looking at protocols because we have the more general look at protocols. So if they haven't been flagged, I think this does a good job of saying, here are three areas that were identified for. And in some cases, it is literally just an updating like clarify with the meaning of the words. And Paul, so I see in that a question to you, do you have any knowledge whether these have been looked at in recent months? I don't think they have. Okay. The answer is, thank you, that answer my question. Thanks. Are there any other questions on the motion that's now on the floor? Seeing none, I'm gonna move to a vote. And Anika Lopes. Hi. Michelle Miller. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Hi. Jennifer Tobbe. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. Shelley Belmune. Yes. Pat DeAngeles. Hi. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Hi. Lynn Griespers and I, Mandy Johannike. Hi. That motion passes unanimously. We have now further identified some things that go with the first motion. So we have one more motion. That's the motion. Alicia, please go ahead. Yes. So I mean, I think it's pretty self-explanatory, but the recommendation is that the, we recommend the town manager to assist the APD in developing a proactive anti-racist culture in the Amherst Police Department and that it be documented and regular updates, sorry, typo updates be provided to the council. Oh, it's word updates. Is there a second? Second, DeAngeles. Okay. The motion has been made and seconded. Pat DeAngeles was the second. Are there further discussions about this motion? Anna. Yeah, thank you. So... I'm sorry, hold on a minute. Alicia, did you want to say anything further about the motion? I'm sorry, I just didn't ask her to speak to the motion. All right. No, it's okay. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer though, but I'd be happy to hear Anna and Mandy Joh. Great, thank you, Anna. So I'm hoping to offer another friendly amendment. I think one of the things that is tough for me about this motion is developing a proactive anti-racist culture is it's a huge charge. And so developing a culture is a challenging charge because it isn't up to one person to do, right? It requires buy-in, it requires constant regular work. And I think that I mean, I know that everyone knows that. So I'd love to offer potentially another friendly amendment to add the words, or sorry, to adjust it to say, recommend the town manager assist the APD in identifying steps to develop a proactive anti-racist culture. So I'm adding, instead of developing, I would say in identifying steps to develop. Alicia, do you accept that as a friendly amendment? I do. And Pat, do you accept that? Yes, I do. All right, let's make sure we get it in here. Thank you. I think this will, it clarifies the actions a little bit more. Okay. Are there any other comments? Mandy Joh. I feel like I sound like a broken record tonight. I am concerned that this one, again, oversteps a legislature's job. One front is the charter only allows us to talk to the manager, yet this one essentially, you know, it's a fine line and I don't know whether it violates it or not, is essentially telling the APD to develop a proactive anti-racist culture. And that's not, I wanna be clear, I'm not against that phrase like in that statement, right? But how far do we go to tell the manager how to do their job? And I just struggle with that. The last motion, at least talked about policy and we as the legislature under the charter are the policy leaders of the town. This one targets one specific department only and I'm concerned about that. I mean, I don't think we're intending to say that the rest of the town shouldn't be developing a proactive anti-racist culture. But we're specifically saying, you have to tell the APD to do so or assist the APD to do so as if we, as if the rest of the town's staff, it's not as important for. I mean, I thought when we were doing all the resolutions and when we were doing all of this and why we're doing all this work is because we want the entire town and the entire town staff to have a proactive anti-racist culture. And I guess I struggle with saying, telling the manager, hey, it's part of your job to assist town departments in doing this, number one, I'm not sure we should have to do that. And number two, is it appropriate to call out only one department? And I'm not sure it is. So I don't at this point think I can support it, but I guess I'm interested in what people think. Okay, Andy, I'm sorry, Paul, you have your hand up. So I'm gonna go to the town manager. That's appropriate, yes, thank you. So I had my concern, several concerns about this one is that the implication is that there's one department that is racist and the others aren't or that there's one particularly racist department. And I really object to that. I think actually of all of our departments, the police department has done some of the most proactive anti-racist work that has been done in the town. They've had implicit bias training for years. And so I fear the implication in the, what this means to our police. When they read what you, if you vote this second, I do think that it is instructive because it's instructed, whatever that means that you're directing. And I think that's beyond the pale of what the council's allowed to do. I mean, if you say recommend, which is a softer word, but I mean, that means what if I do nothing while the council say fine, it wasn't an instruction anyway. I feel like this actually is something that could be put into your goals. I think it's an important goal and really important goal for the town. And then I would think that you would say, how are you going to implement this? This is the one of the reasons we established the DEI department. So we have someone who knows how systems work, how organizations work and how you put things together to place this in the police department. I think really leaves a very strong person on the sideline who has, we have already talked about certain departments that we want to start to work with and it's not the police department. And so I would think that you would value the advice of your DEI director before identifying one department as being a priority for the work because it is a big job, it's a gigantic job. It's a person by person department by department town by town job. So my concern is manyfold and I think that we have so much focus on the police department that we have forgotten about the other departments of the town that also need work. And quite frankly, I would say, so and I think it rightly belongs in your goals if that's what you want to do. Andy. Yeah, what I was going to say was just a piece of what Paul said. I really feel uncomfortable with a motion that sort of assumes that a particular department needs attention. I don't think that we have factual basis to make that conclusion and that we would be making a mistake past the motion that has that implication in it. Paul, did you have additional comment? Alicia? Yeah, so I think the intention of this motion is being completely missed. And I just want to point out one thing that is there is a huge difference between being not racist and being anti-racist. And I think that is what's being missed here. This is not to imply that the APD is a racist department and they're the only racist department and that's why they need to be addressed. And being proactive and anti-racist is it's intentionally putting in place things to prevent racism from occurring. It's not just saying we got into a situation, there were people of color and we didn't do anything that was racist. It's very different. It's a proactive approach. It is a positive term. It is a positive framing. It is not negative. We are not saying the APD is racist. We are saying we are going to put in policies or procedures or practices or trainings or what have you that allow us to be proactively fighting against racism. That is the difference. Anti-racism is being against racism, not just not being racist. There is a huge difference. I also agree that every single town department could use this. The reason why I am recommending that this start with the APD is because again of the incident at hand and because again, this is a national issue. This is not just an issue of Amherst. The AP, I mean not the APD, the PD itself, police departments all over the country and everywhere were founded on racism. So what better department to start with? I'm not saying this is the only department and it lies here and it ends here. Every single department, every single person, every single everything should be working every single day to be anti-racist, not just not racist but intentionally acting against racism. And I think this is also a perfect way to build trust in our town and it is positive. I think looking at this in a negative way is what is framing this bad for us because again, what we want here is improvement and better. This is not, I just, it's hard because I'm not trying to call out anyone. I want everyone to improve. I want this entire town to improve. We can't improve every single department and every single person at the same time it doesn't work that way. So I'm just asking that this be one of the steps we take in towards reaching our goals and in towards addressing the situation that has hand because that is at hand because again, that is the entire purpose of this entire special meaning that we are having right now is to address the issue that happened on July 5th. And so one way that we can address that issue and to ensure that things like that issues of that nature aren't happening is to create proactive anti-racist policies. I'm not saying that they don't do trainings. Trainings is not being proactively anti-racist. There is a huge difference here. And so I just think it's being misconstrued what I'm trying to propose. Pat, thank you. I'm not calling out the Amherst Police Department as being racist and other departments not. What I see is the power of police and what that means and how any person, any resident reacts to police, but more particularly BIPOC people or other marginalized people. To me, racial bias is embodied. It is in my body and I react from that place and it takes work and a lifetime of proactive work to address, to get ahead of what I've learned in my body. That's true for every person, irrespective of the color of their skin. We have different experiences all based on certain kind of biases. I know that the police department, our police department, the Amherst Police Department, which I support has been doing trainings around races. And I talked years ago to Cyrus Cox about what and he was coming in to work with the department. But the ongoing nature of the work is important. We look, we need to contrast APD with what's happening at UMass where an employee is walking to work and gets stopped by the UMass police. And we've had two other recent incidents with the UMass police. So I think there's a real contrast. And so for me, and I don't know whether Alicia would agree with this or whether it will make a difference to others, but I would like this to say that we recommend the town manager assist the APD to continue or to continue to the work already done to develop as a proactive anti-racist department or if that makes any sense to you, Alicia. So it's a friendly way of saying it. It's a friendly amendment that would say recommend the town manager assist the APD in continuing to develop a proactive anti-racist culture. That's a friendly amendment, Alicia. So I am thinking about this not because I disagree just because I'm not sure that any department is currently actively trying to be anti-racist. I think like, I don't think that they're actively, I feel like anti-racism itself is not being understood. It needs to be active work to understand, to explain, to solve racial inequity and racial injustices. It's active work. It's not just trainings. And so like, yes, I would love the town manager to continue the things they're already doing. I think this is what they're already doing is great, but I think it needs to be more. And I think the focus needs to be on anti-racism and it's not being racist. I think it needs to be actively anti-racist. And there's a big difference between not racist and actively anti-racist. And I don't know if I'm doing the best job at explaining it right now, but I think that is what's being missed in the conversation. And I also just wanted to add one quick thing that I forgot to say earlier, and like, even the best can be better. So I'm getting the sense that you are not accepting that friendly amendment. Oh, I wouldn't put it exactly as so. If we wanted to add something that would be like, also continuing to engage in other trainings or whatever, like something around that language, I would be happy to include that, but I don't want to take out the develop a proactively anti-racist culture because I don't think we have done that yet. I suggest- How about to build upon, to build upon the current trainings? So how would you, how would the sentence read, Michelle? It makes up- Maybe like to build upon. So maybe if you added the to build upon after, assist the APD in building upon, I don't know what word would go there, but by identifying steps to develop a proactive, if that makes sense. So like to build upon current initiatives or current trainings, current practices by identifying specific steps to develop a proactive anti-racist approach, I don't know if I'm getting to it. How about current efforts to develop a proactive anti-racist culture in the APD? Well, I still want to keep the, I think the amendment that Anna added with the, oh, the identifying steps. Yeah. So you're okay with build upon current efforts to develop? Yes, yes. Because I, yes, I do accept that. If that is going along the lines of what Pat was looking for, I'm not sure if I completely- Yes, it is. Okay. So in building upon current efforts, identifying- I think you can add an and between efforts and identifying. And, okay. All right. So Michelle, did you have anything else you wanted to just say? Yeah, I just wanted to add that I really do see this as an opportunity and I do think this is positive and there's a lot, there's some great books about what being anti-racist is and means. And I think that it is not, it is absolutely not about determining or implying that somebody is racist or that an organization or department is racist. It's about actively fighting against racism, which is I think something that the APD, the town council and many of the other departments and people in this community have demonstrated the will to do. So I just wanna really be vocal about framing it in that way and particularly as the APD receives this information from the town manager. Dorothy? Okay. Several times tonight, Paul has said that when we've mentioned these things that we could add it to our goals. But I'm looking at, I've got the town manager self evaluation here, policy goals and one of them says racial equity and social justice. So I'm wondering whether what he's asking us to do beyond that we have that is one of our goals. Now, in light of the conversation we're having would we want to modify that and include the word anti-racist? Or was he getting us something else? I mean, because he said it to us several times not just tonight. And I'm not quite sure what I was supposed to make of that. So this is my question is to Paul. What does he mean when he says if the town council finds it important they could add it as one of their goals because it is one of our goals. So Dorothy, are you asking whether this should become a goal instead of emotion tonight? No, no, but I just, I had this, wrote this question down quite a while ago but he said this several times and I just don't know what he means because it is a goal. It was kind of like, well, what you're doing is interesting but why don't you take care of business first and make it a goal, but it is a goal. We says racial equity and social justice is one of our goals and one of the goals that he has been asked to carry out or maybe he means something else by that. I'm not being funny here. I really am asking for clarification. Paul, do you wanna speak to that briefly? Yeah, so I think the specificity of this request is different than what your goal is. And I think if you want to be more specific in your goal which in your, during the goal setting process this is like a standalone statement that is just going to stick out, I think. And maybe that's in your intention. I think the council should express itself by a majority vote of what it votes on its goals in terms of what it wants to see in policy and this seems to be a lot more specific and as I said previously, I think it edges into instructing the manager to act in certain ways and including the police chief. Andy. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry, was there anything else, Dorothy? No, no, so what he's saying then is we want to make our goal more specific we can and we could work towards it but he's feeling uncomfortable with this particular motion and wishes we don't vote for it. I guess that's what I'm hearing. I believe that's what you heard. Andy. Yeah, going back to the criteria that I stated way at the beginning of our meeting tonight hours and hours ago, number one was the one that I thought I would get the most pushback on and I haven't, it hasn't come up until now which is make no conclusions about July 5th and I think that's exactly what is now being suggested because when the question was why start with the APD or call them out, it was because you can't do all departments and we know we should start here because of what happened on July 5th but then is making conclusions about what happened on July 5th and I'm not sure that I go along with that after we keep forgetting that not all of the young people involved were BIPOC there were a number of white youngsters in that group. So how did we analyze that? Then there's other questions that come up about what is it that we have been allowed to see and what haven't we been allowed to see is to know the full context. It implies findings that I don't think that we're prepared to make and therefore picks on the APD as needing something more because of what happened in July. There's no basis for that. So it really seems to me that the motion really ought to be pertaining to all departments and leaving it to the executive to decide how to go about and implement it and it should be something about recommending the town manager to determine well just fragment town manager, assist all town departments in making sure that they're not anti-racist and that isn't the perfect wording but that kind of a concept. But I really am concerned about picking out APD under the circumstances, especially after that statement was made. Again, I'm exercising my privilege as a counselor. I actually want to very much support Paul's statement in this, I think this targets the APD. I also think that in our previous motion we passed, we talk about training and the whole bullet was dedicated to it. If we want to put more into future goals which we're going to be doing during the month of December, actually starting next week, then let's do it. And I can't support this particular motion and I frankly don't even want to amend it to mean all departments because I think we already covered that in the previous motion. Shalini. Yeah, I completely agree with us proactively taking steps to develop an anti-racist culture across all departments and I agree that we should add the specificity in our town manager goals but doing it over here, again, just echoing what everyone is saying or some people are saying, I absolutely feel that by singling out the APD, firstly we're making assumption, we don't even know what is in place, right? So we don't know what has been done, what hasn't been done by the APD vis-a-vis especially other departments. So we're singling out APD to go through these additional steps whereas we don't even know what, for all we know and what we did here Paul says they have actually done more. Which again is not enough but then it should be across the town and not just singling out. So I do not support that at all. Alicia. Thank you Lynn. So I'm just kind of confused because if we agree that this should happen across all departments, why would it be an issue? If it's going to, if the hope is that it eventually will happen at the PD, the issue is just the statement. Like I'm not understanding that piece. And then I also think that what I'm saying as this being taken up in response to the July 5th incident is also being misframed because this recommendation came before the council long before the July 5th incident. So this recommendation is not in response to the July 5th incident. I am bringing it forward in response to the July 5th incident. This recommendation came before that. The CSWG charge was specifically to make recommendations on reforms to the current organizational and oversight structures of the Amherst police department with an emphasis on the BIPOC community rebuilding trust in these communities. Very specific. That is why it is so specific. There hasn't been any other committees that I know of that were charged to look at other departments and to do such a thing. That is why this is here. I am not bringing this forward to be spiteful to the APD. That is not what is happening here. I am trying to help my community build trust. I'm trying to help my community be better. This is not, I just don't understand why this is being looked at in the negative. Like this is going to hurt somebody's feelings. Whose feelings does it hurt when we're saying like, look at these things that you can do to help prevent these incidents, to help build trust in the community which we know has been broken, to restore things that we want to restore. We talked about having the press department and how essential it will be to have an alternative service for those who don't want to call the PD. But isn't it still an issue that people don't want to call the PD? Don't we still want to address things with the PD so that people are feeling more safe and more comfortable? We can't just outsource everything. We can't just say, well, if you don't feel comfortable with the APD, call Crest because the APD should also be available for everybody. But in order for that to happen, there needs to be some more rebuilding of trust, specifically with the BIPOC community. That is not making any assumptions as to what happened in the July 5th incident. And I'm also sick of hearing that just because all of the teens involved weren't BIPOC that doesn't mean it's a BIPOC issue. That doesn't matter. There could have been one BIPOC teen there. It then becomes a BIPOC issue. I don't understand. I don't understand the framing of any of these things that are being talked about. I really don't. And then I have a question for Paul specifically because he said there is an issue with this motion being so specific. And I wanna know what specific about this is an issue because I think this gives the town manager and the PD the freedom to create this and to decide what we're doing is enough for it to say, these are the trainings that we're taking. Like we're asking for it to just be documented and regularly updated to the town council. I don't see what is so specific about this and why it is such an issue. I really do not. Paul. Thank you. And thank you for that opportunity Alicia because I've been thinking about what you've been saying and differentiating between an anti-racist culture versus whatever it is we have more with the work that we're doing now. So, and since the question is what would be different? Like I think a goal for the council, a challenge goal I think would be to say to the town manager, we want to start building an anti-racist culture within our departments and within our town through our workforce. We ask you to work with your DEI director to come with a plan for how you would go about doing that and pick the department or the group of people or whatever you think about doing it. And there's different ways to do it. Our DEI director has, we've talked somewhat about this in terms of do you create a group of the willing? Do you, and then expand that out? Do you choose a department? Do you target particular activities that we do? But there are different strategies for that. And I don't know what the right one is for our organization. But I think that like if I were a counselor, I would say that would be a challenge goal to the town manager and it would be a pretty big one to say we want to start creating an anti-racist culture. That's our goal for next year. That's what, I don't want to put it off like it, but that's our goal because that's the next step where we're going. And so in terms of this being very specific, it feels, honestly, it feels targeted even though people are saying it's, look at it as a positive, I can guarantee you most people who are going to be affected by this who we haven't talked to about this are not going to feel that way. But I do value the goal. And I think that you are pushing to the next level, which is exactly what we need to be doing as a community. But so that's my comment on that. I'm gonna- Just really quick for clarity. When you say affected, do you mean negatively affected? Like you expect that there will be people who will be negatively affected by this motion in the PD for clarity. When I try to do a policy of anything, I try to meet with the people who is going to, we're gonna be asking them to do things. So I try to connect with the people. I'm not always successful at that, but that's usually the goal is to talk to the people who are, you're gonna be asking to do additional things or do things or rethink things and things like that. So whichever group that we talk to, that's what I mean by that. It's 1117. I'm going to allow this continue unless somebody makes a motion to call the question. To 1125 and then we're going to take a break. So keep that in mind. Michelle. I really like what Paul just said about the goal and I'm taking notes for GOL. I think that's a really excellent goal for the entire community and the entire town. So I appreciate that. I also just, I wanna say that I don't understand it seems to me in these conversations, like we're assuming so much fragility on the part of the APD and it feels like we're many of the comments that I hear feels like a coddling or a protection of the APD. And to me, that raises a question about what is going on, what sorts of conversations are happening that we're not hearing about for the chief of police to be in a position where he feels for whatever reasons he was unable to apologize for the circumstances that occurred on July 5th. That tells me that we have, there's something broken there. We ask our children to apologize when they've hurt somebody or where even there's been a perception of hurt. And so something about this feeling that there's constant coddling, that there's fragility, that the police chief can't apologize because perhaps his officers will have take issue with that. That's really, really deep. And it's concerning to me. And so I think we should give the APD more credit and try to see the things that they are doing and building upon those things and not assume that they're so fragile that if they are given support to become an anti-racist department that that is somehow a knock on them. And I just, so that's my comment right now. Jennifer? Yeah, I just wanna just throw this out there. It almost feels like the elephant in the room or something. But I mean, people do in any city, town, any place in the world, people do interact with a police department or a police department interacts with people in a different way than any other municipal department. It's very different than the auditor's office or the IT department or the planning department. The police department can affect your life in the most fundamental way possible. So if, yes, we wanna do all that we can to advance and establish an anti-racist culture throughout the town, but if we're starting with the police department or referencing it, I mean, it's for a reason because they, again, it's not IT. And I think we can just acknowledge that and have a conversation about it. And as Michelle said without, it's not particular to the Amherst police department, it's not hurting anybody's feelings, but it would make sense that a police department would certainly be a place you'd want this to happen, again, more than IT. Anika? Yes, thank you, Jennifer, for that. And I think also in addition, I don't know who of us here is arguing or debating the roots of the police department. You know, we've seen today, you know, there's another incident where we've seen a young in South Georgia, a young black man attacked by, I believe it was four or five officers. I think what we're also seeing here within this motion is that, and what we're hearing is also just the word racist racism in comparison to anti-racist. And with all due respect, I feel that there may be counselors that maybe are not clear on what exactly that difference may be, but also when you look at, and without looking it up, without reading it, but also when you look at the motion, I can see how if you do not understand that difference and there's really, you know, directive to it. So if this is presented in a way as what we're talking about at this police department, APD, being part of the larger the National Police Organization as a whole, how they looked at that reluctancy for not just members of the BIPOC community, but as a whole, and that this is asking for, this is an accusation, but is just asking for just whether it be an update and maybe this is through DEI, for all we know that this is already in action. What is going on? So maybe it even just starts with clarity around anti-racism and what that creating that culture is and what is being done. So because these are questions that, you know, I do not know, I certainly have not talked to every member of the police department and every member of the Amherstown staff to know what is their understanding of an anti-racist culture, what work or initiatives are going on, and then again with the DEI department. So this could also just be an issue of how it is proposed and really just, I think the key is understanding between the difference of being called or accused of being a racist or a racist department as a whole and the idea around the question around what work is being done to, in addition to what's going on to create an anti-racist culture. Thank you. Indy Jo. My concern isn't with the new language about identifying steps to develop a proactive anti-racist culture. We absolutely need to do that in town. That's part of what our resolutions that were in one of the motions and all that we've done the last two years or so two and a half years have been leading towards. My concern is, and I'm gonna say it, the targeting of APD in this motion because we could make the same motion for potentially the recreation department for the, you know, our town clerk's office. I could name all of the departments. We could school department, library department. We could probably make the same motion. We as counselors are not equipped to determine which department this should start at or whether it should start department wide. That's what we hired and created the DEI department to do to help us do that. And this is taking, this motion takes away our DEI department's discretion and says you must start with APD. I'm not comfortable telling our DEI department. Basically, you must start with APD because I'm not sure that's the right way to go. I'm not sure that's the right method to do one department at a time versus certain services at a time, as our manager was saying. And then I wanna push back on Councilor Miller's belief that our APD might be fragile. We have spent the last two and a half years talking about how we can improve our public safety services in a way to make our town anti-racist, to make our town and our residents feel comfortable contacting public safety and emergencies, whatever that is. We've created two new departments to do that. And through all of that, we have had the support of our APD and our APD chief. And we have lost very few officers because of the work we're doing, because of the support and the strength that our APD department has had in the face of what we as a council have been doing and talking about for two and a half years. That is not fragility in my mind. And I think we should applaud our APD for coming along with us as we make these changes to make our town more anti-racist, to make our town more safe and welcoming for everyone in town. But I just don't think this motion helps. Okay, we're taking a break. We're gonna be a break for five minutes. We'll be back at 11.32. Turn off your mics. Turn off your picture. I love it. I love it. I like it a lot. Do you want to get your car? Enjoy. Yeah, I feel so kind. As long as you think you can connect. Yeah, I can. I'll be on my phone. Have enough juice? I'm sorry. That's what I heard. I guess, yeah. As you return, please turn your picture back on so I know you're here. And I'm gonna have you take the screen down so I can see. We are still on a brief break, but as you return, please put your screen back on so I know you're here. Yeah, I'm showing. I'm showing Alicia one way and on the other. Okay. All right, we're back. Alicia. Maybe she's not back. You know, Alicia, are you back yet? Alicia, are you back? Alicia. Are you back yet? Lynn, I don't know if if I thought I heard 1135. I think you said five minutes, but I'm just wondering if maybe Alicia. We're going to wait for her. Yeah, I'm back now. Sorry. One of my kids. I just want to make sure that we waited for you. Thank you to comment. Your hand is up. Sorry. Let me see if I can really quickly regroup myself. I don't. Sorry. I lost my train of thought because I was just running around my house for a minute, but, but essentially I just wanted to say. That I think. That this is a step to take forward that would accomplish a lot of things that we have talked about as a council. I see this as. A profound and monumental step. If we were to do something like this. Because like what Jennifer said. The APD is not it. It's a department that. Interacts with people on a daily basis. Outside in the communities, not in offices, sitting in a building. Directly impacts a lot of people's lives on a daily basis. I think. The DEI director while I do agree that this is something I envision that she would be doing. I don't even think that this is directly an initiative that's on her plate right now. I don't think that she's working on a lot of other projects. And so would we say that like when she's done with the resident oversight board and the community visioning and all of the other things that she's working on, then she can start working on this. Or what I think like. We're to a point where we don't. I just, I just see we're prolonging things. If we agree that this is something we want to see happen. I don't see why we can't just make it happen. I don't see it as a negative thing. I don't see how anyone could not benefit from this passing. I don't see it as something that would negatively impact the APD. I don't see this as something that would negatively impact the community. And I'm sorry, but I can't remember anything else I was going to say. So I will just leave it there. Anna. We've been discussing this for quite some time. I don't see folks necessarily shifting hearts and minds at this point. So I'd like to call the question. Is there a second. Second. Questions been called and seconded. We move immediately to the vote as to whether or not we're willing to stop debate. And. Is there anybody that has a question about the motion to stop debate? Okay. I'm going to start with Michelle Miller. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Yes, that's fine. Thank you. Thank you. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy. Yes. Andy. Hi. Jennifer. Yes. Alicia. Yes. Shalini. No. Pat D'Angelo's. Hi. Anna. Hi. Lynn is yes. Mindy Joe. Hi. Anika Lopes. Hi. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. No. No. Just stop debate. We're moving immediately to the question. It is the motion on the table. And I'm quickly going to ask that the motion be put up. Okay. That's the motion that we're voting on. If you vote yes, it's to support the motion. If you vote no, it's to not support the motion. I'm going to begin with Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Tom. And Howard. Yes. And that's a no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Is there a problem with your voice? No. Is there a problem with your voice? No. No. You're going to have to speak. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Yes. Michelle Miller. Aye. It is eight in favor, five opposed. Do I get that right? Passed Bob. Okay. I have seven, six. I'm sorry. The motion to work with the police on the anti-racist culture. Dorothy, you need to mute. Oh shit. Okay. We'll forgive you, Dorothy. I have, I have the following. Shelby Balmillan was a no. Pat DeAngelsa, yes. Anna Devlin-Gothier, yes. Lynn Griesmer, no. Mandy Johanneke, no. Anika Lopes, yes. Michelle Miller, yes. Dorothy Pam, yes. Pam Rooney, yes. Kathy Shane, no. Andy Steinberg, no. Jennifer Todd, yes. Alicia Walker, yes. That is eight to five. Okay. All right. That is the end of our meeting and the meeting is adjourned.