 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you. This is a joint meeting of the Town Council and the Finance Committee. It's a public hearing on the FY21 budget. And I'm going to just again say that we can hold this meeting virtually by Governor Baker's March 12th order. I'm going to make sure councillors can all hear you and then I'm going to call on Andy Steinberg as chair of the Finance Committee. So, Shalini Balmilm. Shalini, can you hear us? Oh, can you hear me? Yes. Alyssa Brewer? Yes, President. Pat D'Angeloz? Yes. Darcy Dumont? Yes. Lynn Griesmer is present. Mandy Johannke? Present. Dorothy Pam? Present. George Ryan? Present. Steve Schreiber? Present. Kathy Shane? Present. And Andy Steinberg? Andy? Can you unmute yourself, please? Andy? Yes, I did. Thank you, President. So, we've seen that as we have a quorum at the council, I call the full council meeting together at 7.03 on July 13, 2020. Andy? Okay. And I'm going to convene the meeting of the Finance Committee at the same time that the last meeting was just convened because I want to first of all recognize that only the council member, so the committee constituted quorum and that there is a quorum of the Finance Committee that has already been recognized and acknowledged, and acknowledged that they can hear and participate. I think that at this point that we have one resident member of the committee also present and that's Bob Hegner. So, Bob, if you could just indicate that you can hear me and confirm that we can hear you. Yeah, I can hear you. Okay, thank you. So, this is a public hearing that is being held in accordance with Charter Section 5.5A that provides that and I quote, the Finance Committee will hold a public hearing on the proposed budget providing no less than 10 days notice of such hearing. I, and that's the end of the quote, I want to publicly notice that there was a posting of this meeting, I believe, on July 1, and that it was 10 days in advance, and that therefore this constitutes the Finance Committee hearing on the FY21 budget as required by the Charter. The council president is also a member of the Finance Committee and I have asked her to share the meeting on behalf of the Finance Committee. So, with that, I'll turn it back over to you, Lynn. Okay, thank you. Let me just mention this meeting includes audio video and is available live on Amherst media is also being recorded there's no chat room. If any of the counselors have any problems with connectivity please make sure that Athena and I are aware of that so that we can make sure that we note that in the minutes. And we also do everything we can to reconnect you. This is a budget hearing all presentations questions and comments should be about the budget being discussed the budget is available to members of the public on the town website. I will cut off questions that are not related to the budget, recognizing that the proposed budgets reflect program choices. The town manager will briefly make a presentation with staff assistance, as he determines appropriate, and we will then have a period for questions and comments from members of the public who reside in Amherst. Based on the town's rules of procedure 5.1 and 5.2 public hearings are an opportunity for residents to address council. I will recognize people in the order that they should raise their hands. The finance committee will continue its discussion at its meeting on June 14 tomorrow at 1 30pm and we will expect the council to vote on the budget on July 20. I'm going to ask the town manager to and Paul Bachman to make a brief presentation to recap the budget as it is. Thank you and I think we have slides that we're going to show. Yes, Sean. Thanks. So, yes, so we have a very brief presentation and I thanks the council for their time and all the public who are here today because tonight is really a night to hear from the residents of the town who have a comment on this. A budget is a planning document. It's a plan for expending taxpayer money to fulfill the functions of the town. So you can go to the next slide. This is a budget and I'm going to point out you probably can't see me, but we do have a budget documents available online over 200 pages of information on the municipal budget. The budget for FY 20 also includes the regional school district, the public schools, the library budget, and all those things are available at the town's website, Amherst MA dot gov slash budget. The budget that I'm presenting to you is for $81,333,439. It's reduction in real dollars of over $2 million from what we had allotted for FY 20. We level funded all operating budgets. We cut spending in capital in our OPEB line items. And we eliminated several full time equivalent benefited municipal positions. And the one of the significant new investments that I've requested from you is $80,000 to explore plan and implement strategies to confront systemic racism. This is some of money that we have set aside. We have not determined how that will be spent. It's important for us to listen to the community, especially members of the community most affected by systemic racism to determine how that those funds could best be spent. Next slide. We start from a good position. We have substantial reserves in the sense of almost 20% of our budgets as set aside as in reserves. Again, I mentioned that we have level fund at the operating budgets in recognition of what we anticipate to be a multi year downturn in our economic situation. Most of the loss of revenues is coming from our economic driven revenues such as a parking meals tax, hotel tax, things like that. And in terms of this budget, we also tried to look long term so that we are not just looking trying to survive one year we're looking multiple years down the road. I want to note that this is a third budget that we've created. We had a budget prepared back in February. Then when COVID-19 hit, we had to throw that out the door and start again. And the council was smart enough to give us a one month budget that gets us through July this month of July. Come July 31, we will not have a budget. So that's why it's imperative that the council vote on a budget prior to the end of the this month. And so when we built this budget, the council established two sets of guidelines. One was in December, which is what we were basing our budget on. Then the council came together with the library trustees and the school committee to revise those budget guidelines in May based on all the information we had at that time. And that's where the council came back and said, you know, keep the operating budgets level. Make sure you fund the legal things that were legally obliged to spend on, such as our debt service, our assessments and contracts, things like that. Agreed to reduce cash capital, which means that we're buying fewer things like we're buying, we're not buying vehicles of any sort at this point in time. And we introduce and we reduce the town's contribution to the OPEB trust fund, which is a thing that we have been building up over time. And it's the time it's an opportunity for us to take a break from that investment at this point in time. So I'm going to turn it over to the finance director Sean Mangano, who will go through a little bit line by not line by line. We have three more slides left. So I know you don't want to hear this entire presentation again, which we did on June 29. We were very happy for that time. So Sean. Thanks, Paul. We actually have six slides, but I'll make it feel like three slides. Okay. So on the projected revenue side we have three major sources of revenues we have property taxes, local receipts and state aid. The property taxes were projecting increase 3.4%, which is the allowable two and a half percent increase in the tax levy. Plus a very conservative estimate for new growth we dropped that way down this year to reflect the economic impact of COVID-19 local receipts is next category that's where we are seeing the biggest hit right now in our budget that we're projecting a decrease of 37.3%. And that hits all those areas that Tom Andrew just mentioned that meals tax, excise taxes, rental revenue and a bunch of other areas. And then state aid is the one that we know the least about. And that we have projected is flat for right now. And the one month budgets, which are on our cherry sheet right now from the state, the state's one month budget. And they're providing state aid that's flat with last year so this is the area that we'll stay in touch with very closely over the next couple months and if it comes in flat will be good if it comes in lower, then we'll have to revisit the budget again. The total general fund is looking at a 2.8% decrease which is a little bit over $2 million. And the enterprise fund side so all of our enterprise funds had some pretty significant changes, three of them dropped because of the impacts of COVID-19 water and sewer drop directly due to fewer students at UMass and the other colleges. And then the transportation fund which drives most of its revenues from downtown parking. That's down 21%. There was a halt to parking enforcement. And there's just been little demand for parking downtown right now. And that solid waste is the lone bright spot which is going up 4.2%. And that's due to some changes we're hoping to implement next year that will increase revenues. So we have level funded budgets. You'll see a couple little adjustments for the elementary school and the regional schools. This is related to an accounting adjustment we do for charter and choice tuition which I answered in more detail in a response to the town council. But in terms of the overall guidance, all the departments were level funded on the capital side that's where you'll see our biggest reduction 40.5%. We had a goal of 10% funding for capital in town and we only were able to get about half of that at 5%. And then in OPEB that's going up 1.1%. It should have been quite a bit more because our pension assessment goes up, you know, five or 6% each year. But that's also where the reduction to OPEB is shown. So the overall increase is only 1.1% there. And then assessment others going down 2.4%. This is items on our cherry sheet which, when the state comes out with their full budget, this will most likely change as well. So again, the overall budget is $81,333,439. Sean, you froze. So I. Paul, you may take over. Yes. So Sean, you can jump in when you're ready. So what's not getting done we have delayed the capital investments as Sean said, from 10% of the levy to 5% of the levy. There were a number of requests, mostly for vehicles, which I mentioned for police, fire, DPW schools, conservation, investment in computers, facility repairs, improvements. We have prioritized roads and sidewalks, but there are a number of other projects that we had hoped to move forward on that are put in a bands until we move forward. I guess we lost that. Yeah, I too. And we seem to have lost Sean. Yeah. And Athena, do you have the slides and can you put them up please? I'm looking for them right now. Thank you. I do want to mention that our comptroller Sonya Aldrich is here too. As we move forward on this. Sean, do you want me to. Yeah, I found it. I'll have it up in a moment. Thank you. Go ahead. Sean, I'm back. So I got booted Paul, do you want me to finish the presentation? Yes, can we go back to where we were? Yeah, what slide did I leave off on? With the X sign. Okay, let me just get that ready. All right, sorry about that. So I was saying before I froze, what's not getting done? We've postponed investments in capital. We were hoping to get 10% of our levy towards capital, and we were only able to allocate 5% of the tax levy. This resulted in delays for vehicles, facility repairs and improvements. We weren't able to do as much for roads and sidewalks as we originally wanted to, and a number of longer term projects have been pushed off like the North Common and the athletic fields. The Enterprise Fund capital improvements were also reduced, and things like OPAB where we have some discretion over the contribution we make each year, that was lowered. And the original budget pre-COVID had lots of new initiatives in it that we were hoping to put in place, but those had to be pulled back when we had to make reductions in certain areas. And this last chart shows all the new investments that we've made in this budget. So as the town manager mentioned in the very beginning, 80,000 to confront systemic racism. There's also a $62,000 ad primarily for a new software that will streamline application processes that the residents of the town deal with directly and make their life easier. 75,000 to close a gap in our insurance where we were self-insured and to reduce the liability there. And then 12,000 to pay for a part-time recorder of minutes for the council. And with that, I will turn it back to the chair or the council president. Thank you. I'm going to ask first of all, if you wish to speak and you are a resident of Amherst, raise your hand. If you are not a resident of Amherst, please lower your hand. All right, given that we have at this point 26 people who would like to comment, you will only be allowed for a two-minute comment. And if there is a point at which comments are redundant, I will ask if there are any additional thoughts that have not been expressed on that issue so far. When I call upon you, I will ask you to state your name and where you live. If your last name or your name is not fully available, I may ask you to spell it for the purposes of the minute. Minutes. I just wanna make sure people understand that the council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment. And again, this is a budget hearing and comments are to be kept to the budget. I'm going to go down in the order and I'm starting with Rick Last. Please state your name and where you live. Now I am unmuted. Yes, okay. Yes. Hi, my name is Rick Last. I live on Middle Street, District Five. I'm a 25-year resident of Amherst, retired Fort River teacher, member of the Pioneer Valley Worker Center. I don't support the full funding of the Amherst Police Department. Among other things, funds need to be shifted in order to provide for trained mental and medical health workers as well as housing advocate as first responders. It's being done elsewhere and it can be done here. It's counterproductive and potentially dangerous to the health of our community. They have untrained armed uniform police respond to nonviolent 911 crisis call. We can agree that it's not the best scenario for someone in crisis. One such longstanding national model is the CAHOOS program I spoke to last time that sends crisis workers and medics to behavioral health crisis instead of police. Calls of this nature get rerouted through the 911 system to train professionals. Even though the Amherst Police Department has a crisis intervention team, as Captain Young states, we are not clinicians. We don't pretend to be clinicians. We don't masquerade as clinicians and we don't report ourselves to be clinicians. Also stated that the Amherst Police Department bridges the gap between crisis respond and getting people connected to other agencies. The further states we don't try to solve people's problems we try to assess. That's fine, but is that the best way to serve our community? Chief Livingstone acknowledged that recently, roughly a third of the police calls are mental health related. Captain Ting states that police are trained to distinguish between crisis and crisis from person's engaging criminal activity. This isn't enough with the CAHOOS program, a city four times that of Amherst and roughly the parallel 30% calls around mental health. They only needed law enforcement back up 1% of the time, less than 1%. We have a plethora of these social and mental and medical agencies who could serve this ballot. So it's really basic. We don't need to send the police on these calls. So many things can go wrong when a minimally trained officer in the uniform shows up with a gun. We are searching for a better outcomes and we need a better model. Let's be bold. The chief states that he's seeking what the community wants. Our town manager states that it's important to address what we control as a community. Please complete your comments. One more sentence. Let's look to the future. Let's reimagine public safety to best serve the people. How can we do this? Is there a commitment from you to explore this? Thank you for your comment. I wanna remind people two minutes. Peter Kent Stoll, please state your name and where you live. Hello, my name is Peter Kent Stoll. I'm a resident in Amherst. My district is represented by counselors, Evan Ross and Stephen Schreiber. Today I'm asking you to cut the Amherst, the APD budget by 52% or $2,677, $800, sorry, slightly over $2.6 million. So it's a 52% cut. Police and the police do not keep people safe and are constant threat specifically to the lives of Black, Brown, Indigenous people. This is not a specific issue of allocating more money for training to improve the decision-making of individual police officers. Such measures have proven futile since they do nothing to address the fact that the institution of police's purpose is to carry out state sanctioned violence and death and keep Black and Indigenous people in a state of terror. This is why I'm asking you to reinvest the $2.7 million into creating a process which centers the needs of Black, Indigenous and people of color in the community. We need to create a task force made up of BIPOC community organizers to guide how the $2.7 million is reinvested into the community and businesses and we need to compensate them for this work specifically. This issue is important to me because coworkers and family have been directly impacted by racist police and Amherst on their way to work while exercising while shopping, essentially in trying to carry out their daily routines. As a white person, I have noticed the stark contrast between me moving through Amherst by myself, largely uninterrupted, versus being closely monitored while in downtown or stopping the way to work with a Black colleague. This alteration in daily life is just one aspect of the fact that the police do not keep people safe and specifically put Black and Indigenous people in a state of danger. Oftentimes, of course, not Amherst specifically yet, but this is causing people's lives, literally causing people's lives. To put it in a more straightforward way, this is not a way to keep communities safe. It's not a way to keep Black and Indigenous people safe. This money needs to be reallocated towards social safety nets, especially during this economic and public health crisis. Just for one example, Amherst has 18 times more police officers employed by the town than public health workers or social workers. In conclusion, this is why I'm asking you to cut the APB budget by $2.7 million and reinvest that money in a way that centers the needs of Black and Indigenous people of color in Amherst and puts that money in the hands of Black and Indigenous people of color, community leaders. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you for your comment. Alshia Descharnes, and I apologize for announcing your name incorrectly. Please correct me. Please state your name and where you live. Alshia Alicia. Sean, we don't seem to be able to hear her. Is there a way to talk to her? Her mic was unmuted. It looks like she's muted. Again, I'll click ask to unmute again. Please state where you live and your name. I was seeing the tap says she's talking, but we can't hear you there. Alisha, we can't hear you. Would you please make sure your mic is unmuted? What I'm going to do, Sean, is have you tried to work with her? In the meantime, Lydia Seville Irons. Are you able to hear me now? I'm sorry. Yes, we can. Lydia, please hold off. Please state your name and where you live. Hello. My name is Alisha Descharnes. I'm a resident of District 2. I live on the UMass campus. And I've lived here for the past eight years. I'm requesting that no reserve funds be spent on the Amherst Police Department and that the APD budget be cut by 52%. And that these funds be used in addition to the ADK already set aside in the budget to combat structural racism. Police and policing aren't what keeps our community safe. Although we have known this for decades, we've allowed violence and discrimination towards Black, Indigenous, and people of color in our community to continue and be funded by our tax dollars. It's past time for Amherst to put our money where our mouth is and cut the APD budget by 52%. During my job search and move from Kansas, I was looking not only for a university where I wanted to work, but a community that I wanted to be a part of and call home. Both UMass and Amherst described being homes to diverse and inclusive community, which is exactly what I was looking for. Initially, after moving here, I thought I had found both. But over time, I've come to see the actual truth. Policing in Amherst is just one way that our finances and policies don't align with the way our town is described even on our town site. Amherst is policed differently, depending on where you live. Our community members, they live in apartment complexes. And those in the situation of homelessness are policed at higher frequencies, while their neighborhoods are patrol less, if at all. Only 12% of our 12.9% activities logged as police calls are initiated by someone calling 9-1-1. Well, 44% of those calls are initiated by the police themselves. This is pulled back from the police logs from May 2019 to May 2020. My black friends and colleagues and students don't experience Amherst in the same way as the idea was a white person. And I've shared experiences that back up the statistics that I've shared. Amherst isn't home for them. They're pulled over more often, have more negative interactions with the police and experience regular aggression and migrations and are treated with suspicion by other white community members. Does that include your remarks? Again, I'm requesting that the budget be cut by 52% and that money be reinvested in addition to the 80K set aside for combating structural racism. Turn to the black, indigenous and other community members of color in our community to direct the spending of those funds. Thank you. Thank you. Lydia Seville Irons. Please state your name and where you live. Hello, my name is Lydia Seville Irons. I've been a resident of Amherst for 15 years. I'm a resident of District 4. I'm currently a nursing student at UMass Amherst. But today I am here at this budget meeting to represent D-Fund 413 Amherst. And we are asking, and the other residents of the town are asking that you cut the Amherst Police Department budget by 52%. We have other demands as well, but I will go through those as I have time for. We want you to cut the operating expenses of the APD, the amount spent on the past year of gas, vehicle maintenance, training and uniforms. I believe Paul Backelman said that it is imperative for you to pass this budget today or when you vote on it. But in fact, there has already been precedent to go forward with another one month budget. So if what you hear today from the residents moves you, I would really strongly suggest that the finance committee move for another one month budget so that more people can have their voices be heard. I also heard Paul Backelman say that he wanted to reduce the cash capital. And that made me instantly think of the Amherst Police Department, the vehicle fleet that they have, the amount of gas money that they spend. They spend about $117 a day on gas. Can you imagine what we could do with $117 a day to build this community to become a better place? Anyway, so the other demands that we have for Defund 413 are that under no circumstances should any of the 2.5 million set aside and delayed capital be spent on the police department. Do not give any of the ADK that set aside in the budget for combating structural racism to the police department. Instead, we urge you to spend it in community directed way by black led organizers in this community and pay them as consultants to help us figure out how to make this community a better place. We also demand that you implement a permanent hiring freeze on the APD. There are two positions that are open currently and that would save the town a ton of money. Freeze all of the applications for state and federal funds and grant programs for the APD, repurpose transferable state and federal funds already received by APD programs and return the non-transferable funds. Our last demand is that no money from the town of Amherst reserves should be used for the APD in policing even in the event of a reduced state aid for the 2021 FY budget. In conclusion, I'm asking you all to reinvest that 2 million dollars into creating a process which centers the need of Amherst BIPOC community members. We need to create a task force and we need to get the BIPOC out. We need to create a community organizer to grow at how that 2.7 million is reinvested into the community. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Again, I'm going to remind people, two minutes. We now are up to 26 additional people who would like to speak tonight. Birdie Newman, please state your name and where you live. So it's looking like Birdie is running an old version of Zoom that does not allow us to allow Birdie to talk. So I don't know if Birdie is able to update their copy of Zoom and their install of Zoom and reconnect, please. If you want to move on to the next person, while that happens. Next person is first name, I believe Bailey and please state your name and where you live. Hi, my name is Bailey Batty. I live in district four and I'm a high school teacher and I've lived in Amherst for three years. I'm asking that you cut the APB budget by 52% to decrease the size and the scope of the police department. Amherst markets itself as a town that values education, both K through 12 education and our local colleges. However, salary data makes it clear that the town budget does not reflect these values. The starting salary for Amherst police officers is around $45,800. This is 6% higher than Amherst school teachers at $43,100 and 114%, I think I'm gonna say six times, 6% higher and 114% higher than paraprofessionals in the Amherst schools. What we pretend to value as a community and what we actually spend money on are not matching up. Not only are we not investing in schools at this critical moment, the town spending on police is an active threat to our black students and other youth of color. Part of these high police salaries are paying for officers to go into schools and propagandize the police department. Police are in our schools participating in programs we do not have training or expertise in, like after school programs and internet safety education. If we decrease police funding, we can pay qualified educators to do this work instead. I don't teach in the Amherst school system myself, but in my experience as a white educator, it is terrifying when the police come into our school buildings. I cannot imagine how traumatizing this must be for our students of color and especially our black students to have to deal with this. We tell students we want them to feel safe in our schools so they can learn, but they're not safe as long as they're a police president. We can make black youth safer at school and the whole town by decreasing the Amherst budget by 52% and reinvesting that money in improving our education systems, making it less racist and other ways as directed by our BIPOC community members. Thank you. Birdie, have you been able to upgrade your Zoom? It appears that Birdie has not yet. Okay, then please lower Bailey's, yes, okay. I'm going to go to Geo Castro. Hello, can you hear me? Please state your name and where you live. My name is Geo Castro. I live in District One and I work at a preschool. I'm asking you to cut the APD budget by 52%. I've been a resident of Amherst for the past four years and live on North Pleasant Street, the most police street in Amherst. I've seen countless drivers get pulled over as I watch from my front stoop, the obnoxious lights from the cop car calling out to me to make sure that whoever's being pulled over is not being harassed by the police. The majority of the people I've seen get pulled over are people of color. Amherst is 74% white and seeing who gets pulled over, I think it's safe to assume that there's rampant racial profiling within the police force. Thanks to the incredible research done by folks in the Defund 413 Amherst, we have data that showcases the ways in which policing is predominantly affecting neighborhoods with low income and POC families. We also have data that shows that a lot of the calls to these areas were made by cops themselves. We do not need the police inserting themselves where they're not wanted, putting people's lives and while being at risk. Policing is a violent institution steeped in racism, classism and discrimination in all its forms. Amherst PD is not exempt from this. When 93.6% of calls made to APD are for nonviolent offenses, we do not need cops coming in and bringing all of their violence in with them. Police serve to protect the white and wealthy and their private property. This is exactly what they're doing in Amherst at the expense of black people and people of color. We need to defend the police and put that money towards communities which are directly impacted by their violence. We can start by making sure that none of the $80,000 set aside for combating structural racism goes into the police or any institution which protects and promotes policing. We need to readjust budget deadlines to account for community input. If the council actually listens to what we have to say and sees how we need more time, then we can make time. We should pass another one month budget and take the time to work with the community to make necessary changes to the budget to actually set Amherst on track to become the progressive town which it claims to be. In his budget message, town manager Paul Backelman wrote that we must take committed steps to address structural racism and strategies must be developed by, quote, working with the town's residents of color who have historically not been fully represented in these discussions. Council members, now is your chance to make sure that these words don't come empty. Put your money where your mouth is. Cut the APD budget by 52%. Make sure that they don't get another dime. Please conclude your comment. Yep, listen to black people and people of color in Amherst and use that money to fund and foster resources that will actually support them. Thank you for your time. Jose Adestra, and please correct my pronunciation of your name. Thank you. It's Adastra. First of all, I hope that I'm finding everyone in good health and in somewhat good spirits in these very complicated times. Jose, can you tell us where you live? Sure thing. My name is Jose Adastra, and I'm a local. I can't reveal my street address because I'm a Black Lives Matter activist and I have a constant stream of white supremacist threats in my inbox. So, I'm here. I work specifically with our local homeless population, so I'm very familiar with what the issues are with them being policed and what communities are policed. I was born in Puerto Rico. I fled to Holyoke. I'm a victim of police brutality. My family's a victim of the American quote unquote justice system. I can tell you right now that people put too much faith in the police. They're easily paid off, and that's how drug dealers commit crimes. I bring the voice of the first people. I want to remind you that you all have a very comfortable life on the land of indigenous people and constantly are not acknowledging that or trying to include them in your dialogue. And bringing that voice of the first people, I would like to remind you how very extremely racist it is that you say that people that don't live in your town can't come to your meetings. I want you to just think about that. A bunch of white people wealthy now off of the backs of African-American slavery and Native American land. And you live in one of the most expensive places to live and you're not the ones that are policed there. It's people from where I used to live, Holyoke, Springfield, Hartford that come up to study actually and to visit their families and to work. You have a large minority population that is coming from outside of your town to work. Don't be racist. Let's move together forward quickly. Don't be, you know, if you're observing North Hamptons fight at all, the council is, you know, moving very slowly and so is the mayor, and there will be recorded as moving very slowly. So let's not do that. Let's work together. You have a lot of educated, brilliant individuals telling you that you need to cut the police budget at least in half. Okay, it's true. Okay, there's mountains of evidence and you have to accept it. Like at this point, the people that are denying that there's a problem with systemic racism in the police system here are sounding to me a lot like Trump and his supporters that are denying basic evidence and facts. So don't be like that. And let your local educators record you in a good light in a way that you listen to the people when they came begging you for help. All right, that would be much preferred to cheers. Thank you. Jared Cannell. Hello. Please state your name and where you live. My name is Jared and I live in District Three of Amherst. I've lived in Amherst for 15 years. Please proceed. I walk past the Amherst police precinct pretty regularly in town and I'm embarrassed to live in a town that has so much money to spend on police, schools regularly with budget cuts. I would like to join all of the voices present in demanding a 52% cut to the Amherst PD budget, which includes 155,625 from APD operating expenses, the proposed increase of $108,683 from APD personal line items and $2,413,584 from the personal line items, approximately 25 FTEs. I would also like to demand that under no circumstances should any of the $2.5 million set aside delayed capital be spent on the police department. Do not give up any of the ADK set aside in the budget for combating structural racism. Implement a permanent hiring freeze for the APD. Freeze all applications in state and federal funding for grant programs to the APD. Repurpose transferable state and federal funds for grant programs to the APD. And no money from the town of Amherst reserve should be used for the APD and policing even in the event of reduced state aid for the 2021 FY. I'm sure you are all aware of how policing does not deter crime but rather punishes it and the actual data driven strategy to reduce crime is through community investment. There are many local organizations that work in crisis prevention and to have the town invest in them instead of police would be a step in the right direction. These organizations include the Survival Center, the Center for the Women in Community, Center for Human Development, CSO Crisis Stabilization Services, the Bridge Family Resource Center and the Community Action for Pioneer Value. Amherst has 18 times more police officers employed than the town has public health workers and social workers. We are not a town that needs this. In conclusion, that is why I'm asking you to cut the APD budget by 2.7 million and reinvest that money in a way that centers the needs of the community in Amherst and reinvest it into programs and departments that benefit the voters and taxpayers. Let's be an example for other towns for what a town can achieve if we take away this huge police budget and invest it into the things that the taxpayers and the voters want. Thank you for your consideration. I yield my time. I would like to ask people who are following the 52% to add anything new to the comments and not completely go back over them again. Marilyn Rodriguez-Scott, please state your name and where you live. Hello, my name is Marilyn Rodriguez-Scott and I live on East Pleasant Street. I live on 497 East Pleasant Street, which is the Village Park Apartment Complex in District 2. I'm here today to ask that you cut the budget, the APD budget by 52%. So I grew up in Village Park. I lived there for 23 years and it's an apartment complex that offers affordable housing units in Amherst. The residents of the apartment complex are primarily families and older adults, many of which are low income or are people of color. There is a large number of children who live in Village Park who attend the Wildwood Elementary School, the Arps Middle School and the Arps High School. I love my hometown. It offered a lot of educational opportunities that would not have been available to me otherwise. However, the way apartment complexes are policed in Amherst versus residential homes is vastly different. Growing up, I was used to seeing multiple police cars parked in Village Park as I got off the school bus. Sometimes there would be up to four police cars driving through Village Park at a given time. I did not know why they were there, but it did not make me feel safe. Even at age 11, I felt tense, like I had done something wrong, just returning home. However, when I was at my friend's more affluent homes in Amherst, the police were rarely seen. And this isn't a feeling that I simply had as a kid. When you actually look at the maps to see where the police are being called to and where the vehicles are going to, East Pleasantry is one of the areas in Amherst that have a higher police presence. I asked today that instead of policing the poor residents of our town and already introducing our children to the fear of surveillance, that we cut the APD budget by 52% and use some of those funds to reallocate it into the ARP system so that we can bolster programs that are meant to support our students of color as they navigate a primarily white school district. And that's all I have to say. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your comment. Lexi, please state your full name and where you live. Hello, my name is Alexandra Monison Olson and I've lived in Amherst for 13 years. I live in District 5 represented by counselors Dumont and Ball Milne and I have two children who go to Crocker Farm Elementary School. I wanted to speak today about defunding the Amherst Police Department. Amherst has 18 times more police officers employed by the town than public health workers or social workers. And their starting salaries are 6% higher than a teacher's and 144% higher than a para educators. We're expecting significant financial strain on the town in the coming year and police officers are not the best suited to deal with the majority of the calls they respond to. More than 90% of the police calls in Amherst are nonviolent in nature and many of them would be better handled by community and mental health workers. For example, there are already a lot of organizations doing work that could pick up crisis intervention work rather than utilizing the police such as the Survival Center, CSO, Community Action and many others. I'm asking the Amherst Town Council to stand behind their June statement regarding their commitment to providing a safe and equitable community for all of Amherst members by cutting the Amherst Police Department by 52%. I'm sorry, the budget by 52%. This money as well as the $80,000 set aside to fight systemic racism needs to be put directly into the hands of Black, Indigenous and people of color in our town to support our community. I moved to Amherst to raise my children in a community that appeared to be socially progressive and just in line with how I feel about the world and how community should work. I want my children to grow up in a town that stands behind the values it claims to have so I'm asking you to vote for a budget that reflects these principles. If the council thinks that we are too close to the budget deadline then I challenge you to pass another one month budget. Amherst has already done a one month budget for the last month and the state has also passed a one month budget for the next month. This will give us the time we need to work with the community to find changes that we can make to the budget going forward that reflect our community's values. Thank you. Terry Mullen, can you state your name and where you live? Hello, my name is Terry Mullen. I live on Northeast Street. I've been in Amherst for six years and I work at UMass. I too would like to see the Amherst Police Department cut by 52%. I was the one who made the maps of the policing in Amherst that was taken from data from your own website. It's very clear that North Pleasant Street lights right up. 69 of the calls last year went straight to Craig's house homeless shelter and countless more went to Puffton. I even did, I tried to give the police as much of a benefit of the doubt as I could. I conditioned on the hours from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. where I thought maybe the students wouldn't be as active but it still showed the same thing. No matter what I did to give the police department the benefit of the doubt, it came up the same. The poor parts of Amherst were pleased more. I don't want my and my fellow residents money going to this department in the way it's been going. So please try to consider all the voices that you're hearing today as you move forward. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Ashwin Ravikumar, please correct the way I've stated your name and tell us where you live. Sure, my name is Ashwin Ravikumar and I live in district four. I am an assistant professor of environmental studies at Amherst College and I also serve on the town of Amherst's Energy and Climate Action Committee. So first I just want to remind my fellow callers that a legitimate purpose of public comment is to show strong support for things like the 52% cut. So don't let Lynn Greesomer silence you with the anti-democratic canard that your voice is now somehow redundant. I am urging council to move quickly to cut the Amherst police budget by 52% according to the great specifics given by other callers. The movement for black lives has called unambiguously for defunding the police. Even in a place like Amherst that fancies itself progressive our police still enact racist practices and uphold white supremacy. In Northampton we heard dozens to hundreds of resident testimonies about being racially targeted by police despite Northampton presenting also as a progressive town. As a brown person I too feel unsafe in my body when I see a police officer in downtown Amherst when I'm on my way to work at Amherst College. With the budgetary contractions that we are facing from COVID-19 cutting the police budget sharply is not only the right thing to do but it is fiscally prudent. We need to be nimble in our ability to deploy what funds we do have available to support our houseless population, provide social services for those who may have lost jobs recently and think creatively about everything from education to responding to COVID itself in the coming year. Please stand on the right side of history. Police in the US emerged out of slave patrols and strike-breaking squads. The loud voices for justice in the wake of the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and so many others has been clear. We need to move beyond police prisons and those systems that demonstrably do not keep us safe and waste badly needed public resources during a devastating pandemic. Stand with the movement for Black lives and we will have your back. We will celebrate you and we will be honored to hold you as leaders in building a better world. Oppose progress and your friends, your community and your children will never forget your role in upholding white supremacy. As Martin Luther King wrote in his 1963 letter from Birmingham Jail, he had come to the regretful conclusion that the greatest stumbling block to our liberation is not the Klansman or the white council member but the white moderate who prefers order over justice. Do not be the white moderate that Dr. King warned us about. Listen to the great science and research and specific recommendations of all these brilliant people in your constituencies and help us build a better world instead. Thank you. Thanks for your comment. Esolda, Ortega, Utskostamati, please correct the way I've stated your name and tell us where you live. You need to unmute. Sean, can we get some help? I've... Oh, it looks like they dropped out. So... Okay, need to get back? Yeah, looks like they lowered their request to speak. So if that was an accident, they should just request to speak again. Oh, I'm sorry. Looks like that they have hold on a moment. Okay. Hi, I'm sorry, my internet disconnected. Can you hear me now? Please. Okay. My name is Esolda Ortega Utskostamati. I'm a 21-year resident of Amherst in District 5. I commend the town of Amherst for setting aside funds in a tight budget year to begin to address systemic racism. However, given the scale of the issue of racism, 80,000 is a very modest sum indeed. In consideration of the size of the sum and of the need to spend it by June 30th of 21, I'm speaking today in favor of allocating these funds for engagement, enrichment, and educational activities for sixth to 12th grade students of color. According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 51% of our K-6 students in Amherst and 46% of our secondary students are students of color. A third of our K-6 students and almost 20% of our secondary students speak a language other than English as their first language. More than a third of all Amherst K-6 students and 27% of our seventh to 12th graders are classified as economically disadvantaged according to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. In addition to the ongoing issues of systemic racism and xenophobia, many students' families are facing crisis in the pandemic that involve income, food, housing, transportation, healthcare, childcare, technology, and connectivity. Language and cultural considerations add to this crisis. We all know families are hurting and in crisis. Public school teachers and administrators are working very hard to serve students in the pandemic but cannot possibly be expected to serve all these needs of our youth in these pandemic conditions. Youth and Amherst have taken on leadership and deserve our support. At your next meeting, Councillor DeAngeles will be recommending that the two unfilled positions in the Amherst Police Department remain unfilled. Most institutions in the state are in a hiring freeze and this decision would save close to $100,000 that could be added to your $80,000 set aside. In addition, a committee of youth educators, youth workers, and community organizers could design an online and or socially distant program that would address the impacts of racism and provide arts, science, environmental programming along with college and career counseling and mentoring for youth of color. If Amherst is an education town and the town we all love, let's put our money behind our youth of color and support their leadership in life while learning. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Currie Coutts. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, and correct the name, why I stated your name. Yeah, I'm Currie Coutts. I live in District 2 on Hickory Lane. My representatives are you, Lynn Greissamer and Pat DeAngeles. And I'm also calling that the APD budget be cut by 52%. This is because I really don't think our town needs police for the things that we do. It was, you've already gotten the facts that over 90% of calls do not need someone who has armed or doing, who literally their job is not to in any way help. There are counselors and there's social workers and there's so many different people who put their life into helping people. And instead of investing in them, we've been investing in police. And I really don't think that we should be doing that as the town of Amherst. We have so many resources already and they could be so much better funded, especially in this crisis when our budget is already so depleted by all the students, which I am one of, but so many students who are no longer going to be putting their money into Amherst, we won't be suffering as much if we aren't spending loads of money that we don't have on police that we don't need. And yeah, a lot of the facts have been said, I hope you just listened to them and that you can really find it in you to defund the police and so that we can have a better Amherst. And that's it, thank you. Thank you for your comments. Allegra, please state your full name and tell us where you live. My name is Allegra Clark and I'm a resident of district two. I recently moved back to Amherst and I am a 2003 graduate of Amherst High School. I am currently employed as a forensic social worker doing evaluations in the court system. And I am also asking that the council consider cutting the APD budget by 52% of $2.7 million. In my work in the courts, I often sit with families who are seeking assistance for mental health and substance use crises and have run out of community funded options for treatment for their loved ones. And I imagine that $2.7 million would do a lot of good in providing resources to those families without having to access them through the criminal injustice system. So again, I am asking that you defund the police by reinvesting $2.7 million into community resources and that will put the money in the hands of Black, Indigenous and people of color in the community. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Phillip Bishop, please state your name and where you live. Hello, am I, can you hear me? Yes, we can. My name is Phillip Bishop. I am a resident of district 10 in Amherst. I've lived in Amherst for four years. I recently graduated the University of Massachusetts Amherst and I'm following along with prior speakers in asking you to cut the APD budget by 52% or $2.7 million. Another big demand is also that the $80,000 fund that has been set aside for combating structural racism take all of its efforts to center the needs of Black, Indigenous and other community members of color to effectively do this. You will need to bring in BIPOC leadership, compensate them for their time and labor in the same way that you were compensated for years and allow them to put that money into the hands of existing and new resources for our BIPOC community. There's been a lot of wonderful facts already brought up by previous speakers so I will not harp on those, but I do fully echo those with my whole chest, 52% cut and really investing that $80,000 into the BIPOC community in Amherst. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. We have caller 4304 and I need you to tell us your full name and where you live. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. This is Gazette Haya, Nicosi. I live in District 5 and I've lived here for 15 years. When I was eight, my grandpa's foot turned purple because he was not following his diabetes treatment. He died within a week or two. Town counselors, we are dying from the disease of systemic racism and white supremacy. It may look to you like only people of color are dying, but we as humans are interconnected always and eventually it will run its course and kill the whole body of us. The dominant white privilege of Amherst will not save us. Policing is one of the primary roles of white supremacy in our community. Chief Livingstone stated that crises related to mental health and lack of housing currently make up 20% of emergency calls and police responses. We must address these needs through the budget. I am calling for a reduction in the police budget working toward the abolition of the police, the repeal of laws and social and mental health services which criminalized survival related to unhoused peoples, gendered violence, the sex trades, drug trades and street economy. The decriminalization of all misdemeanor offenses, the introduction in the budget of robust community health programs related to both temporary and long-term housing, peer support such as used through the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community and free and universal early child care and outside of school programs. We are a wealthy community and we are capable of so much more than serving the wealthy. This comes down to a moral imperative. It is up to you to decide to ignore this purple foot or to respond with treatment. We know what to do, now we ask you to do it. Thank you. Thank you for your comment, Gazette. Judge Russell, can you please state your name and where you're from? I'm sorry. There we go. Hi, I'm Judge Russell. I live in District 1 and I've lived in Amherst for three years. I work for the UMass Linguist Experiment at 10th of the University of Staten. I'd like the town to cut the police budget by 52%. Policing endangers people of color and doesn't keep our community safe. A lot of the work that police do, the crisis intervention, response to mental health and addiction incidents are things they shouldn't be expected to do. Often these interactions escalate when the police shouldn't have even been there in the first place. The police budget is millions of dollars that we as a community can invest elsewhere to make our town a place where we truly care about each other. The society of the future has no need for an organization built on structural racism that views its citizens as suspects. So I'd like to cut the police budget. That's all. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Sean French Burn. Please take your name and where you live. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. My name is Sean French Burn and I live in district two. And I've been in Amherst for four years. I'm a recent graduate of Hampshire College. And today I am joining the voices of the people who've spoken before to ask you to cut the APD budget by 52%. Amherst cannot confront or dismantle systemic racism without confronting the ongoing role of police and terrorizing communities of color. From their very inception, the police and the American justice system have been tools of white supremacy and the white and wealthy to oppress communities of color. Police and policing are not actually what keep our communities safe. One out of every five arrests in the last year as per the APD website involved an OUI or a DUI, do we really need cops to be essentially armed Uber drivers? Do we really need people showing up to people in crisis or people who need help with weapons? I feel like it's very evident what those kinds of armed responses, the lives that those kinds of armed responses cost. And I think it's unacceptable that we support with our budget that sort of activity in our community. So I strongly demand that the town council cuts the APD budget by 52% and invests the $80,000 to confront systemic racism into organizers of color in our community and compensates them for their efforts. Thank you. John, thank you for your comment. Ya Ping Douglas, please state your name and where you live. Oh, hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, my name is Ya Ping Douglas. I work in Amherst, but I'm actually reading a statement from my sister, Jenny Douglas, who wanted to read this herself, but she has to put two children to bed right now and asked me to read this for her. Okay, so this is my sister's statement. My name is Jenny Douglas. I live in district two. I have lived in Amherst for five years. I am a parent of two young children and have worked as a para at Fort River. Today, I am asking you to cut the Amherst police department budget by 52% and I support all of the other specific demands put forth by the Defund 413 Amherst group. As a mother of two children, I care deeply about my children's safety and I know that police and policing are not actually what keep our community safe. Pouring more resources into or trying to reform the police, an institution that began as slave patrol and strike breakers is not what will keep us safe. We can, as a community, take an impartial look at what actually keeps communities safe, making sure everyone's basic needs are met, funding mental health and wellness programs, providing affordable housing, healthcare and employing restorative justice programs. In reimagining how Amherst can live up to its ideals, it is vital that the white community in Amherst and white council members defer to BIPOC leadership in implementing and designing a new approach to public safety in Amherst. I want to be able to proudly tell my children that they live in an anti-racist community, that their counselors made the right choice even when it was hard, that they live in a town that listens to the voices of black leaders and broke with a legacy of racism and white supremacy. You cannot claim to value black lives without taking bold action to back up those words. You cannot display black lives matter signs on your lawns and in your windows, but refuse to honor the demands of the movement for black lives. I want to be clear, if the white council members and residents oppose decreasing the police budget by 52%, you will be joining in a long tradition of racist lawmakers in the US who have upheld slavery, convict leasing, Jim Crow and who oppose the civil rights movement because it was too radical. History will remember this. Thank you for your comment. Dee Shabazz, please state your name and where you live. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Okay. My name is Demetria Shabazz. I live in district five and I'm a co-founder of the Racial Equity Task Force. I too want to decrease in the APD budget and money shifted to ongoing anti-racist training within the police department and establishing a community advisory board to represent the interest in issues of the residents. The reality that racism as a public health crisis has been recognized by public health researchers and psychologists, which means that structural racism is not an event. It is embedded in our everyday systems of operation. Our schools here in Amherst, our universities, the town government and especially policing. It will take ongoing and directed action to change things in this town, whereby indigenous and people of color will feel to be an integral part of this community. I'm requesting that the training become a part of the town government, especially within the police department and remain a continual part of the budget, not attained by or renewed through a grant. As a person of color living within this community, I've witnessed and experienced firsthand unnecessary questioning and surveillance by the police. My family and friends of color have been profiled and even worse, they're underage children of color, especially my sons and their sons have been questioned and profiled by police in Amherst. There has been very little follow-up when we have complained and oftentimes my friends of color do not want to complain because they represent a very vulnerable community of non-English speakers, immigrants, and people of color in general. Good quality and ongoing training, as I finish, is the best use of our tax dollars to not only protect our residents but demonstrate that we are an anti-racist community that does not profile our youth, lead them to the school to prison pipeline. In addition, we need and demand a community advisory board appointed by the people, not politicians, to serve on behalf of the community, helping to improve social services and policing. Absolutely, it is needed in this town. I do, however, appreciate you all having this budget hearing, especially attending to the issues that are going on right now, but we have to push for more. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Amanda. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, state your full name and where you live. My name is Amanda Lugo, and our family lives in District 4. I am an early childhood educator with two young children, and I'm here to request that the APD budget be reduced by 52% in joining with so many other folks here tonight have been saying. You know, when I first started learning about all this, one of the things that really struck me was exactly how many calls than more than 90% of calls that the police get and how those are for nonviolent behavior that clearly don't require weapons. I'm really interested in a portion of that 52% being reinvested in EMTs, mental health professionals, other community resources, and especially in BIPOC run community organizations. I was also interested to learn that 44% of activities logged as police calls are initiated by the police themselves, and rather than responding to things for which they're not properly trained, they can call in other community resources that are better trained to deal with specific situations in nonviolent, anti-racist, trauma-informed and restorative ways. I urge the committee to listen to the voices of its constituents that have been speaking here tonight, and in particular, the community members of color sharing their personal experiences and visions for the future. And I hope that we can find ways to work together moving forward by producing the APD budget by 52% and reinvesting that money in ways that will better reflect the community that we all envision. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Zoe Crabtree. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Please stay here. Yes. Hi, my name is Zoe Crabtree. I've been a resident in Amherst District 5 for three years and I've lived in the area for the most of the last nine years. Today, I'm asking you, like many others have, to cut the Amherst Police Department budget by 52%, which is just over $2.6 million, but also to implement a permanent hiring freeze for the Amherst Police Department, not spend any of the $2.5 million set aside and delayed capital on the police department and in any of the future. And reinvest that money, as well as the $80,000 set aside for combating structural racism into creating a process that centers the needs of and pays Black folks and other people of color in Amherst. As you're all aware, COVID-19 has drastically impacted our town revenue and caused a tight budget, but recent conversations about the Amherst town budget have been framed all wrong. Instead of focusing on how to provide the same level of policing services that we've always had, despite the tight budget, even when that relies on level funding from the state that we can't rely on, because it's not guaranteed, instead of keeping that status quo, we should be honoring the Black folks in our community who say that the Amherst Police Department actively makes them less safe. The real danger is keeping the status quo of police surveillance and white supremacy. There's plenty of research to show that more police on the streets don't make residents more safe, and that's true in our town, too. In the last year, only 12.9% of the police call logs came from 911 calls, but over 44% of them were initiated by police officers instead of community members. That speaks to a community that doesn't want the police as much as the police that we give them. Making sure that Black residents' basic needs are met and that youth have positive ways to get involved in the community is the most important way to keep our community safe. That's why I'm asking you to reinvest the $80,000 set aside for combating structural racism and the $2.7 million from the police budget into creating a process that centers the needs of Black folks and other people of color in Amherst. We say that Amherst is a progressive town, but that idea is not borne out in the experiences of Black folks in our community. We need to create a task force of Black folks, Indigenous folks, and other community members of color to guide how that $7 million plus $80,000 is reinvested into our communities and businesses, and we need to compensate those people for their work. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Achache Cabal, please correct the pronunciation of your name. Please state your name and where you live. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. My name is Akati Cabal, and I lived in District One, and I have lived in Amherst for the past three years and in the area for the past seven. I work for the five colleges, and I am joining everyone who has spoken for me in asking that we cut the Amherst police department budget by 52% or $2.7 million in the work towards abolishing the police. I also want to restate that the $80,000 has been set aside to combat structural racism should be used to pay BIPOC consultants. I also want to state that a budget is a moral statement of priorities. And when looking at the uprisings across the country against police brutality and police brutality against Black bodies, putting $5 million towards the Amherst police department and only putting $80,000 towards combatting structural racism says that we are not taking this issue seriously enough. As a person who works for five colleges, I'm especially concerned about our college students and especially our college students of color. The highest amount of calls throughout the year happening September, October, and May when students are either just getting back to the area or visitors, especially families of those students are arriving, which I think shows how the community of Amherst views those students as outsiders and as members of our community that need to be policed at a higher rate. I also just want to share personal testimony of having had the police called on me as a person of color, as a force of suspicious behavior and having had police point out my place of birth as being outside of the country as some sort of a statement of suspicion. That's obviously not nearly what other folks in the community are experiencing, but I just want to point that as a statement, as an experience to just state that it may be very easy to look at the Amherst police as the beacon of policing and that there's not that much police telly that happens here, it might be easy for you to think that as a council member or a white citizen, but that is not the experience of people of color in this area, they are, the police are not making anyone feel safer, especially people of color, and when you are putting that $8,000- Please conclude your comments. Acknowledging that sexual racism exists, you need to be looking at a very specific source, which is the police. Thank you. Alexander Blount, please state your name and where you live. My name is Alexander Blount. I live in Amherst in District 5. I've lived in Amherst for 47 years. I was a consultant in psychological consultant in the Amherst schools for 20 years, had three kids go through the schools. I began working in civil rights in 1965 in North Carolina, and I've been involved in various moments of trying to work toward civil rights in Amherst and other places off and on in the years since. And I think I share with the organized group of people who are calling an analysis of the national issues. I think white supremacy, I think I agree with them about the role of white supremacy. I think I agree with them about the need for substantial change in our society in relation to privileging people of color and when the history of white privilege. But what I don't agree with is the idea that the place to make the gesture to right these wrongs is by cutting the police force in half. I also had the experience of the Amherst Police Department members as my neighbors, as people I knew in the schools, as people I was on committee with, people whose kids I watched softball games with. And I don't see them as the monolithic, terrifying organization of faceless police that I think are being characterized in a great deal of the feedback that you're getting. And 52% just is a way of unbalancing the community in fundamental ways. So I like the idea of ride-alongs with social workers in police cars. I like the idea and I've seen evidence supporting the idea of triage of calls that can put one call toward a social service person in response and one call toward a policeman. But the idea that you're going to get that kind of humane and thoughtful system, starting by cutting the police force in half seems to me to be wildly out of proportion. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments. I want to remind people to keep your comments the two minutes. Paula, please state your full name and where you live. Hello. Hi. My name is Paula Peña. I live in San Francisco. You just muted, so we need you to unmute. Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Now would you start to get and state your name? Yes, perfect. So my name is Paula Peña. I've lived in Amherst for five years. I work at UMass Amherst and Simple Goods Farm and I live on North Pleasant Street in District 3. So I'm addressing my comment to council members Dorothy Pam and George Ryan. So I want to echo others call to reduce the Amherst Police Department budget by 52% because as we've heard from a lot of people, police are not what keep our community safe. What does keep our community safe is investing into making sure that everyone's basic needs are met and especially that there's people who are actually equipped to respond to crisis situations who aren't going to escalate the situation or put anyone in danger. So I wanted to share an experience I had recently that made this really clear to me. I live in an apartment building and so a couple of weeks ago for weeks our neighbor had been having pretty regular mental breakdowns. My roommate and I didn't feel safe reaching out or intervening directly because she's immunocompromised and we couldn't risk getting COVID but it was clear he needed help for some form of intervention. And the situation was also beginning to affect my friend and I's mental health. So we spent a night trying to figure out what we could do calling all the mental health services we could find but every number we called was at that end. They either didn't answer or they all told us we didn't have the ability to intervene and just directed us to the police. But this was an unacceptable option to us because we knew calling the police would put not just their neighbor in a potentially unsafe situation and not actually help them with his mental health but bringing police into the building could also endanger myself and my roommate. It's a visibly trans person and a woman of color as well as a black neighbor who also lives in the building. And based on what we've heard today from other people and all the cases of racist police violence and response to mental health calls that are being exposed across the country these weren't and aren't unfounded fears. So that's why I'm saying that first of all under no circumstances shoot the $80,000 that are earmarked for combating structural racism go towards the police department because doing so by definition will do nothing to combat structural racism. And secondly, like I said to reduce the APD budget by 52% which at first might seem like a big number but there are cities across the country who have already committed to doing this. One example is Seattle which committed to defending its police department by 50% and Seattle obviously is a way bigger city than Amherst. So if they can do it then it's definitely possible here. And I also wanna echo others calls. Yeah, one last sentence. I wanna echo others calls to use those funds to or invest those funds into a process that'll center the needs of black and indigenous people of color and Amherst and create a task force who will guide how those 2.7 million are invested. And confidence. Thank you for your comments. Jonathan Seville, please stick to your name and where you live. Hello folks, can I, am I heard? Yes, you are. My name is Jonathan Seville. I'm a resident of district four. I live on Jeffrey Lane. I was here in the space a couple of weeks ago listening to the members of the APD present some facts in their department, give a presentation of themselves. And I remember specifically a council person. I think maybe it was council person Pam. Saying, oh, well, I'm glad we're so progressive here in Amherst. And I would urge you all to listen to the voices that you've heard here tonight. Listen to them speaking about their very real, very painful experiences as people of color living in our community. These people, the folks who are here tonight are already the folks who have the access, the time and the relative safety and feeling of being free from retribution to come and speak to you all. They've come to hold mirror up to all of you. As has been stated a lot tonight, structural racism is embedded in the public systems that work around us. And that supposedly worked for us or worked for those of us who are white in our community. Structural racism doesn't always look like a violent act at the hands of a police officer. Sometimes it looks like your best friend at the softball game and you believing his version of events over the person he may have harassed or assaulted earlier that day. I just wanna say that we as a town cannot continue to defend and rest on our laurels and defend our progressive identity if we do not take these radical steps now to change our town. I heard another caller express a concern about imbalancing our town or our community by cutting money from the police. Well, I would urge everyone to look at the already existing imbalance that exists in the high level of funding offered to the police force relative to other social services. $5 million for the police, $130,000 on public health in the midst of a global pandemic. That's why I'm adding my voice to those calling for a 52% reduction in the Amherst police budget and a reinvestment in our black neighbors, our indigenous neighbors and our neighbors of color directly. Thank you very much. Megan Leif. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, great. Hi, my name is Megan Leif. I'm a white Jewish educator and have been a resident in Amherst for the past nine years. I live in North Amherst in district one. I'm a graduate of UMass and a former employee of Amherst public schools where I served as a special education paraprofessional for three years and completed a graduate student teaching internship. Currently I work as a math interventionist and I am also asking you today to cut the ABT budget by 52% or 2.7 million. As an educator, I know that police and policing are not actually what keep our communities safe, especially in this moment of increasing costs and uncertainty associated with COVID-19. It is unconscionable to me that APD starting salary is 45,000 and some have a salary of 90K or higher while many other employees of Amherst make much less. As a paraprofessional, I worked for three years making a max of $17 an hour, providing critical educational and health support to disabled students attending Amherst high school. Many of my colleagues were black and Latinx immigrants, graduate students and single parents. The economically disenfranchised and many targets of structural racism as well. Support staff in Amherst are severely underpaid. I worked three jobs in order to survive on a paraprofessional salary and was lucky to have some family support, but I watched so many families struggle to survive. I personally believe we should abolish police flat out and that it is a racist institution that does not serve our safety. You have and we'll continue to hear more in public comments tonight about why many of us believe this, but I have to wonder why even among people who believe in the police, they believe in them so much more than they do in the basic health and safety of the workers who keep our public schools running and keep our students healthy and taken care of. This is why I'm asking you to reinvest the 2.7 million away from police and at least partially towards our public schools. I support a process which centers the needs of Amherst people of color, especially students, parents and teachers of color within our school system. We need to create a task force made up of primarily people of color community organizers to guide how we spend the 2.7 million we should reinvest into communities, businesses and other programs and we need to compensate them for this work. And I also want to remind the majority of the white council representatives as a fellow white person and also myself as a Jew, knowing some council representatives are also Jews who have state sponsored brutality stitched into our history. The best, most brave, most important moments in the history of justice have been uncomfortable, they've been hard, they've been politically unpopular, but ever parts of liberation feel impossible to you now, you should know that they are actually possible and you council members have a role to play. You don't have to have your boot personally on someone's neck to be a villain in the story. You just need to make yourself unuseful, irrelevant and passive in the face of a tidal wave of change. Think about one more sentence. Think about any civil rights or social justice you have ever heard of or admired and ask yourself how many passive middle agents of the status quo are remembered at all. Ask yourselves what you want your grandchildren to say about where you were and what you did at this moment in US history. Thank you. I wanna remind people to keep your remarks to two minutes. Casey Owen. Hello, can you hear me? Please state your name and where you live. Hi, my name is Casey Owen and I live in Amherst. I've lived in Amherst for six years and I'm a resident of district three and I work downtown. Today I'm asking you to cut the APD budget by 52% and implement a permanent hiring freeze for the APD. More officers are not needed either additional officers or to fill vacancies that will become available to ensure retirement. I love Amherst and I want it to be a safe town for everyone and I know that cops don't make this town safer. Police do not keep people safe, community support does. In 2020, the town spent $5 million on police and only $20,000 of social services. We spend much, much more per resident on the police department, almost $136 versus $69 for the library, $3.77 for public health, $5.99 for the senior center and $7.42 for veterinary services. When 93% of calls to the police are nonviolent, only 12.9% of activities logged in police calls are initiated or someone calling 911 and APD officers have a salary 87% above the national average. It's clear that this money does not at all represent a safer Amherst. Last year the APD spent $155,000 on gas and car maintenance alone. The APD spends the majority of their shifts sitting in their cars, driving around, targeting lower income housing. This proactive police sitting and targeting does not keep people safe and actively endangers members of this community. This is why I'm asking you to reinvest the $2.7 million into creating a process which centers the needs of Amherst Black, Indigenous and POC community members. We need to reinvest in these communities and businesses. Please wrap up your comments. That's all, thank you. Birdie Newman, I hope you're able to connect now. Please state your name and where you live. Hi, I'm Birdie Newman. I'm a high school student and I've lived in Amherst my whole life. I'm joining others on calling on the town of Amherst and my district counselors, Evan R. Ross and Stephen D. Schreiber to cut the Amherst Police Department budget by 52%. The budget we have right now is not balanced. In 2020, the town spent $5 million on police and only $20,000 on social services. Police and policing can pose a danger to the mental and physical health of people in our town, particularly Black people. One of the top call reasons is suspicious behavior. What do people in this town consider suspicious and why and how does this create opportunities for racism? I hope that in reinvesting APD funds and deciding how to allocate the ADK for systemic racism, you consult a paid task force of BIPOC community members to correct injustice in Amherst. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comments. Andrew Cunningham. Hi, I'm Andrew Cunningham. I'm currently living in District 4. I was just moving from District 3, so I'm in one of those. And I just want to echo sentiments on cutting the APD budget by 52% and investing it in BIPOC consulting. The police is a system that is meant to uphold existing systems in a violent way. And right now the systems that they are reinforcing are also violent and disproportionately so towards people of color. So it is a racist system and it is a system that is based on hurting people and disadvantaging them. And for that reason, I just want to echo all the sentiments on defunding our police 52%. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Jessica Slatter, Slate Slattery. Please state your name. I'm sorry if I mispronounced it. Hi, my name is Jess Slattery. I live in District 6 and I've lived in Amherst for three years. I go to UMass and I just want to highlight some of the demands that haven't gotten as much attention. These are under no circumstances should any of the $2.5 million set aside and delayed capital be spent on the police department. Implement a permanent hiring freeze for the APD and no money from the town of Amherst Reserves should be used for the APD in policing even in the event of reduced state aid for the 2021 fiscal year. Our point in coming and giving comment is to show that the police are a product of systemic racism and anti-black racism and that Amherst is no exception to that. It's no coincidence that this town council is so white that the Amherst police disproportionately target black and brown people and that a disproportionate percent of houseless and housing insecure people in Amherst are people of color. All of these facts are products of racist policy, history and attitudes that will continue until pervasive change is made. Amherst can claim that it doesn't have a violent police force, but how can we make that claim when black residents have been targeted and intimidated by the Amherst police department in our town as many have pointed out on this call? How can we claim that Amherst is a progressive town when so many members of the town council are rolling their eyes when people are talking about systemic racism in Amherst and that that's not to call anyone out but to say that for change to be made everyone needs to be open and receptive to hearing other people's points of view, particularly marginalized people who have been barred from like these kinds of meetings throughout history and who have been targeted by police violence and by violent policies? Yeah, so that was a very disorganized way of saying that the Amherst police department budget should be cut by 52% and that that is the only way to start to move forward from the history of anti-black racism in America. Thank you. Thank you for your comment, Jess. Alicia Walker. Hello, my name is Alicia Walker. I'm a resident of Amherst district one where I have been for about 22 years. I am a parent of three young black children in the Amherst public school system and I am also part of the 1% of teen moms who earn a four-year degree by the age of 30 as an alum of UMass Amherst. I currently work in the criminal justice system advocating for anti-racist policies. Today I'm asking you to cut the Amherst police department budget by 52%. We know that the police and policing are not actually what keep our communities safe and making sure that everyone's basic needs are met and that the youth have possible ways to get involved in the community is the most important way to keep our communities safe. We know that people of color have and continue to bear the burden of our broken justice system and unnecessary policing. Their voices must be centered in this town's discussion when considering the priorities for reinvesting the money. I demand the district focus on developing task forces or working groups that include and compensate educators, families, students and community members of color for their work and apply this information immediately and without question. This issue is important to me because I fear for the inevitability of my children's encounters with police as we live on one of the most patrolled streets in Amherst and we are people of color. While simultaneously they lack safe spaces for growth within and outside of the education system. Defunding the Amherst police is only the first and a very small step in this process. I am urging you guys to listen to the voices of color within our communities. Thank you. Thank you, Alicia. Lauren Mills. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yes, hi. I want to thank all the public speakers who have spoken before me and organizers. Defund 413 and those who have brought community members together, I am Lauren Mills and I live in South Amherst. I have been here for four years and I am a mother of three elementary school children. And I, during the COVID-19, families have been very much burdened, parents being the teachers, the tutors, all of the above, and with no help from social services such as family outreach or the LSE camp has for the most part been cut. And I think that defending the police or reducing the budget and transferring money to social services such as these would really help families. And I feel that police need to not just show up when they're the problem, but also be there for the solution. And again, a $5 million budget for the police could be reduced to fund social services that deal with the youth and help them be part of the community in ways that will provide them services and opportunities to get involved with arts, science, sports, and this should be made available so that their families aren't overburdened and that they could have this at a reduced or even a zero cost. So I just wanna let the community and the town, counselors and the members know that families of color and even all residents white and all other community members need to be involved in this work. Thank you. Thank you for your comment, Lauren. Jeff Mazer. Hello, yes, I'm Jeff Mazer and I live on 49 Ridgecrest Road. I'm part of district one. I'm also a former town meeting member. And I am just adding my voice to those others that are calling for a reduction in the funding of the police and how the 80,000 will be spent and having it be directed by the BIPOC community and as well as to not have new like any of the reductions in the capital budget be reallocated to the police. Now, given the overall budget that we're looking at now with the COVID pandemic, I think that there was a call for like maybe having another one month budget passed and having the entire budget re-looked at this this seems to be overwhelming support, at least on this call for a real strong look at the budget. And this is something that based on my experience on town meeting, I think that a lot of people in town would like to see a revised budget and that this is a time for the town of Amherst to take action. There is systemic racism that is deeply rooted in all of American society and it exists here in Amherst in the past few months, I've heard a lot of stories of people that's across this town and that while I had not had a lot of experiences myself with the police, I'm a white male and I have a lot of privilege. Hearing all of the stories of what has happened in town is really disturbing and the resources that go to the police could be redeployed and spent in ways that empower people who have the training to be able to provide the social services that are needed to help to make our community stronger and to help to make this a safer place for everybody in town. So I think this is the time for Amherst to do its part to try to change systemic racism and this is a beginning point for that. So I yield my time. Thank you, Jeff, Eliza Young. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can, thank you. Hello, my name is Eliza Young. I live in district one. I'm a five year resident of Amherst and I'm asking that you cut the Amherst police department budget by 52%. I see countless Amherst police cars speed past my house every day and I've personally witnessed them pull over many black people and people of color in our community. One time last May, I witnessed Amherst police officers verbally harassed two teenagers of color and continually threatened them with physical violence and arrest. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our community is far from immune from racist police violence and as such, absolutely none of the $80,000 set aside in the budget for combating structural racism should be spent on the police department. There are an abundance of places this money should go, including black entrepreneurial grants and the Youth of Black Lives Matter Fund. We owe our black community members any and all reparations and wealth redistribution possible in a town that allows its police officers to racially profile and harass black indigenous and POC community members, including children. We must defund the Amherst police department and invest in the safety and most importantly, prosperity of these beloved members of our community. Thank you. Thank you for your comment, Eliza. Amara Donovan. Thank you, can you hear me? Yes, we can, thank you. My name is Amara Donovan and I've lived and grew up in Amity Place in Amherst. I am an alum of the Common School Elementary School, Amherst Regional Middle School, Amherst Regional High School and a graduate of UMass Amherst with two degrees in sociology and public health with a focus on anti-racism. I am also part of the 1% of teen mothers who earn a four year degree by the age of 30. As a white presenting Latina growing up in Amherst, my experience living in two worlds often gave me unique insight into the racist systems of policing and education in Amherst. It would be egregious not to connect the two and reflect on the school to prison pipeline that Amherst enables to continue through surveillance of public housing, school tracking and many more. As residents of Amherst, we all know increased policing of black and brown bodies occurs in neighborhoods like Village Park, Colonial Village, South Point, the Boulders, Mill Valley, where black and brown people and immigrants from Cape Verde, Cambodia, El Salvador and many other countries and their families are likely to live. This is similar in schools where black and brown students are policed in the hallways and in their classes. Increased surveillance will always produce higher levels of reported crime and more arrests even when white communities are engaging in the same level of crime. We never see police sitting in Amherst Woods or Echo Hill arresting young white people for drug and alcohol use, vandalism, law-rearing parties and all of what occurs frequently in those areas. We let kids be kids, right? But not when those kids are black and brown. It is egregious that I can name more than 10 classmates of mine, all black men who have been incarcerated in Northampton, Ludlow or state prison during their upbringing and young adulthood. Rates of recidivism are extremely high among these men who are continuously arrested for misdemeanor crimes. It is egregious that I watched my son's brown father rip from his home on multiple occasions without a warrant as kids. It is egregious that I watched an Amherst police officer brutally beat a young El Salvadorian man who has now been deported. It is egregious that I watched Amherst police officers enter a home with children in a in-village park with guns drawn. Plainly said our arrests and incarceration don't work. Just as many black and brown men I grew up with have taken their own lives in the past 10 years, which I cannot separate from the racist system of existing in Amherst. This pulls many fathers from their children and families and enables a vicious cycle of trauma. These same men grew up relying on organizations like Tapestry Health, the Amherst Survival Center, the Hub Youth Center and the Center for Women and Community at UMass. This is because these places do work and do help the community feel safe. What if those patrolling police were replaced by booths and community workers from mental health services like ServiceNet, sexual health like Tapestry and teachers and professors who lead educational and healing spaces for youth and adults of color? Isn't that a world we'd all like to live in? Don't our black and brown youth deserve it? If Amherst wants to be on the right side of history, we will center the voices and needs of youth of color who live in Amherst for education, educational, social and economic opportunities they deserve and too often are robbed of. These voices continue to fear our police and jails and continue to trust our community partners. I demand the town stop talking and asking black and brown folks to re-traumatize themselves by sharing endless stories and start acting based on the community feedback you already have. Defund the OPD by 52% and appoint educators, youths and families of color who are the experts to navigate anti-racist with equitable compensation. It is your job. Thank you. I wanna remind people to keep your comments to two minutes. Phoebe, state your full name and where you live. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, my name is Phoebe Hines. I live in North Amherst. I've lived here for four years. I echo offerings made by the many organizers of Defund 413 Amherst who have dedicated so much time and energy into their plans of defunding. I also work in multiple school districts in Western Mass. For years, this country has continued to defund education and various other services that could greatly benefit the community. While I don't work in the Amherst school district at the moment, the school districts I work in look up to this town and take a lot of the ideas and collaborate with other educators in the area. You have the opportunity as a town to lead in the movement of investing into community. Other towns will follow. They are watching. I encourage you to listen to your community members and grant them what they have been working towards and asking for four years. Please defund the APD by 52%. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your comment. Gabrielle Fontes. Good evening, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Good evening. This is Gabrielle Fontes. I live on Strong Street. I've been in Amherst since I was 10 years old and counselor, Pat D'Angelo, was my fourth grade teacher. I've been a resident of Amherst since I was 10 years old. I graduated from Amherst High School in 2015, and today I'm asking you to cut the APD budget by 52% or 2.7 million. I know that police and policing are not actually what keep our community safe. Making sure that everyone's basic needs are met and that youth have positive ways to get involved in the community is the most important way to keep our community safe. When I was in high school, my senior year alone, the cooking, the cooking culinary arts class, the preschool internship, the child development course, the wood shop class, business courses, and a car maintenance class were all cut. All of these classes were opportunities to gain real-life skills towards employment and positive community engagement. That same year, I remember speaking to a peer of mine who's black, 17 years old, who said that he got stopped by the Amherst Police Department nine times in one summer. I'm asking you to divest 2.7 million dollars from the Amherst Police Department budget and reinvest that money back into public schools and other programs led by black and brown community members that will give youth positive ways to engage in the community. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Anisha Pai. Hi, my name is Anisha Pai and I live in District One and I work in downtown Amherst on East Pleasant Street. I wanna thank those who spoke before me for their courage in sharing their stories to a largely impassioned town council and for making brilliant points in favor of cutting the APD budget. And of course, I'm joining them in asking you to cut the APD budget by 52%. And that's 2.7 million dollars, 2.7 million dollars that can be reinvested to develop sustainable ways to keep our community safe, that don't terrorize and inject trauma into our black, indigenous and POC friends and family. There are already several organizations that others have listed who are already doing the work to feed house and keep our community safe. Among them is the CSO Crisis Stabilization Services. They are already quick responders to mental health emergencies in Hampshire County and provide a lot more safety and care than the APD have done. Additionally, I'm asking you to also place a hiring freeze on the police department. Instead, I would love to see the town hire more than a meager two health workers and two social workers. We had 36 police officers employed by the town in 2018. That's 18 times more police officers than the workers that we really need to be actively responding to crisis calls. There is no need for armed personnel with no mental health or social work training to be responding to emergency calls. You've already heard several stories of how terrorized our community is by the APD and I strongly urge you to take them seriously. In fact, the money gained from cutting the budget of the APD should be used to build up Black and Indigenous-owned businesses. It is just a small portion of the reparations that are already owed by you, the wealthy white residents who have profited for centuries off our continued policing and terrorization. I think simply the fact that I'm speaking to a majority white passing board right now is indicative of how urgently we need to take money from institutions like the police and justice system with disgustingly white supremacist roots and give it back to the Black and Indigenous communities who in fact know best how to spend that money. I strongly urge the town to create a task force composed of BIPOC members of the community, not yourselves, in order to decide the best ways to spend the $80,000 that is currently allocated to combating systemic racism. And of course, to add to that, the nearly $3 million that will be gained by cutting the APD police budget by 52% and placing a hiring freeze on the APD. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Margaret Sawyer. This is Margaret Sawyer. I'm so glad to be here with you all. I moved here four years ago. I had two early experiences moving to Amherst. On my son's first day of kindergarten, I watched as all the children were welcomed into the classroom, and every child receiving a free lunch was immediately welcomed out of the classroom and invited to their cafeteria to eat breakfast. It was almost all children of color and kindergarten started without them. They all started. My son and other kids started kindergarten that day in a circle with a teacher without the children of color. My second memorable experience in Amherst was sitting at Grace Church and watching 500 people commit to the city being a sanctuary city. And I was impressed by how this city was willing to step forward and be innovative and creative. And as a white person, I am humbled listening to these stories. And as I look at so many of you on this council, I hope that you're also hearing it with humility and openness to learning and hearing more and thinking about the brave roots of our city in trying to speak up and be forward thinking. I hope that as we consider cutting the Amherst Police Department by 52% as I think we should do that we will think about ourselves as on the front lines of creating something new, of making a new world possible. I hope that we will consider how to invest that money instead in mental health responders and programming to keep our youth safe. I hope that in the next few years, we consider how the library project can include a BIPOC advisory panel to make sure that it's really meeting people's needs, that every child of color feel welcome and part of the power in the city feel powerful as they walk down our streets that the Cherry Lane Hill golf course have basketball courts or swimming pools or whatever it is that all of the members of our community wanna see there. I hope that we think about doing this budget every year with tons of impact input from every person who lives here. Let's be an anti-racist city. Put your comments. All right, thank you. Talon Erzik, Erz-Erd-Zek, please restate your name. I apologize for not stating it properly. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, I'm Talon Erd-Zek. I live in District 3. I've lived here for the past few years. I tend to be mass Amherst and I decide to stay in the area before continuing my education just because I love it so much. I'm looking at a sub shop near downtown. Counselors Dorothy Pan and George Ryan, you represent my district. So I'm asking you personally to please, please support cutting the Amherst police department budget by 52%, about 2.7 million and enact a permanent hiring freeze for the APD. The vast majority of the calls, like over 90% of the calls the APD receives are for nonviolent behavior. So armed police officers that are usually unequipped or in suitable for handling many of these situations aren't really the solution. What we need are more public health workers and more social workers who know how to de-escalate and resolve situations without the introduction of violence and without the opportunities for the abuse of power that the police inherently have. However, despite this, Amherst only has two public health workers and two social workers, at least as a 2018 and their employee, while you were wasting funds employing 36 police officers at the same time. That's mostly what I had to say. Please listen to everyone that's talking tonight. Please take this seriously. I yield my time. Thank you, Talon. Gabrielle de Villa, Lucia Stamonte. Hi, my name is Gabrielle Davila. I live in District 5. I'm a high school senior and I've lived here since I was five. And I'm 16. You've all already heard the stories and the reasons you've heard with the community who are your constituents want. Personally, I'm very thankful that even though I'm a brown Hispanic kid, I haven't experienced anything at the hands of the APD, but if I had, I still wouldn't feel the need to share it. There shouldn't be any need for a police department to misuse the responsibility and trust and money given to them for us to realize that we're giving them too much responsibility and trust and money. And I just want to say that racial justice and serious police reform is not a trend. You've all received all the feedback from the people who've elected you. And if you act on that feedback, they might elect you again. Thank you. There's someone registered under the Yoga Center of Amherst. Would you please state your name and where you live? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. This is Matthew Andrews. I live in district two. I'm a recent, we recently moved to Amherst, but I'm a business owner of Yoga Center Amherst since 2014. And I echo the sentiments of everyone who's been calling to defund the police department by 52% and reinvest 2.7 million in, personally, I think that what would be a great starting point is reparations fund that would support BIPOC entrepreneurs and also possibly a housing fund that would support providing black and indigenous people opportunities to purchase homes in Amherst. I feel reparations is a central need for our community in the broader way. And I think that Amherst with its progressive aspirations could be a leader by doing some real practical reparations work by defunding the police department and reinvesting that money in supporting people who have been disempowered and lived at the expense of light supremacy for far too long. So that's mostly what I have to say. I'll yield the rest of my time. Thank you, Matthew. At this point, there are no additional comments and we have actually concluded the hearing. We will be continuing our budget deliberations and unless there are other comments from counselors at this time, I'm going to call the meeting adjourned. Darcy, I need you to unmute. I just wanted to ask whether the people who made public comments could send them to the book if they have them in writing so that we could have a record of those comments. Thank you. Darcy, you have your hand up. Yes, I just want to thank all the people who spoke so eloquently and for the effort that they put into bringing their point of view to us, the town council, on this very important matter. So thank you. Thank you. Mandy Jo. Yes, I first want to say I was probably one of the only counselors that didn't have their video on. Every time I tried to put it on, I got kicked out of the meeting. So I apologize for not being able to show my video because I wanted to be here instead of getting kicked out. And I just wanted to say you guys gave me a lot to think about. So I will be doing a lot of thinking in the next week or two before we get to a vote. Kalani. Yeah, I just want to also acknowledge each and every person who came up and I can imagine it took a lot of courage to speak and I echo what Mandy Jo said that we really have a lot to think about and you've given us good ideas and definitely we have work to do. So thank you, everyone. Thank you. Kathy. Just building on what everyone said, the other thing that was incredibly impressive was the level of energy, youthful voices and from all over town. I just want you to know, we don't usually hear this on budget issues and I'm hoping you stay this involved, not just on this issue because our budget does speak to our values and where do we want to put our money and looking forward? So I can't tell you how terrific it was to see 80 people in the attendee lists at one point. Thank you. Darcy, please unmute. I would just echo that that I was very thrilled to have this amount of public involvement in one of our meetings. This was a first and I did feel bad though that we couldn't see your faces. And so if there is any way that we can continue working so that we can see the faces of the people that are making these impassioned comments, you know, that it was good to hear your voices but I would have liked to have seen your faces. Thank you Darcy. We continue to work on that. We just explored it yet again this past week. We have concluded public comment. The people who have their hands up have already spoken. I do want to ask you to submit anything that you've said tonight in writing. It's to the town council at AmherstMA.gov. And this has been a very informative evening. We want to thank all of you for your complete and your thoughtful comments. With that, I will call the meeting adjourned.