 may possibly be aired on our YouTube channels. Okay. It is Wednesday, October 11th at 6.31 and I am calling to order the meeting of the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee with the extension of chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. See instructions below. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. I'm just gonna go around and make sure everybody can hear and be heard. So Lissette. Present. Thank you. Isabella. Here. Thank you. Deborah. Here. Thank you, Everald. Everald, you looked a little bit frozen on my screen. I don't know. I was gonna say everyone froze here. Thank you. And Freke. Here. Thank you. Okay, so we are all here. We are all sworn members of the committee. So that's super exciting. So I'll just review the agenda quickly. We will have announcements, approval of the 124, 23, 210, 23 and 316, 23 meeting minutes. And how does that work, Jen? Because... There's no 316 minutes. You're gonna approve the 124 and the 210. Okay, Jessica. But do we all vote on that? Or... Everybody's gonna vote, but the members that weren't present for that meeting can abstain. Okay. In fact, if there's a quorum that's here, you can vote. Okay. So after going over the minutes, we'll have public comment and member reports. We have a lot of agenda items. We have Crest DEI updates. We have election of chair, co-chair, an update on CSO, co-responder with Amherst police, resin oversight RFP consultant update, on the police chief search, CSSJC retreat, youth empowerment, and translation services, then another public comment, then upcoming agenda items and meeting schedules, and then other topics that we did not reasonably anticipate 48 hours in advance of the meeting. And then we will adjourn. So that's busy. We have a full agenda. And I want to mention we have ASA Stanley Kemler, who is the AmeriCorps volunteer with us to talk about the various work that they're doing in the DEI department and Crest department. So that's exciting. So let's see. Yes, Jennifer, can you bring up the packet on the thing? Sure. Alec, just for efficiency, I was thinking like since ASA is here and we're going to do the Crest DEI updates, maybe ASA could be moved up so that he could, and I'm not sure if it's that he pronoun, but that ASA so that you can be able to present when Crest DEI updates, because right now ASA is all the way more on the bottom. That makes sense. Yeah. Sorry. I agree. I could instruct you to yourself now if that would be convenient for you all. No, I would just say we wait for when we do the... Oh, all right, I'm sorry. Move agenda item G up to after A under number four. That came out all confused, but so first we will approve the minutes, then have public comment announcements, member reports, and then Crest DEI, and then we'll talk about the Youth Empowerment Center. Did folks have an opportunity to review the minutes? Yes. Seems like so long ago. It's a little bit hard, right? No. Yeah, and the thing is too is that a lot of, obviously we lost D, and then there's a lot of items from Ms. Pat, and of course she's not part of the group anymore too, so it becomes difficult to say whether, all I could do was look at my statements and everything, you know what I'm saying? So it becomes a little bit more difficult to kind of, and then the new members, what can they say? So I mean, I don't have anything to say about either of them. I mean, the only thing I would say is that it was kind of comforting to read some of these words and see the work that she was so passionate about come through on the page. But other than that, I think I would be fine approving them as is, because I don't have any recollection of them not being accurate or. So I went back and listened and watched the recording of it. That's where I got the information from. And I trust that you did the best job. So I guess. Thank you, Jennifer, appreciate it, that you went back and looked at the recording. That makes, that gives me a little bit more peace. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm doing it by the recordings until they get caught up. Thank you. Appreciate it. I suppose I would move to accept the minutes as they are. I second it. All right. So we can vote. Starting with Lisette. Well, I'm sorry, can I just ask you to specify which minutes because there's three sets and you're only voting on two? Yes, sorry, the minutes for 124, 23 and 210, 23. I second that motion. Okay, perfect. So we are voting. Let's see why the button is the wrong button. Okay, there we are. I just couldn't see everybody. Everold. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. I will abstain from voting on this one. Okay. Thank you. Isabella. Also abstain. Okay. Deborah. Yeah. Yes. Good. Okay. Yes. Lisette. I am a yes. So they pass with four yeses and two abstentions. Correct. Jennifer. Does anyone have any announcements? Seeing any hands up. So we can go to public comment. There are 11 attendees. If you would like to make a public, there's something I have to read. So I will find it and read it. Do you need me to put it back up on the screen? I have it in paper. Okay. During public comment period, the chair will recognize members of the public when called on. Please identify yourself by stating your full name for pronouns, residential address or ties to Amherst. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the chair. Based upon the number of people who wish to speak, no speaker concede their time to another speaker. The CSS JC will not engage in a dialogue or comment on the matter raised during public comment. So if you would like to make a comment, you can use the raise hand function. And we will call on you. I see one hand up. Hello. I'm calling in because I know there's going to be a discussion of Crest today. And I'm really concerned about the way Oral Miller's administrative leave is being handled. And. I am calling in support of getting members of the police out of Crest leadership. And also getting 911 calls over to Crest. I would say my concern is that. If the town doesn't set Crest up to succeed, then it won't be able to accomplish its mission and town leaders will be like, Oh, like Crest couldn't do what we thought. Like we won't give them more resources. And I think I might be preaching to the choir a little bit here. It's one of my favorite town departments right here. But I really want Crest to be able to move forward as its own department independent of policing and able to successfully divert calls from police and handle those on its own. And so I am nervous about that right now. Thank you. Thank you. I see Brianna. Hi, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes. Awesome. I just wanted to come and share similar concerns. I'm really concerned about the interim leadership at Crest. More so because it, I worked with a similar leadership team on the implementation team, which didn't feel like transparent and like it aligned with the CSWG and with the values that helped us co-found Crest. So I am interested to learn more, but I hope that Paul Bachman considers adding somebody from the original CSWG or considering hiring an interim director whose values align with the CSWG and with the mission of Crest. I'm really concerned. Yeah. Thank you, Brianna. Is there anybody else who would like to give a public comment? Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi. My name is Cairo Serna. I live here in Amherst, and I'm a member of the Democratic State Committee. From the conversations that I've had with fellow students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a lot of people are very glad that Crest exists. However, a lot of us are also concerned about how accessible it is to students with how many people actually know about it. Because it isn't really a very well known or familiar resource for a lot of people. And I just wanted to bring that up because students make up such a large portion of Amherst's population. My hope is that in the future, there will be a little bit more information provided and sort of the existence of Crest is sort of put out there a little more to specifically students. Because a lot of people would be really, really happy to have the kinds of services that Crest provides. Thank you. Thank you, Cairo. Hi, this is Vera Cage. I live in Amherst. I want to thank you all for meeting this evening and sending to such important matters in our community around diversity, equity, and I'm very concerned about what I'm hearing around Crest. There's not a lot of information that the public is aware of. And I would hate that we end up enriching the police budget and the police department and empowering them even further. And that we're not doing what it takes for Crest to be up and running and doing the mission that it was set out to do. And I'm really calling on, you know, for the town manager to really address this with the community. And I'm disappointed he hasn't utilized the people that he knows care deeply about this issue and are intimately familiar with the vision and the hope and the promise that we came together, you know, several years ago. So thank you. Thank you. Anybody else would like to make public comment, you can raise your hand. Otherwise we will have an additional public comment period at the end of the meeting. And I do see Ms. Pat, I'm trying to figure out. Are you there, Ms. Pat? Yes. Can people hear me? Yes. Yes. Good evening. And thank you. For your time serving on CSS JC committee. I don't even know where to begin. Nobody should be surprised about what is happening to Crest. Because as we are most of us know, there is a lot of forces internally and externally that don't want Crest to exist. And that's what is happening right now. Black lives seems not to matter in our town. And Ms. is not a welcoming community for people of color. Most people of color. People of color who are in high position are not supported very well. We have the Crest director on administrative leave. And I'm not saying any personnel issues be revealed. But there is so much rumors going around. And the time manager not coming out to explain what's next. And what's going to happen to Crest, rather than having four different people running it. That will never happen with police department for sure. So we have Crest director on administrative leave. We have a black woman on administrative leave with the school district. And then we have our farm town police chief that refused to apologize for July 5th incident. And when he retired, he retired with ceremony. He was praised. My point is it doesn't matter what white administrators in position of power in this town, another white power holders, there is always a way to protect them. People of color don't have that luxury of protection. And I'm very concerned. So the fight must continue. We have to put pressure. We have to put pressure. We have to put pressure. The town council needs to do its job. And help to keep Crest. We will not allow Crest. So to fail. We will keep pushing. Thank you. Thank you, Miss. I see birdie still has a hand up. I'm not sure if there's an additional comment or just the remaining hand up. I think we can move along and we will have additional public comment at the end of the meeting. Does anybody have any member reports? Yes, I do. So. First one, I actually met with. The director of office of health and racial equity. This is in, in Springfield. Her name is Chris. So she's from Springfield department of health and human services. They're very interested in Crest and what, you know, CSWG did and, you know, and now CSHAC are doing to see whether that could be anything that they could replicate. So, you know, I was excited about sharing a lot of that information. I share the links on, on the town website for them to look at all of the reports, but also I let them know what's, what's going on and, and, you know, all of the, what the current status is of Crest so that they knew, you know, obviously how much of a battle they'd have on their hands in terms of putting a similar department in place. Amherst was the leader in terms of doing this and that other, you know, cities and towns want to replicate or at least look at that, you know, and what that might look like for them, which is exciting because that's what CSWG, that's what we wanted, obviously is to see if there's alternative to policing programs such as the ones we have could also be created elsewhere. The other, you know, meetings that I attended was town council meeting. And, you know, and I have to, to put this out there because I'm just so, you know, distraught and concerned about everything that we did. So the community safety working group, we put out a statement when I attended the town council meeting a couple of weeks ago, basically stating promptly complete investigation of the Crest director placed on administrative leave as quickly as possible to have a more definitive outcome for Crest leadership. As is the department must function under leadership separate from other safety departments as recommended by CSWG. While an outcome of the investigation spending make one of the original Crest responders, the temporary acting director of Crest and if that's not possible and to hire someone that has the same, you know, vision and mission and responsibilities and skills to be able to do as opposed to this temporary leadership that's in there moved promptly to sending some categories of 911 calls to Crest as originally intended. And, and the program assistant why hasn't the program assistant been hired yet. So these were some of the things of course we have a lot more detail that was sent to the town council until this date we haven't heard anything. And then there were others around the police search, but I'll share those when we talk about the police search later. Also during the town council meeting that there was this, you know, just, I couldn't believe it because Miss Pat, you know, talked about ARPA funds and ARPA funds not being used in a way to assist, you know, businesses of color, BIPOC businesses. And as a BIPOC person in the town, she has the absolute right to speak about these things and to question the funding in the town and how the funding town funding is being used. And if she thinks, you know, some things are being done well, she has the absolute right to make a statement. And I was just really, you know, upset and distraught that the town manager just responded to her and said it was unacceptable for her to make that opinion and to say what she needed to say. And that was just that that really is like intimidating to people of color in terms of us wanting to say what we need to say. And we should be able to say our truth and question the funding of the town. That is our absolute right. So that was just really, you know, very, very upsetting. And then also the other thing that, you know, myself, Allegra, you know, others from CSWG, Miss Pat, Breonna, we all, all there, but also attended Dr. Dmitri D. Shabazz's memorial, which, you know, I want to say that that was obviously very heartfelt and, you know, wanted to say that, you know, I was, I'm still grappling with, with that loss, you know, someone from our group that, you know, was just here with us in the beginning of CSSJC and is no longer with us in the physical form, even though I know she's going to continue to assist us from beyond, especially with everything that's happening right now. And I think that'll be, that's all for now. Because obviously I'll be talking about much more once we get into the agenda. Thank you, Deborah. And I did just want to piggyback off because I believe there will be a community celebration of D on October 26. I don't have further details about it right now. But that's my understanding was that there was going to be something held for her, for the community to come together and celebrate her. Since we're talking about Chris, may I ask some questions? Sure. Should we launch into the Crest DEI update? And Jennifer might have the answers to those. We can do that. Yes. Yeah. Jennifer, you're up. I've been a long time in Zoom meetings to still be muted. Do you want me to share screen the statements? Or do you want me to pick up the highlights? I'm not quite sure how you would like me to give this, provide this update. So I guess I just have one quick question. So why isn't Pamela here since she's the lead of the, the temporary group? Yeah, because tonight is the candidate tonight. And so she is presenting to the, to the new, to the candidates that are for town council. All the department heads are there. And so there was a conversation. So, but we stated that we would still continue the meeting. Okay. Or do you guys folks just want to ask questions since you've read the materials, do you want me to share the screen? The packet materials are online and available to those in the audience who would like to read the statements. How would you like this to move forward? So, so Jennifer, you're just saying in terms of what was included in the, that's what you're saying. What was included in the packet? Yes, those are the updates. Okay. Unless there's any highlights, we can just go into questions. Yeah, let's go into questions and I'll try to answer them the best that I can. And Everill had had the first question. Yes, Everill. So I'm looking at the packet on. Page 11. There is. It would suggest that Chris is taking calls. Is it accurate? On page 11. The 1011 23 packet. There's a graph. So here's a snapshot of all call types to date. 759 calls as of 10, 323. Oh, okay. I'm just trying to get there. Um, so they are not taking calls from dispatch, but people call their department number. But how does that work in concert with the police? If they're. They're not working in concert with the police. So people are calling the direct line to Cress. And dispatch is not sending calls to Cress at this time. Okay. And has this been shared with the police department? I, so there is a police officer on the implementation team. I don't know how much communication about what is going on at Cress that she shares with the police department, nor if Pamela is sharing this information, but I can note it as something that you feel should be shared with the police department if that's what you're asking. I think it makes sense. Um, because again, 759, that's significant. And I think, um, the police should be aware that people are calling directly into Cress. Um, the only problem is. Um, while there is a breakdown, I don't think we can actually gauge, um, how many of these people would otherwise call into 911. Or if they were to call 911, would they be, would Cress be activated? If these calls were to come into 911? The calls would not be accurate. Um, would not be sent to Cress or act Cress would not be activated if the calls were sent to from the PD. So since our last meeting. Is it the understanding that understanding that Earl is still away. That nothing has been. Nothing significant has been done to advance Cress's. Goal of taking 911 calls. Everything is still as it was when the last met. I would say that everything is still as you last met. There might be some work that. Uh, That is going on with the police department liaison in terms of. How they will move forward with receiving calls, but that's about it. So training perhaps. The police department liaison is training Cress to take 911 calls. There's been training and talked about how they will move forward taking calls, but they haven't actually taken any calls from the dispatch. But so if I understood correctly. And. There was training done well before. Now that's actually allowed Cress to take 911 calls. So I mean, What is, why is there more training or retraining? So, I mean, I'm. This would be my thought because I don't necessarily know. I'm not involved with Cress. I just know. You know, from what I've been told with updates and different things, but so. There is a large. Call for press to be responding to noise complaints. And then there's other calls and similar that are nonviolent. And so I think that they just are trying to keep them on point because they haven't been taking those calls. And so if they had a training at the beginning of the year. You know, you have to go back and look at it again. The goal is that they should be taking the calls soon. We've heard the word soon and soon doesn't end. The point here is. You don't actually take calls. There will forever be in a state of constant training because again, to your point. It's no longer going to be fresh, but it can only be fresh if you do the thing that you're trained to do and continue to do it. And I asked this one question before. A. Pause. How can we meet with the interim leadership team? And how can we meet with the interim leadership team? And how can we address the entire leadership team? Yeah. So I think that the, the goal until we were under the knowledge that the candidates form was tonight was for tonight's meeting. So it's possible that it can happen in November. I think people can make individually or. Or you guys can create a different meeting if you all want to be there to have this conversation with the implementation. I'm sorry with the. I think it would be important if the entire team were able to attend all at the same time. So we can either have that scheduled for the November meeting, or if you feel like you need to do it faster than November, then I can try and work out a set of time for everyone using a dual poll. Yes. So sooner. Yes. Sooner. We can't wait until November. Okay. I'll pause for now. I thought I was muted and I was trying to unmute myself that I'm not muted. So I see Deborah's hand up and then. Yes, we'll go to Deborah for. Yeah. I mean, I'm just like so concerned about all of what I read here in this, in this report. It's just like ridiculous. One, again, stating, you know, that the fire chief Tim, Tim Nelson is part of the, this, this leadership group. The fact that police sergeant Janet Griffin is part of this, this leadership group is just unacceptable. You know, and that again, Pamela is the one that's, that's overseeing everything when she doesn't even have time to do her own job. So I don't know how the I is doing anything given that now she's spending all this time seeing like, you know, in the morning with, with, you know, Janet and Kat and then, and then meeting with the responders in the morning. It's just like, so how does she have time to do her own job? So this is just doesn't make sense. And again, is going to deviate the mission from what a Cress's mission is. And so I'm interested because it says over here that there's already been like a retreat that talked about the mission. First question and what I'd like to know is what is the mission? What is the mission that of Cress right now? I'd like to get a statement in terms of that. What was communicated to the press responders? Because I want to see if that mission is actually in line with what CSWG recommended and what Cress was actually supposed to be. So that's my, my first, you know, question in terms of it. Then there was, you know, all of this training that, that, you know, was occurring. And one, the other thing was around the site visit that occurred around the grant. And I don't know if you can answer this, Jennifer. You know, what, what does that mean? What was the site visit? You know, what did that entail? Didn't give us any information. Do you have any information that could respond to that? So I want to know what that site visit, because I know it's for the grant. The grant is, is supposed to be around public safety. And I'm not seeing anything that Cress is doing around an alternative to public safety. And that's another concern. So because then we go into all of the community engagement. And I understand that Cress is out there, right? Doing outreach, doing outreach for the community. But in terms of what I'm seeing here, in terms of what they're doing, you know, giving rides and things like that, Cress is an alternative to public safety. They shouldn't be giving rides in transportation. I mean, you know, I mean, they can connect, they can try to resource that out, but they shouldn't be the ones they're not out there, you know, being taxi drivers and so on and so forth. The town needs to find other means, you know, people still need transportation, but find other means to transport people there. Cress shouldn't be utilized to transport people from programs. And then I see here, all these other things that have nothing to do with public safety aspects of what Cress is supposed to be doing. And so while Cress is doing that, then there's no dispatch. And I'm not going to go over whatever already question, which was on point, which is the fact that there's no dispatch happening and because of resistance from the dispatchers who do not want to dispatch the calls to Cress. And that's really what's going on. And that's the bottom line here, right? We keep on getting the run around in terms of it. And so while that's happening, then Cress responders are doing busy work. That's what I want to call that busy work. Okay. And then we're losing Cress responders. And we know that a lot of the Cress response, a majority BIPOC. So I want to know what the breakdown breakdown is in terms of who, what does that make up now in terms of like the BIPOC representation within the responders. Now we're down to five responders. We've lost three. I don't care if it was months ago or whatnot, because I know that in the report tries to differentiate between months ago and two recently. No, the point of the matter is that Cress is not doing what it's mission vision, right? Because of the resistance of dispatch not happening. And people were, did not sign up for that. They signed up for a department that was independent from the police. And now the police are running it, right? And so a department that's independent from the police, that's now being run by the police, that now is not even doing anything that's actually public safety related. I didn't see responses in terms of responses around mental health. I want to know the breakdown, right? There's all this thing about community engagement, about assist citizen, assist businesses. I want to know what those assistance are. Is that busy work? Or is it actually that it was actually happening? What was actually happening in terms of those breakdowns? I'm not impressed. I'm not impressed by any of these breakdowns in terms of these numbers, because I don't know what that entails. Because right now I'm very concerned in terms of what it is that saying that Cress is doing. And look at the hours, 8 to 430, and then 10 to 6. When we as CSWG had said 24-7, those are the hours it has. Why? Because you don't even have enough responders now to even respond to anything. And that's why you have to have these minimum hours that, you know, yeah, again, so that busy work can get done. This is an alternative to public safety. And what is happening here? That's what I said at my last meeting a month ago, that the mission and vision of Cress was going to be done differently. Cress is not a social service agency. I know I understand that this social service needs. And obviously I'm compassionate and I care about all of those things. But that tells the town that there's a need for that. But Cress is not the department for that. I don't know if I'm really making myself clear, because the mission and vision of what we put together, CSWG put together for Cress, is totally different than what Cress is being utilized. And now the responders, we're losing responders. Because of the fact that it's not in line with the mission vision. And then let me see what else we have here. And with the fact that, you know, the process, and again, you know, I know one, you know, Ms. Pat, who talked about it said, it's not about finding out about personnel issues, but the point of the matter is that the longer, the longer the situation of drags on in terms of this investigation in terms of Director Earl Miller being put on leave, the more there's going to be a destruction and impinging upon what Cress is able to do or not. With this temporary leadership team that has the police. I mean, are you kidding me? Has the police as part of the leadership team? That is totally not what we have, what Cress was supposed to be about. Leap hasn't been discussed in terms of this leadership team, if anything, because I saw when Paul said that it's a similar to the implementation team. No, it's not similar to the implementation team, because if it was similar to the implementation team, then members of either CS as you see, and no one from what I know was invited to help out with Cress, or members of CSWG would have been invited to be part of that. And as one of the other folks Brianna talked about during public comment, and it would need to be more transparent. Nothing is transparent in terms of what's going on. So I want to hear, I want answers. So I want, you know, as we've ever already stated, want to meet with this leadership team ASAP as soon as possible, not next month. And also I'm requesting for us to go and have a visit with the responders. Whoever from CSJC. So that's another meeting, Jennifer. So I mean, because I'm thinking about it like you guys can at any time come over and see the Cress responders, right? Unless you want to create a specific time, and then if there's more of a quorum, I just need to know so that I can post the meeting. So it's really about how you would like that interaction day. Let's just start the conversation going and then we'll see who wants to meet with the Cress responders and then we'll see whether we need to post it or not and so on and so forth. But we want to check in with the responders because I'm hearing so many things, so many rumors, so much. I want to know how are they doing through all of this? What is going on with them? That's what I want to know. Because they've been doing incredible work under such difficult circumstances given all of what is happening here. Everill, do you have more to add? I do, but I want to see if anyone else wants to chime in before I do. Lucette, Isabella or Freke, do you have anything you want to add or questions you have? Lucette, you're muted. Sorry. I would just say that I agree with Deborah and meeting with the responders as soon as possible to see exactly what's the issue. And Isabella, was that a no from you? Yeah, no. I mean, no, you didn't have anything to say, not no. I mean, I think for me, Deborah has touched upon most of what I had. I mean, again, my biggest concern was the operating hours, especially now it's saying eight to 430 p.m. and I thought that they were at least operating until like eight on the weekdays. And that's maybe, I don't know if I made that up or not, but that's what I thought that they had told us previously. Were that changed? Huh? That changed. That did change. Okay. And so, I mean, and I know Jennifer, this isn't directed at you. It's kind of screaming into the vacuum, but like these are the things that the public needs to know about because if they're thinking that they can call a press responder until eight, and then all of a sudden it's 432 and crest is off duty. And nobody knows that. Then that's again, furthering the trust between the community and the press department. And, you know, that's, I think the last thing that. We want or need right now. If you want to jump on, I just wanted to, I had. I wanted to go back to the leap report, but I also want to figure out if I can bring that up on the screen. So if you want to make your other comments, I will see if I can get myself ready. And just before you do, I have it up in the packet. So if you want me to like and share screen. After Everald mixes comments. Yes. So piggybacking off like something that Deborah said, I completely agree that. Chris is not meant to and should not be a social services organization. And looking at this graph that you provided. It will suggest that that is exactly what they're doing. You know, the assist citizen has 370 to the number. And that is significant. But again, what does that actually mean as a citizen? And if they're being utilized as social services, rather as an alternative to. Always police response that is problematic in itself. And. I don't know if you can answer this question, but understanding that there's this inner leadership team. The last time we met. Everyone would agree that there was strong opposition to. Some people being on the leadership team. And we talked about an interim leader. Can you tell us. What is being done. To get interim leadership. And this leadership team that is in place. Are they actually doing anything to train someone at crests to step into that role in the events that earn Miller does not come back. Or are we waiting to run out of the clock where again. There is a new search starts for your director. And then the conversation becomes. Well, Chris can't do anything now because we have a new, they have a new director who has to be trained and who has to decide what calls they should take. So. Short, short question. This interim leadership team. Are they training anyone to step into a director role position. I can't really answer that because I'm not, I'm sorry that I'm here and not Pamela, but I. I'm not involved in crests. So I can't answer that question. Yes or no. I, I, you know, I'm not that I'm aware of is what I would say. Okay. And can you. Are you able to answer. Why did the hours change? Is it budget? Was it this, this is made by town management town council. Why did the hours change? I think the hours changed because they had looked at the way that the calls were coming in and when the calls were coming in. So. Thank you for that answer. So essentially the hours changed. And I would suggest they change because. Crest isn't doing what crest is supposed to be doing. They change because crests right now is a social services program. And. Whatever leadership is in place thinks that. Okay. For social services. They're not needed after four, three. I understand fully what you're saying, but I can't really make comment to that because I'm not in the leadership team in the way that you worded that kind of made it. Like it hit a line. And so I can't, I can't respond to that one. Like that. I'm so sorry guys. I, I honestly. I understand. And Deb also use the word busy work. And I would agree. Again, looking at this graph, it seems as if there is, they've been utilized just for busy work. So is there a concern right now. It is Chris fully funded. I don't know if you can answer that question. Is there any concern that at some point. We're going to hear, okay. Crest isn't fully funded. And as such, I mean, only five responders. Are we losing people on crests or has staffing other than Earl Miller changed? Are we, are they still fully staffed? Can you answer that? They're, they, you guys, there are three responders that are, there are three vacancies now. So there should have been eight responders. There should be eight responders. There are now five responders. No one has left because of budgetary reasonings. It's what I can say. I would say the rest of it's got to do with personnel matters. And can you tell us if we're actively trying to. Find those additional three responders. They will be advertising for three more responders. So it's not, I don't know when I know that that is on our rise. And I just don't know when. Okay. That has follow up. So I will stop talking. Deborah and then Jennifer, if you could screen show that great. Yeah, I just have quick follow up, which is Jennifer, you know, I, I just feel bad for you that you were put in this, in this position today. And that's why I asked the question of where Pamela Nolan was. Because I'm sorry, you know, I mean, you know, Paul's been hearing this for weeks that this is obviously an urgent matter that we're very concerned about the leadership team. And Pamela, who was the head of this leadership team at the next meeting that he knew we were going to be asking all these questions is not here because she's at a candidate. You know, so Paul could have made the decision. I don't care that all the department heads are there. Paul could have made it. That's not anything that's fixed in stone. Paul could have made the decision to send her here, right? Because he knew that this is a concern of the community. That community is very concerned about what's happening with Crest right now. But then what was the decision? That's why I didn't say anything in the beginning because I was like, you know, maybe Jennifer's going to be able to answer the question. But I knew obviously that you weren't going to be able to because that's not your, your job, right? Pamela is the lead of this team that we're very concerned about. And yet she's not here for this meeting. This critical meeting. Again, another slap in the face to the community. Because she's not here to answer these questions to again delay, right? So the tactic of delay, delay, delay. Come on. We see it and I'm naming it. My thing is I see it and I name it. I'm not going to see it and stay quiet and say, and say, oh, okay. Yes. Pamela is not here. So on so forth. No, Pamela is not here because intentional. W. W. W. Can, can, can you all hear me now? Yes. Yes. So I'm just saying it was just for me, it's intentional. And Deborah, I just, I want to take some ownership because I did make the ultimate decision to not change the meeting day. That's fine. But you shouldn't have to change the meeting day. I mean, I, I thought knowing how hard it is to get the four, the six of us to agree on one day that we had agreed on back in August that I thought. Exactly. But for me, it's just, it is just showcasing where the priority lies, right? In terms of crest. I'm saying Paul knew the importance of this issue and then chose to not have Pamela here. And so therefore, you know, this is what's happening. So I just want to point that out that that's, you know, that, that was one of the things that occurred here. And, and we're not going to. Okay. That you made this decision. And like I said, Jennifer, we need to get that, that meeting with the interim team ASAP. And may I make a request. So. With the data, well. The high level data that's what that's provided to show the summary of the calls. Can we actually get something that drills down all of those calls? Because I think having that would be. Would provide knowledge to say to the leadership team and to Paul to say, okay, this is what Chris is doing. And either 1. They're doing that because they're not taking 911 calls or 2. This is why they should be taking 911 calls. So, yes, I will see if we can have that done prior to the, as soon as possible. It's what I'll say. I was going to ask prior to us meeting with that. If possible. I know I get the urgency and I understand how people feel. So as I'll get it, I mean, I'll let them know. And then I'll get back to you guys with the response from that. That's all I can really do. Oh, you would like me to share screen now, correct? I'd like you to share screen because I do think that. Everold's. Observation about the change in times. I just. I was thinking about it today when I was re-reviewing this and thinking like, wait a second, they're even more limited hours. And then I went back to the leap report to kind of look at. The data that they had looked at in. Deciding, you know, looking at when high call volumes from the police or from 911 calls are. And. The hours don't match up basically is like the long and short of. So you would like me to start on page 30 with responder staffing. Yes, please. Okay. And you all see this green. Yes. Please let me know when you'd like me to scroll down. So it goes. It basically says. If 2, if responders were 2, 8 and a half hour shifts per day covering peak hours from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. They would cover more than 87% of calls per service. And then if they could do something like on call between 2 and 9. That could still help cover the overnight calls. But if you, if you want to scroll down. Because I think there's a graph or something. So it has a breakdown of the day of the week. So it looks like Monday is the lowest call volume day. Then Friday, Saturday and Sunday are the highest call volume days. Although we don't have coverage on Sunday and Saturday is 10 to 6. And then if we go down a little bit further. So the breakdown of call times starting at 12 a.m. So 12 to 2 basically looks like the, the most crest appropriate call time. And then if you go down a little bit more, you know, the call times are low until about 11 a.m. Then they start hitting triple digits. But really it's like the hours. And then if you go down a little bit further, you know, I would say from, I would say 2 p.m. on 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. seem like the highest call volume times. That could have calls that would be appropriate to be diverted to crests. So my. Question slash concern slash suggestion, I suppose, would be. How are we determining the call time? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Okay. They're fully staffed again and be. They are able to take nine moment calls. So they're actually on call during. A time where they would be receiving the calls that would be. Most appropriate for them to respond to. So that was just a little bit of the data. And then if we go down to page 40. I believe it is. It was a. A community engagement process. So I was just looking at this part. And it is kind of talking about how do you reach out? How do we best reach out to the community. To gather input to inform crests. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But for me. It seemed like maybe it was a good, it would be a good time to revisit this. Because. There it has been a shift in leadership. And again, we're uncertain whether the initial leadership will come back or whether there will be a search for. A new director. I think it would be a good place to pause and do some community engagement around some of these questions. And perhaps that could be. A role for the CSSJC to. Take on in the form of like a community forum. It was just an idea I had. But that was. That was kind of what I was thinking because it seems like. You know, there's a point where there are some growing pains or some. Implementation pains and that perhaps it would be helpful to have. More community input again. So I just, I saw this piece of it today and I thought, that might be something to revisit. It was an idea that I wanted to bring to the group. And that's all. So. Are you suggesting that. Yeah, I guess. I guess. Maybe a community survey, maybe some sort of. Outreach into the community. Maybe, I mean, I know that when the CSWG was holding its original forums, they did. You know, virtual forums to kind of just have people come and share their. Experiences. And so I don't know if. If there's a way to do some sort of forum based around some of this. These suggested questions or if the, if that's something we'd have capacity or. Ability to do. Yeah. I think that would be a good idea. To do like up some virtual forums and, and also like we could, because. You're breaking up again. Deborah, we heard virtual forums and then for me, that is when things cut off. Yeah, that was last thing I heard also. Does any, but. Does anybody else have any thoughts around. This. I think it's something that we should. We should visit and. Fairer how to get more public awareness. I am however concerned that to your point and. When he was a word disarray, even though it's a. Very. Very strong word. But. I think it's something that we should. We should visit and. Fairer how to get more public awareness. I am however concerned that to your point. I think it's something that we should do. But. Chris is in a bit of a disarray right now. And. The thing about promoting something that is. You know, in limbo, so to speak. It'd be problematic in itself, but at the same time. Promoting it could potentially benefit in terms of. Making, you know. Making sure that town leadership knows that this is. The best way to do it is to make sure that. The town leadership knows that. That they want to the need in the community. And therefore they have to really get behind it. Do you want to try again? Better. Yes. Yeah, I just moved because where my office is, it's like a little bit further away from the router. So I just moved to where the router is. But no, I would just say that that's a good idea that we could do the virtual. In person and with the community. And I would just go with it. You know, I think we should do it in person and make sure that. The community is going to do an, an both. Cause I think we do need like, you know, to get engaged, the community. Get the community to share. You know, the viewpoints that's always something that, you know, it is wonderful to do. I would just suggest to do them virtually in person and the people could participate. And I think looking at these questions might not be the questions that we necessarily want to use or have to use, but I think that there are certainly some that are helpful to have driving things. So I don't know if we want to have, if there are people that would be willing to maybe review some of these questions and think about what else might be helpful. And we don't have to have like a bunch of questions. I think it's easier to keep, I don't know, a lower number. So would this be for like a survey or are you seeing questions for the meeting itself? I'll follow the above. I think maybe all of the above. I think obviously conversations are different than responding to a survey, but having some sort of guide so that what we're trying, what we're collecting is somewhat comparable. Maybe in our next meeting, we can schedule a section to actually review questions. If everyone has access to this document, then gives us some time to think about it. And in our next meeting, we can come together with questions and maybe we'll have some commonality and go with those ones for the survey. I like the idea. If we could start looking at some potential dates. I'm just thinking our next meeting, if it's the second Wednesday, would be November 8th in terms of like lead time. So if we are going to get questions by November 8th, the next meeting, should we think about looking into December to host a forum so that we have enough time to kind of publicize it once we have, you know, I mean, we can publicize it before we have all the questions together, but would December be too like one of the first weeks of December be too late to host something or does that seem reasonable? Well, wait until like the 8th to do questions, then we're coming up against like, you know, the holiday in mid-November. So that makes it a little bit more difficult, unless like the first week of December. So like the week of the 4th. And then a virtual, but we'd have to kind of do it like that week type of thing. You know what I'm saying? Because we couldn't let more time go by. Right. But at least hopefully if we do have it in December, we'd have more information to share in terms of, you know, meeting with the interim group. And then also hopefully if some of us are able to meet with the responders too, we'd have more information to share too with the public. So would it be easiest to just try and say we'll meet on a Wednesday, Wednesday the 6th with that? I mean, so sorry, Wednesday, December 6th, we can plan the forum for, would that be, would that work? We need another date for the in-person also. Yeah. I will not be available on December 6th, FYI. Okay. Is it that whole week or would you be available? That whole week. Okay. All right. So then we need to pick another day, pick another week. What about the last week of November? That would be after the holiday, right? I'm so bad about it. Yes, that's after the holidays. Okay. How about November 29th? So that would mean two meetings in November? Yes. Okay. And I would say that. Sorry. Yes. You can start to advertise for the virtual and the in-person events. Even now, necessarily, you know, you don't have all of the information gathered that you want, but you can still put the word out because I think the most important piece about this is getting the word out. Yeah. Yep. So November 29th, we would do it like a regular, like maybe 630. Yeah. And then what about for the in-person? Should we? Because we're doing an evening, we should do like a morning, a different day for like the in-person. Would we be able to put together a weekend event? Would that work for people? Yeah. Pending at one time, if we're going to do like maybe a 10 o'clock or something like that. Let's say like the second, oh, wait, you're away. So we're talking, oh, yeah, yeah. Would you be away the second ever? The entire week of December 1st, I'm away. Oh, okay. Starting December 1st, okay. I'm sorry, the entire week of December 3rd to the 9th. So would you be able to do the second? Like if we did a 10 o'clock in the morning? Um, I think so. Would you all be able to do like the December 2nd in-person? 10. We do that like December 2nd, 10. And then the 29th at 630 virtual. That sounds good. Do we have a venue for in-person? Well, that's an excellent question. Jennifer can help us with that, right? Can't we do somewhere at the bangs or can't the town find us a spot, a place? I can help find a location. Having the date is more important for me and then I can work out the location. Okay, great. Thank you, Jennifer. And it seems like bangs is usually a good transportation hub. So if that's available, that would be great. So that's December 3rd. December 2nd. December 2nd, Saturday, 10 in-person. And then November 29th, Wednesday, 630 virtual. All right, are we ready to move on to DEI? That kind of hurt. We good? We can move on to DEI. We can. I'm not quite sure. It's the same process, right? She wrote up a report. Did she? She was supposed to have given me a report. I thought it was put in there. Let's see. My packet has minutes, the interim update. And the police chief search process leather. That's all that I had in my packet. But that was also before you sent the updated packet. All right, can you just give me one second and I'll look and see if I can, if she, if it was emailed to me? Yes. Because yeah, it looks like the only thing that was added to the second packet was, oh wait. Yeah, no, nothing that was added was the leap report. Okay, I will share screen and try to read through it. Thank you. Can you see the report on the screen? Yes. I can enlarge it. So she speaks on the new members that joined the HRC and the CSSJC and then no one is now at below quorum. We had the Latinx heritage celebration. We will be having a festival of light celebration in November in honor of Diwali. We also had conducted the train the trainer session of Liberty visioning with Dr. Barbara Love. It was a two day 5.5 hour session which included 18 participants of which half were town employees and the other half were community members. We were able to receive a reduced membership for the governance alliance for race and equity and the new RFP which turned into an SWQ which is seeking written quotes which means that Pamela told the procurement officer gave her, I think it was about five people that to apply for the community engagement piece of the resident oversight boards RFP. So if you recall the RFP did not really, we didn't have any traction there. And so we tried a different or the procurement officer and Pamela tried a different way which was to send it to specific people and to receive quotes. And that is due by the end of tomorrow I believe. And so we'll have some more results then over the results of how many people applied or sent in quotes. And then it talks about the AmeriCorps member, Asa which would now would be a great time to introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Asa Stanley Kemler. The AmeriCorps members from the Dial Self Organization serving with both the DEI departments and the Crest departments. My main focus moving forward is going to be on youth empowerment. And I'd be happy to meet with any of you one on one I know already have something scheduled with Deborah for soon on the topic, but meetings engage if you want to talk about your questions or concerns about or just plans moving forward for what you want to see for youth programming in town. It's great to meet you all. Thank you Asa. So Asa and I will be sitting down tomorrow to create a timeline so that we can make sure that we are getting feedback from a diverse population of students from the middle schools of the high school as well as actually having programming implemented with inside of the timeframe before Asa leaves or his term is over. So the Amherst College will be offering or is offering some workforce equity and inclusion workshops which will happen on October 20th and November 17th and then there's more about the DEI director being the Crest leadership director. So I see that it says her role will end January 2nd, 2024. What does that mean? You don't know. I mean, I think the idea, I don't know what that means. It just means that she, in theory, will be done January 2nd, but I don't know what that means. I don't mean, does that mean there'll be another Crest director? Does that mean that Earl will be there? I don't know what that means. And I will upload to this to everyone's packet after the meeting. Thank you. And Resend. Deborah. So I know that we had the resident oversight board on the agenda, but I'm figuring that since it's part of DEI's responsibility that I can just bring up that, bring up the questions now in regards to that, which is, again, why is it taking so long for everything to go through in terms of this, the resident oversight board? I mean, obviously, I think there's a reason why and we had said we wanted that to happen a long time ago and obviously now Pamela sidetracked with everything else that she's doing, which again, for me, it just seems like intentionally the laying Crest and now the laying this, right? In terms of the resident oversight board where people don't have a place to go with where they can file complaints if they're dealing with things with the police. My question is, I know that CSWG had used LEAP before help us with the work that we needed to do in terms of gathering data. And they had already started helping us in terms of like some of the questions that we had and especially around the resident oversight board. So why weren't they tapped to apply for these RFPs? Did anyone tap them or contact them to outreach to them? Do you know that, Jennifer? I wasn't involved in the process, I don't know. So again, you know, and again, Jennifer, I do apologize. No, I get it. It's not the first time. I'll apologize on your behalf and our behalf that we're putting you in this situation. But again, Paul is the one that put you in this position because we're asking these questions into a vacuum into the wind because again, no one has the answers to be able to give us a response. Which again, just showcases the priority, right? Where it's BIPOC people who are having these questions because we represent the community and we have these questions on the behalf of the community and then we don't have the people here to be able to respond to the questions that we have. And so showcases where the town puts the priorities of BIPOC people, right? Which is on the bottom of the priority ranking because we've been talking about the resident oversight board for like a year at this point, you know, after obviously CSWG and we're not anywhere near being able to put that on place and CSWG had already done all of that work, the leg work and consulted relief. So, you know, question going into the vacuum, but I'm documenting this. So I will remember that I asked this question and I want an answer in terms of why BIPOC wasn't tapped for the resident oversight board. And then in terms of the youth empowerment, Asa, thank you for reaching out to me. And hopefully, like you said, you will reach out to all of our other members because I'm sure folks on this group and folks from CSWG, you should reach out to them too, have a lot of expertise and experience in terms of connecting with young people and, you know, connecting with people within the community. And so it should be one of the main things for you to be able to, you know, get, you know, the key information. But again, and I know you're new, for me, the important thing, you know, would be to really focus on, and I don't know what that means, but for the next time when you come here or whomever comes here to present to us is what does it mean in terms of like the actual youth empowerment? Like what is the strategy? What is the, you know, what are some of the work that you're gonna be doing to really, you know, get to that point of creating a space that's safe for, you know, BIPOC young people and people from all backgrounds to be able to utilize a youth empowerment center. Yes, thank you. It'll be my job to make sure that I have some intangible to report back by our next meeting. Thank you. Yes. Oh, and then my last question, sorry, was around the visioning. I'm excited that Barbara Love put together, you know, that the training happened with Barbara Love because I was one of the recommendations of CSWG was to do a visioning, a healing visioning, you know, session with the town. So I wanna hear more details. So, okay, now we had those two training sessions. What are the next steps? And when the actual visioning healing sessions are going to take place, how is the town gonna, what is the town gonna do to actually get the voices and outreach to the people who are the ones that actually get most impacted by the police and others in this town, right? Other town offices that also are not welcoming to BIPOC people, how are those folks gonna be able to actually take part in this visioning healing? Because again, if I found the one that shows up, I'm the person that shows up to most of these things. It's not my voice that you need to hear from. You need to hear from those voices that do not get heard, right? And so how are we gonna do that to make sure that their voices are heard? That's what I wanna know. Voices of people that don't speak English who are multilingual, you know, and don't speak English, how are we gonna get them to these visioning healing sessions to actually be able to partake? So can someone share some information in regards to that, please? So at the end of the second session, Dr. Barbara Love said that we would be following up with the third session. So she has been out of the country, so we need to continue on to connect with her to have the third session with the trainer, train the trainers, and then moving from there, the community engagement piece, I think needs to be very intentional. It needs to happen. I'm not quite sure. I don't know about the timeframe has to be even longer, but I know it has to be more purposeful in who we connect with and don't connect, not don't connect with, but who we connect with. So we just need to have stuff, not just on the website, but it needs to go filter through the schools in different ways, you know, PGOs, principles, it needs to go to the apartment complexes. It needs to be in common areas like the restaurants that allow people to hang flyers. I mean, you really, we're really gonna have to get out and do a lot of boots on the ground, you know, whatever events that are for the public that happened between the time that we start advertising to the time of the events, we should be joining as well. So for instance, if there was, you know, fundraisers or, you know, like for QANSA, if this doesn't happen before QANSA, then we can do it then. You know, what we don't wanna have happen is we don't want the train, the trainers are highly motivated now, and we don't wanna lose that momentum and that excitement that they had from leaving the last training session. So... And also, sorry, like, can I just like do a quick follow up with that in terms of the visioning? The other things too is to, when you all are gonna engage the community in terms of some of these visioning sessions, obviously it has to be very well, you know, advertised and put out there, but also, you know, care for kids so that people are able to attend if it's in the evening, translation services, food is always an attraction and transportation, but please don't use Cress, but, you know, other transportation services so that, you know, people can actually get to it. But again, you should spend the money besides, you know, using Cress for the transportation. So... Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we did do that thoroughly with the train, the trainers. And I know it's a different amount of people, but we will and do have that in consideration that the need for childcare is there, the need to offer, you know, if it's gonna happen between the hours of four to six or five to seven, you have to be able to offer, you know, dinner. So those things are in the forefront. The translation is also there, two pieces there. So we had someone there who spoke multiple languages that was part of it. So she believed it. Spanish, Portuguese, English, and there's two other languages. I can't remember off the top of my head. We had another fluent Spanish speaker there as well. So those things are all in consideration and we're well aware. That was kind of my question. Was one of the participants, like, was there a diverse racial group? Was there a diverse language, linguistic ability? Was it a representative sample of our community or what did it look like? I would say that by race, it was diverse. By language, it was diverse. You know, our community is very siloed. So sometimes it's very hard to get into the deeper, to connect with some of the folks in the community, but I do, you know, I do try hard. We do try hard. Absolutely. Thank you. Debbie had a follow-up. Yeah, just, you know, also to make sure we're engaging, you know, our younger generation too, to take part in this because their feedback is going to be critical to the visioning because a lot of times, as we saw with the July 5th incident, it's our young people that get caught in the crossfire by the police and other entities of the town. And so we wanna make sure that, you know, our young people, you know, from especially from the high schools, because I know sometimes, you know, with middle schoolers, they might not have time to take part in it, but high schoolers, college age, need to make sure that we're outreaching to that population, that we have trainers that also from the different age range so that they're able to bring that contingency to this healing, because that will be integral. We need to get their feedback. We did have diversity in age, but not as young as high school. But what I would say is that, you know, we can always have a specific event just for the high school and the college, one that is just more geared to them, so they would feel more comfortable in that environment. Excellent, that's good to hear. Thank you. Does anybody else have any questions around the DEI update? Not seeing any, so I guess we can move along to the next item agenda is the election of chair and co-chair. So we have a quorum, yay. Oh, Isabella had to drop off. She did have something else she had to do, but we still have a quorum, so we could vote. So we can nominate people for the position of chair and co-chair. I will say I am willing to continue to be a co-chair of the committee, but I would love a person to co-chair with me. So I'm willing to co-chair. Are there other people who would like the opportunity to be a chair or co-chair of the committee? I think both choices are very good. So I guess, what do I move? This seems silly, but I guess I'll move to nominate Deborah. No, because you're also nominating yourself, so somebody else should definitely make the motion. Someone, either Lissette Freke or Dr. Eté or Everil should make the motion, please. My internet went in and out, I'm sorry, I missed some of those. We need a motion that is going to elect Allegra and Deborah as the co-chairs of the CSSJC. And it just can't be from one of them because they're being nominated, so. I understand, so I nominate Allegra and Deborah to be co-chairs of the CSSJC. And then we need a second. Second. And then open for discussion. Correct. Does anybody, am I allowed to call on the discussion to elect me or do I have to be quiet? No, yeah, let me just run this piece right, and then I'll gladly give you back the driving seat, the driver seat. So open for discussion, no discussion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Lissette, aye. Dr. Freke. Aye. Aye. Allegra. Deborah. Aye. Okay, there we go. Five to zero with one absent. Okay. Hey, coach, do you wanna run the meeting? No, just kidding. All right, you're trying to throw me into the fire. You're doing a beautiful job. We'll talk about it in the next meeting. The next item is the CSO co-responder with the APD. So that was briefly mentioned in this interim report. Where does it say? It says Amherst Police Department CSO staff. So CSO is clinical support options, which is a local mental health agency. And it says for years, the Amherst Police Department has worked with CSO, which provides mental health services, including most recently a co-responder housed in the police department. The person who's been serving in this position resigned and CSO has been recruiting for a new position to fill this role. It is not a town employee. So there's a co-responder position in the police department, which I just, I'm remembering that Cress when it was being discussed was like very adamant against being that kind of model. And so I guess I'm just wondering what the role of the co-responder is versus what the role of Cress would be and if there would be a reason to dispatch to Cress versus the CSO co-responder team. And how long this position has been in Amherst. So again, these are probably questions that aren't for Jennifer, but I see Deborah has her hand up as well. Yeah, no, I like, I think you hit the nail on the head, which is, my question when I saw this that the police were advertising with this position is, is it duplicating what Cress is supposed to be doing, which Cress is not doing? Because again, we've learned from this data that we received that Cress is actually, at least from what we've seen, unless we get told otherwise, because none of our questions could be answered because of course Jennifer is not part of Cress. And so I'm like, it's not being handled by Cress and now the police are hiring someone to do the work that Cress should be doing. So is Cress being phased out? And so things are being moved into the police? I have a lot of questions about this. I don't understand when, yes, when did this position, when was it originated? So Paul is saying that it was already in place and they're just rehiring. I'm like, what? I haven't even heard about that. And then in the middle of all of this where Cress's mission is being changed, now this position is being hired so that then yeah, the mental health can stay within the police department. I mean, what is going on here? Why isn't this funding put into Cress so that Cress can actually do the work that it needs to do at the hours that we've discussed, which is the later hours where there's more of a need for them to be able to do their work, right? So all of these questions that I have is just kind of like, we need to be able to... The position has been in existence since 2019. The individual that was in that position has left and so they're rehiring, but it is not the Amherst Police Department that's rehiring the individual, it is the clinical solutions, CSL, clinical support options. So it's not a town employee, they don't receive town benefits, they have a space in the police department. So why, so, sorry, just one quick follow up. Why can't they be hired into Cress or something like that? Why does it have to be with the police department? I mean, that's who they've always done that with. That's the way that they originated, but that's a valid question to ask, so I'll ask. Yeah, I mean, that's the question, right? Like, when we were creating all of these departments, it's to think outside the box, right? Just because something was done one way for a number of years doesn't mean that we need to continue to do that that way. Especially once we created the department that actually was the department that the community wants to be dealing with this because we didn't want the police to be dealing with those types of nonviolent issues, right? Because unfortunately, from all of what we heard in the data, it wasn't being handled well. So therefore, why would that position be within the police department? So we do need to ask those questions. Now, if there was no Crest Department, yeah, okay, but there is, so why isn't this being challenged? So a couple of comments and questions. And if I may start with the comments. So an enneagram may be able to chime in as well. We don't know if the CSO person that has a liaison office with the police is a licensed clinical social worker. And I'm saying that because if it's an issue where someone may need to be sectioned or committed, it's probably, I think everyone froze. I can hear you. We can hear you. All right, you're into me. No, try again. Everyone froze, yeah. So I think we need to understand what is the credentials for this person that CSO is hiring to be in concert with the police? Because I think that would help us understand if it's duplicative, if whether or not it is something that Crests can step into or at the same time, do we have a licensed clinical social worker on staff at Crests? Because if we kind of froze again, because if it is justified, having seen some of the things I've seen in court, it may be based on credentials, it may be legitimate hire, but at the same time, it could also give us an opportunity to say that, okay, maybe we need such a person in Crests who can be that person, again, for the role of Crests because we do understand that we do not want Crests to be social workers because that's not the mandate. So we should fully understand what this role is within CSO and exactly what is they do. Just by thinking about what CSO does, I imagine their role will be to respond to mental health crises with the police at the same time. So again, if we can be provided with, I don't know, a job description for this role and what they expect. So it looks like the position has already been filled by a clinician. So they have some type of licensure if they're a clinician, correct? So, and just as many police agencies have co-response in our area, Hadley's, Tampton, Northampton, Holyoke, Greenfield, and Vegetable. So it is a clinician position, okay. Do we have any licensed clinicians or staff at Crest with that kind of credential? I don't believe so. Well, perhaps Janet Griffin might add, I know that she has a lot of licensees underneath her, but I'm not quite sure exactly which ones. Okay. And I think I heard that this was not a police position. This was a CSO position. It is a CSO, it's not the town's position. Okay. So there may be an opportunity to have, just have a conversation with Amherst CSO to ask some questions to say, okay, you know, again, let me go back to our engagement with the community, talk about Crest, what do you guys do and how can Crests be part of that or support that or just to get an understanding of the relationship that they have with the police and how Crests can fit into that? Because it may not be a bad thing to have this bridge. Absolutely. Deborah. Information because, you know, and I think that that's part of the transparency that we want the town to have with us, right? It's like, you know, as these types of positions are being conceptualized or they're put in place or what have you, why isn't it brought to our attention? Why is it that we have to kind of dig and try to figure out, you know, what's happening? And so, you know, for me, I want to have a full understanding of what this position is about, how it gets its funding, what's the purpose of it and so on and so forth. So that again, some of the other questions that Allegra and Evel asked that we could be better informed in terms of how or, you know, where it makes sense to land, you know, because I'm still not, you know, convinced that I shouldn't land in Cress, you know? And so, but to have more of an informed way to really be able to, you know, make these types of decisions, as opposed to us just finding out and just being like, what is going on here? Which is, you know, what is happening, you know, within the town. So with the new clinician is hired by CSO. So they're being funded through CSO, not through the town or the PD. So I, so in my day job, I work under the like forensic services department. So we get some funding from the Department of Mental Health which also funds like a jail diversion program, which I'm pretty sure corresponds clinicians fall under. So it could be that the model of co-response is what DMH funds and so far have branched out into any sort of like funding of alternative police programs. But they get their grant from DMH, correct? Their large grant, the Cress does. I think that they're from the Department of Public. Wasn't it DPH? Isn't that who came out and did the site visit? Yes, DPH, which is the Department of Public Health. So perhaps it was just the timing was like at the same time that the Cress program was announcing all these changes. I happened to see this posting come up for a CSO clinician and I just, I wasn't sure. I didn't realize that there had been one since 2019, which I think goes back to Deborah's point about transparency and it wouldn't it be great for the community to know that there is somebody in the police department that might have clinical training as a social worker of licensed mental health clinician that could be a resource for people. So I do agree with what Eveld said is that it would be nice to kind of have a conversation with CSO about what they're able to do and what the role of this person is and whether or not they've had any communication with Cress or collaboration with Cress. Because I mean, again, I would love to see who's Department of Mental Health funding things like Cress as well, but if that's not the case and they're funding a person who's going out with the police to mental health calls, I think that there needs to be some clarity on when once Cress is taking 911 calls, when a Cress team could go out versus when this corresponds team would need to go out. Because I do think that Cress made the requirements very loose for a reason so that they would draw on not just professional experience, but also personal lived experience. I believe that was part of the thinking that there weren't saying we have to have eight social workers on the team doing this work. That lived experience with whether it's being policed or with mental health in the community or whatever the lived experience might be is just as important as what you can learn in a classroom. And correct me if I'm wrong Deborah, but that was what I thought some of the conceptualization of the staffing matrixes came from. And also be interested to know how this person interacts with dispatch and 911 calls. Do they listen in on these calls? Are they there taking calls to see what calls are meant to hold? Because again, that's Cress. So I'm gonna include this in the packet when I send over the DEI statement, but it says that all calls will be assessed for safety by both the responding officers and the clinical staff fired entering the scene. This should and will be done in a similar manner to our response with medical personnel from the Amherst Fire Department. So they follow the same process as the fire department when entering a scene. The condition will be responding to calls for service and related follow up calls. That's about a vehicle provided by CSL. How are they initially, having they initially engaged with the police though is the question. I mean, I understand that the person is physically there because I'm an officer of this department, but are they with dispatch or are they just told we have this call, we need to go out? Does it say? I'm looking, sorry. The connoisseur will coordinate with the officer in charge and it's expected to operate in concert with responding officers so that a safe environment can be maintained. Jennifer, in terms of, you know, I hear what is being said, but I can't really, I'm confused about how it actually is working out. And again, whether the services that this position is providing is duplicative or what is actually happening here in terms of this position. And the fact that it's been in place since 2019 is just baffling to me because I didn't even know that. For our next meeting, or can this person come and talk to us at the next meeting? Or I mean, I don't, you know. I can find out if the person can attend the meeting. I will email this information that I have to you tomorrow and. Does anybody else have anything to add about the co-responder? So if the co-responder can't come, would you take the supervising officer instead or whoever oversees the CSO at the station? Basically, again, Jennifer, sorry, I didn't hear it. So I was just trying to see if the CSO was not available to come. Is there someone else who can come to answer the questions? So like maybe the chief or the interim chief or I'm not quite sure it's not a police supervisor, but whoever they work within the police department. They're able to answer questions. Yes, I get, yeah, that's. I think of my preference would be someone from CSO doesn't live in the police. Yeah, yeah, that would definitely be the preference. So maybe the person's supervisor at CSO because I think if this person is new to CSO, someone there will tell us the history of the relationship and what this person's role is and what they've done in the past. Okay, I'm gonna just full transparency here. I can ask CSO and I can ask the individual supervisor, but they're not part of the town. So I'm not saying that they're gonna say no, but I just have to put that there. And that's fine. And if they say no, then we can ask the police. Okay. And so can you? Yes, I'm just a little bit bothered by that, Jennifer. You said that they're not part of the town. So, but I mean, but they're working in our town, even if they're not part of the town, why wouldn't they wanna talk to? I'm not saying that they wouldn't wanna talk to you. I'm just saying it's not, I can't, like getting an officer to come sit and talk with you, we have a little bit more control over than someone from CSO. I just have to put it out there, right? Because they're not part of the infrastructure of the town the same way. So it's not that they don't want to, but like I don't wanna just tell you, oh yeah, I'm gonna have someone from CSO come and then them not come. I understand, they're private employers, you know. Yeah. Anybody else have anything to add about CSO? Co-responds. And did we cover the Rob RFP consultant update under DEI, are we satisfied with that? Update on the police chief search. So there was the letter from August 12th, but that's the letter we already have, right? And I believe that there was something, I don't know if it was in a Gazette article that I read maybe saying that the town manager had decided that it would make sense to extend the length of the search so that some more public forum opportunities could be made. And I believe I read that, but I don't believe I read that any had been scheduled. So I don't know. So when it comes to the police chief search, I think it was apparent to the consultants that they need to do additional community service. And so, I mean, I'm sorry, community outreach. And so they will be having more community outreach opportunities coming up. But nothing in stone yet. Not that I'm aware of, no. Does that mean that the timeline that's outlined in the letter is off in terms of the benchmarks? And when? Because in a motion of... You were breaking up a little bit. Does that mean that the timelines outlined in the letter is off? Or are we still sticking to that timeline in spite of adding more public comments? I mean, I'm just trying to get to the timeline so I can make sure what I'm saying, but I don't know how we can stick to the same timeline if we're gonna extend out and have more public comment. Well, as it was vague, there's like big gaps September to October, October to November. So... I mean, I imagine that it would have to be off because they're saying like the advisory screening committee would be in November and have a finalist selected by the town manager by November and it's mid-October. Yeah. Yeah, no. So I'm assuming the timeline would probably be off. Deborah. All right, yeah. So I guess so you don't know when these next meetings are gonna happen by the consultants in terms of gathering more information from the community? I don't, I don't know if that's been laid out, if that has been discussed exactly yet or not. Because I know that CSWG had asked for a virtual meeting to happen with the consultants and that we were gonna do a lot of the outreach to our constituencies to make sure that they would have an opportunity to talk with the consultants. And we had asked the town manager several times to make that happen. And there's a lot of hee-hawing and nothing occurred. So do you know if one of them is gonna be one that CSWG can do in conjunction with the consultants or how are those gonna roll out? I don't know how they're gonna roll out. I don't think that they're that... I mean, I don't know where they are in scheduling the community sessions yet. I would say that, yes, CSSJC, I would hope would be able to have an opportunity to, or CSWG, CSSJC would have an opportunity to work with the consultants to hold a public forum. Okay, the other thing too, well, that I wanna kind of point out just publicly and everything is that when the consultants were trying to meet with CSSJC, I did want to, and I have talked to Allegra about it, and I think Allegra did kind of communicate with the town manager about seeing if our whole CSSJC, a group could have met with the consultants all together, which would have meant we would have publicized our meeting, right? So that then a community would have heard about our feedback around what we wanted for the town, for the next police chief, and again, delay, delay, delay, and we weren't able to post it. So we had to meet separately, kind of three, and then three, so we couldn't post the meeting to meet with the consultants. So I just wanna put that out there because obviously it would have been much better if CSSJC had been able to meet and post it so that a community can again hear about and know about what's going on, which why wouldn't the town want that, right? Transparency, it's a beautiful thing, but... My first response to that isn't that, I mean, it's tricky, cause I know this is gonna come down to the links and stuff, us posting a meeting, there you, you know, I think it just comes down to us saying like, we're gonna use our link for this meeting, here's the information, and you can be a panelist. And there's just, I know, I'm gonna stop before it gets too difficult, but I just think that there was some administrative stuff that happened behind the last one that seems like there's no, that it can be done straightened with more time moving forward, that it can be done. So may I suggest? Yeah, I just have a couple of other things like, yeah, so I think the other thing too, Jennifer, then it's like, then just communicate with us, right? Just don't respond back, and then you don't know anything about what's happening. And that's what happened in that, we just didn't get a response back. And so then we didn't even know what was going on. And so again, communication, you know, communicate and then we know, then I would have known, okay, while it logistically, it just couldn't be done, we couldn't help or we could, you know, what have you, but communication was not clear. So then it just seems like it's stalling and there's no kind of, you know, kind of good intentions to actually make something like that happen. You see what I'm saying? It can avoid a lot of miscommunication if we knew about those things. Well, no, and I understand that silence does not necessarily make anything better, right? It only leaves more questions. It only leaves more thoughts. It only puts more ideas in people's heads. So I understand that. And as far as I'm concerned, I can do the best that I can to get that information. I mean, I will get this information over to the folks who are scheduling it and I will give this input when it comes to time of schedule. So I broke up for a little bit. I'm not sure if this was covered, but can I renew a request? I'm given the fact that the search has been extended to have more public comments. Can I renew a request for the entire board with the community to have a public meeting with these recruiters, consultants? So if they're still doing community engagement, can we ask for one of those community engagement to be with this board and the community? Yeah, I think that's what we were just discussing. Okay. Yeah. And then two other things to kind of just make clear because in his letter, he is saying that he's gonna be putting together that search committee. And so at the last one, Everill was really kind enough to volunteer to be part of that committee. So I'm hopeful that that's still the case because we haven't heard anything from the talent manager in terms of what's gonna happen in terms of that. So I wanna publicly state again, that we need to make sure that there's someone from CSSJC as part of that search committee. And then I would actually put out there that you should also consider putting someone from CSWG, maybe someone from CSWG might want to take part of that. I'm not 100% about CSWG, but I am someone from the HRC and CSSJC, I believe we'll be sitting on the hiring committee. Okay. I did reach out to Paul and say, Everold has been our chosen candidate to be on the police chief search. And on the 28th of September, he said, I'll send you a slightly more formal request and you can respond, but I haven't received a more formal request yet. So it is, I have given him Everold's name, I have not received the formality yet. So. I mean, I think that now that we're gonna have more community engagement, that piece of it is just gonna be pushed back a little bit. So. Yeah. Yeah, but we just wanna make sure that we're putting it out there and all the steps have been taken because we don't know when it's opportunity. And I'm happy to hear that someone from HRC will also be represented on that committee. And then the other thing that we had asked for was to make sure that when there are like, let's say three finalists, I don't know how many finalists, but whoever the finalists are, that there are some opportunities for them to engage with the community to have at least a virtual forum and in-person forum with these candidates so that a community has an opportunity to engage with them, ask them questions, hear their responses before any decisions are made. Because in that timeline that I read, there wasn't any opportunity for that at all. And so hopefully that will be embedded into the process because that would be critical to have the community have an opportunity to ask questions of these finalists before decisions made. No, that makes sense. I understand. Anybody else have anything to add to the police chief search? All right. The next item on the agenda is the CSSJC retreat, which was something that Pamela had suggested. So I think I might table that for next meeting so that we can talk with her about it unless Jennifer, you and Pamela had talked more about it. I think she just kind of wanted to make sure we were all on the same page with documents and having had read the CSWG reports and leap reports and all that stuff. That was my understanding, but it was not my idea. So I don't know that I can present it as eloquently as she might, but Jennifer, if you have any additional information. I mean, the HRC just had their retreat. And so while they move in, they set priorities for the year and kind of talked about their, they have a different, they have a bylaw that's a little, that runs different than the charge of yours. They have a charge, but they're also part of the bylaw. So there's retreat was a little bit different than what yours I would assume would be, but a lot of it was working together and setting priorities. And so I might say that yours, I would say that a retreat would not be necessarily, that retreat would be a good thing, but I would wait for Pamela to come to get more details about what that might look like. Okay. So I'm gonna table that. I have a question about that. So I guess for me, yeah, I would want more information in terms of what that means, but right now it's just like, we have so many things that come on the burner, right? In terms of our time and commitment. For me, this is my opinion, it's just like, we have a lot of that information already on the website, so it'd be best to just kind of like, read the information. And then if there's any questions, then to ask us about it, just because I know we're trying to do two live forms, trying to meet with the consultants, we wanna meet with the scrums, we wanna meet with this interim leadership, Crest leadership group. Those are very pressing issues, and then to put in a retreat in the middle of it all. I mean, I don't think there was this designated time for the retreat. And also, I would say furthermore, really honestly, the retreat agenda is what you guys want that to be. So not only is there not a designated time for it, like you guys can have your retreat in next May, but also what happens in that retreat is from you, because when we did the HRC retreat, that was what they wanted to see happen for their group. So I would have to assume that it would mimic the same for the CSSJC. So I think if we revisit this next month with Pamela here, and maybe we'll have better ideas of priorities, because there is a lot on the horizon. Although I will say we did very well-picking times and dates expediently tonight. That was exciting. Youth empowerment, that was covered. Translation services. So I know that Isabella had expressed interest in this being an agenda item she had to drop off. I do think it's important that we keep this on our agenda though, because I do think it is important. And I think especially with outreach coming up for things like the visioning sessions and for our own forums, it does seem like engaging with translation would be important. Jennifer, am I right in thinking there was some money set aside in the budget this year for translation services? And if so, what that actually means? So there's still the earmark from Mindy Dom, still has money, there's still money there. And I think there was some, I don't know what that actual dollar amount is, but is there something in particular that you're thinking about having translated or just like public meetings in general or? I mean, I think it would be helpful for our forums to have that as an option. And so I mean, I can just share that when we did the listening session for affordable housing back in June, I think that we had a Spanish interpreter, Portuguese interpreter and a Mandarin interpreter. And we had them for two hours and they brought headsets for everybody that might be needing them. And I think the price tag for that was around 2,500 to have those three people available for the two hour period of time because they had to have two interpreters to switch off. And I can't remember exactly how much it was to have flyers translated. It was, I think a certain percent, there are a certain like sense per word. So I think having the flyers translated into the three languages was maybe a couple hundred dollars. And so I think, I mean, my take on it is it's important to have those things in place for the outreach and then at the event itself. But to pay somebody to do it is important too and it costs money. I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with people in the community translating but it's also like that takes away from their experience of actually being at the event. So they should not be, they should be compensated. People should be compensated because that's work. So I know that those, did you connect with those translators? So we can talk about it like, I mean, we can talk about it now if it pieces to everyone but I just wanna make sure that we have, I'm not a hundred percent sure because we didn't end up using them in the way that we thought we might need to. So I wanna make sure that we, the way that the meeting flows works with the way that the translation is happening if that makes sense, right? And so because I've been at meetings where there's been translation but it's word for word at the same time. And so it delays the meeting and just so that we're moving forward and the money is there for translation services if needed. The money is there for your childcare services if needed. So those things are able to happen. But we should talk because I don't have a full understanding of how that works. I don't think I realize that they had headsets there with them either. Deborah. I have the same questions that you're having Allegra. So for our sessions that we're gonna be putting on, we need to talk through that because if there's a way to have translation services present like what Allegra was talking about especially for the in-person or some way to do it through Zoom, I'm not sure how but if there is then we should be able to figure that out because then that's another thing that we could put on the flyer, right? Have the flyer translated but also put them on the fly so that others can feel like they can attend because a lot of times since there's no translation there it deters a lot of people from coming, people that English is not their first language. So I think if we're able to kind of figure this out and I'd be more than happy to join on a meeting to try to figure out how we can make it accessible to folks, right? Because I think we need to end in also for our in-person if we need childcare, to have childcare there and things like that, let's make that happen. If there's budget for it, let's use it so that we can... Yeah, and people need to be compensated because that's difficult, it's difficult to translate different languages during a meeting. So let's figure it out. Nothing easy can be done just quickly, we have to figure it out. And so I guess it is part of a larger conversation though about how to move the town forward to be inclusive in all of its meetings that it can have because I know it's, I don't, but so I've been on a Zoom where like you can enter into a different channel, so you're still in the meeting but it's being translated and I don't think that the town Zoom has that capability. But I think these are things that I'd like to see more movement on and hopefully if it were available to people, they would feel more included and more able to come and then more able to voice their concerns in a meeting or at their praise or whatever, just that they could participate in. So I guess that's what I'm saying, Allegra. I mean, obviously we, and we've said this ad nauseam that we would like the town to utilize translation services and make sure that that's happening for the meeting. What I'm saying is that why don't we use ourselves as an example, you know what I'm saying? And our meetings, let's start with us. Let's keep it really small because, whenever we make these proclamations, yes, the town should this and this and this. We always say it and it goes in one ear out the other and then God knows when they're gonna do it. So my thing is, let's start with us. And like I said, I'm willing to jump on a meeting, maybe Allegra, if you're able, because you've seen it in action. Maybe me and you can meet with, I don't know who Jennifer, but like let's meet with somebody to figure out translation services for our forums that are coming up, for instance, right? And when we meet with the consultants to share our feedback for the police, let's make sure that that's translatable too. You know, so let's start with those three meetings. How can we make that happen? Let's jump on a call with, I don't know who, you tell us Jennifer and then let's figure this out. Yeah, and we did have translation services for the in-person two events that were at the Baying Center with the consultants. So we had translation services there as well. Let's hear. And we did offer childcare. So I would say again, the hardest part about that is getting deep into the community so that it's not, I love the folks who participate in local government, but so it's not the same, only the same folks so that there are different folks there. I think that's the, from my perspective, that's the harder piece because I know that we can have the translation services will probably be me, you, Asa, and perhaps Pamela that discussed that, I'm not quite sure. But I know that that piece can happen. It's always the community engagement, right? Because it has to be multifaceted and it has to, I've been doing it now for like three years and there's still a section of people who I was surprised didn't know Cress existed after all of the talk that Cress has had. So you really have, we have to really get deep into the community. I mean, that's the hardest part. Like what can we do? Like in terms of Allegra and I meeting, it's with someone to talk about the translation services for our forums. Yeah, when I talk to Pamela tomorrow, then I will be able to tell you a little bit more. Okay, so you'll be telling me. I said that you would, it would probably be me, Asa, and Pamela, if not, or one of us or all three of us would be my thought. Okay, all right, yeah. Cause I just missed that. I wasn't clear. That's what I was asking about. Okay, great, that would be awesome. I think you're absolutely right, Deborah. If we can start to continue to set the example, then hopefully it can catch on. And I also agree with what Jennifer said is that the outreach is key and making sure that stakeholders are being reached that would actually use the services. So making sure that we have people that can looking at our groups of allies to see, is there anybody who speaks this particular language that could spread to their network, this flyer? And then where else are we going with them? Are we going to the apartment complexes? Are we going to bus stops? Are we going to restaurants that put things up on the wall? Where are we going? I think that with the police chief search and with the forums around Crest, I think it does need to be a little bit more of a boots on the ground effort as well to get people out. It can't just be like posting something on social media. I think it has to go beyond that. I mean, I think the schools are a good place to start with that. And they do have the translation and there are others. I would like to respond to you and Jennifer about that. I mean, for me, I haven't really outreach to a lot of folks that are multilingual and everything because I just didn't think that was offered. You know what I'm saying? So if I know for sure that there's a way to make it so that people are able, the translators are there. What are the languages, right? We're very clear. We're posting it. We're posting it in different languages for the flyers. Then I'm willing to go to my networks, you know what I'm saying? And talk to the leaders in all these different communities to have them outreach to folks in those communities. But I'm not gonna do it with the same old same old. You know what I'm saying? No one's gonna come to that. And I'm not putting my name out there for that. You see what I'm saying? That's my reputation and my word that's on the line. I'm only gonna do that if I know what we're offering. We have to be very clear about what we're offering and that we can actually do what we're saying we're gonna do. If we're gonna be able to do that, then yes, I'll do that. I'm sure a bunch of other folks in the community would be willing to do it. But we gotta make sure that we come through with what we're saying we're gonna do. So that's what I'm saying. We gotta set that up first and then network. Cause as of right now, yeah, me up until this point, I haven't because one I haven't even known. I didn't even know Jennifer, you all had translation services for the consultants. So that's the other thing. I didn't even know that. So we gotta get the word out, people gotta know. So if I know what we have, then I'm willing to put the word out. Does anyone have anything to add about translation services? So that concludes the agenda portion of our meeting. So we are open back up for public comment for the second time. If you would like to make a public comment, please use the raise hand function. Oh, look, there's two hands. I will start, oh three, I will start with Michael. Am I audible? Yes, you are. Hi, this is Michael Hussin. I'm actually an outside agitator here, or not agitator, listener and adopter. I'm up in Pelham, part of the public safety working group up here, been trying to adopt and follow what you all are doing down in Amherst. And it's great that you are here. Thank you so much for your hard work and your continued hard work, especially in these difficult stretch that you seem to be in. But we've learned a lot. We've had meetings up here with Earl, with the LEAP program that we've offered our community and have had many discussions with both Earl and with our chief and with our town select board. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know we're here and we're following this and wanting to connect more to see if there's can be some relationship and develop something maybe with you, maybe parallel, I'm not sure. But listening to this conversation, especially about the corresponders issue, I just wanted to pass on to you when you're investigating this issue about the corresponders and the difference between that and the Crest program. I was on a very good workshop just a month or two ago out of Amherst where the clinician with that's riding with the police gave a community talk and elaborated in detail what he at that time was doing with the Amherst police, how it worked, how it went out to calls. I don't even know how I found this and I've been looking for it to see but it was very informative and I'm sure if you ask the police or the town, somebody will know where that video is. It's only a month or two old that really goes into quite detail. And the main difference between corresponders and the Crest program is the corresponders are assigned a policeman during their shift and they ride with that police officer to calls. And it seems what the police get out of it is they get an education about what are mental health problems that they're going to. And then they decide when they go to a call who's going in first. But at any rate, I just wanna let you know that and that there's an organization called Vera, V-E-R-A that actually has a great discussion on this difference, the pros and cons and the problems with that kind of embedded corresponder. V-E-R-A.org, what happens when we use mental health professionals with the police embedded with the police. It lays out the arguments quite well. So I just wanted to share that with you. And again, but you know, we're up here. Thank you very much. I look forward to more connection. Thank you so much. Let's go forward. Thank you. It's nice to know that our neighbors are on the same path that we've been on. So thank you for joining us. All right, I see Pat. Hello again. Can people hear me? Yes. Thank you all for a very productive meeting. I just have a couple of issues to touch upon. I'll be very quick. I know it's been a long meeting for you guys. First, I want to congratulate Deb and Allegra again for being elected as co-chairs. You guys made a good decision. I also want to thank Jennifer for running such a good meeting tonight. And nice to meet Esa. I wish you a meaningful experience while you're looking to youth empowerment center issues. Thank you. So Deb, thank you for raising your observation and concern around our time manager that tried to intimidate and silence me just for due to the fact that I called out the building commissioner, a power holder in our town that discriminated against Hazel's owners that delayed their opening for eight months while Drake, a white-owned entity, was allowed to open with that permanent ramp. And so trying to silence me isn't going to work because I'm not afraid of anyone in this town. Black BBA will continue to call out building commissioner to resign due to racism and discrimination. That's not going to stop. In terms of Dr. Dimitria Shabazz Memorial is going to be at the Unitarian University. Universities, whatever, from 5.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. on October 26th. So downtown, our men are not pleasant. It's open to the public, missing her so much. I want to mention very quickly my concern around three BIPOC Crest Responders no longer working, only down to five. I worry about low morale. Why are we losing BIPOC employees in our town and retaining white employees mostly? It's a bigger question we need to be asking. Why are we losing people of color working for our town? The next thing is I know that when CSWG which I was part of, when we recommended Crest Program, I can see how mental health is part of social services work. They do overlap. However, when the Crest actually was implemented, I remember CSSJC, myself in particular, speaking against MOU that was signed by Crest and the school district to work together. I don't think it's what we wanted, transporting students, whether or not they are immigrants or not. That is funding for public education is the school district responsibility to make sure that students is free education. So it doesn't matter whether kids are homeless or they're in the shelter or they just arrived, it is school responsibility to provide transportation. When I heard that Crest was doing it, again, that's not why Crest was created. I'm sorry to say that. So I just want to put that out. I want to also, I'm going very fast. I'm almost done. Sorry. I want to thank Jennifer, Barbara Love, all the people who have participated in the visioning trainer of trainers. I'm very excited to see how this goes. I pray that we have unity and peace. I pray that we have unity and peace in our town because a lot of people are really hurting from injustice in our town. So we'll see how this goes. And finally is the controversy around Correspondo. The fact that this is the first time we're here, I raised it at the last town council meeting public comment. The fact that CSS, CSWG was not informed of this Correspondo, at least I wasn't aware, 2020 when I joined CSSWG group, that we have something like Correspondo with the police department. I just want to remind us all that the DPH funding that Crest got, part of the mandate was that Crest has to collaborate with a mental health organization. CSWG was able to recommend mental health organization in Springfield that is run by BIPOC. The white establishment in our town didn't want that. They let them go. And I understand that Crest collaborated with CSO. CS, yeah, group. So my point is, Crest already have relationship with CSO. And why can the Correspondo work along with Crest instead of the police? The main purpose of alternative policing with Crest is to make services more accessible to marginalized group in our town. The group that I belong to to have a Correspondo to the police I think changes the whole effort of Crest program. I will hope that you as an entity CSSJC will push back on Correspondo to be attached to the police. They should be working with the Crest. And I stop. Please remember to vote on November 7. Election have consequences. Thank you. Good night. Thank you, Miss Pat. Thank you, Miss Pat. Next we have Paige. Hi, I'm Paige Wilder. I live at 73 Fearing Street, just south of UMass. I just want to express deep appreciation for the hard work you're doing. And especially Deb, I've been banging my head against the walls of town hall for 20 years and it takes so much pushback and it shouldn't. And I'm sorry you have to do that work, but I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Keeps moving in the line. Nadine is next. I think it's because we're both doing it. Yeah. Okay. I'll stop. Hello. My name is Nadine. I'm of Amherst, Massachusetts. First and foremost, I also want to take a moment and thank everyone for all their hard work to make this committee move forward. Pat, I was on that. I just wanted to make a comment to say that Pat, I was not pleased also with what the town manager had said to you, maybe someone has a beef, but you don't put it on public comment. So I missed what Deborah had said, but I'm, I stand behind whatever it is with regards to that, to be able to, there's a time and place for all stuff. And then second, I just want to say this co-responder thing definitely is something that seems like it's coming out of the field. I am back to like wanting to go back to where saying Crest to stay true to its mission. We're at the forefront. I don't want the police and the fire chief part of the leadership of Crest. I want to remind again, I would prefer for the 911 calls to go to Crest. And then lastly, the community work just to get the involved in, get involved with the community with regards to the police final police chief finalists. And, and whoever we ultimately decide, I still say that it should not just be in Paul's hands to make the ultimate decision together with this committee. I do think that a committee can be formed, including different members to come with three police chief finalists. They meet with the community. I do like the idea of it trying to reach out to, to the community. I think that there's going to be, there's going to be translation services together with this community, different kinds of things. I was at the public comment in, at the library and I wasn't even aware that there was translation in the back or the child care. When I look back, I said, oh, maybe that was what was back there. However, that wasn't like clear for me. And again, because I wasn't in translation services. I was in the community. I was in the community. I was in the community. I was the person or the consultant to just remind people in the middle. If anyone needs services as people comes in, that that it's there for them. And that being said, I am done. And thank you again. Thank you. I said I wasn't going to do it. So I'm going to let Jen do it so that I don't undo it. I believe everybody has talked in less. So. Pat. Oh, here. Good afternoon. Have a nice day. Hi, everyone. Thanks again for the discussion. Thank you for giving us this the great conversation with our wonderful woman, Alicia. So. Hi, everyone. I. My name is Alicia Walker, Amherst resident. I am also a town council member, but just here speaking on behalf of myself. I wanted to take a minute to thank you all again, so much for your hard work and persistence. And I am very much in agreement with many of the comments and suggestions that. think you need me all to repeat those things. But I did want to highlight some key priorities and concerns that I have. Um, one of them again being with the resident oversight board and what, what progress is happening there. Um, and then the second with being completely stumped by the CSO co responding position, um, just because in all of the work that we did with the CSWG and gathering information from the PD, it makes no sense to me that this is not something that ever came up in those very expensive conversations and the amount of documentation we received from the PD. This was never anything that was even documented. So that seems very strange to me. And so I would like to know how long this has been a functioning position within the PD and when the resignation actually happened. Um, for them to be advertising this position right now, again, the timing just feels a little bit funky because of what's happening with crests. Um, and so unless that was like a very recent resignation, I do find it concerning that this is the time that they're advertising for that to be happening. Um, and I do understand that we're saying it's not a town position, but that entire thing just, it doesn't make too much sense to me. So I would like some further clarification on that. Um, and to go off of what Miss Pat said more specifically is I would like some more information on what happened with the ADMHA because like Miss Pat said, the CSWG did recommend that there were was a BIPOC led mental health organization that was supposed to work with crests. This is something that is required in the grant that we applied for. And when we applied for the grant, it was included in the grant specifically that we would be working with the ADMHA. Um, it was my understanding that the renovations at the bank center happened so that the ADMHA could set up an office here. And so what happened? Like, why are they not here? Why are they not working with crests? I think that's another place where we're lacking transparency. Nobody even told us why that's not happening. And I think it's still a requirement that crest be working with a mental health agency. And so if that's not happening, it would make perfect sense for the co responder from CSO to go there. Although I do also want to recognize we advise against working with CSO based off of what we heard from community members and their experiences with CSO, which were not positive overall. But I just think we're completely missing the ball here and here in terms of determining what could work best in delivering services to our community at this time. And I do think it's a huge red flag that our BIPOC responders are leaving. And that really is taking down the mission of what crest was supposed to be having a majority of the BIPOC responders be pretty lifelong Amherst residents is also concerning because we wanted people that were connected and aligned with the community. And I think we had that. And so I'm very disappointed to see that they're leaving. And I think it does speak a lot to possibly unhappiness with the leadership team and that that should be addressed. And I would be in favor of an interim director that is not the current leadership team. And I would also be in favor of reinstating the implementation team as it was before. And so while that there were challenges with the implementation team, it had more holistic representation as opposed to just having the police chief, the fire chief, Kat Newman and excuse me Pamela sorry. And so I think like if it was a possibility to reinstate the CSWG members or CSSJC members on the implementation team that that would be critical. And again, I just want to thank you all so much for your work and persistence here and I'm hoping that things will be more transparent and that that will help us move forward because I think one of the biggest roadblocks for us right now in terms of moving forward is the fact that we don't have full transparency. And it's really hard to be making decisions or to be asking for things when we don't have a full picture of what's going on. So I appreciate that you all are still pushing for these things. And thank you for your time. Thank you. I just want to make sure that Paige and Nadine, I don't know if you guys have additional comments, but your hands are still raised. And then Deb, did you want to say something? Your hand is still raised too. Sorry. Um, so let's say our next regularly scheduled meeting, what did I say, was November 8th at 6.30. And so we are hoping that we can have a conversation with CSO or somebody from the police to talk about co-response at that time. Is that that was one of the things that came up as a possible next meeting item? That we had discussed. One of the things that I didn't bring it up because I forgot because with everything is, and I don't know how other people feel about it too, is just asking for a joint meeting with the town council so that we can hear from them and we can talk to them about all these issues that are going on across and also check with them in terms of the other recommendations, CSWG recommendations that have not been put into place. So I'm just curious to know, do you think that that would be better if you waited until after the January when the new council's in, or would you want to pick that up with the current council? Or both? Well, I guess with them though, it's just like we just need to put it out there to see when they can, you know, make it happen. But yeah, current council, if we can get it with the current council, I wouldn't we just go for that, you know? So, Allegra and Deborah, that's usually the joint meeting with the town council, usually that invite comes from the chair. So do one of you want to move that forward? And I will do the one with the leadership team and CSO and the police. So we can talk about that, Grendan. Make them a quest. I think both of us. You know, we said retreat was going to be on the next agenda, obviously, the regular Crest EI updates. Well, this would be to kind of figure that out when it would happen, but meeting with the consultants. When can we meet with the responders? So that doesn't necessarily have to be like a Zoom meeting or anything, but like, because we need to be going there to go visit them at their office. So did we want to have some sort of doodle poll? Is that something that we could do, Jennifer, to do, I think, both for the leadership team meeting, if that's going to be in between our meetings. And then maybe if people wanted to go meet with the responders, trying to do that together. So I'm going to say that I'll send out the doodle poll because I don't want you guys necessarily communicating outside of the meeting, but also that way I know if I need to post a meeting by who's coming and who's not coming. So I can do the doodle poll for the leadership and I can do the doodle poll for the responders. I have to check with leadership about the responders. I don't think it's a problem because in theory, any of you could come anytime and go in and say hello to the responders. So I will take that piece. If you will send out those doodle polls and then again. And I have a list of questions to have answers. And so Deborah or I or both of us will reach out the week prior to our next regularly scheduled meeting with agenda requests again, if nothing else comes up right now. And I think I will my I will try and look into that Vera article because I think that's I've sounded interesting and I can send that out to the group as a piece of information. If you're interested in reading it. And then in terms of the live forums, though, the homework is for us to look at the questions. So if maybe if we can post what we're, you know, which document those questions are in so that then we have it so that then we can select some questions, not only for the survey, but also for the live forums. You wanted to know the page number that it was on. I'm sorry. Yeah, well, just the document itself, because maybe people want to read the document again, you know, I'm saying the document and then yeah, if you have the page number that if folks just want to go directly to page number, that would be great. But I think the name of the document where the document sits or the link link to the document, that'll be great. So in this packet, it's under the leap report. I didn't see it in the in the packet. It went out at like almost six today. So it was like the update packet. So it was yeah, when I when I got it was too late. So I didn't even know it was in there, Jennifer. No, that's so I mean, I put it in when you know, it was sent to me and so I put it in and so it's in there now. It's also on the one on the website. Okay, great. Thank you for letting me know because I yeah, I didn't have a chance to read that I only read the other agenda, you know, so thanks. I think page 30 and page 40 page 40 of the leap report crests portion of the leap report. So that is where the questions were. And so the two documents that I'll put in is I'll put in whatever information I have where I won't say two documents, but I'll put in whatever information that I have regarding the CSO co responder as well as the DEI report. Perfect. And then I'll resend the packet to you and then I will update it on the time website. Great. Thank you. Any other topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance of the meeting? So leg for me and you besides reaching out to the town council, can we also talk about just, you know, what we need to share with Jennifer? I guess we need to talk about translation services for those two forums. And then, you know, what else we will need to share so that we can start advertising those forums. So we are someone who would draft at least a flyer for that out of the group skills. I know I don't I can do it if nobody else is interested in that task. That is not my forte. That'd be great. And yes, so Deborah, I can email you directly. And as we are not the forum, the two of us, we would not be in violation of the commuting law for coordinating up on translation. Where the coaches, if we couldn't talk to each other, we'd be in trouble. Yeah, can you guys just let me know what what happens with that so that I can make the proper arrangements so forth. Thank you. Yep. All right. Well, I think we're done. I think we can adjourn at nine and 17. Great meeting. Thank you for everyone's input. This is awesome. Thank you, everybody. Good night, everyone. Yes, good night. It's great to meet you all. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.