 Welcome, everybody. My name is Bill Fraser. I'm the city manager here in Montpelier. And I'm joined today by police chief Brian Pete and community justice center director Carol plant and social worker Susan La Mary, right? Is that right? Let me hear. Let me hear. Okay, sorry. An assistant city manager camera and need a here as well. And some of you. So, oh, and Aaron Anderson is here from our community justice center as well. Great. So our goals today we had three topics we wanted to give people the opportunity to talk about. The first thing was just to talk about what did or didn't happen recently at the state house. We all know we've had we had word that there might be some bad dealings and fortunately none of that happened. But I think it still was concerning to people that we could have been a target of that kind of sort of activity. Secondly is to talk about resiliency in the community, the kind of resources people can have as they reach out and deal with some of the stressful situations we have and then finally to talk about processes and healing how we as a community can learn, you know, learn or improve our conversations with one another. And we'll wrap up. We've set a maximum of an hour and a half for this conversation. Obviously, we don't need to use it all if not necessary, if necessary, but we certainly want don't want to cut people short. I'll just start by saying it's been a very stressful year for all of us. It's, you know, coming out in March, we were all shut down for COVID and have seen our lives change drastically. The way we do business, the way we work, the way we interact with ourselves, our families, our friends and hit, you know, the way government works, the way businesses work. So that in and of itself has been stressful. And then on the national scene, there's been a lot of stress and some really horrible things we've seen come out over the summer and fall. There's some very racist activities, very nasty interactions. We saw some activities happen here in Montpelier with sort of more anger than we've seen in the past. And then coming into this winter, of course, we had an election that spawned very high feelings, including then the lingering post feelings when it appeared at least some people weren't going to accept the results of the election. And that culminated with the shocking events of January 6 where we saw people actually attacking the United States Capitol seeking to overturn a U.S. election, something I think most of us never thought we would see. That led to the word that state capitals and the U.S. Capitol were going to be descended upon with armed folks on January 17 and or January 20th, inauguration day or some in between, any time in between. And that was that information was spread around the country. So as a result, those of us in Montpelier and state government prepared for the worst at our state house. And it led to the unsettling sight of our state police officers walking around in kind of military style garb. It's not something we're used to seeing here in Montpelier. It's not something that most of us want to see in our peaceful small town. And as I said, fortunately, we didn't have that kind of altercation. Most capitals did not. And we hope that that has passed. But, you know, we can't be sure whether something might come in the future. So again, today's an opportunity to answer questions, discuss what did and didn't happen, what kind of preparations, what kind of communications, what people liked and didn't like, and to answer whatever questions we can. To talk about what resources might be available for people who are feeling overwhelmed or stressed by all that's going on. And to talk about how we can process and heal as community members with through these tense times. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Brian Pete for the first section to talk specifically about the events on over in January at the state house. For those of you who have not met Police Chief Brian Pete, he started with this on July 1st and brings wealth of knowledge from various places around the country. We've been very fortunate to have him and is very committed to community outreach and these types of events. So with no further ado, I'll turn it over to Chief Pete. Thank you, sir. Thank you for the opportunity and good afternoon or good evening to everyone. It's echoing what our city manager said that it was a very high stressful situation I think for all of us. And from what I've learned about being here in Montpelier that we pride ourselves in the ability to be able to express our opinions and to discuss things freely. This was particularly a difficult situation I think and very stressful for everyone is evidenced by folks calling in to us, emailing us, stopping us coming by the station and telling us about their anxiety. So we're here for service for the community. So I just want to make sure that the folks know that our department is committed to that. One of the other concerns, rightfully even one for my own, is law enforcement and how law enforcement makes sure that it stays impartial, that we enforce the laws and especially people's rights for assembly and free speech and moving forward and protect them through that as best as we possibly can. So like many other people, I was disturbed and bothered by any investigations or allegations that law enforcement members were involved in any of the insurrection events that happened at the state capitol. And I can tell you as the public that no members of the Montpelier police department were there. And we're not aware of any involvement in that with our officers. And we also have standing policies in place, duties to intervene and to report things that we see that are not conducive to what our values are and to what our profession needs to be. So but again, what happened was a few weeks back is the FBI released information saying that there were reports online of groups of individuals that were calling for armed events at all the state capitals throughout the United States. Of course, Montpelier was also specifically listed in there. So we coordinated with the Vermont State Police, with the Capitol Police, with the Judicial Security, Building Grounds and Services, the FBI, the Sheriff's Department of Washington County, Washington County State Attorney's Office, and just a whole host of other agencies to try to figure out or to work on an operations plan that will provide safety and security for not only the statehouse capitol complex but for downtown Montpelier and especially for the neighborhoods in the area. So we were, again, working on that ops planning and that planning again involved looking at statewide resources, asking other agencies if they could assist us with manpower. So that's probably, that's the reason why folks may have seen marked units from places like Newport or Shelburne or even Burlington and very good kudos to them because they understood what our community was feeling. And again, with Burlington, with the manning issues that they're dealing with, they were able to send four officers, two on each day on the 17th and on the 20th to come down to help us. So our officers were very familiar with what it is we needed to do. They understood their unique relationship that Montpelier Police Department has with its community, that we're extremely service oriented. And I believe that the interactions that they've had with folks that are out there in the community should be a reflection on that. But we had no specific information of targeted threats to elected or appointed officials to the Capitol itself. But again, because of what we had saw in the nation's Capitol and because of the information reported to us about what was being said in the social media areas, we took this potential threat extremely seriously, which is why we had a more aggressive appearance on the 17th and on the 20th. So fortunately, on the 17th and on the 20th, there were no incidences of significance to report. There were no arrests, no citations that were given throughout that time. But going forward, what does that mean? Well, we're trying to figure that out as well. And we're still seeing and still being told about folks who are online who are still, as Bill Frazier had mentioned, still upset with the outcome of the election and looking at ways to voice their opinions and their concerns. But then there are also some fringe element groups that are still making some unspecified threats. So going forward, the Montpelier Police Department will make sure that we continue to work with our partners and get this information that we may need and get the information, especially out to the community, members of the community, so that everyone knows what we're doing at all times. We don't believe in trying to hoard information because we're servants and we're guardians of the community. So we want to make sure that we have a very strong relationship with our community members, with our organizational groups, and only together can we stop something before it potentially happens. And I again want to add to that that we don't have any specific or credible threats to the city, to the capital, or to any officials. Then we don't have them at this time, but we still want to make sure we have our due diligence and maintaining the safety and security for our city. Thanks, Brian. If I may, I meant to mention this before you started, but a couple of housekeeping. I think most people are getting Zoom savvy these days, but if you could keep your mute on, if when you're not speaking, if you'd like to ask a question or speak, I think most people know now you go to little reactions and there's a raise your hand and you'll see the little hand popped up on mine. And Cameron Niedermeyer will keep track of those and keep an order so that we can call on people. And lastly, I would ask that we keep the dialogue here amongst us, not aside conversations in the chat. I've been in some meetings where there's two or three meetings going on and people debating a point in chat. So the point here is to have a forum. Let's think of this as if we were in an open room having this conversation and not having the chat function going on. So those are my three requests. Having said that, the Chief obviously offered some remarks. We're happy to listen to any comments or answer any questions that people might have. Okay then. Going once. Mr. Stone. And Cameron, can you do this part? Thanks. Hi, I'm Jacob Stone. I've lived in Montpelier for about six years and I've been a volunteer at the Community Justice Center for that same period of time. A question for Chief Pete. First, I want to say I really appreciate the way you handled that situation on Norguration Day. I was glad to see that things stayed calm. A question, though. The folks who may have been threatening the violence, do we know who they are? Are we in contact with them? Or are they some enigmatic group that we only know on the internet? What sort of contact might we have with them? That's a very good question, sir. And thank you very much for the opportunity to answer it. So we, again, I believe in maximum information, minimal delay as best as possible. Before I answer that, I just want to, before I forgot, say that within the next day or so, the Montpelier Police Department is going to put out there an after-action report. In that after-action report, it'll specify some of the things that we've done for the planning as well as what we plan to do going forward. So again, we want to make sure that our community knows what we're doing, and it's going to recognize the strengths and some of the challenges that we had in planning for these events on the 17th and the 20th. So specifically, for the answer to your question, we were looking at national trends and national threats. So there were some states that had more specific or specified threats than others. Again, Montpelier did not see that. However, we were looking for anything that was specific to the state itself. So as we're working with federal partners and with the Vermont Intelligence Center, which is run by the Vermont State Police, we're looking for nexuses that are related to the state or anything that may come into the state for those specific issues. So we don't have specialized or the specified people that have made any threats to the state of Vermont, but we want to make sure that we're not trampling on folks' rights to have whatever dialogues or whatever opinions that they may have just so long as they don't become into a gray area that it's potentially dangerous to our capital, to our community, and to our elected and appointed officials. Thank you. I'm sorry, we had Barbara Burnett. I couldn't hear. I couldn't hear. First up, I would like to thank the police and everyone for the great job you did in getting information out to the community by Facebook, by the front porch forum, which is best. And I think you got, it was really something I could print out and get put in my apartment building because there's a lot of people that don't have computer access and they didn't know what was going on. So I really appreciate that. And I know that there have been a couple of rallies in the past from some people that were definitely supporting the ex-president earlier while he was still the president and that those kind of got a little rowdy. And so I think those were the things that the rest of us that I was concerned about in particular because I take this quite seriously, especially what happened at the Capitol on the 6th. And I appreciate your taking it with that seriousness as well. Thank you. All right. Chief, you have a question in the chat. Tom stated the MPT, oh words, MPT doesn't have resources to spend time monitoring the internet or social media. What support does the state or federal government provide on these topics? Yes, ma'am. So basically, yeah, that is true. We don't necessarily have the resources to spend a lot of time, which is one of the reasons why we want to make sure that we rebuild the trust within our community for see something say something campaign. We are aware that ever since, as we've all been going through this within our community, that we've received a significant amount or the state police and the FBI have received a significant amount of more tips from the community that they're working to piece together right now. So I'm extraordinarily grateful. We're extraordinarily grateful as a department for that. But the support that we do get is with the Vermont Intelligence Center and with the FBI and in other areas, specifically the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is a group of FBI agents, other federal agencies and some local regional law enforcement partners who are working together on domestic violence groups, militia, violent extremist groups to those effects and they're doing their best to monitor those situations. We have one officer who's been assigned to the state's Narcotics Joint Regional Task Force team. He has specific information or nexus to the state, as well as the relationship that we have with the Vermont Intelligence Center and the FBI and the JTTF. And then we also have another officer who is assigned and part of a federal task force with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. So we have many different avenues and ways and very tight relations, working relationships and friendships with intelligence partners that if they see something, they're definitely going to let us know. And in turn, we're going to make sure we communicate those concerns or those issues up through our chain of command, all the way up to the city council, as well as share that with the general public. Chief got talking there, got excited. JTTF is the Joint Terrorism Task Force that's run by the FBI, just in case anyone wondered. We had another beginning of a question. Josh and Delice Dallas, I'm sorry, you have a question if you want to just speak up. It just begins as a concern. Oh, okay. I think Chief, they would like you to talk about the incident between the, or anyway, they're saying they want to know why no charges were filed against adults pushing young men. I'm not sure. It's okay, they're having bad service. So I'm sorry, that's a little piecemeal because I'm trying to read something piecemeal. So they might be asking about the incident at the state house a couple weeks ago. If you don't mind speaking on that. Yes, ma'am. So in early December, there was an incident where there were some folks who were who had gathered at the state house in support of the former president. Then there was an involvement with some other folks, some young people who had come to the state house brown. What we did was we were not on scene when the incident occurred. When the calls came in, we came in, asked folks, they needed medical assistance, medical help, and then we tried our best to ascertain what happened. And we're impartial when we do this. So we gathered the information based on witnesses based on what folks had told us at the time, brought it together, and then handed it over to the state's attorney's office. At that particular point in time, the Montpelier police department does not approve charges to arrest anyone. In this particular case, we conducted the investigation, turned the information over to the state's attorney's office. And with most cases like this, there's a restorative justice element that we try to work through for these types of situations. So this is a case that's at the state attorney's level at this particular point in time, and not with the Montpelier police department. And when Carol Plant comes to her term, I'm sure she'll be happy to explain how the restorative justice system works. And I believe if they are not, they will be the documents in affidavits related to that case will be posted so people can read the various statements. I see a Meredith Warner with a hand up and then Mary Malaney. Yes, thank you. Just a follow-up, Chief Pete, on what happened in early December. There were just definitely some discrepancies between the statements that were in the VT Digger article that I'm sure you read, and the police report that we saw, particularly around police being or not being there. And I think a lot of concerns from the public that if police were there, that support wasn't provided to the young person who was being kind of surrounded by these folks. And I'd love for you to speak a little bit to those discrepancies, because I think they've been really unsettling for a lot of folks in the community. Definitely. So I believe that in my conversation with the VT Digger, that a majority of the things that I said were taken out to a different context. I don't know why I can't respond to any how it happened, but I can tell you that it did happen. What I was trying to explain to the VT Digger regarding what our policies are when we're at the state house and folks are exercising their the rights of free speech and assembly, that we try to take a standoff approach, how we got bumped up to something that the Montpiler Police Department stood by and watched this. I don't know how that happened, but it did, and it was printed out to that way. So all I can tell you is that we were not on scene when that incident unfolded. We were called to that scene when officers came to the scene. They did their best to make sure folks were separated. But I think at that particular point in time, they were separated. There were some skirmishes that had popped up afterwards in our presence. We mitigated those, tried to keep folks separate as we were trying to ascertain what exactly happened. I think Meredith raised the question that I was going to ask. I noticed the discrepancy in the accounts of police being there, not being there, and whatever. But I find myself having a strong reaction to that incident in that it did involve adults and the person that was, she wasn't injured, but it was a 15-year-old girl. And I have difficulty with the fact that to me the adults need to be held to a higher standard. Anyway, but I think the question has been addressed. So thank you. Carol, do you mind making note of that and sort of circle back to address that when we start talking about the restorative process? Thank you. I didn't know, Bill, if you wanted to intersperse that or have a response. I just would say again that if it's not already all the sort of affidavits and documents and statements from different people involved are or will be posted so that Barry or others are welcome to read through all of it. I think there's a lot of conflicting versions and I'm sure everyone feels that what they believe is correct and I get that because it can be confusing. But if you read it and put yourself in the position of someone trying to investigate that, you might find that it's, you know, not having been on the scene to witness it themselves, it's a difficult situation. But certainly in general, yes, by all means, if adults are attacking a young person, they should certainly be held by IRC and I don't think there's any question about that. There's a long sort of question in the chat from Tim favorite. Tim, do you want to pose that question? Would you like it read? I can read it if that's helpful. Yeah. So first of all, I appreciate all of you holding this discussion. This is good to hear. I'm glad to hear that no officers were involved in the Capitol insurrection a few weeks ago. But if that hadn't been the case, or if somebody in the department were involved in a situation that might be at odds with the department's commitment and neutrality, what kind of consequences would they have faced if you're at liberty to say? Well, so I'll preference that with, again, when I first came to Montpelier, I quickly learned of the culture of this department. And I think that's a testament to our style of government, to our elected officials, to our city manager, and especially to our department and its supervision, that we are geared towards community service and we're geared towards transparency and we're geared towards doing our best to earn the trust of our community. That being said, so there are several different administrative things that would have to be addressed for once. There's an administrative policy that if folks are going to go outside of the state, they need to let us know so we can track that, especially due to COVID-19 concerns. Assistant City Manager Anita Meyer may be able to expound upon that one as well. But one of the things that we look at for our department is just the ability to do your job and what your understanding of your obligations are, of what your understanding of your oath is. And our job is not to make law. Our job is to do what our responsibilities are, to make sure that we protect our folks as best as we can and that our allegiance is to the Constitution and to the state laws of Vermont. So that would be something that would not be tolerated within the Montpelier Police Department. But at the same time, I also do want to make sure that I pay homage to the men and women of the department, because I honestly think that that's something that they themselves would not tolerate either. Thank you. I also note that in the chat, for those that can get it, the link to the information about the December incident has been posted. And sir, if I may, we did put in the service, take a request, because we're going to do some additional redactions to that. So it has since been taken down to the only thing that's on there right now of the footage. And we're in the process of working again on those redactions and then reposting. Thanks. I spoke too soon. Any other questions in this portion about, obviously, we're talking a little bit about the December incident, the January incidents, any, any of this part? Really appreciate people's questions and concerns. So if it would help, I could share a little bit about State Attorney Tivo's response to us with regard to the referral to the Justice Center. That might be helpful for some people to understand some of his thinking around that. Yep. Why don't you do that? Can you just hold on? Yes. We have a hand from Meredith Warner. Thanks for allowing me to add a little more to my first question. It's a little bit harder to thread. I'm kind of thinking about the incident that happened at our state house on the fifth where we had pro Trump supporters. And I did read the report before it was taken down to be redacted using a lot of language about this young person being a BLM or referring to Black Lives Matter using a lot of language of her being in the video. She's called an operative. A lot of language that I think we saw really commonly used among the same kinds of people who then a month later were at the nation's capital. And I think it's also become really clear in the kind of public and national narrative that so many of those folks that stormed the capital in Washington on the sixth are affiliated with white nationalist groups. And I'd love to hear a little bit about what do we know about what's going on with white nationalism here in central Montpelier? What is the relationship of that group to the Trump supporters and the way that they spoke about this young person, the language they use? You know, I draw connections between these two events and I'd love to hear from the chief about any of that that he's noticed and speak to that if he would. Just yes, thank you. And before we hand that over to Chief, I'd just like to offer a comment on that too. You know, I've heard some of this. I read that in those reports and there was an event I think in the fall. People had organized for a blue lives matter, you know, pro police event, again, not involving us and a group of counterpersons to show up. And I stood in front of some of the most horrific things I've ever seen in my life, some of the language being used and racist language. And it was it was horrible and I couldn't imagine it happening here in Montpelier. So I certainly understand your feelings, Meredith. And one of the challenges I know for our police department and for us as a government is how do we protect the rights of all to express their opinions and safely and to deal with the potential threats from folks who might seek to be injurious to either small group of people or to our government institutions to or to any of us. So you are your fear and concern is not alone. And I specifically want to say it for myself because I'm not a police officer. I'm a civilian too. I have, you know, I raised a family in this community. And it's scary what we're seeing and hearing. So I appreciate your feelings, but specifically to the question about what we're seeing about white nationalism and links, Chief, could you address that? Yes, sir. So with that, again, we have partners that are that are working on just trying to try to keep an eye on any potential concerns or issues that may be within a state or that they may be drawn to the state. One of the biggest concerns that I personally have are, again, when when folks are gathering to express their their second amendment rights and their rights to free stimuli and speech, what type of element that brings out. And that's one of the things that keeps me up at night every night, because this is a place that everyone comes to talk about their opinions and talk about how they feel and and talk about what they want in their government and what they want, how they wanted their government to represent them. So so that is that is a concern of ours is just to do everything that we can to work with all the partners that we can to to ensure the safety of our community as these things go forward. I don't know if I could speak to any connections between white nationalism and folks of one political spectrum or not. But my hope is that as we move forward that we work on on that healing part that that folks, all of us realize that the words and that the labels and the categories that we use can sometimes be divisive and not help a situation. So my hope is that that we all figure out different ways that we can can we can speak to one another and that we can work through the issues that we have. So before we go to Carol to talk about so we've been about a half an hour on this and we do have two other sections we wanted to get to but I don't want to leave this off. There is a post from Olivia's iPhone. I think she's the mom of the girl that was involved. Olivia would you like to speak? Would you like me to read your comments? Yeah, hi. Sorry. Sorry about that. I just if I if I could get a little clarity around so my daughter was was the child that was at the state house and went to counter protest as everyone is aware and knows about but the part that's very unclear is my daughter was surrounded by the protesters and and pushed and all that is true and she tried to call the police and her phone was taken from her by the by the the Trump supporters and then it was retrieved again and when she called the police she was told and this is when she's still surrounded by the Trump supporters she was told that there was officers on the scene. Now that may mean that they were on their way but she was told that they were there and that's why I'm also concerned about this were they still observing or were there or did she notice that maybe it was the security guards that maybe were at the state house but she definitely saw people in uniform on the outskirts and perhaps it was like I said security and maybe the police were on their way but it's a little unsure maybe you can't talk about that I don't know but I just wanted to throw that out there and thank you. No thank you ma'am and that's that's a very fair question and first and foremost I can I want to let you know that as a parent I share your concerns I just as a human being I share your concern and yeah I'm I'm I'm disturbed by by how that all went down so it kind of discourages me of the direction where I think that we're all going and I want to do our best to bring that to take that away and bring back some more positivity into what's going on but I from what what our officers responded to the scene when they got to the scene they had noticed they as they had indicated in the reporting that they that the groups were head up had already been separated so I don't know if there were bgs security folks who were there I don't know if capital police officers were there on on scene I don't know but I know that when my peeler police department showed up that the incident had already they both groups have been separated and when it tried when it almost sparked back up again officers intervene and then they because some of the officers had left the scene and then the supervisors called them back to to try to again to continue to work on de-escalation thank you thank you thank you chief so unless there's anybody else I'd like to wrap up this section Carol could you perhaps give us a brief summary of the state's attorney's recommendation and very quickly about restorative practice and then I think we'd like to move into the resiliency section with Susan and talking about resources that are available for people if they are feeling stressed about these types of situations thanks Bill so so when we got the referral from the state's attorney he wanted to be clear about and responded to someone's request about why the case was referred to restorative justice and his his thinking is that he really wants cases to be resolved at the lowest level of disposition and in this case he he makes those decisions based on you know he first he looks at at the available evidence and so he does an assessment of the evidence and he indicated to us that you know where sometimes where the the evidence is ambiguous or might be contradictory it makes it it makes it more difficult to to you know make a clear case for prosecuting something but in his mind again under the circumstances he felt like this really was a good opportunity for for the participants to use a restorative process and in our restorative process the focus really is on gaining a better understanding of the harm so so this would be an opportunity to talk about you know from from different perspectives the person who is responsible as well as the person who's been impacted you know what how they were affected by what happened and the benefit to that is that each person comes away with a clear understanding of how their actions and decisions might have affected or or contributed to the situation that happened so so you know generally that's the philosophy of our state's attorney and he also indicated that you know there are other events that happened at the state house one was around the poor people's campaign he also indicated that some climate justice events that happened where there might have been some escalation or some other civil disobedience you know his his he wants to send the cases in that in the direction of restorative justice because again the benefit of people having developing a greater understanding of how their decisions and actions affect others so that was basically his reasoning for sending it to restorative justice and I will say that you know in situations like this where there are these deep-seated and opinions about you know one political party or the other and you know it's no secret I think to all of us that these divisions have been deepened over the last four years and have been really fomented by the the past president so you know when we're in a situation like that and it's very emotional also it makes it hard for us to listen to each other it makes it hard for us to be accepting and want to try to understand the perspective of the other person or the other side so you know it's a that was an incredibly adversarial situation and in this case being able to bring it to a place where they're you know in a restorative process we're going to be neutral in that process and we're going to really encourage that deeper understanding learning from each other is really the you know the best option for first taking responsibility and also making things right where things need to be repaired so that's basically that's basically what he shared with us. Carol we had a question in the chat whether CJC was for violent offenders? Um well so that's an that's an interesting question so there are certain cases that we don't and if I may um sorry there was just a follow-up to the same chat which said adults threatening minors is an appropriate time for learning about others viewpoints it was a question so is adults threatening minors an appropriate time for learning about others viewpoints? Um I don't really want to give my opinion about that because that would be just mine about it and again you know the referrals are made either directly by my appeal your police department or other law enforcement agencies or they come to us from the state's attorney so we do we have these conversations in the restorative justice world all the time there are certain cases that we don't deal with and domestic violence intimate partner violence sexual violence those cases we don't see right now that being said most of the pre-charged referrals that we get either from the state's attorney or from law enforcement are misdemeanor crimes nonviolent misdemeanor crimes we occasionally will see an assault a simple assault crime this these particular incident would have been disorderly conduct charges which are you know completely relevant for for the type of cases that we see uh so yeah I hope that answers the the question and we just we had a statement in the in the um chat just said restorative justice can be very helpful educational experience when I was a high school principal I sometimes used it with students in every case it increased the understanding of the offenders and changed their attitudes so I appreciate those comments again if we can if we could try not to have separate conversations going I think getting questions posted and answering is good but anyway thank I really appreciate everyone's sort of concern about this and I'm glad we can address this would like to move on briefly or not necessarily briefly to Susan and talking about community resources for people who have anxiety and stress whether it's just over election related issues or COVID or community angst I know I have and I think probably many others have as well so Susan could you give talk to us for a little bit thank you um I'm looking around the zoom room and I see a number of faces of people that I've met and had conversations with but also some folks that I have not met yet so I just wanted to do a very quick introduction I am an employee of Washington County mental health but I work out of the police departments in Montpelier as well as very city um and my role is evolving but it ranges from crisis response to follow up after incidents happen um either law enforcement asking me to reach out to people that they're concerned about or people who are involved in something asking me to get clarification or give support around something that they went through um so when we were talking about this meeting tonight we talked about discussing resiliency um which I think of as bouncing back after a very difficult or traumatic even experience and as I'm listening to people talk I'm feeling like resiliency may not be at all where we are because with the combination of the pandemic and the recent acts of violence threats of violence you know nationally locally I think a lot of people are having very um legitimate concerns about are we safe are our community safe are our kids safe um and so I think a lot of people are having a really challenging time right now uh a number of people that I talked to on a day-to-day basis are not people who had any involvement formally with the mental health system ever they're just going through something and I think um a great many of us are going through some things right now so I think we're still in it in a certain respect um resiliency maybe jumping the gun maybe coping and seeking supports um having the kinds of forums that we're having right now so that we can process some of these really overwhelming sometimes events um when I first logged on I was in the process of trying to share my number which is probably still up at the top of chat and then I wanted to talk a bit about Washington County mental health a bit about another way and then I saw Ken here who's going to talk about another way for me because he can do it much better than I can um but in a broad sense I want to put in a plug for us to all think of ourselves as people who may be vulnerable struggling hurting to varying degrees right now and to think about what types of services supports connections might be useful for some people that may be traditional mental health services and one of my employers as I mentioned is Washington County mental health um and there are resources I will be before the end of the meeting posting their main number their resource for everything from general counseling once a week therapy type services to crisis response and they do have um 24-hour seven days a week people staffing the crisis response components so I want to make sure that I have both of those numbers up and available to you um I want to in just a few minutes turn this over to Ken because um you know peer resources are another powerful kind of support right now um and then a number of people will be seeking support if you haven't already from your informal support systems your family members your communities your religious organizations if that is applicable for you um and so I guess I'm just putting a plug in you know people see me at my role as a mental health clinician and I think the idea sometimes is that I'm going to be talking about a group of people who are having a hard time right now and I feel like we are all of us a group of people who are having a hard time right now so I wanted to acknowledge that um I wanted to give Ken an opportunity to speak and then I wanted to just see if people that are in this meeting have questions thoughts related to this topic of getting through this time period um and you know maintaining hope maintaining health to the best that we can during challenging times um gonna hand it over to Ken now thank you Susan um and thank you Bill for putting this together and Chief Pete um so yeah for those of you don't who don't know another way is a community drop-in center at 125 Berry Street um we were rooted in the psychiatric survivor movement and um we're about self-determination of care and we're about trauma informed responses to things that challenge us um we're a safe place um a lot of people come um and get sanctuary we have a wonderful greenhouse and wellness room right now we're open by appointment but we are open um and I'll put our numbers in the in the chat room and um and I the being trauma informed is is a wonderful perspective and much needed and and I think in our culture we're not always good at about talking about these things and but I think we're getting better and um and some of the behavior that was being discussed on the state house lawn is is pretty toxic toxic masculinity or um other forms of toxicity and so it really is heartening um what a caring thoughtful community we have and community meetings like this um I love hearing Chief Pete's outlook and experience and background and commitment to peer work um as Susan mentioned we are a peer organization and we have you know uh folks with mental health challenges helping other folks with mental health challenges homeless folks helping other homeless folks um you know and we're it's mutuality we're helping each other we're we're we're working together um to address what we you know our our challenges and to live the best life we can possibly live and it's it's wonderful to be in Montpelier so it's a wonderful place to be for this work so thank you and I'll just post our numbers in chat back before we go back to Susan um that was about a year ago uh when the city council was doing their budget that former police chief uh Tony Fakas proposed funding shared with Barry and with Washington County Mental Health and State to put the embedded social worker Susan into our department and so it's a it's a new initiative of the police department and even this year with um severe budget restraints due to COVID we've retained this because we see it's a very valuable tool in the community and I think she's sort of defining the job as as she goes but anyway didn't mean to stop on your toes but I thought people would be interested in knowing that thank you um I wanted to just open it up to comments questions about this piece about coping with the times we find ourselves in I guess that may be a topic so overwhelming that when there's maybe not a lot to ask or or add to it I had a I had a little question that um to maybe build off of is is there's also a sort of a COVID mental health line that's run through the state is that going to y'all or who's handling that because if somebody tries to reach out through there who are they getting it's not through Washington County Mental Health I'm going to answer what I believe to be the case um and emphasizing that it's what I believe to be so because I may just be mistaken I believe that that is through the board of health or division of public health for Vermont um and I did not think to have that number handy I will be glad to uh track it down provide it or um if somebody here has it I would like to share it that would be fantastic too but you you make a good point that you know COVID has its whole own set of questions stresses um things that we've never had to wonder about or problem solve through before I'm glad that you mentioned that thank you I've put that information in the chat I just want to say I I feel like COVID has had some interesting silver linings um been interesting to have people's lives be simpler and more down to earth and can't be distracted by you know frivolous travel across the world or whatever no no but I did there is there is a grounding energy and and and having things slow down and calm down and and you know obviously there's a lot of suffering and and our hardship and economic impact um but at the same time on an emotional interpersonal level I feel like there's some and some really interesting positive outcomes thank you well not seeing participation on this and I do I think Susan's right this is a pretty personal topic um just know that there are community resources out there including Washingtoni mental health and Susan herself and you can always call another way is here uh you can call us at the city we'll try to refer you to the we're not a social service agency per se but we can try to get you linked with those that can be um you know this is a tough time and none of us need to suffer this alone or without help and speaking of which we'll move on to the third topic and Carol will lead us through this which is basically how do we process ourselves as we are in these conflict times of conflict and uh how can we heal how can we you know have I mean this is a really great place for a conversation just like this where people have had different opinions and different questions and we've been able to have a respectful dialogue which I know personally I really appreciate and uh so Carol I'll turn it over to you so like I was saying before um you know when when there's so much um divisiveness and you know we're sitting on different sides of the fence it's natural for us to become positional and adversarial and you know you'll hear people say this I'm sure you've heard people say this all the time you know that you need good listening skill right so um and that's true that's really true and that is also very difficult when it's when the situation is really emotional and and I say that as a trans mediator who when I'm faced with something that is really emotional it's difficult for me to be wearing that that mediator hat and to be rational and and calm right so we all face that the opportunity for us though is to be able to take some steps back and and think about you know and prepare ourselves to have to have a conversation that might be challenging and there are different ways that you might want to do that so if you want to you know have a one-on-one conversation with somebody you can you can do things like start to prepare yourself for having that conversation by making notes about what you really want to say um what you even even what you anticipate another person might say back you know based on um on who you think they are um and oftentimes we're really wrong about that but there are ways to do that um there's a great book called difficult conversations that um if you want a copy we could lend you a copy from the community justice center um it's a really good read but it does help you help guide you through this this kind of process to figure out you know how to ground yourself before you have a challenging conversation um and then and then using reflective listening skills you know so reflecting back when you hear somebody say something to you um to help them feel heard you can just basically repeat back what they just told you so those are some really simple skills that we use a lot in the community justice center and i i want to say too that you know in our conversation putting this evening together it occurred to me that it there might be an opportunity and if people wanted to do this where we could get together on a regular basis to talk about you know what what information um what information we have that we think is really important and if other people have differing opinions you know practice get together and practice how to listen to each other to hear things that might be really difficult to hear from someone else so that's an opportunity um we have a conflict the conflict assistance program within the justice center which is basically for having mediation or facilitated conversations and that's a free service as long as one of the people lives earlier we offer that um but we can also organize a community forum or a community gathering in that way um to support people in having difficult conversations and practicing those those types of skills so that's really all i wanted to share and i can i can answer any questions that people have about how that might work and it really would be up to people in the community to decide if you want to do something like that it would just need to reach out to us and we could figure out what might be the best um the best way to set something up that would serve that purpose mr. stone thank you i'm sorry for uh taking up a second kind of talk carol i appreciate what you just said about the uh the idea of listening i've been very interested for years in the rural southern voice for peace and their listening projects and listening projects also go on in the middle east uh they're based on the idea that you bring people together who may be miles apart on their perspective the royal southern voice for peace would simply offer some of the most awful racists an opportunity to be heard to listen not to argue but just to listen it's worked in the deep south it's worked in the middle east and it has the effect of softening people's perspectives and humanizing the interactions you know we talk about the these threatening people uh i don't know who they are they don't know who i am and yet you know i see them in the grocery store in the supermarket and we're this is huge health and uh if an opportunity presents itself if we know who these folks are i would love to see an opportunity for us to listen not to argue but to hear what they have to say in a nonviolent way without an assault rifle on their shoulder specifically not to argue but to listen a protest a riot is basically a statement by a person or a group that feels disenfranchised and if there's some opportunity uh i guess i'm addressing this to carol into gp if the opportunity should arise it would be wonderful for a group of citizens three or four people to meet with whoever these threatening folks might be just to listen not to argue not to try to change the mind but to give them a chance to feel hurt because what happened in in washington in any protest is a statement saying we haven't been heard we need to raise our voices a little bit i would suggest that you take a look at online about the the listening projects in the deep south and in the middle east and it's been used in other places with great success it's a low-key gentle sort of approach to reconciliation if the opportunity should present itself i would love to participate in something like that and i bet all this would do thank you jacob i appreciate that um yeah that's that's and that's you know sometimes what's really difficult to us is to listen and not respond and um you know and when i'm talking about reflecting skills you know using reflecting skills that is really just you know helping somebody understood that that you've heard what they have to say so yeah i appreciate that i will i will look into that for sure it's harder to be violent towards somebody that you've met and chatted with well and i'll just say that in the restorative process also what you know what we what we do is we you know creating this greater understanding when people are listening to each other it really does de-escalate and diffuse lots of the emotion and and anger that that people might feel about um having been harmed in some way and you know when you when you think about it when somebody comes to you and it issues a sincere apology and you have a better understanding of what their motivation was or that they do see you as a human being and see you in a different way and and are remorseful about about what they might have done or said you know we all soften and we say you know then then that's the beginning of the healing process and and that's an opportunity to start um start forgiveness and uh you know that's that's the beauty of what happens in the restorative process often when we have the person who's been affected and the responsible person in the same room but if the opportunity should be there for us to talk to these folks whoever they may be or to listen to them i think that could have a great benefit for the thanks mary's been trying to get in for a little bit okay thank you um and thank you so much for hosting this discussion um i agree with what um jacob said however i would add i would add something um i think listening deep listening is a lot harder um to practice in a climate of a lot of hate and fear and unfortunately i think a lot of these folks who've contested the election the ex-president supporters i think there's a strong undercurrent of white-bodied supremacy so i just i don't know i don't i don't have any answer but clear the the country is is very broken and we're very fortunate to live in a community that it appears does not embrace hate does not tolerate it but i i do think that that element of hatred it it it it can it can make it much more difficult to listen from a place of any depth so anyway thank you thank you mary anybody else like to weigh in on the general topic of healing listening community or national divisions mary i just want to follow up on that and say that we had some initial conversation two weeks ago um at the city about hosting something like this or some other opportunity for people from either side to get together and my initial thinking was that you know things really do need to de-escalate to some degree before we try to to bring people together just because we want it we want it to be an effective an effective process and we want it to be a safe space for people so i appreciate your words and i think that that as time goes on that we might be in a better place to do something like that and you know it's and it would be a voluntary it would be voluntary so having people willing to come together is another another aspect of it like how do you invite people to the table and help everyone feel safe and welcome i see barbers hand up yeah um i read recently an article in scientific american by a forensic psychiatrist i said what do they do but they deal with people that are like narcissists and um his analysis that these people that are really the ones like stormed the capital are cultists and they've really gotten into that mentality and it's very very difficult to deal with somebody you cannot argue with them and uh he basically says the best thing is to get the the ones that are causing that are stirring things up out of the way so that the people can come down and start to return to normal and so i think that's kind of the way that i'm feeling right now because i have in the 60s i was hey in Memphis Tennessee let's just leave it at that um you can't reason with somebody who's spitting hate they have to be they have to come down and they don't want to listen sometimes they want to knock your head off um so um it's okay from our side i understand deep listening but the question is the person on the other side has to be in a space where they can only talk but also listen and i think that's the thing that we're into the problem that we have right now is that it's um if you're dealing with cultists and people that have been abused which is basically the other thing he says that they're an abusive relationship too so um so i'll just weigh in on that thank you for that barbara and i'm just going to weigh in um based on observations and my own personal experiences in this job for a period of time but also paying attention to this and that is um i think people on both sides feel that and there are those who feel very strongly on the left who sometimes don't listen and get caught up in their righteousness and get preachy and i think that causes a pushback from others who says that you know they don't care they're just a bunch of liberal cultists or whatever so i think it's um and and obviously we've seen this recently with far right taking over the capital and those kinds of things i think it's important that we understand that we don't get so entrenched in our position and our our righteousness no matter where we fall in the political spectrum or whatever spectrum it might be it could be you know beetles versus stones for all i know but um you know is to understand why someone feels the way they do and to listen and to you know hear them out and try to try to that's the only way we'll go forward and i think sometimes it's easy to think i believe this i'm right these people are wrong and therefore we've got to fix them and because they feel that way about you too so can you have your hand up yeah yeah and i you know i grew up in in brandon vermont and a lot of the people i grew up with probably would feel strong affinity and um i i appreciate what bill just said because it really is a practice to try to not be us versus them about things um i mean yes you can you can identify cult thinking you can identify racism for sure but if i'm able to see folks being passionate in the in the streets of our cities and understand that the you know that that's the language of being unheard i i hear the folks i grew up with feeling unheard and feeling left behind and so i just i i think it is a deep practice to to listen and i mean both holding people accountable to standards of behavior and no it's not okay to do what they did to the capital or to olivia's daughter um but at the same time having compassion for the very real suffering that folks are feeling so that's all i see pat hoffman barbara is your hands to leopard have you just not put it down i just wanted to say that you know about the polarized positions when you're listening to people you're listening for more than their positions you know um when i lived in durham north carolina there used to be a panel that was talking about racism and they invited cpls who was the brand wizard of the kkk and anat water who was a an african-american activist and they sat on this panel and and talked and over the time they traveled together to talk about these issues and eventually they realized that apart from whatever their you know talking points were about their positions they had a lot in common as people and they had a similar economic background and struggles in their families and they became friends and cpls gave the um eulogy i think at at anat waters funeral so it had to do with um who they were they found out who they were as people and when we're listening to people in in a restorative justice process we're not asking them about their position on some you know political some policy we're we're hearing about them as people and that's why i'm a lot more hopeful maybe than other people about how we can end up talking to each other i think it it we we're not going to be talking about these insoluble differences we're going to be talking about commonalities and we're also talking about behaviors too in a restorative process you know we're we're incident we we like to say it's incident focus so we're you know we we narrow down what the conversation is about and it's about actions and behaviors and decisions as opposed to you know really big picture kind of kind of a conversation so thank you for that pat carol there's a question in the chat uh directed i don't know if you can see it or if you'd like me to read it yeah i did read it um so so this the question is with regard to um restorative justice with a child and adult in the conversation um with regard to the safety attention and safety of the child um noting that um that an event can be traumatic for a child for an adult for that matter um the the way we do the processes we would we begin by doing an intake meeting with each party so pat hoffman actually is our victim services specialist so she would be calling the person who was affected during the incident and then erin anderson was here earlier she is our restorative programs coordinator she would be calling the responsible party and having conversation about what the process looks like and uh basically doing some in education about restorative process and what their role is going to look like while they're and if they choose to be in the room together then um you know we give choice to the person who's been affected whether or not they want to participate in person in a panel process so it starts with the intake and helping them understand what it's going to look like um an affected party also can have pat either represent them at the panel meeting or go to the panel meeting with them to offer them support just to be a support person anybody who attends a panel meeting is welcome to have somebody there for support so it doesn't necessarily address what might be inherent power imbalance excuse me between an adult and a child um but we do our best to follow excuse me follow a process and in this process give me a second i know carol's been into things all day so i have so in this process you know we're asking specific questions like i said about the incident and about the impact so we're really trying to level the playing field we don't want there to be power imbalances and if we see something like that happening there's always a supervisor meaning a staff person at the meeting so either i am at the meeting or erin is at the meeting and we watch for things like that to make sure that there isn't any um revictimization or any bullying or anything like that and we would stop that really quickly if something like that happened so we are sensitive to um all of the issues and and concerns that people bring to the table and pat is really good at flushing that that out with folks and helping them feel prepared and feel safe to be able to participate in the restorative process so i don't know if that doesn't answer the question you have a follow-up question around that i'm happy to answer it thank you carol i'll just know we are very fortunate to have our community justice center team here in immocular they've um they've been a leader in the state in these types of practices for many years now and a real asset to the city and i think um i think the police department would agree that they've been a big help for support for them as well uh any other questions comments on this topic if so i think we bring it to wrap up uh one person that has been with us uh the whole time and had asked not to be singled out but i'm going to put it on the spot now is mayor ann watson uh didn't know if you want to offer any closing thoughts well sure thanks i have uh really appreciated all the the thoughts and comments that you all brought to this um meeting i think this was really valuable i'm i'm uh so grateful that uh i mean this this was not my idea and um i i'm not sure who i get to thank for this um this meeting but um i think it was really valuable and um maybe worth doing again sometime um i mean let's hope that we're not processing um the incredibly difficult events as we have been um recently but but i again i think this was this was really valuable and i i appreciate the time everyone took to um to to bring your thoughts and also to um to do some reflecting together on this so thanks everyone thank you mayor before i circle back to the uh the three main speakers does anybody else have any sort of final thoughts they want to offer any members of the audience or group this audience isn't the right word is it the group okay well then uh susan do you have any closing thoughts you'd like to offer don't have to okay carol would you like to offer anything susan were you muted or were you offering okay yeah you're unmuted now um only to echo what ann and others said that i think this is really valuable and um i also appreciate being um invited and allowed to be part of this conversation and part of the community so thank you carol any for i just want to i just want to say that um you know we are um always available for a phone call or an email um if you want to talk about our conflict assistance program or any other ways that we can be of assistance and helping you learn how to have a have you know conversations in conflict or um you know any questions that you have about restorative process and the work that we do where we're always available so feel free to get in touch with us i will leave my cell phone number in the chat and um you can call anytime chief p would you like to say anything uh well just to say to wish everybody good evening and uh and uh thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with with our community members tonight and um we uh we're very fortunate to be in a city that that's very uh just engaged into what the community uh to the needs and the desires of our community so we're very grateful to be here and we're very honored and privileged to to serve our city thank you well i'm very glad you're here chief beat um so i guess i'll wrap it up and just say thank you to everyone for attending uh this really has been an honor to participate in i you know i am tend to be more of a worker b type and not a you know let's all share our feelings and had i'm honest with you i was a little bit like no no no how's this going to go and i really i really appreciated that everybody um spoke from the heart and spoke directly i got a huge amount out of it so thank you and thank you to our team that carol and brian really was the one that pushed for doing this in cameron uh so um certainly wouldn't mean but i'm glad we did it and i'm glad you all came out and i hope we answered your questions and i hope um if you have unanswered questions and you'd like to follow up with any of us offline we're of course here for you so thanks and with that um hope everybody has a great rest of their evening thank you everyone