Mariano, you don't need an introduction, but you are somewhat new to Instagram, so we're going to give some more context into some of your top posts on your Instagram feed. You ready to check them out? I'm ready. I'm ready. I was born ready, so let's do it. All right. First one. Number one.  Number one, man. I was working out. I had to phase the old timers, and I said, I have to be ready.  Let's do it. And it was good. Well, the fans heard the pop. Still got. The pop was good. The pop was good. That was good. Now, with Instagram, it's a great way to build your brand, but also raise awareness for foundations. And this is a great thing that you're doing right now. That one is amazing. The reason why I did that is because I want to bring awareness to the people that follows to sell this t-shirt because this t-shirt helping us to build a learning center here in New York, so that's why that's the reason why we do the video. And that's why we're asking the whole world to help us out, to buy the t-shirt, because it's going for something special. So something that's deep into my heart to build this for those boys and girls are less fortunate. We need to help them. So I can be their voice in their mouth, in their feet, in their hands, so it's good. It's good. I'm excited because I know it's going to happen. Now, where can they go to get this t-shirt and also the design? That's awesome. Who did it? It was a girl in Delaware. It's amazing. It says my whole story from Puerto Rican Mito where I come from to Panama, all the way to New York, you know, Yankee State in fishing five championships, you know, end up in Cooperstown. That's amazing. That's amazing. And you can get that at theMarianoRiveraFoundation.org. Awesome. But you got to start it right there. That's where you can pick it up. Yes, pick it up at theMarianoRiveraFoundation.org. Next one. You've been posting some throwbacks. That's a young boy, man. That was in my hometown. This picture was when me and my father were fishing and, you know, we were doing something for, I believe, ESPN. They were doing some program and doing some documentary. So we were fishing and we had a great time, me and my dad and the other guys there with me. This one is special for me because show my whole history, you know, where I come from, what I used to do and, you know, being a mess to my father. That's special. We've even seen it on the back of baseball cards, too. So this photo has been getting around. I know. This photo has been getting around. Yeah. I have seen it. I have seen it in baseball cards and all that stuff, which is great, you know. I mean, it's good when companies take the picture like this and make it special because to me, this is special. Now, is it somewhere inside this house right now? Am I going to walk around and find it? No, no, no, no, no. You will find it. It is something that I always, every time that I see it, I'm like... How about this one? What was going on here? Oh, man, that's another one, man. We went through the canal. You know, this is in the Lux. The first lock of a set of locks in the canal, which is Miraflores. And I was with some people from the canal. Okay. They were taking me to do a tour and why not, you know. And I had a lot of fun with the guys. And I was just crossing the locks from one side to the other. And that's where this picture is. Amazing. Do you have a visit Panama? Now's your time to visit Panama because this is something special. How about the throwback Yankees uniform that you rocked at Fenway Park? I love that uniform. I love it. I have the chance to pitch in that uniform.  And, you know, as the Yankee, you respect that. You respect the old-timers. You respect dynasty. And especially doing it in Fenway. Especially. Would you like to see more of this on the baseball field? I'd love to see more of that on the baseball field. Yes, definitely. You know, something that we all should be proud of. You know, work with me. Those guys carry with dignity, like I said before. So it's time for us to go back a little bit and you can do this. Cool. A few more. And you want to talk about uniforms? Oh, man.  I was in Saratoga about two weeks ago, I would say. Before I went to Cooperstown, I went to Saratoga, man. And they gave me a jockey uniform. That was great. I mean, a lot of Yankee fans, they treat me like a king there. It was good, man. It was good. I mean, I was in the winning circle right there. And I was giving the award to the winner. And then they present me that shirt with that beautiful 42 number. And, man, I was laughing. It was a great moment. Love the excitement in your face, too. Oh, man. That's such a unique gift that I'm sure you're probably just blown away. It's a great moment. Very good. Which, you talk about the winner's circle. Here you are in Saratoga. There it is. So you love horse racing. I went there for a two event to raise money and all that stuff, you know. And I had the opportunity to be there for the races. So, yes, you know, why not? Let me check it out. Let me see how it is. I'm petrified about horses, though. I can't be near those things. I mean, beautiful. I admire them, but from far. As long as they five feet away from me, I'm okay with that. They can't kick me that far. But, man, they're beautiful animals. Beautiful animals. Now, when I did this with Masahiro Tanaka, because he loves horses, like just in general in horse racing, I asked him if he had a horse, what would you name it? And he didn't necessarily have one on the spot, but if you had a horse and you could name it, what would it be? Big Brown. Big Brown, all right. Big Brown. Big Brown. You know why Big Brown? Because I like Secretaria. I watch that movie. I can see that movie a thousand times, you know, in a hard horse like that and what he did. It's amazing, so I would name it Big Brown. Big Brown, all right. Yes. And here you are out in the golf course. Hey, man. I don't remember where it was this, but I know that we were trying to hit that ball. It's not moving. And, man, it's frustrating. That golf game is something that I... Geez. You got to take time and wish that you hit that ball straight. Because it's amazing, though. It's challenging. To me, it's a challenging game. It's something that you wanted to do all over. You got to have the time to do it. So, when I pick up the game a little bit, I'm excited. So, I'm going to get it. Especially on your Cooper County trips, too. When you go to Cooper County, everybody golfs, right? I played there like three times.  But I like it, though. I enjoy it.  Just go and play golf and enjoy. They're very happy. They're very happy. They're right outside Yankee Stadium.  What a day, man. That's great. You know, I remember that. I was, you know, maybe right after I retired. You know. And me even, unveiling the name. It came out for nothing better, man. I always say that, you know, I have to thank the good Lord for allowing me to receive all these honors and allow me to play for the best organization there is in basic period. You know, and for me to have my name on that avenue right outside Yankee Stadium, man, is something that I will take for granted. I always will be there. And hopefully it stays there. That's a picture that I will never forget. When you go to Yankee Stadium, do make it a point to pass that just kind of as a way to really kind of step back and think about how, like you just said, coming from Panama and then having the Rivera Avenue, just as a reminder. I have, I have, yeah, most of the time I go to the left when I come out of the parking lot, but sometimes I go to the right and go to the Rivera Avenue, you know, and they make a right. It is good.  People do take into consideration the job that you do and what you did for the organization and for the community. So, I mean, for me, it's a privilege and honor to have that and honor of my name, you know, and what we did. Very special. And you even got a chance to go to London through the game of baseball. There's your boy Andy Pettit. Yes, that's it. Yeah, that was the first game on London and we seen history there, you know, and I was blessed that I have Andy and with myself there. And I mean, it was hot. But at the same time, the stadium was rocking. I mean, I thought I would never see something like that in London. Baseball in London, I never imagined. But here, you know, two great organizations in London. And before that, we have a great clinic. Baseball clinic for the literally team there in London. And that was spectacular.  They just wanted to learn the game on baseball. To me, that was fascinating, you know, and I was doing my best to teach them how to do it the right way. And as hot as it was, too, out there, like you said, no sweat stings. No, no sweat stings. You kept the cool. I kept the cool and tried to. Next flight that you take, will you be flying out of Gate B-42 because now you have one after you? I definitely will be flying out of B-42 at Kennedy Delta Airlines. Amazing, you know, amazing organization, amazing people. It's a tremendous relationship, you know. Not only do they fly the New York Yankees all over, but me and my family use Delta because, I mean, the treatment, the organization, the company, you know, to me, they're more than the business, more like family. So where's the next trip? I'm going to Israel. There you go. I'm going to Israel. So that's our next trip. That'll be fun. And here is the last one. So entering the ninth inning, here you are. You got your own watch now. This is pretty sweet, man. I mean, that's great.  We got in touch with Hugh Blow and they said, yeah, they were on board and we did 42 pieces of watch and it was amazing. It was good. Beautiful watch. You know, we came up with that and they sold out the minute before we put it on the thing, they were sold out. So it was great, great, great, great response. People loved it and people want more watches of those just because, you know, what represents. It was amazing. That was amazing. I've seen people of Hugh Blow did tremendous job and we all were happy. The details are amazing too. Check out that baseball right there. Amazing. Amazing. The diamonds. Number 42. Yeah. So I'm into that. I have to. I have to. I have one for personal and then the other one we are doing a raffle because we want to raise money to build the learning center. So we took that and they give us one to the foundation and that's the one that we're doing a raffle. So we see all these posts and it seems like you're doing a great job raising awareness for your foundation and also too filling in Yankee's fans on what you're up to after retirement. What would you say is your favorite part about the platform? The favorite part about the platform is just to give back. You know, you're seeing all those pictures, all those photos and everyone is saying something about giving back. You know, giving back to the community, giving back to those less fortunate, giving back because it's right. You know, I remember when I was 29 years ago in Panama, you know, and the Lord brought me to New York and gave me a platform that I cannot take for granted. You know, I wanted to use it to the best and that's what I'm using. That's what I'm doing.  It's not money can compensate the satisfaction that you get when you give back from the heart. It's so genuine and it's great that now that you're in a position to give back and you were doing your playing days too so that leads me to the next question is if it was around during your playing days, would you have wanted, say, a platform like Instagram or... I would have used a little bit of gas because that gave me the ability to reach to thousands of thousands of people to let them know what I'm doing and if they can come aboard. You know, because it's not such a thing that you can do things alone. You need people that believe in you, people that care about you, people that want to help you. You know, and this is a tool that we can use to reach millions of people to help you. You know, they are people. They are good people out there. They want to help you. They want to do the best for you.  You know, why not? You know, so, I mean, if I would have had this before, I mean, dunking on my head that I didn't do it before because this is a great tool, like I said, to reach people and tell them what you're doing. I would have done it. Well, that's what we're here for, to help out. So now's the time for the plug. Washing the fans out there, following you and what do you have to offer? Well, all the fans are watching, you know. Listen up. Help me out. Help me out. I need your help. I cannot do this alone, you know. But will you help? You will help me make my 6503 safe. They have 6502. But now, will you help my 6503? You know, so again, thank you very much.


Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us today. It's my pleasure to introduce Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. Well, we expect to see them conduct an offensive sometime in the spring, and because of that, you know, we are, we, all the partners in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group have been working hard to ensure that they have the armored capability, the fires, the sustainment to be able to be effective in creating the effects on the battlefield that they want to create. Ukraine has been at this for a year, and so they have used a lot of artillery ammunition. We're going to do everything we can working with our international partners to ensure that we give them as much ammunition as quickly as possible. In terms of whether or not Russia is massing its aircraft for some massive aerial attack, we don't currently see that. We do know that Russia has a substantial number of aircraft in its inventory and a lot of capability left. That's why we've emphasized that, you know, we need to do everything that we can to get Ukraine as much air defense capability as we possibly can. Very your times, don't set patterns, take different routes. NATO in this coalition has never been stronger, and Russia is now a global pariah, and the world remains inspired by Ukrainian bravery and resilience. In short, Russia has lost. They've lost strategically, operationally, and tactically, and they are paying an enormous price on the battlefield.


Hey, aloha everybody. You are watching think tech Hawaii and this is the cyber underground Hosting today because Dave is not well Andrew the security guy I've got Hal Corcoran here from Capulani Community College and we're gonna be digging into a little bit of IOT for you today Maybe we'll just kick the tires on it from a few different directions Dave we hope you get well. I'm used to sitting on the other side of the table over there So we'll see you next week the professor's out. We have another professor.  I think this is your second time. This is them. Thanks for having me back Good. Well, we need somebody that knows about IOT and so, you know, Dave said you're the guy So I call it internet effect because of course, I'm a security guy So I'm always working on the you know those those those the problems with like IOT There's a big concern for our industry our camera systems or have prop, you know Vulnerabilities our access control systems that vulnerabilities our intrusion systems our intercom systems all those devices that for many years our industry built Unfortunately, we're built a lot of different types of vulnerability So we've been working on getting that piece of the industry fixed up, you know It's kind of what IOT brings to my mind But when we say IOT, you know, that covers a lot of ground what what's the first thing that comes to mind for you? It goes around and it's continually Expanding it. There's there's so many things that are network now I mean from refrigerators and people people have smart homes. They can control their door locks. They can they can control the temperature In the house remotely, they can they can check it on the house, you know Remote video cameras. We've got smart cities. I came down here on the bus I could check my app and the bus tells The system exactly where it is like I can watch it on a map coming nice how far how far away it is Toys, I mean there are like network teddy bears now that talk to kids I'm not sure if that's scary or not, but that could be a little scary if it gets hacked. It could be a Especially scary so that they're more and more of these devices that around the yeah The the network now and I agree 100% with what you're saying about the security side to me IOT Today is where you know the internet was maybe 25 years ago We're not really thinking about security yet Thinking about functionality and and getting all these all these cool things working and they haven't maybe learn a lesson that you learn You know back when we put all these computers on the internet all of a sudden we realized Hey, these things are vulnerable to hacking Well, they don't seem to have really gotten that point yet that all of these iot devices you put it on a network It's it's vulnerable to hacking. Yeah, I think maybe our our Audience may not understand most of these devices if they're networkable They probably have an entire Linux kernel an entire operating system inside them just like a computer a server and if you can get on that kernel you can activate or Upgrade or perhaps get that server to do just about anything any other server could do Uh, yeah, there was one uh incident that I heard about where there was a denial of service attack uh distributed denial of service attack launched from all these of video cameras and shuffled in uh Houses because so he uh essentially turned them all into a botnet and and launched an attack from it So yeah, well all of these vulnerabilities that that you that you have on computers that most of us know about Well, you know the computer is vulnerable to this or you know Other devices are also are also, you know vulnerable to these these type of but they don't have Any virus they don't have firewalls the things that we've added on to the computers to make them a little safer These devices don't have any of that. So they're kind of wide open Yeah, they you know the in my industry print particularly with the video cameras and the the access control panels The the processors that they've used aren't powerful enough to run Like some type of an agent like you can't put like a silence agent or or uh semantic You can't you know, they're just not enough there's not enough leftover processing power You know, so they they give enough chip power to be a camera in a server But not enough chip power to secure the server and so we're you know as an industry I think um the underwriter labs, you know, ul which which does a lot of um Um standards for like fire systems is what most people are are familiar with ul from so uh ul rated fire systems ul rated burglary systems ul's writing some stuff now to start to weigh into that industry. So Hopefully the manufacturers will you know, uh Be asked for Hardenable devices and then be forced to go make them because they're not Running out to spend more money making their devices, right? They're busy in in the capitalistic sense of earning money So, you know and people usually tend to buy the cheapest device They they're not thinking well if I spend 20 dollars more for this device They maybe these people thought about security a little bit more than than this cheap one So they they they usually go with you know with the cheapest one and they don't consider, you know, who has a track rest Track record of you know building more secure devices I'm thinking about you know some of these issues. Yeah, especially I know the um, I know I saw somewhere I was traveling but I did see some of your episode previous You know, you guys were talking a little bit about like cable modems And I don't know if you got into home routers, but they're hard the same DDoS attack that attacks some of those cameras a lot of those um poorly made or Lesser secureable home routers had a quite a bit of vulnerabilities in them back doors written into them Hard-coded passwords written on certain ports and they were able to be attacked and using some of these botnets as well Um, what do you think someone should be looking for? Um In a hardenable device, you know the homeowner has a hard time going out and buying a sysco router for their house, right? They're like this is a $2,000 router. You know my gosh this one over here You know 99 bucks from from netgear or whoever it's from, you know, what do you think they're missing? uh, well, I I I think if they if they want to be safe they need to do some research and find out like what companies are releasing patches firmware upgrades and You know when necessary and in which companies are just just releasing things as they are and they're never maintaining them Right because that that that's a big part keeping keeping things current keeping, you know Updates can close those vulnerabilities as they're As they found and it also has as we mentioned a little bit before you kind of get what you pay for If you buy the cheapest device you're going to get the cheapest device and it it may not, you know They may not have thought about security at all if you buy one that's that's from a A more reputable vendor. I might question a little more But they might have thought about some of these issues and it might save you a lot of trouble down the road Yeah, I really I tend to to advise people anyway to look at, you know Commercial grade and stay away from consumer grade as much as possible minimally get up in Into that sonic wall level or even smaller fort net bro Okay, there are some smaller routers from some of the big players that are made with a lot Um Better firmware they're maintained the patches are maintained on them So there's there's ways you can get your hands on some gear without you know It's going to be more than the 99 dollar router, but it doesn't have to be too grand You know, there's some stuff in there in that mid to four or five hundred dollar range that's Business class might say it's not enterprise class um I think uh for me the other the other Reason I talk about iotb and internet of theft is that you know when when we've done some penetration testing on businesses and we Maybe they're good and we we fail We really don't get inside from a from a technology from a technical attack perspective You know Usually the boundaries are written. Can I follow the person home and attack them from home? I can get their credentials there then I can use them at the office Very rarely is that allowed So most of the people that we've worked with don't don't want us to go there They let us go with follow them to lunch maybe within a mile of the office right during lunch and try to get some credentials from them or whatever But not at home And at home is perhaps where people are most vulnerable because of the these iot devices What are your thoughts about that? Yeah, so if if if someone can get down to your network through you know a vulnerable iot device you brought that work laptop home. That's on the network now I can you know somebody can Can install some malware that when you take Take it back to work now now now they're on the network They want to go and they can work that that that malware and you know do whatever kind of various things that that they're trying to do So I mean these can definitely be weak points in In Your network each you know chain is only as strong as the weakest link You've got some iot device that's that's wide open or vulnerable and it's on your home network with other devices It it it definitely endangers, you know everything that's that's on the network. Yeah, I I don't know how long business will be able to continue to allow You know, it's it's um, you know sort of the boi would be think bring your own devices and and you know work from home all those types of things I think security when you're doing that is gonna Continue to the cost is going to continue to go up. I guess is what what we should look at You know, it's not that it can't be done securely But it needs to have some scrutiny put on it and you can't just trust that the guy's not home with a wide open Wi-Fi thermostat or or whatever it may be, right? I mean who patches their thermostats? How many of you patched your thermostats this year? You know who we clue you think about that. Yeah, exactly exactly So what um, so what what do you so I know you're at cap Cc teaching over there What did the what did the students think about iot? I mean do they do they is it seamless? Or do they are they aware? I mean I guess in your classes They're obviously learning about how some how some vulnerabilities that are there But do they walk in the door kind of a while? I didn't know Uh, well, I think I think these devices are just I mean they they just grew up You know with all these different types of devices all everything can be it can it can be networked and always Was as far as they're concerned. They don't they don't know what time when it wasn't So yeah, I think they understand, uh, you know, how many things Can be networked and how many things you can do with with with these devices But some of them haven't thought about security implications of what can you know somebody else leverage this device Against me to do you know to to to steal my information to get on to my my home network And some of them just haven't thought about that until you know, maybe we bring it up in class and show some examples of Some of the different things that can be hacked. I mean, there's been research showing I mean If if I hack your refrigerator, I can spoil your milk. That's that's not a big deal, but People are showing that that that they can hack hack pacemakers Cars, I mean if I can hack your car, I can I can disable your brakes.  So, you know, some of this is is high stakes Yeah, and and and that the threat vector could have been the refrigerator is sort of the issue there, right that that weakest link piece that you talked about Um, tell you what we'll do. We'll take a real short break. We'll be back with Hal Corcoran back on think take away back on cyber underground In about a minute this guy looked familiar He calls himself the ultra fan, but that doesn't explain all this Why He planned this party plan the snacks. He even planned to coordinate colored shirts, but he didn't plan to have a good time Now you wouldn't do this in your own house. So don't do it in your team's house Know your limits and plan ahead so that everyone can have a good time You can be the greatest you can be the best you can be the king conveying now your chest Planning and welcome back to think take away.  There's internet internet everything everything. I don't know the world's connected And getting more and more and more connected every day. So we left off talking a little bit about some of the You know problems with the idea that you can actually connect You can get your car online. You can get aircraft online trains or online Obviously some nefarious People could do some nefarious things with things like that and cause a loss of life So there's there's that physical attack side that could be executed through some of these vulnerabilities And then there's also the data exfiltration piece that is it's kind of more common these days The um other than the big DDoS attacks that we've seen happen with these some of these iot botnets What i'm what i haven't really seen is a as other than used as a vector to get onto networks Um all of them masked up to do something else. So they're not no ones I've seen yet ransoming my video stream for example, right? So you'd if you want to watch your camera send me 20 bitcoin You know or whatever What where do you think we're headed with some of these these these guys are creative right in the ways that they're trying to make Money these criminals. Yeah, they'll they'll Probe and try to hack anything that you put on the network and they'll try to leverage it to see what they can do Maybe we haven't seen you know the ransomware on the video cameras yet, but I I wouldn't be surprised I hope I didn't just introduce that idea Well, maybe uh rather than advancement you to uh To release your video camera.  They got um, they did get ransomed for their their door locks They had electronic door locks and so that that got hacked and then they wanted to ransom on saw the guests couldn't get in their rooms Kind of you know, so there's a using sort of the physical security Component against you know the facility interesting stuff So and we're talking a little bit about the students. So what um when they come through a typical course Are they learning ethics? Are they Are there this this um, you know The vulnerabilities of iot speak a little bit to that that part of the industry, right? What are your ethics as you can obviously go make some money hacking or you can go be a whitehead guy I'm sure the schools are we want all these students to be whitehead cut types But what's uh, what's the how do you introduce that type of discussion? Well, we decided early on that if you're going to teach cybersecurity and things like You know Sort of find ethical hacker and show people how to do so many things that ethics had to be Had you know had to be a part of so we we have ethics modules and we and you know that we We we talk about About ethics and and more than that just all the way along the course always, you know There's always that kind of kernel of the ethics of of this, you know Use this power for good Not for they go home and hack their dad right and get his get his bank account or I don't know I don't know what students do these days. This is not meant, you know to get you free wi-fi access from your neighbor You know if you do that you get in trouble. You're on your own Yeah, you steal your neighbor's router right because he left the default password and you own it sure We all we've all done that probably um Is uh, so how do they take that so because sort of there's there's some philosophy there right behind behind ethics, right? And so do you does it is it is it administered? Uh, I guess where where does that body of ethics come from for the students that that that curriculum? Is it just um um there are Some resources out there. Uh, I think like sands and some other organizations have uh, that they they're a coach of ethics Uh, different organizations. I think cssp has code of ethics and um, there's a Forensics group that has codes. So we go through different codes of ethics from you know and From some of these these different organizations and and into what will why you know, sure Why is this you know forbidden to do this or why are you required to do that? So that they you know, hopefully really understand What it's It's why it's more it's more than just words on a page. It's something like they can understand what the what they're The uh repercussions are if they decide to go To the dark side rather than to the lake. Yeah, and and that there's a trail of that typically, right? So, you know, if you're thinking about that nsa job a few years from now and you've actually left some Some crumbs out of there from some nefarious things you shouldn't have been doing Uh, you could be disqualified.  It's not gonna happen. Yeah. Yeah, so you'll be down here with the commercial grade guys so the I had I was a little bit interested in the the um Sort of the the the body of work that they Come across so I guess I guess my idea is that if they could come out and sort of help like so we don't have a um Like an americor for iot. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get these students to help the More challenged folks in our community show up their homes or show up there You know, they they keep giving probably these devices right by their grandkids or their kids and they got all this stuff sitting on that They have no idea how vulnerable they are and they're getting You know They're getting spearfished because people have been able to pull their emails off of this off of these devices and things like that And they're using the same passwords maybe for all these different accounts if they're managing them at all You know, I wonder if the kids could get engaged and kind of offer some assistance out there in the community, you know I I I would love to do something like that. We we we've talked about Uh Trying to create a student help desk for not only security, but all you know all types of uh technology problems where where People from the community can just come and get advice get help Get assistance and it's great For the students. I mean it's it's it's it's it's great experience for them I mean they can learn the technical stuff about that But how do you learn? Customer service and do your people if you don't actually have to have to You know have to deal with with people in the in those types of situations. So Yeah, there's something that we we've talked about For some time and we're hoping Yeah, see That you can get that going it seems that the need for iot You know iot is creating this need because the Everyone wants those features and benefits and all the stuff that comes with The enablement of these devices on the networks or you know talking to them with your mobile or whatever it may be And the security piece that's evades everyone not only not only just networking evade people But you know the security of networking is even works, right? So, you know, you immediately go from a user base that wants to use to People that understand the problem to People that know how to secure it and it's very very small up here for this broad base of users So the opportunity to get iot i think or the evolution of iot brings to to a student base It's huge and i don't know i don't know how we get Get that knowledge outside of them, right because you you can't educate 10 000 in a year, right? You've got limited sized classrooms and besides funding. How are the how are the classes?  Yeah, yeah our Backlogged our classes are are usually pretty full especially, you know in The information security Area it's a it's a hot topic now the the students know there's a lot of jobs out there and And there's a high demand for people with these type of skills So they're you know, they're they're signing signing up for those classes. Yeah, so yeah I can't you know, I can't educate that many people but maybe if I can educate, you know 100 and send them out. Yeah to educate, you know another 100 and 100 more that will just yeah spread like a Like a beneficial virus, you know, of course the cross the island you have iot knowledge. Yeah, I um What do you think's coming next?  I just starting to see ioe used a lot more, you know talks in the industry things like that Um, what is this? Where's the limit? Deck of cards deck of cards going to be network. That's a good question. Uh, I think there are You know a few things that won't eventually Have some type of uh networking technology component. I think it's just going to continue to spread until you know especially in the home and in In industry, I think everything is going to be monitored. Everything is going to be never going to be sensors You'd be able to tell you know exactly what temperature it is in my refrigerator right now if if if that if that's what I want to do or Uh, you know Stop my car in the morning or order my you know order my lunch and I I think that we're going to be doing you know a lot of the The normal day-to-day things that we do are all going to go Uh online before before so I just thought it was like an automated life I saw that uh jack ma you know the founder valley bobba was saying that in 30 years He thought people will Work about three or four days a week for about three or four hours a day because the rest will be done for us You know and I know the the big the big money guys are all getting into ai and robotics um What do you think about um, you know the the humanoid right the the implanted Maybe something they can fix my brain with a little bit augmented ai or something.  I don't know Cyborgs, I don't know. Maybe uh, I mean, I'm I'm I'm sure things that uh wearable, you know technology and things that I can you know, I can put on That will Help me to do things that I couldn't do normally like exoskeletons or x-ray vision Or whatever sure all those kinds of things Well, I'm not sure about the cyborgs and yeah the brain augmentation Implant something into my head to give you know to to give me more memory a chip Although I can really use it Well, if you just if you had just had access to google and you're thinking right you could just know everything pretty much I'm sure that eventually We will have uh access to that type of of affirmation control over some type of a network device without having to have Any type of a physical interface if we won't have to have a keyboard you won't have to have a Swipe there's there's going to be a way that I can just think it I can think it or I can you know just move my my hands and and it's kind of like uh There was a Movie with uh tom cruise where he did that all of them. Yeah, I'm up in it He just moved the screens until he went to uh minority. Yeah minority report. Sure that type of Well, in voice voices sort of had that impact You know in the last few years right siri and then you got alexa and all those So now there's not you know, you can ask for what you want right and those are I remember when dragon speak first came out for like 20 25 years ago and it didn't understand a thing I said, you know You had to really work with it to make it palpable But now these these these algorithms for speaking are starting to get pretty You know usable, you know, I mean they rarely does it tell me it didn't understand what I said It might tell me it can't help me with my request But it understood what I asked for and it used to it used to have a lot of problems with accidents Yeah, I'm from the boston area. So I'll say park the car and have a guy And so you won't know what the heck I'm talking about. Is that right? But now they seem to have gotten a lot better where they can actually kind of learn your accent and And understand what it is that you're yes So maybe soon we'll be able just to think it, you know You just think of something and there'll be some thought receptor out there That'll know that'll know you had a question that came through your mind and the answer will just Be beamed into your brain. I don't know. I'd like to look that smart as smart as google is or it's not smart It's just being able to get information right maybe we're just dumber because we know we can go get information So we walk around with a lot less of it. You know, I don't know my wife's phone number anymore I have but you know, I don't know her number nobody knows anybody's number.  Yeah all that data that we used to remember we just done Yeah, we just don't need it anymore. What are we doing with that with that brain power we used to use? That's a good question Maybe we're you know, we're doing facebook and we're playing games with it. I hope that we'll We'll start to use it for You know for thinking more and to learn more about securing our IoT devices, you know You've got some time and some brain power on your hands. Put it to use folks interesting stuff So iot ioe Where are we headed? What do you think the security problem really is? I mean, is it is it going to be the users? Or do you think industry will solve it? You know, I mean there's always that user interface Right where people using the wrong passwords or default passwords, you know the technology can do a lot for us There's always a conflict there because people want something that's easier. They can just plug in and it's gonna work Yeah, and that's typically not the most secure setup You need to spend more time you need to know more about it, you know in order to To secure it. So this kind of plug-and-play Tends to work against Against security, uh, and you know people in insecurity The user is is usually the weakest link link there So that's probably going to continue to be an issue I hope that the that the industries will will start to To spend more time and spend more money on security and But it's probably not going to happen until people demand We'll have some big you know Attacks That'll be All over the news and in this paper and that's when they'll they'll say, you know, maybe we need to To do something about the security. We don't want this bad PR So there's an iot wake up call coming your way folks professor How corkman's been with us today on think tech away and a cyber underground Hope you learned a little bit more about iot and I hope you locked your stuff down Aloha


nt as illustrated by their own statistics over 90 I think 96% of calls to the police are for nonviolent issues and the police enforce the law with violence or the threat of violence they have been asked continually to do more and more roles that they are not suited for in their training and that has become a progressive problem that we need to address we need to more intelligently distribute our tax dollars to provide the essential services that reduce crime and help communities flourish continued investment in violent law enforcement is backwards and really fails to consider our history or the current moment Amherst has 18 times more police officers employed by the town than public health workers or social workers there was some commentary on that we shouldn't be reducing our police force during a pandemic we should be focused on public health that's the obvious solution here as chief Livingston noted the high frequency of mental health calls stating that it was roughly one-third of calls and he said mental health assistance is often not available from other organizations we need to fix that problem when an officer shows up for a quote-unquote warm knock for someone who has been experiencing a mental health issue or a drug crisis it's really well documented at this point that the presence of a uniformed officer with a gun more often than not is going to escalate that situation we need to take a holistic nonviolent approach to our future that redistributes our money in a way that acknowledges the painful lessons that have shown without a doubt that violent law enforcement is part of the problem and should be a thing of the past I'm proud of Amherst and I believe we can really move forward with a more intelligent and compassionate view of law enforcement and social well-being thank you so please conclude thank you for your attention well thank you Kinga McCraven hi can you hear me yes we can thank you hi I am Kinga McCraven a queer black woman who graduated from Pelham Elementary School Amherst Middle and High School and UMass I'm a local educator and community leader working to improve our culture here because I did not feel safe in any of those spaces I was in awe last night of everyone who was brave enough to name their experiences and how our town upholds racist institutions such as the police department and school district I was heartbroken to watch the council with mostly blank stairs and lifeless expressions especially when folks were sharing devastating examples of the harm they have experienced and witness in Amherst which today I heard questioned and minimized I did not speak last night because I feel unsafe speaking to this council of people who do not display passion or empathy and are not a true representation of our community police and question the voices of their community and protect the racist institutions in our town I feel this harm in my body and spirit and use immense strength to speak to my truth to you today I urge you to reflect on how it is possible that the town can combat systemic racism with 0.1% of the entire budget this is not about whether individuals are inherently good or not but the gross funding to a racist institution who is responding to calls concerning the health and wellness of our community instead of addressing health head-on we need to invest in the general wellness of our community and build up a public health and safety outside of the institutions that uphold systemic racism rather than funding institutions that are not experienced with such issues we suffer from a lack of access to safe spaces mental health services transportation and essential human resources which we I do not see being addressed in this budget there is a health food apartheid in this in this town with no grocery stores that are accessible and inclusive let alone offer affordable quality foods I am board president of common chair food co-op which is working to create a space addressing this lack in Amherst while building an anti-racist community owned and led grocery store I'm founder of counterculture educator where we help creative leaders turn around the culture of their community these are only two examples of projects that truly address the health of our entire community and the town needs to be committed to we need a space owned and operated by black people specifically serving the black community justice this council has paid time to decide how to best uplift and support the town black residents deserve the same treatment there will be a there must be a thorough process to address this issue we need a space owned and operated by black community and the town of Amherst with adequate time to assess and create a legitimate plan asking black community leaders to service this community for free is a continued violation of black livelihood cut the Amherst police department by 52% to directly improve the public health and safety in our town do not give any of this money to any institution such as the police or school district pay black community leaders to establish a task force of black community leaders the authority to direct the town on how to allocate further funds needed to support the plan to combat structural racism be responsible with this money by not rushing into this important decision and put it in an interest bearing account until a plan has been formulated there is no quick fix to structural racism we need to approach this with a long-term change in mind this is absolutely possible but only if the town chooses to be on the right side of history and stand against the law and institutional race institutionalized racism that thrives in Amherst okay please finish okay thank you very much I'm trying to keep make sure we have time for everybody somebody has signed on and is listed as counter culture educator but I assume that there's somebody who's signed on that way who can identify themselves and please spell your last name and tell us where you live in town hello yes yes I'm here my name is DW I'm an Amherst elementary middle and high school graduate I'm also a former employee of the Amherst school district and I was tasked with establishing the inaugural restorative justice program I've created and developed programs in Chicago and in western mass that speak to the power of transformational community approaches I know that we cannot transform what we cannot see looking at this board I have not observed adequate representation of the people that live in Amherst I'm not just talking about race I observed how this group attempted to use one black man's voice as if we are a monolith I agree that we need public safety defunding the police will do just that public safety isn't only police public safety is empowering paying and training the community on transformational justice practices to make sure those around us are also safe I am I am public safety and I take my job seriously as John Manjano he has personally experienced the tenacity and care in which I show up for my community I shouldn't have to join the police force it to be paid to take care of my community when I know there are alternative solutions outside of policing that work in restorative justice we uplift a saying how are the children and if we cannot all unequivocally say in unison that the children are well we have a serious problem racism is a public health crisis structural racism in Amherst is a problem this meeting structure is problematic and is an example of structural racism the police department spoke for over an hour justifying their actions while the general public is policed on the length of our comments comment topics herein lies the problem I know most, if not all of you don't get that that's why you also need community support defund the police by 52% so we can get the work of supporting a community we love thank you for your comment Amelkar Shabazz am I unmuted? yes you are okay yes amelkar shabazz I live in district 5 and I'm a proud employee of the University of Massachusetts where we teach our students to be revolutionary to think critically question power and above all to be ambitious now while I openly identify myself as someone who works and has his check signed by the University of Massachusetts I don't react emotionally because you all had a discussion about actions going on to try to value the property and assess the property value to try to get more out of UMass in terms of payment and lieu of taxes I don't go into a knee-jerk reaction like that because you're doing that as the town of Amherst even though I'm a UMass employee and likewise I thought it very unhelpful and to this conversation and I can understand where he's coming from Scott Livingston is his colleague his fellow chief but Tim who identified himself as a black man and gave his personal focus well I'm a black man as well but I don't want to go into my own personal thing here I want to keep it on topic I want to not go emotional but I have to respond right now to say that to reduce this to people are just acting emotionally because of the 8 minutes and 46 seconds tape of George Floyd or we're reacting emotionally because of some animus for the police that's nowhere in this conversation I like my chief I have chief Livingston as my interactions have been very positive but the real question here is about being revolutionary thinking critically questioning power being ambitious and looking at this moment as an opportunity to begin to reassess and rethink the budget I don't give a particular percentage I'm not going to sign on here to 52% maybe it's 100 but I want to reassess now of thinking about the functions of thinking about where we can involve and validate and create programs like a cahoots or something that can begin to put people in front of unarmed people putting unarmed trained people who are appropriate for those circumstances in front of unarmed people of course where there's a violent threat yes, you need a force that can deal with that but we are too militarized there's too much of a focus on militarism and on a warrior culture in all police departments it's time for us to rethink our dependence on that thank you very much for the opportunity Tom Rick last hello everybody yeah it's really it's really hard after waiting all day and I echo what other people said one and a half minutes to share after so much time was given to the police which seemed to be a lot of the repeat of the earlier town council police call so this whole process seems really wrong kind of antithetical to participation so the defund campaign is about systematic patterns of racism in the Amherst police department you're right no one has been murdered by the police in Amherst but did you really hear the testimonies last night about people's experience does that matter it was a key point made by the speakers and in my opinion was virtually dismissed today miss Friedman called the Amherst police department about power in reference to responses mental and public health but above power I don't know what that means it usually doesn't win any tournaments but still we're going we still need to go back to the statement that Captain Young was talking about we are not clinicians we don't pretend to be this is not our job so if you you listed a great set of resources and they should be used all these social agencies and resources but they should be used at the point of the crisis that only makes sense the crisis is now for these people and the police do not need to show up as so many people said and I'll repeat the statistics from the Kahootz program 17,000 calls were rerouted to Kahootz and one percent less than one percent required any kind of police presence or police calls that is really important to think about so it's our job to do best for the community and that is what's best for the community with the police officer showing up too many things go wrong at the very least pass only a one month budget and spend that month paying a collection of BIPOC folks to give you the answers that you need around the budget especially the police budget let's take a deeper look that's the least thank you very much last number of people had their hands up and all of a sudden that was my fault sorry Sean I hit the lower all hands button by accident so anybody who had their hands up just going to have to raise them again I'm terribly sorry about that okay thank you because unfortunately I take them in order that they were up previously now I'm seeing some hands that had been of people who had been previously I recognized in today's meeting and I ask you if you've been recognized once to please not ask again let's work with a honor system but I Lynn have you been keeping track of the people of the names I do I have but I think you should start with the top of the list it's about all you can do at this point okay if you've identified anyone who's already spoken then please somehow let me know but Zoe Crabtree I know we heard from you last night please unmute okay Zoe I think you can go awesome thank you so much Andrew as you said I did speak last night I live in district 5 I just wanted to share some information I think you'll be very interested in about the officer initiated calls and the follow up calls like I shared yesterday we have all access to the police that we downloaded from the Amherst police website and we were able to put them into a spreadsheet format so that they're very easily queried when I look at the number of police calls that were initiated by the police the initiated calls that you were speaking about earlier there are 4,922 of them total only 769 of them 15% are follow up calls I think that there was some conversation earlier about well maybe most of the calls that are listed as officer initiated are really just follow up and so they're skewing the numbers that doesn't bear out in my analysis of the data it looks like follow up calls at least the way that they're tagged in your system under the call reason not the call type it's only 15% of those officer initiated calls the rest of the officer initiated calls seem to be much more of this active policing that you all as a council a frame as something that's really positive but what you should be hearing from what everyone has been telling you the last night and today is that that active policing is really harmful and when people say violence they don't necessarily mean you know someone taking out a gun and shooting them we mean being watched being perceived as suspicious being overpoliced in everything that you're doing having that be looked at more than anyone else that is violence and that's what everyone is speaking to here and that bears out in the data about officer initiated calls thank you so much thank you Terry Mullen Hi, similar to what Zoe was saying I'm a town resident I live on northeast street I did the maps for the data analysis that you can find at defund 413 Amherst sorry I can't remember I'm nervous the Instagram account that you've all been sent and I just redid the data I dropped all follow-up calls from the data and just looked at the initiated calls in the same exact places are lighting up as being more proactively pleased and please listen to the BIPOC who are saying that being proactively pleased harms them thank you okay thank you so the next person I see is if I don't get your name right pronounced right please speak up Rebellous please join us yep can you hear me yep NJ it stands for Nicole Jessica I live at 36 Hulse Road in Amherst and I teach at Holyoke High School I don't think I've ever noticed a police car or officer in my neighborhood which is precinct 8 which is predominantly white as a teacher of course my bias is for funding schools, school counselors more teachers especially during the pandemic I'm really glad to hear that police are mental health first aid and CIT trained I'm actually a certified trainer with youth mental health first aid it's a great program but I'm not really sure why we're training police to do mental health work instead of hiring psychology specialists to intervene and support in a crisis why can't health care providers be first responders why is a drug addiction response team run by police and not EMTs we need a hiring freeze and general defunding for the Amherst police department I would love to see our tax dollars supporting things like education, food justice, housing access to health care all sorts of non-police town services expanding public internet access sounds like a great place to invest as a town especially municipal fiber which was discussed today I'm really hoping that Amherst will be a leader in solutions for policing and community services thank you for your time and consideration I really hope that you listen to the black people in our community on this issue well thank you very much keeping moving along Andrea Monason Olson she already spoke that's what I thought as well as a couple of other folks who have spoken again today but I did speak last night I believe a partner or someone else in her household may have spoken my partner spoke earlier Brian so you haven't spoken today no I have not so please join us for clarifying that yep so I am Lexie Monason Olson I've lived in Amherst for 13 years I live in District 5 I have two children who go to Crocker farm and a third who will attend when they're old enough I wanted to first clarify in the beginning of my statement that the words you heard last night were absolutely about the local police department and policing situation not a knee-jerk response to the national condition the statements being made are based on facts pulled from your data your budget documents and bolstered by firsthand experience you need to be realistic about the very strong community response that you're seeing to this budget and this police department more specifically I would like to talk about the indication that you work with organizations in the area such as the fire department to determine appropriate services in a given situation when a call comes in only about 12% of calls that are responded to by the police department actually come from a 911 call 44% are initiated by the cops themselves and while you indicated earlier today that what we referred to as patrolling as follow-up according to your own statistics this only accounts for 15% of the police initiated calls this is not problem stabilization this is patrolling and instigating and I do not feel as though this policing helps to keep our town and community safe especially considering that different parts of our community are policed differently you say that 100% of your officers are required to be trained in mental health first aid but you could not possibly handle a mental health crisis as well as a mental health professional why does the town not employ crisis intervention response teams rather than police officers to respond in these situations we budget for 48 officers but only two public health workers and two social workers in fact the social services budget has been reduced from $80,000 in 2018 to $20,000 in 2019 and zero for 2020 I understand that decisions need to be made and the budget is tight this year but clearly social services are not what need to be cut armed officers are generally not needed in a mental health crisis and they often as we heard in public testimony last night scare people, make them anxious and escalate situations I'm also hearing you say that many of the calls you respond to are not service calls but rather harm reduction calls why do we need police officers for these calls at all why are we investing resources in providing trainings for armed officers rather than recruiting and incorporating educators, mental health care workers and others to provide the actual services that are needed I agree that public health and safety are crucial Julie but we do not need harm reduction responses from armed police officers we need community services that support all Amherst residents to live healthy safe lives the police do not provide this above par is not an appropriate standard we need to devote financial resources to services in the town that will actually provide safety and reflect the values we claim to have Mr. Bachlemann if you feel as though the town has not had sufficient time to have these conversations then I challenge the council to pass another one month budget to allow for that time thank you so Michelle hi there can you hear me thank you hi my name is Michelle and I live in district one and thank you for the opportunity to speak I am speaking today to share a personal experience I've been living in Amherst since 1998 I married a man who also lives in Amherst and I'm now divorced from him but he is extremely mentally ill and so I have worked closely with the Amherst police department over the years to manage the situation I do want to be very clear that I believe that systemic racism is alive and well not only globally nationally and in Amherst I also believe that over-policing is harmful but I just want to point out that when it comes to the particulars of these situations and seeing my ex-husband and the father of my two children basically become sick in front of our eyes and I want to say that the Amherst police department has been extremely compassionate and not perfect by any means but I have found them to be extremely compassionate but he was just like in the month of February there were 20 calls just for him for disturbing the peace and you know they go out there and they check in with him and they take him over to Northampton to be evaluated and he comes back the next day and it is a very very difficult for anybody involved my children after George Floyd's brutal murder my children ask me if that was going to happen to their dad and there is nothing in my heart that believes anything like that with the Amherst police department at all but the reality is is that their frustration is extreme and I do very strongly believe that they need the support of specialized mental health professionals to do their job better and to support our community better you know I have been on the other side of things where I have had a restraining order against him and where maybe the police did over police I don't know but maybe they did drive by a bunch to keep their eyes on things and for me that did provide some sense of safety for myself and my children so I think we are kind of all in some ways I think we might be saying some of the same things in that you know the police need more help in these circumstances and they need not you know it is wonderful that they are trained as I think Lexi said but they need specialized professionals if my ex-husband had a professional show up that is basically it I really believe that if some money was if this was frozen until a larger conversation could happen and if there was money that was set aside in some sort of account or something like that instead of you know just rushing into a decision and say thank you okay thank you somebody has signed on with an indication of peace and love and whoever you are please tell us your name and where you live hi can you hear me yes we can first of all I hope I am finding you all in good health and in good spirits my name is Jose Dostra I'm an advocate for your local homeless in Northampton and Amherst. And I lived right on the border of Amherst and Palmer for two and a half years. I have a family of seven and I specifically elected to send my kids out of the Amherst school system when you had police officers in it. And so I just want to say that I'm coming here with the voice of the first people and I want to remind you that you're trying to deny that there's systemic racism in a town that's named after a guy who spreads smallpox and blankets to Native American communities. So I think that it'd be really wise for you to remember that and remember that there's no Native American people here for a reason. It's because you prospered off of their death. And now the people that you have oppressed afterwards are uprising, they're rising. Black people need protection. I would like to really thank the, I believe his name was Tim, Chief Tim Nelson I believe for his testimony. And I would like to say that I have family and even in Amherst their cops and they do a lot of good work. But this is that thing about one or two people that are doing really good work doesn't make up for this system where the roots are corrupted. I want to remind you that most of crime is monitored, knowingly monitored. And I come from a family that suffered from incarceration and oppression. I'm from Puerto Rico and we've been being oppressed for over 500 years. The police there have sold their allegiance to local drug dealers so that not even the inhabitants of the island can have any peace because they're protected by not only the police but the CIA. And this is your drug board. This is what Reagan started and the CIA started. And for some reason you people don't want to take any responsibility for it.  I need to recommend a couple things to you. The first people. Yes sir, thank you very much. You need to double the amount of meetings that you have and you need to stop making people wait to talk about this. You need to prioritize the racial aspects of all of this because human life is being lost all over the U.S. territories and everyone will remember you as delaying in combating that. I am an educator. I have traveled all over the world to teach art and music and love and healing. And I will teach of you people and I hope that you behave in a way that I can teach positively of you. Please open your ears and your heart to a new future filled with imagination and brilliance that your community is bringing you. And don't turn them down. You should be employing the people that are coming here so they can show you and they can lead the way. God bless you and good health to you. Thank you very much. Somebody who has who's calling in and 4304 is part of their phone number, I believe. And I welcome you and ask you please identify yourself and where you live and then what's in your mind? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Please go ahead and tell us who you are and we live in what you have to say. Yes, thank you. My name is Gazette Coy and I live in District 5 and I'm sharing today after listening last night and this morning. I'm disturbed but not surprised at how public comment has been limited when the police were given over an hour today. The people are asking you as a counsel to do what you agreed to do, to represent our needs. And right now those needs are not a response to the national conversation. It is demeaning and dehumanizing to imply that our sharing is some sort of unfounded hysteria. It is clear that our town residents have experienced police profiling and violence here in Amherst. This local problem is urgent and life-threatening, even more so because of the added impact of COVID. I am asking that the town council act in line with the will of the people rather than to the will of the town manager or police department. In so doing, to answer the people, I ask that the town council create another one-month budget and convene a residence council for racial justice and equity with indigenous and people of color as paid members to advise the council and the town manager on the budget moving forward. There are more than enough community members ready and willing to serve in this capacity as you have seen last night and today. As my eight-year-old has been with me listening last night and today for many hours, I shared that it is not that you all are bad people. It is that you are unable to admit that you've made a mistake and to commit to doing something different. So in the words of my eight-year-old, please admit that you've done something wrong. It's okay. Just do something now about it. Thank you. Well, thank you very much, Izzy. Alicia Desharnas, I think I have it right, but if I'm not, please correct me. Yes, hi. My name is Alicia Desharnas. You are very close. I'm a resident of District 2. Someone last night said that cutting the police department budget by 52% would make that budget unbalanced, but we already spend so much more per resident on the police department, almost $136, than the library, $69, public health, only $3.77, a senior center, $5.99 and veteran services, only $7.42. Social services budget has been reduced from $80k in 2018 to $20k in 2019 to $0 for 2020. We need to pay attention to how we're spending our money and make sure we're putting it where our mouth is, what we say that our town stands for. You all have the opportunity to do that. You're in positions of power. You get to make decisions about this budget. The police spent time today making arguments that they are good people. That's not what we're arguing about. We're talking about the budget and where town finances go. Please take that into consideration and hear the voices of people who have spoken today, particularly the people of color who've taken time to share and educate this group. Thank you so much. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Kerry Coutts. Yeah. So I'm probably going to be really short. I talked yesterday. I wanted to talk specifically on the mental health thing because that directly affects me as I spent four years prior to living in Amherst in facilities. I have never once seen police involvement that hasn't escalated the situation. There's not perfect solutions to those issues, but there's basically anything but the police is better. I don't see any reason why we should be funding the police to help people when that's not their job. And I am also asking for defunding the police. I'm asking for 52%. And I really hope you listen to the people who are talking and that these people are real. There's been people who are saying that these things don't happen, but we've heard testimonies from people who say there is racial profiling. And to not listen to that is just disrespectful and really proves that you are in a position where you don't have to listen. And I'm just urging you to care. And really that's it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate your comments. Lauren, who's identified yourself and we live in the welcome. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. My name is Lauren Reingold. I'm a former resident of Amherst, but I've worked in the center of Amherst for 10 years and maybe a future resident. If I just graduated nursing school and will hopefully be working in the community in that respect, wherever a job will take me. And so that's where I come to you with this from. In nursing school, we learn the code of ethics and what it teaches us is that we have a responsibility to reduce health disparities and address social inequities.  Pouring money into the police department is not what makes or keeps our community safe and inclusive and connected and engaged and fulfilled community that can count on having the basics of its hierarchy of needs met is what's going to make Amherst the safest. To that end, I'm asking that you reinvest 52% of the police budget and creating a more community based public safety process. Folks with mental health issues are actually much more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than to commit them. And yet the way that the policing works out, they end up getting hurt by the system that is meant to protect them. I just spent two years, including 72 hours behind a locked ward. And I barely feel confident to serve these most vulnerable members of our community. I can't imagine for the life of me that the police training that they receive and to be fair, I do not know about the exact certification that they receive gives them what they need to do that. I heard something in the call that the police specifically said they felt like they were getting brailed against. It's not what's happening. Again, we're talking about the budget. We're talking about the distribution of services. Massachusetts is having a mental health crisis. We're losing psychiatric fat left and right. So if there's money to be spent, why don't we spend it more directly taking care of these folks that need it instead of spending it on a service that doesn't serve them? And again, to that end, I think that 52% of the budget would be better served directed by the BIPOC community leaders to be invested in their businesses and their community. Thank you so much for your time and your consideration. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. And Casey Owen, do I have that correct? Yes, that's correct. Hi. I did speak last night. Today I'd like to read a statement put forth by a disabled black person who lives in Amherst and wishes to remain anonymous. They asked us to share that they have faced numerous instances of targeted intimidation from members of the Amherst police department. They have faced abuse from an officer in the area who used his ties to APD to gain information and harass people he has abused. For this specific person, the harassment from APD has looked like unfounded wellness checks and officers showing up at their friends' places of residence without clear reason. APD has never taken accountability for this behavior. This person and others who had experiences similar to theirs have been told by officers that they're exaggerated their experiences and only looking to ruin the police department's credibility.  As we go through the process of defending APD and reducing our reliance on policing and Amherst, we also have to turn our attention to police accountability to ensure the immediate and present safety of community members with marginalized identities whose experiences need to be taken seriously. This community member has the following questions for the town council and APD to consider. We know that we can't get answers to these questions here, but these questions are aimed at ways for APD to be held accountable to keeping all people in Amherst safe, rather than continuing to inflict violence on the same people it claims to be protecting. What will be put in place to ensure survivors and marginalized people are not being harassed by police? How is the town going to ensure marginalized people and survivors are not treated as the suspect if they need to ask for help from police? Who do who do we as town people get go to when the police are doing illegal things but are big on protecting their own? What types of training and accountability processes are going to ensure police treat people appropriately? How do we get cases involving injustice at the police, especially when it comes to bias and discrimination, looked at by an independent third party to assess and adequately hold APD accountable? I'm asking that you cut the police budget by 52% because the APD targets by BIPOC people in Amherst. This racism cannot be reformed away, which is why we are asking that the ADK set aside in the budget for combating structural racism to the police department, instead be spent in a community-directed way, guided by compensated Black-led organizations and community members, and to place freezes on hiring and funding the APD. At the very least, only pass a one-month budget and spend that month paying a collection of BIPOC folks to give you the answers that you need on the budget. Thank you. And thank you. And so I'm going to, that concludes public comment at this point, and so thank you very much. I'm going to say one thing and then see if the council president has anything to add, but last night we had a budget hearing and the hearing was solely focused except for a couple of minute introduction to set the stage, to hearing comments from the public, and I think that all of us really appreciated the comments we heard. There's, I assure you that I was listening and listened again today to the comments that were received. We're engaged in the process going forward. We're trying to hear from all parties. This was a finance committee hearing and the finance committee has the responsibility of trying to understand the budget as proposed by the departments and what they propose to provide. We then evaluate that information. That was the purpose of today's meeting. Steps going forward on this issue will largely turn back to the full council and not be within the committee, but we really did appreciate having your comments since we will have to make a budget recommendation to the council. The council will make the budget decisions. Lynn, as president, do you have anything to add? A couple of things, yes. Just as we asked last night and several people have followed through. If you would, please share your written comments with us by emailing them to town council at amherstma.gov. They have been insightful. They've been informative. All of us have come to this meeting and have learned a lot in the process. And we want to thank you for making those comments and we would like them in addition to being part of this recorded meeting as well as last night's recorded meeting to be on the record in writing as well. Anything else, Lynn? Otherwise, I think we need to turn back to the committee business really quickly. I think we probably have exhausted ourselves for the day today. Tomorrow we really need to work on my phone timer stop. What we need to be doing tomorrow is trying to concentrate on what our recommendations and report are going to be looking like. We're also going to have to just sort of see where we are in the process moving forward. But we're going to, and I will continue to consult with others in particular, the president and the town manager and report back on tomorrow. But tomorrow's meeting will really be to take all of the information we've received and try and move it along to the next stage. Are there comments or questions now from the committee itself regarding the process that we have going forward and any recommendations from other members of the council? Dorothy? I just want to be clear. I am not able to attend the meeting tomorrow, which is Wednesday. But we have a meeting on Thursday. Do we not at 1.30? Yes. Okay. So we're not going to make a recommendation until Thursday. Is that right? I think we will probably take the votes on Thursday and see if we can then conclude. But I can't be certain. I know that things got pressured because of the complexity of the budget this year. I feel really madly that that has happened and that you ended up having some people have to schedule various things that limited their ability to be present for some of the final meetings. I think that this has been, as said before, an extraordinary unprecedented year. We're doing the best we can. I don't think we'll be doing votes tomorrow, but I can't assure you.   You know, it's been hard. And I don't want to miss it. But, you know, I could not change tomorrow's event. So I cannot make it. I feel badly about that. We do have a requirement that we have to act on the budget by the end of the month. We want to make sure that there's plenty of time for the council to be able to discuss the budget. And so that we don't want to get the, even though technically we were given 30 days to provide a budget once it was referred to us, because it was referred to us on the 29th of June, we took to the full 30 days, we would be at the very end of the month. And then we would be depriving the council as a whole of having time to discuss the budget. Given the complexity of this year's budget, we didn't, I was trying to avoid doing that, which is why I ended up trying to accelerate the process. And it has created a dilemma. And I apologize for that. And I moved my Thursday appointment, I mean, I finally made doctor's appointments to 815, so I can make it for your 130 meeting, doing the best I can. I appreciate it. I'm hoping that we do not take any votes tomorrow. I just don't want to assure it because I can't stop people from making motions. I will follow up as best I can with emails to follow the meeting. I don't know if anybody else has anything that they want to, oh, I see several hands up. So I should get back to them. Lynn, did you have more? Only that our meeting on Wednesday is at 130 and our meeting on Thursday is at 230. Lynn, are you sure? Because I had it, I had it reversed. That was my question, the exact time for tomorrow. I just checked the posting, but Athena is our best resource here. Because the Andy email had the July 15th at 230 and July 16th at 130. I just, I'm fine with either. I just want to make sure I'm right. Because that's why I changed the doctor's appointment, the dentist appointment on Thursday. Seriously. All I can say is, Athena, could you check the posting? I'll check. Okay. Kathy, was that your comment? The question was that, and Andy, the other thing is we're trying to put a report together and various people have sent you drafts. I know. No, my question is, are you going to try to put them all into one document or share pieces, or are we going to focus just on high level recommendations and then pull the report together? Because I think high level recommendations might be a good place to focus rather than eight people trying to write a report together. So that was just a thought on the pieces can come together with edits to make it flow with all these different people's writing styles. So I think you have, you have about four sections now. And I know Lynn's couldn't be written till after today. So yeah, and they're still missing because section, I was assigned to write, hasn't been written. I admit. Yeah, just a question purely on. Yes. So I think I stated it that there's one set of high level decisions on recommendations. Then there's another set on what this report looks like. And since I tend to be read the first page of a long report and prefer to have the recommendations on that page, you know, then, then I read the rest of it too. But I like, I like the bottom line at top. Um, so yeah, I mean, it's sort of an interesting question because the ultimately the question is, are we going to recommend the budget that was proposed by the town manager? And what is it that, you know, in the end, the high level recommendation, if that's basically what the recommendation is, but we need, you know, it's not complex question in what how to frame it. It's how to answer. It's maybe complex, but no, I do understand that. And I think everyone on the committee knows, I mean, the charter language doesn't allow us to move money around so we can cut, but we can't. And we could write, you know, but we can't say spend more here, spend less there. And it neither can the council. I mean, it's that we can send the budget back. So it's just, we're in that framework. Yeah, so that was my question. You are right that we can either say we love it and say a bit more about all the pieces of it, or we can say something more. And the question is, are we saying more about specific sections? And as we will start to try and frame tomorrow, but not necessarily about tomorrow, but we do have to start that question as to whether there's any sections of the budget. I think we all know that there's one that's been put on the table for us, whether there are others. So give some thought to that question. Bob? Yeah, I was just thinking that, you know, in addition to the obvious recommendation, you know, for the budget to accept it or recommended or not, I think we might want to also include some assessment of risks and areas where we need to monitor going forward because circumstances could change. Risk because of revenue, risk because of cost, or do you haven't defined yet? Well, risks because of uncertainty about both revenue and cost, right? I mean, we don't, there are a lot of risks because of COVID and the economy and everything. And so, I think we just need, I'm just throwing that out as a way to focus the report, not only on do we make a recommendation, but also on where we see areas that need to be monitored. Okay. Should go back and look at our revised guidelines document. We talked about that a little bit net and that would probably be a useful thing to do. Dorothy, did you have additional comment? I guess I am feeling it again, something that we went through before. We get a budget, we go through it, we look at it, and then we report on it and make a few comments. But then we're told, and I'm reminded, yes, of course, we can, and this is what's true for town meeting, we can lower something, but we can't increase it. We can't move it to another place. And part of me says, well, then really, what are we doing? I mean, I'm just expressing a little frustration because accountants can come and check out your budget and they have. So we're looking at things, not do the numbers add up, although we, Cathy is trying to make sure that the numbers are in the right places, and we know why they're there. But we're kind of assuming and trusting that the numbers do add up. So we're here saying, is this the document that we want to run our town on? But yet we're told we can't increase something, we can only take money away. So I'm feeling very hands tied, and I'm sure you know what I mean, Andy, you've been working on this kind of thing for years, but tell me why this is good. Okay, I need to be given some reasons to think why this is a good way to go. I hate to be, I'm not trying to be sarcastic in my answer, though it'll sound like it. State law sets up the process and the charter was adopted to accommodate what the state law provides. And this, so we are following what the statute mass general law indicates is a permissible process for us to adopt the budget. And you know, the charter tracks the statute of we are where we are, and what I've tried to do as chair of the committee is to look to the guidelines document is our opportunity where we can say to the manager at the beginning, this is what we would like you to consider. And I hope that we would engender a healthy discussion both in the finance committee and in the council about what goes in the guidelines document because that's what the manager has to work with as far as his guidance of where the council is when he develops the budget, but processes what it is. So just a quick follow up. So just to be sure, state law then forbids us to do what the the strongest recommendation from some of the speakers was to defund the police department. Well, actually that's not true because you can cut it, but you can't put it anywhere else. In other words, the whole premise was take it from there and not just give it away, but it was supposed to go and be used in more socially constructive ways. So you're actually not allowed to do that. You can make recommendations to the town manager about where you would like money to go. And that is his decision to follow through with that or to just eliminate whatever the figure is that we're reducing something by. So that could be done within the same budget. It would still be called a budget FY 21. Because I was expert on the subject of the charter who's our one council member who is also on the Charter Commission, but I think that there is process within the charter section on finance to ask that a supplemental budget be considered too. And so there are options out there. I think that in the end, the council has the key question as to whether it wants, you know, what it wants to do with the recommendations that we have received from a number of members of the public. And we don't know what other members of the public we might be hearing from yet. I would appreciate it if people would hold their questions until tomorrow so that we can adjourn. I've been sitting here for four hours and I'm really tired and I'm comfortable. I was going to suggest the same thing. Yep. And with that note, is there let me clarify the way the meetings are posted is 130 tomorrow, 230 on Thursday. I'll switch. Thank you. I'm sorry. There was that confusion, but I think that what I was doing was prior conversation. Mary Lou, did you have anything before we adjourn?  Thank you. All right. So since she hasn't unmuted to unless she needs help on mute, then I will consider us adjourned at 534 p.m. And I appreciate it. It has been a long meeting. Thanks. Thanks, Andy. Can you hear me now, Andy? I just want to make sure tomorrow is a 130 meeting. That's correct. And 230 on Thursday. Right. And I also need to officially, yes, that is correct. And I need to officially adjourn the council. Okay. So thank you very much and see you tomorrow.


Everyone, welcome back to the makeup chair. Today's video is a little bit of a strange concept. We're gonna do painting by numbers. I'm basically gonna show you guys how to create different combinations using one palette. I'm also gonna talk you through the best brushes to use depending on the type of eyeshadow that you're applying and also a little bit on blush and lipsticks to choose depending on the look that you're doing. So let's get started. This is a palette that I've chosen. It's by Urban Decay. It's this one is called Bailout. It's the purple one. They also have a green one and this one is called Detour. For the purple one, I feel it's just so perfect for beginners. The first thing that I did when I looked at this palette is I basically divided it into three sections. We have the top section, which has all of our neutrals and we have a side with purple and we have a side with bronze. So the top layer has all of our neutrals, all of our every days and then the bottom layer has all of our bonus shades and you can combine these eyeshadows in so many different ways. Such a perfect palette. To create any eye makeup look, what do we always say? We need at least three shades, a light, a medium and a dark. This palette also has a fade shade as I like to call it. So this palette basically has everything that we need. So the first combination that we're gonna do is a basic eye makeup look. We're gonna apply shade number one all over the lid. So apply this mostly on the inner corner and then sweep it across the lid. We're then gonna take shade number four and apply this on the outer half of the eye. So this is our contour shade. Keep it to the outer third and then very softly sweep it to about the halfway point. Then we're gonna take shade number three and apply this in the crease. So working deep in the crease and then blending and fading upwards towards the brow bone. Then we can take shade number two, which is our fade shade. We're gonna use this to add a little bit of fade to everything that we've already applied. You can apply this on the very edge of your transition shade in the crease. You can then use it on the center of the lid as well. This allows our light and our dark to blur together. So that's how you create a basic look using the top line but let's start adding in some of the other shades. So starting off with the purples and leaving the bronze for a second, we're gonna start by applying shade number one all over the lid. We're then gonna take shade number two and three and apply this in the crease in the same ways we did with our basic look. Shade number four is gonna apply it on the outer edge of the eye but then we're gonna layer purple over the top. And by layering shade number eight over four, we're gonna ground that purple so it's a little bit more wearable. However, you can just apply it by itself if that's what you prefer. We're then gonna take shade number seven and we're gonna apply this on the rest of the lid. So take a little bit on your fingertips even and just tap this over the lid but mostly concentrate on the inner corner and then sweep it to meet the purple. Then take a little bit extra of shade number seven on a damp brush this time and apply it on the inner corner to really help it shine. Underneath the brow, however, use shade number one. Don't use shade number seven because shade number seven has a little bit too much of a purpley shine and it can throw off the balance of the look. Now for the other two shades, let's create something different. Let's do a smoky eye. So what we're gonna start off with is shade number two and three in the crease. Then you're gonna take shade number four and apply this all over the lid. So run the lash line upwards until it meets shade number three. Then over the top of shade number four, take shade number six so our bronzy tone and apply this all over the lid again working from the lash line up. Apply shade number five on that inner corner or even in the center of the lid anywhere really where you wanna add a little bit of a lighter tone. And then finish off with shade number one just underneath the brows. A little bonus tip is to add in a little bit of your blush. So this is a great way to bring the entire look together.  However, if you want, you could also use a red because reds and purples look amazing together. So you don't necessarily always have to go for neutrals because a true red will go with a true purple and this will go with any of the other colors as well. However, with your blush, I would add in a little bit of bronzer. This will just make sure that your lipstick isn't competing with the blush. So just add in a little bit of bronzer just to sheer it off a little bit. But if you wanna play it safe, you can always just go for neutral. So now that we know what we're applying and where we're applying it, we need to know what we're applying it with. So first of all, let's start off with a flat brush. So a flat brush is basically there for really packing on some pigment. It also gives you a lot of control. So if I'm applying, say my highlighter, shade number one underneath my brow, I need a flat brush, something kind of small. But it's also really important for whenever you're applying shimmers because shimmers need something that you can glide with and that's what a flat brush does. Now for our mid-tones and our crease shades, we always use a blending brush because it wants it soft, smooth, blended. However, I like to use two different types of blended brushes. So I apply with one and then I blend with the other. That way I get like a really clean blend. My darker shades, I always use a small brush. So I can use a flat brush if I wanted or I can use this brush. This brush is one of my favorites. It's nice and small, so I have a lot of control and it really softly blends as I'm applying which is what I want when I'm applying darker shadows. So there you go, that is basically painting my numbers. Let me know in the comment section if there's any combinations that you would do from one to eight to where you would actually apply them. I'd love to hear about them and I might even create one. So I will see you guys in the next one and I hope that you guys enjoyed this. What's that? What's that camera? Yeah. Are you gonna help me film? Are you gonna help me?