clean. And today I found out that one of them decided not to lost interest in joining CSSJC just because of all the drama that is happening with Town Council leadership not supporting CSSJC agenda. And I just wanted to put that out that I say former member of CSWG, we put a lot of effort in pushing and advocating for this committee. And it saddens me that CSSJC is not a priority to our town government, meaning our town manager, and also to our Town Council president and her chair, just want to remind folks that this is a local election year. An election does have consequences. If we truly want progressive, in our town, we need to flip the current Town Council, most of some of them, and really replace them with people who are ready and unafraid to bring progress, pushing it forward. So I want to put that out. And Deborah, I thank you for announcing the K-3 event. I'm very excited as a member of BBAA. We're going to be there to support our members and I'm urging the community to please attend the event because our town has not been very, has history of not supporting Black-owned food service businesses. So let's not have another casualty. Let's do all we can, not only support Alicia Bryant, the owner of K-3, but also to support her all year round. Thank you. I will speak again when you have your second public comment. Thank you, Ms. Pat. Thank you. We have three other hands up now. So I'm going to go to Nadine next. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. So my name is Nadine Mazzard. I am a resident of Amherst. I came on in order to state the fact that I'm very upset that the town is trying to shut down the SSJC, I mean, sorry, CSSJC. And I was taken aback by the fact that quorum is below right now, and that no decisions can be made. You know, we've been at the forefront with regards to putting this committee into play. This needs to be a priority. There are issues within our community that this is supposed to address. And I would like for the town manager, the town council, the interim chief to basically meet with individuals who are interested in participating on this group, and allow them so that we can meet quorum. And instead of trying to sabotage it, let's try to work together and be a community. And let's go and be there for the provide service for the people that do need these services. And that's it for now. Thank you. Thank you. I see Edgar. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Hi, my name is Edgar Cancel. I'm actually a resident of Northampton, but a long time. Pretty much love the town of Amherst. I've worked for many years at Peter Pan when it was open there, and then at the Men's Resource Center, and as well as at Amherst High School. And I have lots of many friends and who are practically family. And so I've always been involved in different things in Amherst. And I really love the work that you guys are doing. I'm not only impressed, but I'm inspired by the work that you folks have been able to do in Amherst and the fact that the town took this on. And that's an awesome example for our community in Northampton. I wish we had something like this in Northampton. We're making some progress on some things here in Northampton, and we're certainly looking to grow more. But I have definitely seen the effect that this group has had in the community. And I would love to see this group continue on. Just like others mentioned, I am concerned that applications haven't been reviewed and people having gotten, you know, phone calls or have been reached out. And I just want to urge Paul Bachman to review the applications that have been received for the CSSJC and also the Town Council and Interim Chief Ting to meet with y'all. I would really love to see this group continue. And I'm a supporter in any way that I can. And again, I really love what you guys have been able to do. And keep on, keep on. Please. Much love. Thank you. I apologize for my slow zoom command center. It's a little strange. We have Brianna. There we have Brianna. Hi, Brianna. Can y'all hear me? Yes, you. Awesome. Thank you. But first, I just want to thank everybody on this committee for your time and all your hard work. I'm public commenting tonight because I'm really concerned about this committee does this committee dissolving. I know two people on my network who have applied months ago, but have not heard anything back. And I just want to emphasize the work that you are doing is so critical. And I hope that the town does not wait until another horrific event happens to support social justice work. And I also hope that you all will have significant involvement in the search of the next police chief. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Brianna. And we have Joseph. Thank you. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Great. Thank you. My name is Joseph de Senso. I use he him pronouns and I have been a long time. Denison of the Connecticut River Valley. I currently live in Haydenville. And I have some connections to Amherst, including being some time ago, a board member of the men's resource center. I'm making public comment today, much like Edgar, though Edgar can sell spoke to I've been really impressed and inspired by the work that you all have done. To my knowledge, no one's receiving a paycheck for all of the hours and sweat and expertise that you have all brought to the town of Amherst. And I would love to see Amherst embrace this moment and the work that you are doing as exemplary for not only our Valley, but our region, our state and beyond. This is exactly the kind of work and application of social justice principles that I would love to see spread broadly. I specifically want to urge town manager Paul Brockman to expeditiously review the applications he's received thus far and those that he may receive in the future to signal his support of this work. And in addition to urge the town council and interim chief Ting to meet with you all to to further this project. Referring one last thing, referring to town manager Brockman's July 20th email. I was struck by the statement. I think it would be inappropriate to have Captain Ting attend the CSSJ C meeting at this point. I think it's incumbent on someone in Paul Brockman's role to make really explicit what he means by the term inappropriate. I think it's incomplete communication that leaves lots of room for interpretation. And I'm disappointed to see that kind of communication from him. So I would urge him to be more transparent and more complete in his future communications. I support you all. Thank you so much for the hard work, long work you've been doing. And that's all for me tonight. Thank you. I don't see any other hands up right now. And I know that I'm not supposed to respond to anything, but I do just want to say that this work gets done in community. And it's important to hear from the community that this work is important. So thank you for showing up. I want to just add to that, too, how important it is. And thank you all for your voice. And there will be a second public comment period at the end of our meeting. In case others want to speak or in case others who've already spoken are moved to speak again. So we can move on to our next agenda item, which is member reports. I think I have anything to report about. I don't think so. I think like most of the things that I want to talk about is in the agenda. Yeah. Okay. I think the report at the moment. So we can move on to the first action discussion item, which would be Cress and DEI updates. Excuse me. Good evening. So I did not reach out to Earl. So I don't have a Cress out update for you to share and he's been out for a few days. So we can try to reach out to Kat to see if there's some additional information we can provide. But he's not been in the office for the last few days. So he's Is everything okay? I, I, you know, I think he's okay. I'm not really able to say very much. So but he's not, he hasn't been in the office for the last few days. And he's, and he's okay. So for DEI updates and Jennifer, please weigh in because I'm sure that I'm going to forget some things. I'll start with the workshops. So we completed workshops for the fire department. And we have next up for town workshops, the departments that are in town hall and the rec department. And then we will start our second round with all of the department. So Jennifer and I have been really like two ships passing in the night. She was away on vacation and then I was out. So we sat down this afternoon briefly to start our conversation of planning for next year. And we will do start our second round of workshops for with APD and with the DPW. So that conversation just happened earlier today. So no work has been done. But we'll be working on doing second round workshops with those two departments and completing the other departments that we haven't met with, which are town hall, rec and library is scheduled for September. So originally I thought that we might be able to do the departments in town hall in August, but I was away due to a family emergency. And so we're we're we're not going to be able to I think to to squeeze in workshops for those departments in August, but they'll probably be completed by by October. And we've met I've had conversation with the department's heads in the town hall departments and we'll offer two different dates for those departments because you know those offices are public facing. We need to try to create multiple opportunities for people to come to say all can't be away from the office at the same time. So unless there's a decision to shut town hall down, which I don't think will happen. We've moved to the bank center, so we are in temporary space on the second floor. As you come off the elevators to the left of the Crest department, it's temporary and that that space is really designated for another department. But we've moved there until our permanent space is completed, which they've said, you know, three months, but we're probably going to be there, let's say three to six months in the current space. The new space gives each of us a private office. It has a little bit of reception area, so there will be space for an intern or someone to sit in a front, you know, and have a desk, which we did not. I mean, we didn't have space for anyone to work with us in the mezzanine. So where we've moved to the to the bank center. As I said, Jen and I met today to sort of start the conversations around planning for our workshops. And that conversation also includes planning around the events that the cultural events of the HRC and the DEI department are going to do for fiscal year 24. We are looking at all of the events and trying to do planning that is really equitable, trying to have an equitable in terms of like number of events, as well as like finances. And that's an ongoing conversation as we're trying to figure that out. We are hoping that we might be able to create. I don't have an official title or name for it, but I'll just say for purposes of this conversation, our working group, we'd like to include members of the community and helping us to think about what the events are that the town is going to sponsor. And I had mentioned this earlier, I think, I don't know if it was in this meeting, I think it was in an HRC meeting and a couple of people have already expressed some interest in joining whatever configuration that group is going to be to help with the planning for cultural events. Part of that conversation will also include whether we'll try to establish a friends group, sort of like a friends of the HRC or another type of legal entity. I'm actually really interested in thinking about having a trust instead of a friends group. So something sort of modeled on the affordable housing trust, but that would require, you know, well, approval by the town council, probably special legislation from from our legislature to create that type of entity. But what seems attractive to me about the trust is that it will, I mean, it will be affiliated with the town, but yet independent, all of the funds would be held in trust like an affordable housing trust so that the money is, you know, separate and apart from from the municipal budget. And I think that legal relationship or that legal status would create what I think would be an ideal arrangement. But again, just in the very beginnings of thinking about that, it's all of the African Heritage Reparation Assembly is also thinking about what their successor organization might look like. And I did share with Councilor Miller the idea of a trust for that group as well. So I think as they think about it and we think about it just maybe explore the possibility of that type of a legal entity. The goal, I think, for us is to really look at the events in a couple of different ways like what are the events that the DEI office is going to support? What are the events that are supported by HRC and and trying to sort of keep them separate so that the funding and budget processes are separate. There are some HRC events, you know, that are standard that will always occur like the Youth Hero Awards, the Human Rights Day Celebration. So we're not trying to alter those, but trying to think about how we can be more inclusive with some of the other events but and also sort of limit the lift because, you know, Philip was wonderful. He was at every single event last year, but, you know, those events are a heavy lift for an office of two without a lot of support. And so another reason why we're thinking about having some sort of a cultural support group or cultural council not can't use that term, but a group that will look at cultural events is so that we can have more broad support for the events and have hopefully more cross pollination of the event so that, you know, at a Lunar New Year, it's not only the Asian-American population that's attending, but other people are aware of it and other people are attending and that would be true for all events. So we're just beginning to to have those conversations. There have been some aspects of the conversations have been ongoing from the very beginning. One of the suggestions was that we think about events as like Tier 1 and Tier 2. I don't really like that terminology, but we're, you know, today, Jennifer and I were talking in Icelol. We can think about HRC events or DEI events or flag raising. It turns out that we're only supporting one flag raising. So that's probably not going to be a separate category for us. But anyway, that there's conversation about the events tied to the events are conversations about our budget and thinking about what funds we have available to support all of the tasks that we're that we are all of the events that and activities that we're tasked with like the primary push for the budget are events for the community and cultural events. The budget can easily support the training that we're doing for our municipal staff. Jen and I are primarily doing that, although we will get some assistance from Amherst College. Their DEI offices offer to offer workshops. And we're trying to create a schedule where they would be offered at least once a quarter from Amherst College just to expand the capacity for those for workshops. And then if we are able to and that's coming to us as an in kind service or we're not paying for that that's coming to us as a gift from. So with Amherst College, with Jennifer and I and possibly a few other folks doing workshops for municipal staff and departments our budget I think is in good shape for those types of things. The area where the budget is really stretches around the cultural events and around the community visioning that we hope to do. But we are working and have some thoughts about how we can meet that need. We learned today that we have a match for an AmeriCorps member. So we have an AmeriCorps member that will be shared by DEI and the Crest Department. That individual will join us the last week in August. They're the person will be spending 50% of their time with press and 50% with DEI. Now that we're neighbors that makes that really, really easy because we're right next door from each other. The focus of that position is around youth empowerment. I know that Earl has some initiatives in mind and that he wants the AmeriCorps member to work on and then we'll be working with the individual to help develop programming from our office as well. We're scheduled to have a summer intern work with us this summer to assist with some things around Juneteenth and some other things in the office. Unfortunately, that individual had some personal issues arise. And so they weren't really able to assist us. They were only able to come in like once or twice. So that didn't really work out. I think one of the reasons why it probably was not successful was that the person had to work remotely as we had no space for them to be in our office to work with us. But now that we have space, we would be able to have designated space for someone to come in and so to build that relationship and rapport I think would help. Jennifer met with members of Amherst College to talk about a student work study and the possibility of how we might, in addition to the AmeriCorps member, might have a student from Amherst College do a work study with us. So we haven't even had a chance to discuss that as part of our debrief today. We didn't get to that topic, but so Jennifer might have more information about that. And I think that's it for like the overall update. I know that you have on your list information about the resident oversight board consultant. So I can go right into that, which is despite a valiant effort, we were not able to secure a contract with the consultant to place in a proposal for their resident oversight board. I'm not permitted to give a lot of detail, but I can say that we met with them on four different occasions, trying to sort of work through what we hope, to try to reach an agreement so that we could have a proposal that would meet the needs of the town and unfortunately just not able to get there. And that's a big disappointment. And also not where I expected us to be. I think the last time that we talked about the resident oversight board, I had stated that I thought by the time we met the next time that we would have crossed the finish line. So it was certainly not my expectation that we wouldn't be able to have a proposal that would meet all of the needs and all the specifications of the town, but unfortunately that's where we are. And so Jennifer and I had a brief conversation today and Paul has tasked me with thinking about what the next steps will be as options. So there are several different things. So there can be, we can revise our RFP and go back out to bid again. There are some different possibilities for things that might be done internally to create an oversight board with maybe limited power while other decisions were made. But all of those things I think, I mean, we are not where I had hoped we would be. And I think there are a number of different options that will have to be presented both to this group and to the town manager about next steps or that. Yes. I didn't know if this was appropriate.  So for the first one, in terms of what you were saying, and I do understand that you all are two people in the office and it's a lot to go to different activities. But one of my ideas and suggestions, and I think we've kind of already hinted at that previously is to tap like CSSJC, tap the groups that are already in place. So HRC and also the reparations group, because there's people there that could actually go to some of these activities if it was kind of, if you tapped us in a way to be like, okay, to try to figure out, as opposed to going and creating another council or trying to get other people, you already have groups that are set, like even for me, sometimes I feel overwhelmed because I'm like, all right, do I need to go to everything?  And then someone else from reparations go to the other two events and so on and so forth. I mean, you already have people that are already willing to enable. It's just about tasking us because if not, if we think we have to go to all event, that's where it becomes overwhelming, you know? So I think you don't have to kind of like reinvent the wheel and go put together another group or go reach out to other people, you have the people already. Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt you. So we have asked HRC on multiple occasions and they have, you know, they, I mean, Philip did an extraordinary job of being at every event and he really tried very, very hard to get more involvement from members of that commission because the events are sort of the events of the HRC. What I'm hoping and I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, what I'm hoping we'll be able to do and Jennifer and I, again, just started this conversation today is to create a calendar. What we heard from members of the HRC was that it would be easier for them to commit to events if they had the dates in advance. So we're going to try very hard to create a calendar so that we can for the entire year. So, you know, we might have to change dates, but if we can do a calendar of events for the year, then folks would have ample notice about what the events are, when they're, the date that they were gonna take place so that they could place the hold on the calendar. But, you know, we are in the midst of getting ready to start to plan for Latinx heritage. And we asked HRC members for suggestions for dates for that event and who would be able to commit.  We need more assistance than the assistance that we're receiving is what I'll say. Yeah, no, I get that, but I'm saying it, but that's why I'm saying, like, you know, contacting us too and contacting reparations folks too. I think if you broaden it besides just the HRC, and yeah, I get it Phil was able to do, but a lot of us can't do that, you know, so that we can kind of divide the activities and try to go to different things, you know what I'm saying? So I think if it's done in a way, like you said, right, there's already some schedules or dates, even if it changes somewhat, but at least if people have an idea that this is what's coming up during a certain time, then, you know, maybe I can say I can take this one and someone else can say they can take something else and then, you know, go from there, but yeah, you have to kind of spread the tasks and spread the work. Well, we will welcome any assistance that we can get because you, but what I'm saying is just like, if you could be the one to be like, hey, Deborah, reach out because if you're gonna wait for me to be like, hey, you know what I'm saying? I'm busy, you know, but if you say Deborah, boom, boom, or, you know, CSSJC, we have these dates, are there members that, you know, so few and Jennifer could be like kind of, you know, the point people to kind of get people going, then that would be awesome.  Because everyone is busy. So if you can kind of be like, hey, I don't have someone for these events, then I could know, all right, let me, let me sack, you know, let me go to those, you know? And then the next one is around, I know you said with Cress, something's going on with Earl, but you're not at the discrepancy to tell us more. But I mean, I guess my thing is I do want to know more. I mean, maybe not at this meeting, but I, you know, either I want an email with a report from Cress later, and I do want to know more just because CSSJC, you know, especially me being a member of CSWG, we were the ones that, you know, made the recommendations to create Cress. So Cress is one of the, you know, really key important programs, you know, for us and for CSSJC. So if something's going on, you know, we need to know. And then there does need to be a certain level of transparency and stuff like that. So that, you know, we're able to handle whatever issues are coming about. So with that, I mean, do you have any other information to share or are you going to share some information? I don't really have any information to share. I did mention to Jennifer that I was going to see Kat this afternoon and asked her, but I did, I saw her, but then forgot to ask her. So I will email her and ask if there's information that she can share with, you know, with Jennifer and I and we can share it with the group, but I don't have any additional information to share. All right. Okay. Well, yeah, that'll be something that will definitely want some more information. So yeah, thank you if you can follow up with us, you know, after the meeting to share something. Because if not, I might reach out to Paul or I might reach out to folks from Cress just to find out what's going on. And then the other question I have is around the youth empowerment center. I'm happy that you all have the AmeriCorps person and hopefully, you know, some youth programming will be coming about. However, again, in terms of the recommendations that CSWG made, one of the important things was to have a space and to have a budget for the youth empowerment. And I think the last meeting, you weren't at the meeting, but I know Jennifer was at it. So I don't know if Jennifer was able to update you. We had a lengthy discussion around, you know, finding space for the youth empowerment because we want this to keep moving forward and keep moving along. So anything, any updates around kind of finding space and where the budget is for the youth empowerment? So I don't have information around the budget. I think that what Paul reported to the town council the last time was that he was going to put together a working group to fulfill the initial study about a building for the budget. I did have an email exchange with Allegra about the spaces that had been made available or that I was aware of. And she, I'm sorry to be talking about you in the third person, Allegra, but Allegra's suggestion came back for me was to look into the Hastings building or the building where Hastings had been because it was a downtown location on a bus route. And so I did share that information with Paul. He thought that the owners of the building had another purpose already lined up for the space, but he said that he was willing to have a conversation with them about whether that space could be used. And I can follow up with him. I haven't heard back from him beyond that initial conversation of that this is a location that the committee thinks would be a good location. Yeah, and I think that's the problem in terms of that's why I wanted to talk to Paul, but Paul seemingly is refusing to meet with us. So because for me, I would rather just ask him the questions directly, but again, he has never met with CSSJC since we've been formed and he continues to refuse to meet with us, which is very disappointing. And again, showcases the level of priority that we have in terms of the town manager's schedule, which again, like I said, is frustrating, upsetting and disappointing. So this is something that we're gonna need to really focus on is around the space. I get it that you don't have any kind of oversight over the budget and Paul will be the one to kind of deal with some of those issues. But yeah, as long as that stays on one of the priority lists because that's something that I know that we're gonna be checking in on every time we meet is around space for youth empowerment. Because that was the main recommendations that CSWG had made. So as part of a conversation that Jennifer and I had today we thought that, at least initially for this, the programming that we're going to try to put together starting in the fall, that it's likely that we're gonna rotate spaces, like depending on what the program needs are. And my sense is that probably is gonna be what happens for a while until there is designated space, like depending on what the programming. So we'll try to make use of the space that we have available to us at no cost, which really is pretty limited, right? It's the library, it's the bank center. Amherst College has offered us space and we can look to see if there are some other places in the community where we might be able to have programming. But I think that I have to be mindful of Allegra's point that if the space that we utilize is in the downtown area, then it makes it easier for our youth and families to get to. And I think the other thing that we'll start to explore a little bit is whether whether that we could offer programming on a Saturday. If it's a Saturday, then we have the bank center and that community space is a large space that's not really utilized on Saturday. So I think part of it is just gonna be figuring out like what the programming is gonna be and where we can place different events at different times and just use what we have until there is something more permanent in place. Yeah, and I mean, and I think that what you just said, having to go from space to space, again, showcases where the level of priority is for this youth empowerment, which again is very surprising and upsetting because Paul Bachman and the town council who have said that they're so engaged in making this a priority and committed, which again, does not show in terms of the actions. It's a lot of words but no actions because the youth are a priority. The youth should be what we should be focusing on. And especially after what happened last year after the July 5th incident, that should be priority number one. And yet, here we go. You all are gonna have to like look for spaces and go here, go there, which is very disorienting for young people. If there isn't one space for them to go to so that they know that they get, they stop building that trust in terms of building a safe space for them and things like that as opposed to moving around. It's nothing against you Pamela. I'm just saying in terms of the town and their priorities and prioritizing young people. And so again, this is things that we've said it's been a couple of years now and look at where things are at. So kudos to you and Jennifer for continuing to persevere forward even without a set space, but I know it's gonna make you all's lives a lot more difficult given that reality. And I think to add to that was what you was talking about in terms of a summer intern and everything. And we've talked about that too, that DEI should have a budget, for an assistant to have the staff. Again, where does DEI fall in the level of priority for the town council, for Paul Barkerman, for the town manager that continues, everyone continues to talk, but I don't see any actions here in terms of prioritizing. Because like you said, summer intern, they have other priorities. If you're not getting paid to volunteer, other things come up, that's that. And you all need to help. You need people there that are getting paid so that they can show up and do the work. So again, showcasing the level of priority for BIPOC issues here in this town, which as we keep saying is CSSJC and CSWG that said it beforehand, are we here to work for all members of Amherst? Are we here to just work for a certain members in Amherst that are white property owners, so on and so forth. And so we need to really think that through. And then lastly, I do want to talk about the resident oversight board. So thank you for sending the RFP. It is disappointing that, you know, you all weren't able to find a consultant. I mean, again, this is another one that, you know, the resident oversight board needs to be in place as we've been saying yesterday, right? And so, but one of the things though, and that's why I wanted to look at the RFP because we had made that those same comments when the report had been shared from Paul in terms of all the different areas of concern that we had talked about that we shared with the town council. One of them was the resident oversight board, which again, like I said, when you look at this RFP, points one, two and three is still a lot of kind of, you know, visioning, looking, researching a model. CSWG did all that work. We researched the models, we put down the information, we have all the information there. Why aren't we jumping to phase two, which is what we had said there, which is number four, we're going to waste a lot of time. And during this time, people are not feeling comfortable going to the police and complaining or filing complaints. No one's going to file complaints in the police department. So while there's no resident oversight board, these types of concerns are just getting silenced within the community. And now, look at that, no consultant was hired. We need to get to the business of setting up this resident oversight board.  So I'm hopeful that we're going to see something different in regards to this RFP and we're not going to spend money and time, again, looking at designs, looking at models, researching, so on and so forth, when we did that beforehand. Yeah, so the first part of that RFP, and so I drafted the RFP with the assistance of Simone, who is the grants writer. And after having conversations with three different people who are experts in this area. So in some ways, I feel like the RFP was probably too comprehensive and scared a lot of folks off. But the first part of that RFP did not discredit the work that was previously done. I mean, like it very specifically stated that it was supposed to build on that work. And I really feel that it wasn't that the consultants were going to reinvent the wheel, but I did feel that there needed to be robust discussion about the models and the work that had been done broadly in the community. All of the research that I had done, all of the information that's at NACALE, which is that national or association of civilian oversight of law enforcement, all of their work, everything that I point to that I read points to having a really robust discussion in the city or town before the creation. And that's really what I had hoped that the first part of the work would be that part one. So I mean, I do think that that's still a really important part to have full conversations among all of the different segments of the community so that you end up with a board that is reflected of the entire community and meets community needs and people have a real understanding of that. And personally, I really liked the idea of having an external consultant be engaged in that work. I do think that there's, we will have to revise it and think about how that can be done. But the RFP specifically stated that it was to build on the work that was previously done. It's not trying to discredit that work or not trying to diminish it in any way, shape or form. I think that that's the foundation that I was hoping that a consultant would build upon to engage in enriched discussion. I mean, Jennifer and I had a bit of conversation about this today, like, you know, what are the, you know she asked like what are the key components for that you really need the consultant's expertise in. And so I'm not an expert in writing policies for a resident oversight board. So I would say that the writing of the policies and the procedure, you know, procedural manual and training of the individuals who are going to be sitting in the board are the key components that need to be done by someone with expertise in this area. And then we have the added sort of component of like making sure that those things jive with of course, Massachusetts law and the post commission. And, you know, to our knowledge, this board if it's created will be the first one that's created in the Commonwealth since post. So we, you know, specifically wrote into the RFP that we wanted someone who would be able to address those very specific legal needs. And the team that the consultants put together included two Massachusetts experts. One who was a former police chief in the eastern part of the state. And then another person who has a consulting firm in the eastern part of the state who has done this work. And it was actually interesting to see that person as part of the team because it had been my expectation that that individual was going to actually submit a proposal from his own business. But I think the company tried to scoop up like the experts in this area in Massachusetts to better their chances of getting, you know, the contract. So, you know, we definitely will have to revise it. We'll have to restructure it. And, you know, perhaps that, you know, perhaps some rewarding of that first section so that it's crystal clear that we're not asking folks to redo the work that's been done, but really to step in and have broad conversations across the community about, based on the work that's already been done. And I'm not so certainly did, that was as clear as it could have been in the RFP. I think it was, you know, looking back on it and at this point where we were not successful, I think it probably was more complex than it needed to be and that had it been written in a different way, it might have achieved something differently. And Jennifer, and as part of our discussion today, she said that one of the prior RFPs had been written in a way where people could, you know, say, I wanna do part A and part C, but I don't wanna do part B. And Simone and I actually had conversations about whether the RFP would be written so that someone could bid on just the part A part, but not the part B or part B and not part A. So, I mean, we'll definitely have to go back to the drawing board for the technical aspects and see if there's a way in which we can get it going. I think one of the other options is, you know, Dr. Shabazz had put together her presentation on the post at the same time in the fall that I had put together just a six-month timeline of like what would this work look like if we tried to do it all internally? So I think that's also an option, like going back to that timeline that I had presented, like, and I think it was actually the timeline that I presented if we tried to do the work internally was a six- to eight-month period with, still with an expectation that a consultant would do that last, you know, policy and procedure and training piece. So what I, what will be the next step for me will be to present to Paul, like these are the various options and then get some guidance from him about, you know, which direction he wants to go in. And of course we'll share that information with this group. Well, yeah, thank you for that information.  However, the part that I'm talking about is that yes, and we could be already, you know, creating something, you know, because the, we got a lot of that information when CSWG hired, you know, Dr. Shabazz is, you know, the 7th Gen to, you know, go in and talk with the community and get a sense of, you know, and that was one of the things and that's why it was one of our recommendations because it was one of the things that we heard not only from 7th Gen, but also all the town meetings that we had, it was the constant, we can't go to the police because our complaints are not taken seriously. We are, you know, dissuaded from filing complaints. We don't hear when things happen and, you know, the intimidation, the targeting, the so on and so forth. So that's the thing, that's why I keep on saying is this kind of like, you know, it's one thing to say, you know, to kind of get input from the community as you're doing it as opposed to starting again, going out and getting, you know, because it was already clear from CSWG that the community is saying, we want this to happen, you know, and we want this to happen yesterday. So that's what I, you know, that's why I'm kind of like, and we did kind of say that.   I do think that there are some very, there's some tricky legal issues in how you put together the resident oversight board. I mean, one of the things that we saw and that we saw this fall following the incident is like anyone can file a complaint with the post commission, but the post commission is limited and what they're going to do to really three very serious categories. And so the question is, how do you structure a resident oversight board that really addresses those issues that are, for lack of a better word, less egregious than the ones that the post. So hosts will tackle, you know, death, a serious bodily injury, and I can't, and racial discrimination, I can't remember exactly what the language is. So there's already a mechanism in place where if anything falls into those really egregious categories, again, for lack of a better term, there's a mechanism outside of the police department where someone could file a complaint. And the penalty imposed by post is the most severe penalty. Like they have the authority to essentially kick someone out of law enforcement and that person would not be able to practice to be a police officer or a peace officer in any city or town in the Commonwealth.  I don't think that you necessarily need to replicate that. And I don't know that that has been an issue. Those types of things have been an issue in Amherst because, you know, I've been told no officer has fired a weapon in the last 10 years. The question is how do you structure an oversight board that addresses the issues that are less egregious than those sort of severe ones that post is geared to tackle and make it so that it complies with Massachusetts law. So, you know, not an expert in this, that's why I really wanted to try to seek a consultant. And I think that's the sticky point. And then of course, in addition to that, you know, as Jennifer and I discussed today, there's still the issue of like the town having to engage and collective bargaining, impact bargaining about any structure that is put into place before we can actually have the officers subject to the review of the resident oversight board. So, you know, as I said to Jennifer, like if there was a decision made to create a third, a body that was separate and apart from the police department that had very little authority, you know, an advisory board just for discussion, that could be done pretty quickly. They wouldn't have the absolute, they wouldn't have the type of power that I think this group envisioned, right? But you could create it because you could overcome some of the other hurdles that exist, creating a body that has the authority that you want to have to do the things that, you know, would be meaningful for people in the community. It's not an easy task. No, no, no one's saying that. And like I said, obviously I do agree that there's a need for consultant and myself and I think other CSJC members were very much in support of getting a consultant. My only thing, and I'll say it speak for myself, is just making sure that we are not wasting the consultant's time doing things that CSWG did already and just jumping to what you were just talking about, right? Making sure that it can be legally viable, making sure that, you know, it overcomes some of the union kind of processes that are gonna come about and to make sure that it is empowered to do what it needs to be done. However, CSWG, because we were very thoughtful, we did a lot of that work, we hired consultants, we got the community input. So a lot of those things, you know, and again, you could kind of have a proposal based on what CSWG already did and then get the community input that way as well as starting it in the beginning, getting community input. Well, what do you think? So on and so forth, we already did that. That's what I'm trying to say. We already did that, we got the community input. The community said, yes, let's move forward. You know what I'm saying? So that's why I'm just kind of like, you know, you have an opportunity now to redo the RFP. I do not want to see, hopefully, but, you know, I don't, not hopefully, I don't wanna see, you know, one, two and three on the next RFP. I mean, I'm just making my statement.  And what needs to happen is to jump to those tricky matters, which you just stated, which is around the law, which is around the union, which is around, you know, empowerment of the resident oversight board so that we can have something up and running. So I think, you know, I'll just stop there. And then I don't know, Freke and Allegro have other questions. Freke, did you have any questions? No. None. I guess just, I have a few things. I think first to kind of piggyback off of what Deborah said. And then I think, I get, I think that the CSWG and SevenGen did a great job collecting information from the community and a great job researching different models of resident oversight board. I think one thing that could be helpful to look at in terms of getting more research about possible models out there is that there have been some that have been put into place since the original work was done. I just, I actually just got a notification about Akron. And it looks like they have some sort of subpoena power there. So if you were limiting the scope, perhaps of research of other boards to include kind of some of the key points that CSWG had already touched upon and to limit the scope to like after their research had already been completed, perhaps that would have a few more models to gain, to look at. But I do think the spirit of what CSWG has done should remain. And I don't think that we need to completely rework the first couple of steps that were there. But I do kind of, I like the idea of maybe splitting it off into the different sections because I do remember that's what CSWG had done with their, I think the first part of their report, of their work maybe. And I know that it was a lot of work. Is that right, Deborah? Am I remembering that correctly? I mean, it's just a little bit different though because this is more like setting up a board which I don't know how you could split it up. I mean, obviously it would be interesting to kind of see that if there would be. Because remember we had like part A, part B we had different sections that were different parts that were distinct and separate. You know what I'm saying? So that's why we could split those up we didn't have to have one kind of consultant do everything because it was like distinct parts but this is the resident oversight board. So, I don't know if that's just gonna complicate matters if you separate it because it is a board that you're trying to set up. I would think it would be better to just get a consultant but yeah, if you don't find a consultant that's able to do everything you're requesting then you can split it into two I could think but I just again, I'm just afraid of time taking away. And I think that makes it like the first when you were doing it, there was we didn't know what the suggestions were gonna be that came out of having a consultant and whereas this is very focused on one specific thing so that might make it a little more difficult to break up. There was that and there was, oh, I guess just in terms of any information that we might get about Cress I'd be really interested to hear about projected start date for taking 911 calls if that has not happened already because I think that was still kind of in flux and perhaps in the union bargaining agreement stage of things the last time we spoke with Earl. So I'd like to know what the plan is for that because I think the more that we can see kind of the true vision of what Cress was in terms of being a public safety response to public safety calls it would be helpful to see what their impact is. So I will reach out to Kat and ask her to either email the group directly or to share information that will forward on. Somehow that just triggered my little memory that there is community safety day this week at Mill River on Saturday. I don't remember the time. I think it might be 11 but I think all the various departments will be there. So that's another community event happening on Saturday at Mill River Park. And I don't think, I think that might have been on my comments. I mean, I think obviously having programming for the Youth Entirements Center is important. I wanna have something for the youth even if we don't have a permanent space but I do, I share diverse concerns about having so many spaces that each one is kind of siloed. It can get good, I would probably get confused about where I was supposed to be for what when. So I think if there could be something that was somewhat consistent, that would be nice but I also understand their constraints and their thing, priorities in terms of having a walkable space, especially if kids are coming from the schools, that would be helpful or a place that's on the bus line so kids can get home if they don't have transportation. I think that was it from me. Does anybody else have anything to add regarding DEI updates or the resident oversight board process? And let's move along. The next thing on the agenda is update on new membership and there's not an update as an official update. There are no new members. I reached out to Paul after our last meeting and he said that HRC and CSSJC were at the top of the list in terms of doing interviews. I think there were a few applicants, maybe like three or four that I didn't get any names but there were some people who had applied. So they were planning to schedule interviews and what they were proposing was that HRC and CSSJC kind of do the interview process together. If I'm understanding this correctly, I don't know if Jennifer might have information that supports this or differs from it but because sometimes there is overlap or sometimes it's hard to tell what people checked off as something that they would be interested in so that perhaps both HRC and CSSJC would be described and offered as possibilities for people who had applied to either of those committees is what I've got from the gist of the email that I got back from Paul, which also said that he was hoping to schedule something within the next few weeks and I have not heard anything about scheduling interviews. So Jennifer, am I making things up or does that sounds like what was said to you? I don't know about having the interviews together but often what happens is anybody who interviews for something but has a passion for something else will get referred to another committee if that makes sense. So if they apply for the HRC but maybe they would be a better fit on CSSJC that they will suggest that they get moved to CSSJC as opposed to HRC, but that happens with all, like you could apply for conservation and then we find out like, well, you have this passion for social justice, you should look at our CSSJC committee but doing the interviews at the same time too, I didn't hear that piece but I know that it runs that way. Now, can I jump in just for a second? So my experience has been with the HRC that a lot of times people will indicate an interest in both so that might be why he decided, is suggesting that the interviews happen concurrently and both organizations, both committees now have HRC we said today has four openings, right? So they both have a large number of openings. And then Jennifer, you said earlier that you see the application forms as they come in, do you know how many have come in? I don't see them so I'm not, I don't know. I don't have a number count. I mean, I can do that and give you guys an answer. I'm gonna have to turn my camera back off because I just keep coughing but I can give you a total of the amount of people that apply for CSSJC momentarily. That would be great. And this has nothing to do, I believe with either of you too but I think that it's just, for me, I'm really frustrated with the process because I feel like it's not transparent. Like we don't know, I think first of all, there could be a better way of handling it when somebody applies to a committee so like you get a response back said, I got your thing, we're scheduling interviews immediately or you know, this is great to have, this is on the back burner right now, we'll reach out to you in a few months. So the people at least have some sort of understanding of okay, this is gonna be a quick thing or this is gonna be something I might forget that I even applied for and then hear back at the time that's not gonna work for me anymore. And I just think that not, me even as the chair talking with people in town saying like, are we gonna have interviews and not knowing like, there are like seven people that have applied and these are the people who they are, just it feels very murky and I wish there was more transparency to the process. And I know that this is not your thing that you have control over, but I just wanted to state my piece about it. There have been eight people who applied for the community safety and social justice committee since January. Okay. So can I jump in? Yes please. Cause well, I'm just gonna call it as it is, I'm sorry, you know what I'm saying? This is again, delay. So there's been eight people that have applied, we are, you know, with less people, we don't even have a quorum to be able to make decisions. And yet, and Paul knew that people were getting ready to resign so on and so forth. This is a month later from when people left, there is no interview set up. There's nothing, you know, one of the callers, Ms. Pat stated that there's already someone that is saying that they're not going to apply anymore. I mean, this is outrageous. I'm sorry. I'm gonna call it as it is. I'm not gonna mince words, dilly-dally, and all of this other stuff. This is sabotage. So that we don't get the people on board and so that we don't make decisions in the meantime, because we know that we've been asking the questions of town council, of Paul Barkham and who refuses to meet with us, and of we wanna meet with chief, the interim chief team to come on. And so that's not happening. I'm sorry. I'm not going to be here in dilly-dally and, you know, why isn't this happening and so on and so forth? It's not happening because it's trying to sabotage this group to see if maybe what we'll do is dissolve. So that we don't put the pressure on the town council. So we don't put the pressure on Paul Barkham so we don't put the pressure on the other towns. Because I hear the criticism that we get, that we don't appreciate the town staff, that we don't do this, we don't do that, just because what? Just because we're bringing up concerns? I talk about the good things too, but I'm not just gonna see here and just talk about the good things. I'm gonna also talk about what's not right. And this is not right. That we've been talking about the fact that there would be no quorum again showcasing we are not a priority. There is no commitment to BIPOC issues. We are a majority BIPOC group. Why is it that the interviews have not been scheduled? Period point blank, end of story. This is outrageous and ridiculous. That's it. And I think maybe it's what? I guess it's going to the media, going to letting people know what's going on that sabotage is occurring. Is that what's happening so that these eight people can just say, hey, I give up? Because from what I heard from Allegra, still like, oh, okay, in the next couple of weeks, what is that? Next couple of weeks, no date, no nothing. When you know we've been asking you about that town manager, what is next couple of weeks? That could be next week, that could be in two months, that could be three months, that could be four months. Knowing that we are under quorum right now, we can't make any decisions. So my thought is that you don't want us to make decisions. It's ridiculous. But guess what, I'll be here next month. Paul, I'm not going anywhere. Thank you, Allegra. Freke, do you have anything to add? I was wondering how many people have applied for the open spots for HRC. Would that be something that Jennifer, you know? Yes, I can say that, and this might be why the interviews were together. I just maybe I'm not remembered correctly, but at least seven out of the eight people, or six out of the eight people applied for both the HRC and the CSSJC. But I can look to see if there were additional folks who applied for just the HRC. Thank you. And Debra, I totally agree that, you know, the more I think about it, the more I'm like, there are probably decisions that might need to be made by us coming up, especially as it relates to involvement in the police chief search. And if we can't make a decision, how are we gonna be able to perhaps choose a participant in that search if that's still the plan? Because I've also gotten conflicting information about what CSSJC's role might be in that, or maybe it's additional information, it wasn't clear. And that's why I was hoping that Paul could at least shed some light on that. I was told there was gonna be a town council memo that went out. I was looking in the packet for their meeting. I didn't see it, so I don't know if it was just an internal memo. And I think, yes, they're separate issues, but they are kind of connected because if there's a search going on and the CSSJC is being asked for an opinion, are we even able to give one if we don't have quorum? Or if somebody is being asked to sit on the search committee, are we able to choose that person because we don't have quorum? So those two things certainly are concerning to me. And I can follow up with another email about what dates are we thinking and just see if it gets a response. But I'm honestly shocked that there have been eight applicants. And not that there shouldn't be eight applicants, but I just didn't even realize there had been that many people that had expressed interest in why couldn't we at least interview for one slot to at least get us back up to quorum. I mean, it would be great to have the full committee, but wouldn't it be nice to have at least one more person on board so that we can make a decision again? And if we can make that one person happen, then why not make the rest of them happen too? And then we have decisions that we need to make around the town council. So right now, besides the decisions that we made, when we had quorum, we can't make any of the decisions relevant to town council, which is again silencing this group. Like you said, if there's eight applicants that have applied for this group, why hasn't there been any initiative to get at least some of these applicants interviewed to see if they could serve on this committee? Like you said, at least to bring us back up to quorum. So one plus one equals two for me. You know what I'm saying? It's to keep us on the quorum so we can't make these critical decisions, especially around the police chief search. That was the function of CSWG, was looking at public safety and making recommendations for the police department. So if we aren't able to make decisions around what actions or questions to make and to ask in terms of the police chief search, our function, we are debilitated as a group which again, is that what is the outcome of having us on the quorum, right? As not being able to ask these questions. But then what the town is doing is again, showcasing to the community, to the town that there's no transparency, right? And that they don't want the community to know what's happening with this search. Like you said, why is there vagueness in terms of whether one of our members is gonna take part in the search or not? Why is there vagueness still? It just doesn't make any sense. So, as a group, we need to decide because obviously, well, I guess we can't decide. That's why we can't decide. So, there you go. This is just sheer ridiculousness. No decisions. Yeah. Wonderful. So decisions we made, which was inviting Chief Ting to come and then Paul's saying it would be inappropriate. Well, we'll talk about that when we hear that agenda item. I guess there is no update as to new members, but I will again, reach out. And now that I know that there have been more than I thought that have applied, I think I can say can we at least have interviews promptly to fill at least one slot so that we can be back up to quorum. So I guess in terms of the police chief search, I think the original email that I got was when it was the July 20th email when I invited Paul and Chief Ting to come to this meeting where he said Paul responded, I expect to have a memo to town council regarding the police chief search process within the week. I will be requesting a member of the CSSJC serve on the search committee. And then he says it would be inappropriate for Chief Ting to come. And then I guess when I followed up with him to say, okay, well, can you at least come to our meeting? And he could not. He then said something about reaching out to all members of CSSJC past and present to get input, but it wasn't clear what phase that would be in or if that was input on the search process or input on the candidates. So is that in addition to having a member on the search committee or is that instead of having a member on the search committee? So I have more questions than answers about that, but perhaps there will be someone from CSSJC on the search committee and perhaps we'll be able to choose that person. Perhaps there, perhaps we won't be. I see Pamela has her hand up. Yeah, I don't have a lot of information, but I do know that the town has engaged a consultant to help with the police chief search. Melissa, Ladiji Wakkar, the HR director is, I would say, chairing that process. She's guiding it through. My understanding is that the intention is to have a member of the CSSJC as a part of the search committee. The emails were between you and Paul, so I saw them as part of the packet. I didn't see them separately from that. So I don't know the answer to the second part of the question about whether he's appointing someone past or present or whether you're selecting it, but I don't think that the answer is in the question that the final contract has been signed with the consultant firm that they're using, which I think is why there hasn't been a memo to town council yet. I think they're waiting to finalize the processes and then the memo would be coming after that. So that's pretty much all of the information that I have since I haven't been part of the conversations on a daily basis. Thank you for sharing. Deborah. Yeah, I mean, for me, it's just like lack of transparency in terms of what is happening and Paul about really being forthcoming with the information. I don't understand why, and I guess, well, let me finish that. And that's why it's so vague, right? Like we're asking these questions in terms of, whether there's gonna be a member of CSSAC that's gonna take part in it, if we're gonna be getting reports or updates around the search.  Then tell us. The whole part of this is about transparency. You have a group that is majority, BIPOC group that was tasked to look at public safety, tasked to make recommendations for the police department. And then you're not keeping this posted. You're not letting us know what's happening. And why is it inappropriate for us to talk with interim Chief Ting? Why is it inappropriate? Anyone should be able to talk with Chief Ting. Chief Ting actually should be willingly, wanting to come meet with us. Why is there this fear of coming to talk with our group? That's the thing that the town doesn't understand. The more you hide behind the titles, your role, your status, things like that, the more the community will make up things, right? Because it's like, what is going on? The important part is to actually have conversations with groups that represent the community, like groups such as us, and have conversations with the community, as opposed to ducking and diving and hiding. And I don't understand, Allegra, do you have any information in terms of why it's inappropriate for our group to meet with interim Chief Ting? I do not, and I can follow up. I didn't ask that question directly. At that point, I was gonna move on from that. No, exactly, because it's again, vague doesn't make too much sense to me without context and more information, and it leaves us in the dark, right? Can you all hear me? Because it's saying my, yeah, my internet is unstable. So what is going on? That's what I wanna know, and yeah, I mean, I don't even know what we can say since we don't have a quorum. So I was gonna say, yes, Allegra, follow up with him, but is it okay for us to say that? Since we don't have a quorum, this is ridiculous. With eight applications sitting and waiting to be interviewed, people waiting to be interviewed. Okay. You had mentioned that you sent the first email, which is the one that is in the packet. Is the second email also part of the response from Paul? It is not, and I can forward it along, so it can be placed in the next packet. I don't remember what date that was from. Because the reason I ask is, I'd like to know if the second response is a clarification of this first email, or it is an addition to the first, because what I read from that email is I will be requesting a member of the CSSJC serve on the search committee, which seems pretty straightforward to me. So if there's anything else that comes after that, is that a clarification, or is that an addition to what was said? So that's, I think, my first comment. The second relates to the sentence that follows afterwards, which says, we can discuss if you would like. And I was wondering how you read that statement. Is it, is the you in the statement referring to the CSSJC, or do you think it's referring to you specifically, or whatever? I took it as me specifically, and I know he did include his phone number, and I did not call him. I did receive the email while I was on vacation, so I was on one of my lists of things to do when I'd gotten back. I did not speak with him by phone, and I am not finding the second response now in my email, so once I find that, I don't think that it said, I don't think it was clear from his second email back to me whether the original plan was still in place, or this was gonna be a plan instead of the original plan, and I think that's what I need to get us clarification on, because if it was a both and thing, I think that would actually be really great. I think it would be important to have somebody from our group on the search committee, especially since that is something that we asked for in the letter that we sent back in June, or whenever it was that the process was announced, or that Chief Livingstone's retirement was announced. But if it's nope, we're scaling this back and putting this into place instead, then I'd like to know why, and also when we should expect this to be happening. So I think there again, are more questions than answers, but I think if I can get clarification on some of them, I will certainly share with the group. Well, and why, well, I guess as the next agenda item, why wouldn't he just come to our meeting and then we can ask him all these questions? As opposed to what's trying to guess from meetings and making suppositions and assumptions, and reading into words. I do think it would be helpful to have a conversation with him. And again, I don't know that that was answered. I think it was just that he couldn't come tonight and didn't give a reason for why. Yeah, and then proposed, well, I can't come tonight, but I can come at your next meeting. When's your next meeting?  It's not like I can't come tonight. And that's, if you really want it to come, you say, well, I can't come tonight, but when's your next meeting? So I can see if I can make it, come on. I did find- There was a willingness, if there was a willingness to meet with us, that would have been the response. No, I just can't come tonight. Sorry. I can read it. It was from August 1st. I will not be able to attend. I expect to have a summary of the process for the police chief search. I'll be asking the consultant to meet one-on-one with all members current and former of CSSJC to give their input into the recruitment profile for the next chief. Okay. So that's, that was the second email. But again, it does not answer the full question that we have. So I think that is a helpful clarification reading the words out loud, but there's still question as to does this mean both and or this is the plan instead of the first thing I said. So. Exactly. Still a lot of questions because now is that what he's saying that now that's going to supplant the original suggestion, which was we have a member there and now you're just getting input. What does that mean in terms of connecting with CSSJC members that were former and current? How is that going to happen? How are you going to make sure you're going to do that? Are you just going to send an email and then if someone doesn't respond then whoops, at that, are you going to contact them directly? Are you going to actually make an effort to talk to people? I mean, I have all those questions. And so again, we don't have answers. There's no clarity, vagueness and no transparency in terms of what's happening. Freke, did that clarify anything for you or did that un-clarify it? More did it. Could you just forward the email at your convenience? Yes. If I catch the tenor of what is being said, it is that the consultant will speak with present and past members. Yes. I'll keep my thoughts to myself. I'm not sure I understand what that means entirely, but I definitely don't see it as a clarification of the email. So I will email again and I will do that and hope to get a hope. I will do my best to ask a as direct as possible question so that hopefully the answer can be as direct as possible. And then I will keep everybody in the loop via forwarding things to Jen. So, and again, if I am a recipient of the memo, I can forward that along as well because I think that would be helpful once the memo is in place. I'm assuming it would go out to at least the town council and perhaps, you know, I would hope at least the DEI department and press and hopefully someone would share it with us if it doesn't come to me directly as well. But hopefully it will. So I guess the last agenda item, unless anybody else has anything else to say about the police chief search would be the meeting, trying to meet with town council and trying to meet with Paul Dockleman and the responses we've gotten and how to move forward the best we can without making a decision about anything. I don't know, this is so confusing. So again, in the packet, I had included the email exchange between myself and Lynn, which was a little confusing to me because again, initially it seemed like perhaps we would have a meeting. And then at the end, it seemed as if town council would be made aware of progress via town manager reports. And it did not seem like a meeting was necessary at this time, which felt a little dismissive to me, but also I was a little bit confused because I went on to the town manager's webpage and there are not any town manager reports since June. So if people are gonna be kept aware of things from a thing that doesn't exist, that doesn't seem to inspire confidence that this will be something that gets addressed. So those were my initial reactions to that email exchange. And I think at this point, I don't know what we can do since if we can't make a decision, we can't. I don't know what we can do, but I'm looking forward to hearing what you both think about our scenario as it stands. Yeah, well, for me, I think it's the same thing that I said about the town manager who again, and I just want to put it out publicly so that it's recorded, right? That the town manager has not met with us once the whole time that CSSJC has been, you know, has been formed and established. We've invited them numerous times and always there's been, you know, one excuse to another in terms of not being able to meet not making any suggestions, not saying, well, if maybe if you all met on this day, or this time I can meet because maybe we could flex and make a change so that we can meet with them. We've had numerous questions around the budget, finance, you know, decisions made, clarity so that it's not vague. And as we just talked about around the police search because what the town managers know is that if there isn't transparency in terms of the police search and then the new police chief is hired, that person is going to come up against a lot of resistance. It's not going to be seen as a fair candidate. It's not going to be welcomed. It's not going to be any of those things. And if that's what Paul wants to set that person up already to have, you know, resistance to have, you know, barriers and walls put up, then go right ahead. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it doesn't make sense to me to do that to set someone up in that way. But that's what will happen if there's no transparency and no inclusivity. And in terms of the town council, you know, is the same type of thing. I mean, we had a meeting previously several months ago and it was all these issues talked about. We talked, you know, broke down all the different concerns, went until midnight. I even had to jump off of the meeting because Lynn wanted to continue, didn't want to have us discuss issues at another time. We did all that. I think the meeting went until almost one o'clock in the morning. And yet, and still to this day, we haven't gotten any type of response, any type of followup. And that's why we wanted to meet with the town council. And the town council through this email has refused to meet with us, right? Because we want to make sure that these issues are kept as a priority because this is something that the community is, you know, wants to happen in terms of these concerns. And if you look through one through seven, a lot of it is proposed. It's continued to develop. It's developed a communication plan. It's all of these different things which is a lot of talk and not a lot of action. And so that's why we want to meet with the town council to see what is the action? What has been happening? What are the steps forward as opposed to just a lot of the, you know, talking, talking, talking and nothing happening? So again, very disappointing in terms of land.  I don't know, she might have something to share about the town council where things are at. I don't know if you pay him is in the audience. So, you know, this is where we're at and, you know, no movement forward from the town council in terms of what has happened. It's just kind of getting these reports from the town manager reports that as you stated, Allegra hasn't taken place since June or in August now. And is this a priority? I think you're muted, Allegra. I was asking if you had anything to add. Not at this time. I think the message is clear from the town council but we can still apply more hits, at least requests for a meeting and push again to have more members join so that it will be easier to make the case for that meeting. If I read her email or if I read the email that was sent it says, let's see. It does not seem to be the appropriate time. And so perhaps by applying a bit more pressure and making that request again, we might get to that appropriate time. Thank you, Freke. And thank you for pointing out the word appropriate because I think A, it reflects the other email and perhaps it means something a little bit different. Maybe it means when you have a quorum and you can make a decision, then we can meet because then we can actually get somewhere perhaps or maybe it doesn't mean that. But I think the use of the word in both emails is a little light bulb, at least. So hopefully there will be... And as you say, it's the chicken or the egg, right? So if we're not getting, if you're stating that you don't wanna meet with us because we don't have quorum and yet there's applications sitting and nothing being done so that we can have more applicants. So then, what does that say? With the town council, you can make a report, you can send us an email, you can do a whole bunch of other things too.  So it's kind of like, there's other options. What I'm saying is that it's not showing any type of real kind of effort to really collaborate with us, utilize us again as the group that you set up to be an advisory group to the town council, they don't even utilize us as an advisory group. You know what I'm saying? We're the one asking to be advisory and you don't even want us to be advisory. I mean, it doesn't make any sense. So it's kind of like, it's just relying on the town manager, however, we're the ones that kind of have the pulse of the community, have members of the community come in to talk to us, but yet you don't want to hear from us. So what does that say? You see what I'm saying? And you don't want to add to our committee so that we can make decisions and we can have a forum. What does that say? What are you communicating? And just so you know, Allegra, Dorothy Pam has her hands up. Thank you. Well, I can't shed any real light on this problem. I will point out that the town manager is on vacation through the 20th. So that would be a reason why he couldn't come to the meeting tonight. I will also point out that other committees, such as TAC, went through long periods of time when it needed members was under enrolled. And I don't get a little message here. It says, it looks like I'm done talking. I just started talking. So I don't know what that means. Anyway, so you're not the first committee that has been caught kind of in a limbo needing more people. I know the town manager has been working hard trying to fill the vacancies and it's been a big push. I think some of the questions that you raise are very good questions. So all I can say to you is, is keep up the faith and keep raising your questions because it's not a unique situation that you're in that you don't have all of your members and that you haven't had all of your requests listened to. I think I agree with you. It's very important that you do be listened to. And then I think it's important that you be utilized. You are an advisory committee in good standing and could be a great help to the town. So that is my comment. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. So can I just say one quick thing about some of that? In terms of Paul being on vacation, that's fine. Everyone deserves a vacation. My thing is just let us know. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I just don't understand why it's just vague. It just leads to us not knowing. Not knowing then leads to us making assumptions and suppositions. And those are the things that it's just like, it doesn't work. And then in terms of, and I do, I understand that we're not unique. We're not unique. I understand that there's groups that fall on the quorum. However, it's around the prioritizing, right? The fact that we've stated and the town has stated, right? In terms of the commitment that they've made to be anti-racist and racial justice after George Floyd murder is the fact of prioritizing, right? What we've been doing and the work that we've been doing. So if there has been applicants in place since January, right? That they've been applications.  Why wouldn't that have been up and ready, right? So that there's no, again, questions, what we have as questions. There's no deadlines, there's no dates, there's no anything. Yeah, we'll be interviewing in the next couple of weeks. There's no plan, I guess that's the thing. No plan, there's no communication, there's nothing. So it doesn't elicit trust in me in terms of, in Paul and the town council too, if there isn't any kind of set communication in terms of what's happening, what's the priority? What are the questions? Again, if the town council doesn't feel like they shouldn't be meeting now, then send us a report, send us some things, send us some information, not just say, well, we shouldn't meet and then send us the same information. That really doesn't add to the knowledge base, it doesn't add to our information. Thank you, Deborah. Am I, sorry, I had to change to my phone. Can you hear me? Okay, everything is on the opposite side over here, so I'm a little confused. So do we get to decide what to do or do we just continue to do what we're doing? Which is, I mean, I can send another email and, I mean, it seems like- Unfortunately, you can't ask us because we can't- Because you can't tell me. Yeah, I can't, we can't tell you. It's like I have a muzzle on my mouth in terms of what we can do in terms of, I think, yeah, I guess if you make the decisions, you can kind of make your own decisions by yourself, but not with us together. Well, I would say if I were to decide on something, I think the priority would to be pushing for interviews at this point so that we can fully make a decision and perhaps put ourselves in a better position to re-request meetings. So that would be a choice that I might make without deciding anything in concert with my other fellow members. So, I mean, I think that it is important that the work be kept in the forefront. I guess that's my take on it. And I think, again, the town has put out this beautiful statement in the wake of George Floyd's death. And I know that the town has done a lot of publicity around crests and how great it is. And I'm not saying that it's not. I'm just saying that if we're going to be putting this on display, then we should really be having these conversations and they should be rising to a level of importance that perhaps they haven't. But it certainly does feel silencing to not be able to make an actual decision about really important matters. Does anybody else have any comments around the town council email and or anything else we've talked about on the agenda so far? Yeah, I mean, my final thoughts is just, I'm expecting based on the other decisions that we've made and the communication that we made when we were a quorum, when we had a quorum is that first and foremost those applications need to be reviewed and interviews need to be made. Again, you can't have it both ways. You can't say that the issues of being anti-racist and social justice and racial equity and so on and so forth is a priority if you don't take the steps to make the advisory group that you created to not be advisory, not be able to make decisions. It just doesn't make any sense. And then not being transparent with the work that you're doing that is directly relevant to what we have put forward. You know, time and time again throughout the year that we've been in existence over a year that we've been in existence doesn't make sense to me too. So it just, it's just showcasing and that's what I wanna say publicly. It's just showcasing where we fall in the priority list and where community members who are not part of the majority group fall in the priority list. And those who are marginalized and those who have no voice where they fall in the priority list. And I just wanna put that out publicly because this is apparent and this is clear. I understand it's not that I'm saying that other groups haven't had to but where do we fall in the priority list? Those who are members, who are marginalized in the community where do they fall in the priority? Since we are the group that represents these voices. So if we can't make a decision if we don't have a quorum and we can't move the decisions of this group forward, what are you, what messaging are you making to that group? That's what I wanna leave for Paul, town council and town staff who are able to move these issues forward. If we're not made a priority, that answer has been given. Thank you, Tambra. Freke, any final thoughts? I think like I mentioned, we'll just have to keep reiterating what our desires are. And thankfully this is a public forum so that gives an opportunity for orders to see that we are making our requests known. So we'll wait for the results. Thank you. With that, we can move on to our second public comment period. So if anyone wants to use the raise, oh my God. Sorry. Just made myself really big. I apologize, this phone thing is confusing. If you would like to make a public comment, please use the raise hand function. Hopefully I will be able to find you. We have. Oh, there's a couple of raise hands. Yeah. Would you like me to? Yes, please. I just promoted Eva. Okay, thank you. Eva, you're muted if you're trying to talk. Sorry. I wasn't really trying to be seen and I ended up pressing the panelists button. Nonetheless, my name is Evelyn Aquino and I am a resident here in Amherst, long time in the area. And I'm just flabbergasted sitting in this meeting at the disregard and the disrespect of what is supposed to be important in this city and the priorities that this town continues to put forth publicly in the news, it's like, it's fun. It's like it's an entertainment thing. It blows my mind that we cannot get work done, that it takes so, so long to get things to have a meeting, to speak to someone. This is like complete bureaucracy. I am, my blood is boiling at the level of comfort that some people have in their positions that are supposed to be to fill the needs of this community. And folks are sitting back like blah, blah, blah. We got a new office. We got these people on vacation and I'm like, what are we talking about? What is going on? What happened to the sense of urgency? Cause I know it hasn't changed in the community. It hasn't changed in the community. And all of a sudden no one shows up to meetings. No, things can't get done. Where's the level of professionalism? Aren't these people working full time? What is happening in the 40 hours? My mind is blown, absolutely blown at the level of disregard to the residents of this city, in particularly marginalized and the young people of this city. Why has it taken so long to think up of renting? Okay, maybe we can't buy a place, but we can't get programming up for youth programming? That does not take a genius. We have a town full of incredible people that do great work all over the world locally. It's just unbelievable to me. I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed that this has taken, that it's not only taking this long, but the level of disregard. Oh, but we got our signs up on our lines. Black lives matter. My neighbor matters. What? What is happening with the residents of the city? Where are you? Where's the pressure? Cause there's a lot of folks in this town supposedly so committed to social justice. Social justice is not a word, it's an action. It's what you do when nobody's looking. It's who you talk to, your people. Like literally, I'm just blown away. This is embarrassing. And it makes me so sad for our young people. This is our leadership, really? I'm glad you got a nice little paycheck, but the rest of us don't live like that. And the responsibility, we're just gonna have to put more pressure on what people are supposed to be responsible for. That's it. I'm flabbergasted, truly. And I'm really sorry to our community that this is the pace at which we see change happen. And trust me, I didn't expect it to be fast, but I also didn't expect it to be molasses because the way it was spoken about was like, oh, we're ready. We got the money, we put the money here, we hired this person. We can't get a report from Chris because he hasn't been in work for the last couple of days, really? We can't get any kind of update. Nobody know. Nobody's connected, no. I'll do respect Pamela. You and Jennifer just spoke for the first time? Like, what's up? Seriously? I'm, yeah, I'm sorry. I don't mean to get this heated, but I don't think people understand that people's lives are on the line. These are not just words. These are not just comfort and positions. Thank you for the time. I appreciate it. And thank you for your hard work. Thank you. Ms. Pat. Excuse me. I don't know if too many of us were trying to bring her out once because my page says that she declined to come in. So. Then Ms. Pat declined to come in? Yeah, as a panelist, but I can try again. Okay. Can you hear me? Okay. I have been clearly told that as a liaison, I cannot participate in the meeting. I've been told twice. So that is why I do not come in as a panelist. Okay. It's not because I don't want to, but it's because I've been told that that is not the role of a town counselor liaison. In fact, I've been told that I need not even attend the meetings. I can just read their minutes report from that. And I prefer to attend the meetings, but I have commented as much as I'm sure I am allowed to do. Sorry. Ms. Pat, Dorothy, I'm counselor Pam, I'm gonna move you over and then I'm gonna try to give Ms. Pat permission to talk. There she is. All right. Great. Okay. Can people hear me? Yes. Okay. I will be quick. I want to, you know, as I listened tonight, I just really want to thank all of you for your deliberation, your conversation, especially to Deborah and Allegra to keep the pressure on. I just want to comment on a couple of things. This is actually not surprising to me, unfortunately it seems like, you know, history is repeating itself exactly summer of 2021. Okay. The town council didn't want some of the members, they didn't want CSSCSWG to exist anymore. There were a lot of pressure, private meetings with our coaches. They don't want, they don't even want CSSSJC. Summer two years ago, and it was election year, local election year. So it's not accidental that here we are 2023, even though it's not CSWG, it's CSSJC and our time manager is taking his time to interview and appoint people to this. It's another local election. And, you know, people of color issues is not a priority. Okay. So I just want to say that it's a pattern and the solution, I think, what CSWG has envisioned about CSSJC is actually to be decision making body. This adversary thing isn't going to work because I feel that CSSJC are experts. And that's why we have, there is majority BIPOC on the committee that have lived the experience of being marginalized. And they should be seen as expert and they should be seen as making decision for the town in terms of social justice. So I will hope that you guys will put that pressure on. It needs to be revised. What we have right now is, you know, in 10 years will be, you know, this conversation will continue. Something needs to change radically. If it needs knocking on the doors of apartments in this town and then we storm in the town council, whatever it's going to take, this has to change. I hope people will go out and vote and vote some people out. This isn't working. This community belongs to all of us and not just very few powerful people that make decision affects everybody else. You know, I've lived in this town for 40 years and what I've noticed is that we like to brag and only say positive things about our town when people try to point out what we need to work on, you get dismissed.  People, you know, start thinking you're the enemy. You don't want progress, which is not true. I think the way the CSSJC is right now is set up for failure. Unless if the people that will be appointed as statue school that will come to this meeting and just say, everything is fine. Isn't that wonderful? We have Crest Program. We created DEI. We are just fine.  At least they're not shooting people up in this town. What are you complaining about? That's what, you know, that's the only way and then you'll see the same town council wanting to meet with CSSJC. Until they have members like that, you will see a town council meeting with you guys. Okay. I also want to say about police search. I'm just, you know, there's something about me that when I raise a lot, it comes to fruition. Whatever the plan is, if they search for the new police chief and Deborah, if you hinted to that, if it's not majority BIPOC, that would be war in this town. If there is no, you know, robust impacted by policing in this town. Any new chief police, can people hear me? It's like your internet connection. Yeah, for a little bit. Can you hear me now? Okay. So that's one thing. Now, I am a senior, okay? I'm over 60 and I support senior center upgrade. I support youth program, but why are we not pushing for BIPOC cultural center? You know, my group, BBAA, we hosted congressman McGovern. We couldn't find a safe space in our town. I want everybody to think about this for a second. We could not find a safe space. We have to go all the way to hardly at Baku Care building to host McGovern, even though the members run their businesses in Amherst. Just think about that. So the point I'm trying to make is we need BIPOC cultural center as important as a senior center and as youth center. I also want to thank you, CSSJC, for your support with pushing, wanting to know the truth about upper fund distribution and with your support, the truth got exposed that I've been right all along that the way that the upper fund was distributed was illegal. It was not consistent with federal upper, federal final role of upper funds. You cannot reject businesses based on not having a fund store rented. You cannot refuse businesses because they don't have, they're not registered with a town of Amherst. You can have LLC and not register with town of Amherst or they don't have AI number. Some people use their social security number to run their businesses or immigration status. All those things were illegal. There were all illegal policies that were set up to favor our powerful commercial landlords, period. It was made in such a way that if you're not renting from bed, members of powerful landlords, you're not getting the upper funds. And so I'm glad that CSSJC made history by supporting me to push for that. And I will hope when the town manager creates whatever the screening committee would be that at least a couple of members from this group will join to make sure that upper funds are distributed fairly this time. So that is opportunity for you guys to play a very important role in the next upper distribution stuff. I'll be very, I'm almost done. So I also want to mention about transparency. You know, one mistake our town always do, they think by hiding stuff, ignoring, not addressing issues will go away. Actually, it makes it worse. Look at what is happening with our school system. The more that people are not coming up to answer questions or address issues, the worse it gets. Now we have two lawsuits with our school system pending and who knows how many that will be coming up for our town. So the sooner our town comes out and let the resident know what is going on, the better for everybody. Lack of transparency doesn't serve anybody any good. All it just does is just buy time and make things worse. And in terms of inviting some of our administrators to come to CSSJC and being ignored, and that's what will happen with the upper funds because if the finance director had come when we requested him to come last fall, it wouldn't have been this explosive, but it took one year for the MS residents to finally know the truth. One year, why is that? It shouldn't be like that.  It needs to stop. It just needs to stop. And the last thing is that keep pushing. I know that I decided not to apply for reappointment because I wanted to get something done for BBAA, but persistence is what works in our town. Don't give up, keep pushing. And you have committed to supporting the CSSJC committee. And I just pray, my prayer is that whoever they're going to appoint will not be the status quo people who will be coming to Roba Stamp, where the powerful people have already done because that's not going to get anyone anywhere. Thank you, have a good night. I think Brianna also has her hand up. I'm appalled at this meeting. Honestly, sitting on the CSWG, this is just history repeating itself. I hope that you all continue to, shout to your networks and try to have folks come and public comment and have the community support you all because it is just so outrageous how this group is not being leaned on for any advice. You all are experts, have lived experience, are connected in the community and it is a shame to listen and watch history repeat itself over and over and over again. Please keep persevering and please keep the public engaged on how we can support you all because this work is vital. Thank you. Alicia. Hi, can you all hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. Awesome, thank you. So first, before I comment, I just wanted to share my appreciation for all of you. And I just specifically just wanna give a shout out to Deborah because she was on the original CSWG and like Brianna, this meeting has been very appalling and emotional to watch just because like reliving all of the trauma and hurdles and barriers and roadblocks that were put up for us in 2019 when the CSWG was created. And so to know that you are all of you, but again, Deborah are still being persistent and still standing strong. Like I am very much in admiration of you all right now. So just like taking that all in that it does take a lot of resilience to be continuing to do this work with such strength and power and knowledge because I have learned a lot from listening to you all tonight in your conversation. And again, to just highlight the importance of this group because even, I'm speaking in my capacity as myself as a singular person, but even in my capacity as a counselor, I didn't know all of the things that were talked about tonight at this meeting. And I think that just re-emphasizes how critically important it is to have a group that focuses on these things because even at the council level, we don't get this much detail. I was not in the know, I learned so much from Pamela Young's update. And so again, like this committee is critically important and is keeping so much to the forefront that would otherwise be pushed behind.  And then just a few quick thoughts because again, I'm so appalled that I feel like I'm having a hard time putting my words together because of the lack of and not progress on you all parts with the town to move on any of these initiatives. I can't believe we haven't started interviewing. I will be advocating for that as well since we have a applicants, which I also was shocked to hear. I knew people had applied, but I don't know why I just assumed because it was taking so long that it was a smaller number. And so like happy and also disappointed to hear that there are eight. So I know and hear that that is a priority. And I really agree with that. When it comes to the resident oversight board, I'm also really disappointed to hear that the RFP didn't work out. I was really hopeful that that would move forward. I do have a lot of questions though in terms of repetitiveness, because I think that like I hear Pamela's report that there are some legal contingencies that make it really difficult. And I do understand that, but I think when I was on the CSWG, we were told that the delay was because the town attorneys were reviewing the documents for so long. And so wondering why that happened for almost two years, but we're still at the point where the legal discrepancies are holding it back two years later or that those complications still exist after that document has been able to be reviewed by our town attorneys. I'm just a little bit confused about that process and why we're not further along. And while I do understand why consultants would be important, I don't see why we have to wait for them to start. And so even though that I see why we would use them for training, but why can't we like start getting people to apply, start getting the charge written? We have lots of data and information from the CSWG that could help get that started. We don't necessarily need consultants for that part. And I'm sure charges can be updated. Like I know, for example, subpoena power was one big question that we came across. And maybe we start without it and it can be added once we get the legal opinion. But I think that it's critically important that we continue to move forward on that. And also we like unlike Crest, we are not at the forefront of resident oversight boards. There are lots of towns that already have them. We met with Springfield, they have one, they have subpoena power. So there are other people we can lean on and get information from, which I know the CSWG has already done, but I'm saying if we need to hear from other people who have experienced doing this before, there are people in close proximity to us who have done this before. And so I don't really understand the significant delay. And so I would really urge you all and Pamela, that when you're looking to come up with the plan B to really lean on the support of the people in this area who have experienced with these things rather than waiting to like re-issue an RFP and go through the process, because who knows if it will turn to another dead end. And I think at this point, it's just disappointing how long it's taking because it's a critically important issue for the safety and wellbeing of the people in this town. And while we know that complaints can go to the police department directly and we know that they can go to post, like there are still things that are very egregious and affect the trajectory of people's lives that happen in this town on a regular basis that need to be able to be reported to an outside place where people feel safe sharing that information because otherwise they will not feel safe living in this town. And so I think like it is for the wellbeing and the safety of our community members. And it's very important that we have that set up as soon as possible. I want to hear more about the Youth Empowerment Center. I think that again is one of a really important initiatives because when we were talking about community safety when the CSWG was out in the community, that is what we heard, is that a lot of young people feel as though that they are being racially profiled, discriminated against because of the fact that they don't have anywhere to be. And so they're like hanging out in town and walking around and police officers frequent downtown and are kicking them out of businesses because they're just loitering. And so like we need to pay attention to the young people and order because they're important and because that is how we protect the future of the town. So we need to really invest in that, make it happen quickly. Again, my disappointment is that all of these things started, we started working on recommending these things in 2019 and it is 2023. It is absolutely ridiculous that we are still working on a blueprint. We should be in implementation phases of all of these things. And I can go on and I'm sorry that this has been really long. I have so much more to say, but I will save those things because it's just gonna be like things that have already been said. But again, before I go, I just want to again, thank you all so much for continuing this work for trying to ensure that everyone in this community and in this community is heard and feels safe. And I cannot under-emphasize how important that is for the livelihood of everybody in this community. So again, thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Like you had said before, like I just, I know we can't comment on the bed, but I just want to thank everyone that stayed during this whole time and took the time to comment. Very important. Yes, thank you. Thank you for being here and walking through this with us. So I think we as a previous body who used to have a quorum had decided that our next meeting would be September 13th and that for the time being, we would meet on the second Wednesdays at 6.30. So September 13th will be our next meeting. 6.30. And as we just repeat that date, stop there. Yep, September 13th at 6.30. Can you do the October one too after that just so I can put it on my calendar? October. Because we're doing the second Wednesdays? Second Wednesday, where's October? That would be the 11th. And so as of right now, nobody will be coming to join us in September. Perhaps that could change and if it does, I will let you know. But I mean, I think we still have our hands full enough when we have a Cress Update and a DEI update and even just follow up on some of the things we've talked to tonight, talked about tonight. So those will be starting agenda points and we can come up with more as... Well, I think we just need to add the, you know, about the interviews and where the search process. Yeah. You know, the process to add members that any city and agenda item. Yeah, absolutely. Now we can see about others. And so I will put out an email the week before the September meeting to just get some thoughts about any additional items that might have come up and get the agenda out. And do we have anything that didn't come up within 48 hours that we need to discuss? And I think we can adjourn at 9.07. All right, we're done. Good night, everyone. Good night. See you in September. Good night.