rtable it's pushback it's what are we going to do how are we going to do it but you know what I guarantee if I do a little research I can find programs that were run and offered to the town by white community members and you guys have funded it with very little questions very little pushback and it is very disappointing and it's very disgusting that you guys will sit there and think that you're doing something positive but at the same time find funds for this that and the other white spaces and you you you know I know that makes some of you uncomfortable white spaces what do you mean white spaces I mean I can't go into a store and and guarantee that I'm going to see a black owner and when they are here they're here for such a short little period of time you have to work on yourself and what you do holding a sign putting putting black lives matter up on you up on your front lawn means nothing it's performative do some actual work and it shouldn't even be the BIPOC community that has to explain to you and tell you over and over and over again how to do it the information is out there it needs to hurt it needs to feel uncomfortable because if you don't feel uncomfortable you don't you're not learning a lesson you're not understanding what's going on because every day I walk through life feeling uncomfortable and the last thing I'm going to say is another story my son is now 25 and when we had the forum for the CSWG he I had to come I had to convince him to speak he didn't want to speak and it broke my heart listening to him speak because he was in the newspaper quite often for sports he was a well known and well respected young man in this community and he was detained because he looked like somebody who did something on New Year's Eve as he's walking to his girlfriend's house and the situation escalated to the point that another student who knew him from Amherst saw what was going on was like what's up what are you doing like there's no way that this person did this they were ignored and so they started going on snapchat and facebook and everything reaching out to other students and being like they're detaining Donovan and from what I understand there was like 25 kids out there talking to this officers and being like look you have the wrong person 25 students I question what would have happened if nobody had been there I don't know it scares me because everybody says it's not going to happen in Amherst but I've been here 30 years my mom was very well known in this community I'm well known in this community and my son who also is well known in this community was detained so no I don't trust the community of Amherst very much I don't trust non-BIPOC people very much you have given me plenty of reasons not to trust you you don't you don't make it you don't make any space for us and you make that clear with every one of these meetings that happens that we've attended that you've attended of ours you've made it very clear we are not welcome and so if you don't want us to continue to feel that way and if you don't want us to continue to see you in that light then you need to make some real change not comfortable change real change thank you thank you Russ my comments were just to the slide show I did get a chance to look at it on my lunch break did you want to comment first I can um well I I do want to appreciate the amount of work uh that the town manager and I know that the town council and finance committee do weekend and week out and I appreciate your attention to detail and the specificity of your questions tonight and those of you who supported the Crest program and the DEI director um you know at the early in his comments the town manager talked about we need to address the urgency for change and I have to say that in your discussion tonight I heard a concern for getting the right responder to each call I heard a concern for relieving the police department of some calls that are really not their specialty but I didn't really hear a sense of urgency about the fact that many many BIPOC people in our community do not feel safe will not call the police when they need safety services that's a public safety problem and there needs to be a sense of urgency about dealing with that I do want to pick it two specific issues um that I think need to be changed at a minimum uh in the town managers proposal the first is that the budget slide shows whole hiring the community responders for five months now we've agreed that it's going to take two months to train them that means they're only going to have three months left in the year to be uh doing their job they're not really going to go operational until April 1st so when we're developing the budget for next year we're going to have no idea how this program works so the start to the program needs to at least be moved a few months ahead and I believe you know I've looked carefully I I understand the all the implementation questions I've you know I've been an administrator I've initiated new programs I know what it takes I don't think we should try to do it immediately but we do need preparation time uh but we can't wait until only five minutes left in the in the fiscal year or we won't have the information we want and we won't have responded to the urgency for change we won't have met the needs of our BIPOC community members secondly I think when the town manager introduced his budget to you with all due respect to Scott and Gabe and Ron he did not tell you he was increasing the police department by two positions but the truth of the matter is the police department has been functioning with 44 sworn officers for the whole second half of the fiscal year and the budget he gave you and the budget that he still is holding to tonight has 46 officers this is not the time to be increasing the level of police service this is not the time to be adding positions especially when the goal is how do we shift positions to an alternative responder model doing making that kind of shift is often really difficult because there's no way to do it without laying off people in the department you're reducing you have a unique opportunity there are four and probably five vacancies in the police department right now you can make this shift this year without having to lay anybody off without terminating any valued police officer we need more we need more community responder positions and we need them for more time the money is right sitting right there in the police budget now the other thing about that is it also makes the problem smaller for FY23 you create a bunch more police positions you're going to have you know again you're going to not be able to find the money because the money is in the police department so doing it now while there are vacancies is a real advantage and finally I know there's some concern about leaving the town short of service well you know the police chief has explained to us that he can't count on being able to hire somebody who's already been trained in the academy and it takes eight to 12 months to train somebody if they have to go through the academy I'm confident we can get cross server responders up and working considerably faster than that so if you want to relieve the police department you want to make sure there's enough police coverage for police work get cross up and running in a sizable enough dimension that we do relieve the police department of the things that are really not police work and we begin to respond to the needs of the BIPOC community I think the positions in the money are there and I think it's a realistic thing to have a more substantial start for FY22 thank you thank you Ross so what I'm going to do is just see if Paul has anything that he wants to say or after what we've just heard and wants to offer the finance committee then I'm going to quickly explain how the finance committee has to proceed under the charter and I think that will come to the evening Owen has not spoken yet and she wants to speak and I don't know if Tashina Bowman wants to speak again her hand I was assuming that hands could usually lowered the meetings by a team that I was keeping track hi Andy I would actually I still do have a lot of questions for Mr. Backelman on the presentation that he showed you all so I mean because I wasn't able to join the initial discussion I would like to ask them now if possible Paul do you want to go ahead and have the questions first yeah of course so I guess my first question looking at that slideshow is is the community safety working group staying together past September because I noticed in the planning that the bulk of the work is going to start in October I think again it is critical that the CSWG be a part of the planning process and implementing whatever needs to be implemented as this program starts so thank you Andy so I'm eager to look at your next proposal on part B of the proposal which includes the development of a resident oversight committee of some sort and so I want to see if that's in competition with what the CSWG is doing or if that's a separate organization separate group and has a different separate mission I think that CSWG's charge will be expired when you deliver your next report I did put in the presentation I would invite members of you know I didn't want to presume that anybody would be willing or interested in participating but I would invite members of the CSWG to work on the development of the program okay and my next question there was a slide on the BIPOC cultural center and it said that this center needs to be evaluated by the DEI director I was just wondering what you meant when you said evaluated because I think one of the habitual problems that this town has is forums and surveys for BIPOC people to come forward and talk about issues their experience in the community and nothing happening and so many have happened in this last year I'm just wondering what else needs to be evaluated for us to have a BIPOC cultural center if I can Andy yeah I don't really know the answer to that question I know that that's a major ask or request from the working group I am not prepared to sort of evaluate that and figure out how to fund something like that you put together a budget on what it would take to operate it so I just felt like it needed more time and I did there was just no time during this front this this this budget making process to address that okay I would have felt just a little bit more comfortable if it said that rather than being evaluated by the DEI director I understand that yeah and then I'm wondering about the Harvard School program that you talked about I'm wondering why we're not utilizing the CAHOOTS consulting that's available you referenced it in our charge and they're a program that's been around for over 30 years now and they've learned a lot and they provide consulting for different towns so I'm wondering why we're sort of a case trial for the Kennedy School but we're not reaching out to CAHOOTS so what and that would that would certainly be an option but the CAHOOTS is a different model it's the model that isn't being recommended by the working group the working group is looking at an employee-based model CAHOOTS is a contract model and so I think if we want to move in the contract realm instead of hiring employees but we want to contract with a social service agency like Whitebird then we would it would make sense for us to consult with CAHOOTS okay and then my last question was what markers are you going to use if you've developed them yet to access the effectiveness of CAHOOTS I'm really worried that because you're not fully funding it it's not going to be as effective as the group is anticipating no that's a great point because I don't think CAHOOTS can be evaluated totally in year one it's just I think Russ and you several members just said it's not going to be enough time to really even get the word out that you can call independent number I don't know what the what the markers would be I think that's something that people would have to look into I think I think it's important to create a baseline data which which has already sort of been done on a certain level but also so we can I don't know what the markers are what what is what do how do we measure whether people feel safe in their community it might be you know how many calls were actually handled it might be a call-based assessment so I just I don't have an opinion on that and I think it would leave it to the group to try and develop that okay and I would just ask going forward that when these implementation meetings are happening with the chief of police and other members of safety services that exist in Amherst that CSWG members be present because we have been studying this and we should be part of the conversation. Yes I think in my proposal I was going to invite members from the CSWG to be at the table for these discussions. Thank you Andy I'm wondering if we would be able to bring Dr. Shabazz into the actually thank you for mentioning that because I realized she was the she represents the consultant group that we worked with who helped us create the budget that's why I bring that up. Yeah I wanted to actually say we actually have public comment on the agenda and it's required as a part of all regular meetings of the council and committees so I did want to so anybody who is in the audience who would like to speak this Dr. Shabazz has her hands up already and I will call on her first as you suggested but other people and I want to because it is getting late and we need to move this along please raise your hand so I have an idea of the number of people and I ask you to limit your time. Athena will run the clock though for Dr. Shabazz because she was one of the consultants. I'm not going to do the same thing and I think that for other people I'm going to have to ask so we limit it to two minutes but I'm not limiting Dr. Shabazz so please bring her in the room first. Hello you all can hear me? Yeah hi okay I can hear you. Yes so thank you Andy and thank you town manager for reconsidering the budget. It still needs work as the CSW have of course you know outlined. I'd like to speak to two things because I think that the CSWG has done an excellent job of engaging with you in terms of a real critique of what has been presented tonight. Right first is to speak to the DEI director of position and implementation of the Crest program redesigned by the town manager as LEAP. First off the research that the CSWG is pulling from and that some of the research of course we did extensive research but and the 7Gen MC group we looked at the 2020 Center for American Progress report. Hopefully you all have looked at that. It's the community responder model report subtitled how cities can send the right responder to every 911 call. They look at LEAP and they look at the CAHOOTS program. I would really recommend that this finance committee and the town council and the town manager look at that report for some comparative issues and points that could be helpful as you again assess whether LEAP is the appropriate program for Amherst or is it CAHOOTS or is it a customized type of program that it sounds like that's where your heart is looking at something more customized but so I just recommend that. Also I'm going to agree with Alyssa Brewer and Pat D'Angelo is here about the issues regarding the DEI director position. It is an absolutely vital part of the CSWG recommendation and is desperately needed for this community. It is not an abstract good feeling type of position. It is a position that needs to be funded by a professional DEI director, someone who is trained and has a background in education to fill that position right away to be able to plan assess and implement goals outlined not only by the town manager but the work of the CSWG. It's really disrespectful to just say we're going to elevate a position whereby someone is a clerk or a position that is in the town hall already. This needs to be a newly created position. There are towns in the state of Massachusetts that are around our size that have dedicated DEI directors and it deserves to have someone with a master's at least at the very least or a doctorate to provide these needed skills and knowledges and step into this position and that a DEI director, someone that attends on all levels of community development including the economy. So diverse people bring in these types of necessary skills and what happens here is that racially and I'm saying here in Amherst, racially, linguistically and ethnically diverse persons arrive here for a short time often for educational advancement but choose not to stay because of the discomfort and sometimes hostile economic, cultural and social climate. That is a fact. I just had a conversation with someone that graduated from UMass recently and they are already looking to lead. To this end, I noticed the description of equity and diversity on the town website as of this week has expanded in the last week into two paragraphs and if I search the town website as a potential visitor or someone moving into Amherst, I would still find the statement and the work on diversity anemic that is shown on the town website. It's assumed that a diversity equity inclusion director would not attend to or consider economic investment and innovation. This is untrue. The short-sightedness is a continual problem on the part of the town and the town council. Having all kinds of people will help us make better decisions. More diverse employers can bring people from all over the world to work and build in Amherst. When people move here, they must find an environment that not only welcomes everyone but educated and skilled people need to feel that they are empowered in the places where they pay taxes and invest. A role of chief diversity inclusion officer or director would advise the town on issues to provide resources for the school department, business, staff programs, activities to promote inclusive excellence in welcoming environments for all. They would have a lead role in facilitating the development of strategies, strategies people, a plan, policies and guidelines that advance understanding of diversity inclusion across hiring, business development, the workforce, the community in total. This would also mean a person that coordinates with individuals who are overseeing diversity inclusion efforts within individual divisions within the town, the boards and commissions and develop new programs that encourage active engagement and activities that demonstrate the city's commitment to inclusion. This is not a part-time position and should not be given short shrift. A more diverse workforce and community is a more economically robust community period. The last thing I want to speak to is that, you know, when we look at budgeting, one of the things to keep in mind, particularly with the Kahootz program as a model, our research found that Eugene Oregon saved an estimated 8.5 million per year in public safety costs by reducing the need for police response. And the savings accrued and a town like Amherst would be able to reinvest those funds back into the responders program to expand its reach and promote it in a sustainable way. So again, the Center for American Progress Report also has this information. Lastly, Amherst is going to need to tailor the program that the town manager, the CSWG, has created and it points to fit like for a local context and it must effectively meet the needs of the residents. We've said that, but what that means is that the town should meaningfully involve the community. That's the CSWG. Other oversight groups as far as a review group, et cetera, fine, but the CSWG needs to remain to engage residents in every step of the process as we will be back to square one where the people and the groups who are disenfranchised will most likely have to come into contact with police or in this case, community responders that do not necessarily fit what the CSWG had in mind. Okay, so the CSWG will be your best representatives of the larger community, especially regarding BIPOC members and should be maintained as a part of the process and an ongoing part of the town government to elicit feedback. If you want to think of it as that way, who are people that can provide this liaison relationship with the community and with the program? Okay, so I think we have to remember who are the stakeholders. The CSWG has brought the information of folks most vulnerable and who would most benefit and why on earth would you exclude them from shaping this process unless you want to repeat the same mistakes? That's it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Shavaz. So, Paul, I will leave it to you to raise your hand at any point or to signal to me because I'm looking at you right now at the attendee list and I said we need to do public comment. Please, please limit to two minutes and four public comment. I'm not sure if you heard her comment, but Ms. Walker had her hand up for quite a while, so I just want to acknowledge that her hand has been raised. And I also have my hand up. Yeah, I need to draw the meeting to a close at some point, so I just have to be very careful about making sure we get the public comment and that's why I was trying to move over to a lot of the public in for a few minutes. I'm okay with continuing public comment. No, I'm okay with continuing public comment, but I would just like to speak because I did have questions and I have had my hand raised since before we started public comment. And so I do have questions for the town manager in regards to this presentation, but I can wait until after public comment. Okay. And I see that Ms. Farar has to, and I'll conclude with comment just to reminder about what the role of the finance committee and the council is under the charter that I'll do that at the end. And going to public comment, the first is Ms. Karakashian, I believe, is the last name and I'm not going to let you introduce yourself so I don't mispronounce your name entirely. Hi there. My name is Noa Lani. I would like to start off by saying one of the issues that I had in Amherst is that folks never actually tried to pronounce my name correctly, so that feels pretty offensive that you just said you're not going to try. I would also like to point out that as an outside member, I don't live in Amherst anymore, so I want to make that very clear. I just sat waiting to speak for two and a half hours because this matters to me as a person who doesn't live there anymore. I feel like what was made very clear by, I believe y'all are the council now, is that y'all are not invested in actually making change in Amherst because y'all didn't invite the people who proposed the budget, who built the programs, who are making these recommendations to speak, to present what they have been working on for months. And that's incredibly disrespectful and to Sheena named it and racist. So I feel like what y'all are showing is that you're not actually committed to making any change. And if that is not the case, if you are actually interested in creating a community where your BIPOC members feel safe, then the first thing you need to do is invite them to sit at the table. And it is wildly inappropriate that watching this meeting, I don't see any diversity. Like the first steps should have been inviting people of color to join the council period because y'all are speaking on stuff that you don't live, that you don't know, and then are interpreting it for outsiders, for members of the community, for people who are listening to this in a way that is made very clear by this group that is inaccurate. You're inaccurately reciting the work that they have done and not including them to clarify and answer questions and even ask questions about the information that you're interpreting. And I'm really disappointed to have sat here and realized that nothing has changed since I left, since I moved away. And so I would really like y'all to sit with that. And I expect y'all to just do better because if that's what you want, then you actually need to take the strides forward. And I don't know if the time is up. But the last thing I want to say that I felt very hurt by is that y'all are talking about having a budget to increase the police when that is literally the exact opposite. Like I expect to see that decrease when this group is providing alternatives to the police. The expectation is that the problems that they can't solve, which they should be trained on, irregardless, they should be able to step into a situation and say, this is out of our realm, let's hand it off to the appropriate person, which it sounds like they're not. Those positions need to be decreased so the money is going to the appropriate places. And yeah, that's all I have to say. I commend all of you on this committee for putting this together and being patient while you're being wildly disrespected, like kudos to y'all, kudos. And I want to make it very clear that I don't even live in Massachusetts anymore. And I found it important to hop on this call to defend folks who aren't being defended by the people who are claiming they support BIPOC folks in this community. Thank you. And I was very interested in your comment and I appreciated your comment at the beginning because I don't know if it's more disrespectful to attempt a name and get it wrong or to not attempt a name at all. And so thank you for that comment. Somebody who is signed in is canopy equity. Please state your name where you live because I don't know what that is, but I see your hand up. Hi, my name is Amara Donovan. And I grew up in Amherst for 28 years and also attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a dual degree in sociology and public health with a focus on racial equity. And I now work in anti-racism and racial justice, both in a community engagement nonprofit and an anti-racism consulting. And I urge the town council and finance committee to adopt all of the recommendations formed by the CSWG after countless hours of community engagement, synthesis, and meaningful discussion about our community. The Crest program is a huge and impactful part of this that will revolutionize the experiences of BIPOC and other historically marginalized groups in our community. The foundation of a thriving community is trust and safety. The Crest program provides a foundation for that and begins the work of restoration with a community that has experienced immense harm at the hands of policing in Amherst specifically. I was incredibly distraught to see the clear lack of respect and investment in the CSWG made clear throughout their entire work from being publicly chastised by a town council member lied to about funding, asked not to attend essential meetings such as the safety portion of the budget meeting, barred from presenting the information they deem important as BIPOC community members themselves and now being met with barriers to making the fruits of their labor culture fruition. This is racism. If Amherst truly wants to be a diverse and inclusive community rooted in equity and anti-racism, this must be reflected in the dollars we choose to invest and the holistic view of program services and resources we invest in. Anti-racism cannot be an add-on. It must be integrated throughout the town, safety services, mental health services and governance across the board. This is a start, but this is not enough. I urge you to defund the police and invest in the BIPOC community immediately and with urgency. Additionally, I would just like to say that the members of the CSWG are community safety and wellness. Your constant questioning of their data and asking the town to collect even more information before investment is a racist white supremacist strategy. No one asks white people to go gather more data and information and to prove themselves after years of this data being available to the town.  BIPOC residents are not obligated to tie their data in a bow of your white supremacist perfectionist standards. Stories are data. Your response is not enough. Again, the members of the CSWG are community safety and wellness. My doula who made sure my son was born safe and healthy is on this committee. My advocate in education and in all of my life across the board as a resource is on this committee. The woman and business owner who served me and my friend's food after school from her business is on this committee. That is community safety and wellness. Y'all really need to pull out your notebooks and start taking notes. Pull out the tablet, pull out whatever privilege device you have and take notes and be active participants in this work. It is your job and how you are elected and we will vote you out. The CSWG, you all are incredible. Continue to stand in your power and continue to take up space because you and our community deserve this and you should not allow this meeting to be cut short. I have seen this town council stay on meetings because of buildings and because of mosquito spraying longer than you are willing to hear BIPOC community members out and I think that you are fearful and I think that it is cowardly of you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Allegra Clark. I live in Amherst in District 2. I am disgusted but not surprised that the community safety working group was not included in presenting the plan for press. I think we need to do better as a town. We have asked countless times for BIPOC people to share their stories and we are not listening to them. This was just another example throughout this process of how we have not listened or have not even given the space to be heard. I know I have said this before but I think if there are vacancies in the police department right now, those need to be transitioned. Those positions need to transition over to the Cress program and every time a vacancy is coming up in the next few years, that should be transitioned over to the Cress program. If we are going to follow the recommendation to reduce the number of policing and to increase the services provided by Cress and look at the kinds of calls that they are responding to, that is how we need to do it. I do want to just share some research and some data since it does seem that sometimes that does get through. Recently, I was on a webinar by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and a doctor, Rhea Boyd out of the Children's Hospital in Oakland, shared her research on policing and its impacts. She said that the harms associated with police exposure to black and brown children begin in utero with mothers who live in neighborhoods with high level of police presence having a higher risk of pre-charm birth. Additionally, there are educational outcomes of black and Latino students who live in close proximity to police killings, police surveillance of their neighborhood, and violence by the police in general. This exposure increases absenteeism, decreases GPA, and decreases the likelihood of graduation. Her recommendations include reducing children's exposure to police and police violence, including using non-police responders for 911 calls, shrinking the police footprint, and diverting resources into healthcare infrastructure. I think that also shows that not only is Cress important, but the other recommendations of having a youth empowerment center and a BIPOC cultural center are also important to create community safety. Thank you, Zoe. Hello. My name is Zoe Crabtron. I live in District 5. I had a couple of questions that came up during Professor, sorry, but a long day. Time Manager Bachmann's presentation earlier today. And one of them, or several of them, have already been pointed out. The first is that I noticed on the slides that the CSWG is not mentioned at all in the month-by-month plan. It's not mentioned at all after the August row, which was very concerning to me because I know that one of the things that they have specifically requested is that they will be continued so that they can continue helping implement this program. So I hear from Time Manager Bachmann that you have said that you've invited people and you don't want to expect that they will necessarily stay on. But it was very concerning to me to see that they weren't even mentioned after August because they really specifically have been requested for them to continue. Secondly, as Russ Vernon Jones pointed out, at this point in the plan that Bachmann put forward, it seems like Cress will only be really active for a couple of months before budget decisions will be made. And I know that right now it sounds like you're making promises about how we're going to continue funding it, even we'll figure out what the benchmarks are, and we won't be judging it too harshly. But I really don't trust that when push comes to shove next year, and you're making hard budget decisions, that you will look at something that you haven't really given a chance to succeed and have quality data, because you care so much about all this data that we've been giving you for over a year, and you're still barely listening, that you will look at this thing that hasn't gotten the chance to have the full level of data that you think is required. And it's hard for me to imagine that you will then double the budget, because it will need to be around for a whole year instead of half a year, let alone increase the number of staff beyond what you've currently allocated for. It's very concerning to me. And thirdly, as other people have pointed out as well, there's no mention of any additional police officer positions being frozen. There's the two that were frozen by the town council last year, which there's been no discussion about necessarily whether they will continue to be frozen, because the $130,000 that was originally promised was from what wasn't spent last year. So that is still, I think, an unanswered question for me. And as people have mentioned, there are additional police positions that are open beyond that, which sounds like maybe four or five. It's a lot of money, and it should be going to crest. There's no reason that we should be continuing to increase the police budget, which is currently increasing this year by a couple percent, although maybe slightly not now that you've taken out the extra money you didn't even know within the educational budget for the police. In any case, it should not be increasing when you are intentionally shifting away from police department towards a community responder model, which is specifically what you requested that the CSWG do. Thank you. Thank you. I need to keep going because it's getting like Meg. Did you say Meg? Yes, I did, and you're there. Hi. Thank you. I'm sort of paralyzed by the important comments that have been made. I appreciate Tashina's remarks. Hi, Tash. And I appreciate Paul's remarks. I really, I had another set of comments I was going to make in support of the Community Safety Working Group, which I still have great support for. I just urge everyone to be gentle and to try to find some level of trust that everybody's doing their best. As a white person, I've learned that my experiences in Amherst are not the same experiences that people of color have had. It's a fact.  And we need those of us who are white need to accept that and understand it and explore what we can do to change that. And I'm really sort of, I'm not going to say too much because I had, I was going to say a whole lot more, but I'm really been totally drawn in by this conversation and just urge every, all of us to be patient and to be listening and to try to care about each other as human beings and not be defensive. As white people, our experiences have been profoundly different. And it's just a fact. And so we need to support the recommendations of the Community Safety Working Group. And at the same time, we need to make sure that they'll work in the context of the town government. And I really appreciated Paul's remarks because he seemed to be putting forward a way that this could move, that we could implement much of what the working group is recommending. But I really urge people, if you have this little gut feeling of reaction like, white people, like, ooh, what do they mean?  Don't go there. Just when white people have those experience, those feelings of resentment and just let it go. Let it go. That wasn't what I was planning to say. Oh, well, but I'm totally in support of the community support. Oops, I got my earbuds. I'm in support of the recommendations. And I'm, I'm delighted to hear about this elite program because this is a real, I'll say one more thing that I was going to say, this is a real opportunity for Amherst to move forward. And I appreciate that Paul's been linked in with this group. Don't think of it as Harvard, think of it as a network of other communities around the country that are trying to do the same work that the, it's not Harvard, it's a network of communities and we have, we can learn from other communities. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm gonna make two comments here. One is on behalf of the Human Rights Commission. The other on behalf of myself. So I want to say that the Human Rights Commission is in full support of the community safety working groups recommendations and that we advocate for these recommendations to be fully funded. Personally as a resident, I'd like to commend the CSWG members for their hard work. But I'd also like to honor the Black, Indigenous and people of color on the working group for the courage that it takes to speak truth to power as a bypass person in the town of Amherst. It's a lot easier to get placated than it is to be heard. So you have my respect, my support, and I honor you. Thank you. Thank you. Marcy? Hello. I'm Marcy Sklow. And I, like May, have been feeling very moved by this process. I want to just say that in the beginning of the meeting and Paul's presentation, I was very excited at how enthusiastic Paul was and how he had worked really hard to bring money to the table to, to have it work. And then when the community safety folks entered the room, I was quite surprised at how frustrated they were. And I realized, my gosh, two hours went by and here they were waiting, not, not being part of this and not having that opportunity to just look at the screen, for me to look at the screen and not see their faces in hindsight was really, really intense. So I appreciate them coming in and sharing that emotion and that experience that they had. And it really taught me something. As a white person, I am always learning, I'm always learning the ways that my intentions are good, but I don't always, you know, do the right thing and I can fall short very easily in terms of just the simple act of having everybody at the table. That, that makes perfect sense to me now, but I didn't think of it in the beginning when the presentation was happening. To get back to the content, I really applaud what Lynn said and the enthusiasm with which Lynn's talked about the grant writing and the potentiality of helping to support some of these efforts with grants. And I know that the community safety working group has done a lot of research about grants and that they had some stuff to offer on that, on that front. And I'm really, I was going to hear Lynn talk about that. I also, I don't know who spoke of it, but there was some question about cross training and trying to save money by having it be both police and crests. And I just, at that moment, actually I was aware that there was nobody from the community safety working group to speak to that because I know that is absolutely antithesis to what they have been saying is so important that it be separated from the police and that the people in town who are BIPOC people do not trust the police as, as their safety network, as their safety resource. And finally, I agree with Meg. You know, we, we have so much to learn and culturally, I think white people often don't like being yelled at and get, get that itchy feeling that Meg discussed in, in the belly of like, whoa, I'm, I'm being attacked here. But we all, we all need to learn some stuff and hearing people share such raw emotion brings to me a very big feeling of respect for them. And, and a lot of appreciation and the community safety working group, the, the meetings that I have had the honor to attend, and to look at after the fact, I just really have, again, talking about process really appreciated their process, their professionalism, their own, the combination of their smarts and their ability to research and find things out, and also their humanness and their, their humanity, and their sharing of, of their experiences. So I'll close now, but I really am grateful to have a chance to say something and I fully support the community safety working group. Thank you. Thank you. Two more public comments and I'll turn back to the working group for a few minutes. Hello, this is Nadine. I'm District 4. I'm just, I just wanted to come on first to just say that the CSWG group, the work that they've been doing, I want to commend them also to say I appreciate their hard work. I have been a resident of Amherst for over 27 years, and I want to say how come from a legal perspective to simply state that as we had seen in this past year, one of the things that I think that when we're looking at budgeting and we're looking for future, is that it will cost more if we find the town of Amherst finds itself in a predicament like Minneapolis did or even, or even Louisville, Kentucky, what happened with Breonna Taylor. When we start paying out legal fees, when we start paying out money, is cheaper in the long run to invest in a community service group that will help eliminate or lessen the chances of there be some sort of police brutality and in addition for someone to be dead and no respect for someone's life. So I would say to the, as I know we're looking right now at the budgets and the numbers, but we also have to be looking at as a cost benefit analysis. And if there is a community service program available, as you know that there's an insurance that you pay for that cost, and then it's lessened because you have this and you show that this is the work that you're doing. So that helps with the lessen of the cost. And if there's some sort of payout in the future, we at least are prepared and we show that we're being proactive instead of reactive, which is what all these other jurisdictions have been. And so that I would say that in order to provide some sort of extra comfort level because there has to be a level of trust for the BIPOC community and placed for them to feel very open that they're heard and that there's possibility for them. I also have a, now a young adult raised a young child in Amherst and I had to have the same talks that Ms. Ferrer had to have every time he drove or every time he went out, even he went out with his friends. And still to this day, I still have that conversation with him while he's at school in Chicago. And so just wanting to say that it is important and that we want as residents in Amherst to be heard and to have a voice and for us to have seats at tables. So thank you. Hey Dean, thank you for your comments. Andy evidently lost connection and let me know that. Ash Hartwell, please enter the room. Thank you. This will be brief, but I just wanted to again say that how impressive the research and the thoughtfulness and the work that the community safety working group has put together and that really to commend that and to recognize I feel that we should have a certain level of optimism that things are at a cost and could change, but we have to do it together. We have to do it together. By that I mean the white folk and the BIPOC folk working together. And although I really respect all the work that Paul put into that, I think that what is clear unless there is integration and involvement of the dialogue with the groups, no matter how technically good it may be, it's not good because those voices aren't there. And that's the message of tonight. If any message comes through really clearly. And I would argue that what our goal must be is to establish the trust and the consensus about the way to move forward. That's tough. It's going to take, you know, work on both sides, but it has to happen if we're going to move forward and really make a structural change in this town. And we could do it. Everybody here is smart and able, but let's recognize it has to be done together or it's not going to happen. So that's really what I wanted to say. Thank you. Thank you, Ash. Meg, did you still have your hand on it again? Or are you taking your hand? No, I forgot to put it down. Sorry. I'm back. Okay, Andy, go ahead. Yeah, I think we were just going to Alicia asked, I believe, to speak after public comment and ask questions. Paul, and I see one other hand up and then wanted to see how we to draw this to a close. I did have one comment to make and it's not meant to say that the comments we heard from the public weren't very important and we weren't listening to them. But we had heard a substantial presentation at the council meeting and the goal was today to then hear from the town manager and to react to that because we had and that may have been poorly thought out, but that was the intention. Alicia, Brianna, either one of you want to ask questions. Andy, there's one more person. Vera Cage is waiting to speak in public comment. Okay, I'm sorry. Vera, why don't you conclude you would please come in. Hi, can everyone hear me? Yes, you can. Okay. Okay. I speak in total support of the CSWG's proposal. The town needs to fund it 100%. I want to read a portion of your resolution in the aftermath of the death of Mr. George Floyd last year. You said, whereas as public officials it is our duty to use our legal and moral authority to protect all members of our community no matter their race or color or where they fall in the power spectrum. It is our duty to foster a community free of fear, intimidation and violence, a community in which people are not targeted or hurt unnecessarily by law enforcement and provide equal protection under the law. You speak in this resolution about listening and putting groups together. And the CSWG is a group that is very much people of color centric and women centric. And for anyone to vote against funding this 100%, you are not true to the language of your letter. What we need to hear from public officials who have the power is that you have not wasted people's time. My son is in the CSWG group. And what lesson is he going to learn about participating and community engagement when his elders are sitting at the table carving out a space for him to belong to participate, to use his experiences as a black, a brown child growing up in this community, this is all the community that he knows growing up.  Dare not exclude the CSWG's work. Do not disrespect it. Please vote accordingly that you listen and you respect people's voices that have volunteered their time here. Thank you. Thank you. So then going back to Alicia, Brianna, as co-chairs of the committee, do you have questions that you were posing to pose to Paul? I also have my hand up. I've been having my hand up for a while. Yeah, I know. But I did see it. And again, I think we're getting to the point of exceeding our time. I see more hands going up and it's getting to be problematic. I did see your hand up for but I wanted to go to the co-chairs. I wanted to fur my comment to Ms. Ferrara and Ms. Walker who have had their hands up for a while now. Thank you, Ms. Ellen. So I just wanted to, I have a couple of comments and questions on Mr. Bachmann's presentation. I am thankful that he went back and did reassess his budget allocation to us. However, it is still very insufficient. And so there are a couple of things that are really concerning to me when seeing this. The first thing is the implementation team. And so I am just very confused as to we actually set out parameters for an implementation team and who we wanted to be involved in the design process. And they're not on here. And it says the CSWG members will be a part of the implementation process. However, it was also very clear to me at the beginning of this meeting that there have been multiple conversations in regards to our recommendations that we have not been a part of. And sort of the entire coming up with this presentation was, it seemed like there was discussion amongst the implementation team and none of us were part of that conversation. But none of us were also even aware that that conversation was happening. And so that's very concerning to me considering that Mr. Bachmann sits in all of our meetings and we could have been made aware that this was happening. And I'm sure that if we were made aware we would have expressed our desire to continue to be involved and for our voices to be heard as a part of that process. So that's very concerning to me the implementation team itself. And then also a lot of these slides and a lot of the questions that are open or left to left that Mr. Bachmann has stated in these slides he doesn't have the answers to are things that we have already researched. And so I'm just also a little bit slightly confused as to there was a lot of question as to the money that we spent on our consulting team. Well, a lot of money has been put into the research and it is there and it is available. And if certain things needed to be configured in order for the youth center to be implemented or for the multicultural family center to be implemented, then those things could have been brought up during our meetings because it has been a long part of the discussion that these were things we were going to recommend. And I feel like what it would really look like for this to be a collaborative inclusive process would be since the town manager was sitting in all of our meetings for him to say, hey, for us to be able to make this happen, this is the information we're going to need. And we have asked him also many times for that information to be given to us and we weren't received that feedback. So it's a little bit weird that, you know, there needs to be more research put into how we can make the youth center or the family center effective, but we've done that research. That's what we've been doing for the past six months is the research. So it feels to me like we're being we're being asked for more time, but I'm not understanding why like is the research is going to be done over again and by who and where is that money going to come from since we've already spent the money on it. And the question here is money and the lack there of funding. And then I also see that ADK was put aside to address anti racism. That's the same ADK that was put aside this year that we utilized in order to complete our charge. And I just want to say that that was not enough. We ran out of money. So we have a second half of our charge and we already don't have any money left. So I'm just not understanding how that ADK is going to be used successfully to address any anti racism. And it was also put that possibly that ADK could be used for the stipends for the oversight board, but and that possibly it could be used to help come up with more information to implement these other programs. But how is that going to happen when that wasn't even enough money for us to do the research? I'm not understanding. It's this is just not going to work out. And then my final point was that when we came up with the alternative for community safety, all of our recommendations are equally as important. So crest would be the the um responding to crime, you know, like responding to the calls to the police, but we need preventative services in order to really lessen the the calls that go to the police. We need the youth to be able to be engaged. We need them to have other activities to participate in. We need to really foster their development and their growth because there aren't a lot of opportunities available in this town to the youth period. Any youth. It is not available here. And so what is it? What is what can they do? We heard at one of our family, at one of our forums, one of the positive experiences that were shared with the police was that there was a mother having um difficulties with her child and she was able to call the police and the police responded. They were able to get her child back into the home and things were settled. And to me, although that illustrates a positive police experience, what it really illustrates is the lack of resources available to families in this community. There was nobody else for her to call. There was nowhere else for her to go. It wasn't because this was the best option. It was because it was the only option. And we need to give our community members more options, not just the Crest program. We need the multicultural center. We need the youth center and we need a whole entire department for diversity, equity, inclusion, because that is a large, heavy and weighted test. And there are so many different departments in this town that need to be evaluated under an anti-racist lens that one person themselves cannot do that. That is a very large task. And I was disappointed. This is an action plan that we've been asking for for a few weeks from the town manager. We have asked them to come up with a detailed action plan. And to me, this is not detailed. This doesn't state anything. This doesn't state how the budget is going to increase year by year in order to fulfill these things. It's just a very loose plan to me. And so I'm very concerned about the implementation of our recommendations moving forward, especially if our group is not continued to be involved in the process. I don't know if Paul wants to respond or why don't we hear from Debra first and then I'm going to ask Paul to see if he has any comments to make. I mean, again, you know, I keep on hearing like we need to shut down this meeting and everything. And you all have had so many meetings that you go on and on and on. This is a critical important meeting. I don't want to hear again that we need to shut down this meeting. I have two kids that need me, but I'm here. Why? Because they understand that I'm trying to safeguard their life. I'm trying to safeguard that they don't get harm.  No, I don't. But I'm here because I think it's critically important. And so you all should also feel that it's critically important. We're talking about a whole segment of the population of Amherst. And that's why I think you all are not getting that we keep on having to say the same things over and over again, because it seems like you all are not getting it. You keep on bringing up the things over and over again. It's just alarming to me. It's really alarming that this is what we're having to do to bring up these issues. One of the residents said that we're at a cost. You all have to take bold moves. You need to take the steps that's needed. Be brave. When you charge us, you wanted us to create something different. If not, then you should have told us to create the same thing. No, it's different. I know it's scary. I know difference means scary. That's why BIPOC people always get it because we're different. But we need to be brave. We need to take bold steps. And it can't just be that resolution, the beautiful resolution you all created. That's talk. What we're doing, what we recommend in terms of all the recommendations, that's doing the walk. It can't be just talking. It can't be just writing a beautiful resolution with a whole bunch of words. It has to be about putting them into fruition. I understand it's scary, but we have to be able to do it. And now in terms of my three quick points, because I do have three quick points to make, and this is to Paul. So Paul, when Brianna asked you about Kahootz, why aren't you using Kahootz as one of the places to look at? And then you said it's because they use contracts and when using employee, I get it, but that's a narrow segment. Kahootz has been in place for over 30 years. They've done a lot of good things, but they've also made a lot of mistakes. So they'd be willing to tell us the mistakes they made so that we don't make those mistakes. Right? So we can't just, just because they're a contractor model and we're an employee model, now Kahootz is out the window. No, you still have to go and consult with them because it's important because they've been doing this thing for 30 years and with a lot of success. One of the markers that they threw out there is that last year with 24,000 calls, they only had to call the police and 450 of those calls because obviously they're huge, right? It's Eugene and Springfield. They're huge. There's a lot of people in their cities. I get that. But out of 24,000 calls last year, they only had to call in the police for 150. Let me let that sink in. So yes, consult with Kahootz. I think it would be a good idea. Don't just throw them out just because they use, it's a contractor model. I'm like, I just don't get it. And then the CSWG, I said it when I said it in the beginning and Paul, you're being very kind of like general, not trying to really focus in. CSWG has to be part of putting these recommendations in place. They cannot expire on September 1. CSWG has nothing to do with the oversight board. The oversight board, the resident oversight board is totally different, has a whole different set of parameters. So for you to say that, well, you're not sure because maybe the CSWG and the oversight board is going to be the same. No, oversight board is going to be overseeing and monitoring the police department, Amherst Police Department and Crest. We are going to be monitoring the recommendation, making sure the recommendations are put in place. However long that takes, we have to be involved at every step of the way, period. So I mean, I hope I'm making myself clear because I've said it before, but then you answer some questions again, very general and not really committing to anything. And then lastly, I didn't hear from my question to you, Paul, about the fact that once Crest is fully, and it has to be because if we don't put it fully in place, what it's going to do is it's going to fail. So hopefully once it's fully in place and it's successful, that means there's going to be less police. So if there's going to be less police, that funding is going to go to Crest. Correct? I want a response. I didn't hear that response. What is the response? I stopped there. Okay, thank you. So I don't know, Paul? I'm not sure. He's looking frozen on my screen, that's I'm not sure. Am I being heard? Okay. So I think it looks like Andy may be frozen. So on the Kahootz model, I'm happy to look at the Kahootz. It's the standard that everyone looks at it. It's the longest tenure. I wasn't dismissing it. I was just saying, the LEAP consulting group, LEAP is not a program. It's a group that advises folks on programs because Kahootz is an actual program as in Albuquerque, Olympia, all the different places. So I think we would want to look at all the programs. Kahootz obviously has a ton of experience and we'd want to learn from that. The reason it is a different model than what the working group has recommended. But there are other things and it's a, so it's a, but something to learn from for sure. The, you know, I think the mission of the community safety working group was to provide advice to the town manager. That's what the mission was. The, that mission will be completed when you're, you deliver the Part B recommendation to the town manager. Then it becomes the town manager's responsibility to provide a budget to the town, to the town council. And it's, and so, and I've done that. So now the balls in the town council's court to decide if they're going to approve that budget or not. Your charge for the working group goes till September 1st. And, you know, the intent, the reason I put September 1st in your charge was that knowing that your final report was due on June 30th that you would need some time if there was reaction, if the council wanted to meet with you during the summer, if there were things that needed to be cleaned up. It was never the intention for the working group to be a continuing body. And that's not my intention. There may be a body that needs to be continued. And that's why I want to talk about the reparations group. But the continuing body is not going, is not set up to be the community safety working group. If you look at the charge, it is a time limited charge. It was set up purposely that way. And I think we, well, I'm not sure if we talked about that or not at the beginning, but we, the commitment when we asked people to participate was that it was to September 1st. And that's what was written into the charge. So, and, and if, and putting crests in place fully in place, you know, I hear that and I understand that concern that unless it's up and running full fledged, it's really hard to judge whether it's successful or not. And I think that that comes into play with whether the phone number is actually being utilized or not if there's a separate phone number, for instance.  And that creates some uncertainty. And, but I really believe that we need to start with a smaller program, even though it's not up and running to ultimately get there. I really truly believe that an alternative responder program, especially in this community is well needed and needs to be put into place. And I think I don't think any programs that have been that have any of these community responder programs that have started have ever been terminated. They've all proven their worth pretty quickly. So I think that this will be the case in our community too, because our community is really ripe for this kind of program. And I think what is the impact on the police department was one of the things is, and I think, you know, we want to model that too. We want to look at what the one of my present things was to say, what is the appropriate level for police department? What is the appropriate level for for the Crest program? And we need to be looking at that objectively and with statistics so that we're building the right community safety model for the community of Amherst. Thank you, Paul. So maybe this is a good segue for me to say what I was going to say about the process and then recognize a few more members of the working group before drawing into the close. The finance committee is required by the charter to make a recommendation on the budget to the council. Ultimately, it is a council decision as to how to respond. But the council is limited by what the charter provides as the council's capacity within the budget. And this was not created by our charter commission just for Amherst, but is actually a part of state statute that applies to all cities across the Commonwealth. And that is that the council can approve a budget, can reduce the funding line, can eliminate a funding line that cannot add to a funding line. And that's what the charter says, and that's what state law says. So when the council ultimately has to act before June 30, it is within those limitations that it has to act. And I know that that's not something that makes many of us always happy, but it is what the law is. And that's kind of where we're at. But I do at least want to get back to the co-chairs of the group and then other members of the group. So Breonna, do you want to lead off? Sure. So my comment was just I recognize that our charge was to put together these reports. But I also want to remind you that part of our charge was engaging the communities most impacted by policing. And we have engaged them through hours of forums, surveys, and the consultants work. And those stories are horrifying. And I would never want somebody to relive them. So I think, Paul, just on you sitting in on those meetings and hearing those lived experiences, you would want to keep us together to make sure that our recommendations are seen all the way out, because there's a clear lack of mistrust between BIPOC community members and the town government. So I think it's critical that the CSWG stays together. And I also just want to emphasize that this conversation could have been a lot shorter if we were welcomed in the beginning of the conversation as planned. This whole, the whole finance committee meeting was supposed to be catered toward the community safety working group. We attended the community, the community safety finance committee in the audience. And we listened to the chief talk, the APD chief talk, we listened to fireman Nelson talk. But now it's our turn to present and we're in the audience hearing others talk about something that we've spent months researching and months getting feedback from the community to inform our work. So that's why this meeting is dragging out because you left us in the audience in the beginning. And we are now evaluating the PowerPoint that was said, we're trying to answer questions that others have that were answered incorrectly. And we're trying to provide clarity and also speak to the amount of people that joined us during public comment and said what's what we have now in Amherst is not working. It is not working. Thanks, Brianna. And sticking with the two countries for solicitude, do you have anything else? Yes, thank you. So Brianna stated very well what I was going to say for the most part, but I just wanted to clarify that our charge was actually very specifically to make recommendations to alternative safety to alternative safety services. Things that are being done by the police right now that can be outsourced to other agencies, to other departments, that was specifically our charge was to make those recommendations. And so you have them. And one of the recommendations that we made was to continue the CSWG. And so although I hear that you say that it was intentional that our group was ending, it is also intentional that we're requesting for it to not end. And so I think that you have the power to amend that decision at this time, because that is one of our recommendations. I also, and I also am just curious as to what the intention was like, why was it intentional that we're ending? I don't really understand that intention. And then I also heard the town manager state that he believes that a pilot is what we need. And I'm also very confused about that, because once again, we have done the research. And so we are the experts on this. And we have stated very clearly that we do not believe that a pilot is going to be successful. And we do not believe that it's going to work. And so I just don't understand what research that belief is based off of or where you come up with those findings. And I'm just really frustrated right now. And I apologize that I'm trying to work through this because we've been told a lot of misleading information. And once again, I thought this meeting was entirely for us. We actually took a doodle poll onto which day this meeting should be on that was best for all of the community safety working group members. We were instructed not to go to the first portion of the budget hearing with the finance community, because we were going to be given a meeting specifically for us. We are being silenced. We are being limited and our voices are being reduced. And it's very difficult. I also agree with Deborah. I don't want to be on this meeting so late, but I've had questions and things I wanted to say the entire first portion of the meeting. And I actually had my hand raised in the audience the entire time and didn't get any recognition at all. And so I don't know where we go with this. But I think that I think that Mr. Bachman also needs to do better. And we've been being thrown around like the town council told us we're making our case to the town manager when we ask them. The town manager told us we're making our case to the town council. And so who's making the decisions here? And why aren't we all working together to figure out together how we can make this work, since we all seem to agree that this is urgent and important, right? So why can't we work together? Why aren't you guys telling us what it is that you need from us so that we can make this happen? I'm just not understanding. Thank you. Maybe I'll not respond immediately to reserve comment, reserve response for a couple minutes so I can call in a couple other members of the working group. Pat. So I want to comment on the process tonight. You invited to come present our budget, that this was supposed to be a budget hearing. Our co-chairs presented and you never, and I'm addressing to you, Andy, you never asked anyone, the finance committee members or the school committee members and council members to ask us questions with the budget. On Monday when we were presented, there were some questions that were supposed to be asked tonight and none of them were asked. I have children who studied finance, two of them. I have a kid that studied economics. I have a child that studied accounting. Two of my kids work at Wall Street. We have a finance director in this town that is advising how to budget for Crest Program. You all are very intelligent people and you want to take what they recommended with the so-called management team. How on earth is war responders going to work? It's being set up for failure.  If any BIPOC professional present this type of budget for a program that is clearly going to fail, they will lose their job. But the finance director is a white man. His job is protected. In fact, what happens in this town is that we what happens in this town is that some of the people who perform very poorly get rewarded. The same person that performed in the school system was special education funding that was going into the special education attorneys. It was being presented at school committees as if all the money was going to the students with special needs when it wasn't. History is repeating itself. The person was being promoted. How much has he made in this town? Millions from taxpayer money. And then we're here begging Nicola and Diamond to provide services for BIPOC people. We all pay taxes in this town. We are part of this town. We should have the same right that you all enjoy. One hundred thousand dollars is devoted to golf course for white people. We have hundred thousand dollars set aside for capital projects, temporary hundred thousand dollars and none of you. And I'm trying to like control my emotion.  What I'm hearing is we want economic development director. We want this because you guys always get what you want. You guys wasted my time for months. And to come to tonight, I'm not even asked questions. I have developed that budget. In my line of work, I have developed programs. I may have accent. I may not be as articulate as you guys are, but do not presume people the way you see them. Get to know them. This is not hard. We can get this off ground. There is money to get this done. Stop canceling BIPOC people. Enough is enough. Enough is enough. You guys should be very lucky, okay, that some of us are risking everything. To speak truth to power.  The only place that is not white space is my place of business in Hadley. It's a refuge for me and my home. My place of business is very inclusive. Anybody can ask my 20 staff that I employ. You guys helped drive me away in Ameth. I used to run a business in Ameth. It's not a welcoming community. I raised that awareness about what was happening in special education. I raised awareness about racism in business community. We should be better than this. To have a white woman, and I'm not attacking Mary Beth. She is a white social worker. She has experience in mental health, but she does not live our experience. The management team should have done better. Reach out to other BIPOC social workers, BIPOC psychologists, BIPOC people who have worked in the field to help you guys include CSWG folks to come up with proposal. And you guys are accepting something that is down to fail. And our finance director is making a lot of money. And this is what we get mediocre service for BIPOC community. I have a lot to say. And please do not rush us tonight to end this meeting. I don't care if it's the midnight. We don't get to have the platform. Please treat us with respect. I have more to say, but our yield do not shut down this meeting. Until BIPOC people says we are ready to leave. We have to speak our mind tonight. Because we won't have that opportunity again. Enough is enough. Please. Andy, I want to address this comment to you and to the finance committee first. I'm well aware that there is a law that says that the town council cannot increase any line item in the town manager's budget. But the law also provides for you to request a revised proposal from the town manager. So do not hide behind some law that you can't do anything here. I'm asking that the finance committee request that the town council ask the town manager for a revised proposal with fuller funding for the Cress program. And if the town manager is not willing to do that, there is a mechanism whereby the town council can actually make a change. And there's probably another method by which you can make this happen. So don't hide behind the law. You can make this happen. Thank you. Okay. Because I think that we've heard from a lot of numbers, Bowman. Hi. So to bounce off of what Mr. Vernon Jones said, not only can the town council make recommendations, but from what I understand, town council has the ability to not approve portions of particular monies that are going to certain places. So you guys absolutely have the ability to make change. It's all about whether or not you want to. I just, you know, and that's the first thing I wanted to say. The second thing I wanted to say is that if you've seen me on any of these meetings with the CSWG, I usually don't last this long. I don't last this long because I literally have a house full of children right now that it is now 920 or 32. They have yet to sit down for dinner. I've been trying to make dinner in between. Like every time I shut off the camera, I've been trying to make dinner in between. I'm here because this is important. This is important. And I personally am tired of not holding my white counterparts, not holding them accountable for their lack of motivation, for their lack of support. And I want to say something about that because there is one particular white person that I have thrown out props to whatever and given support to, so spoken about over and over again. And that is Mr. Vernon Jones. And I consider Mr. Vernon Jones a co-conspirator to the BIPOC community. I consider him a co-conspirator because he puts his effort, his time, his energy into making, making things different to holding his own community accountable. If you don't know the work that he's tried to do over and been doing over the years, like, I don't know if he remembers this, but he and I had a conversation right when he decided he was leaving being principal over at Port River School. And I was real mad. I was big mad. I was like, where are you going? And he said, I need to work with other white people about issues regarding racism. And, you know, we need to like look at this and hold ourselves accountable for this. What we're doing, you know, as far as like how we're we're interacting, how we're treating the BIPOC community.  And he was like, no, no, no, no. I want to work with other white people and holding other white people accountable for their movement through this world and so on and so forth. And I was like, oh, okay. So when, when I was had the honor to have him be part of this community of the CSWG, I was like, what? Okay, I can't wait to hear the words that are coming out of his mouth. And let me tell you, he has yet to disappoint. He has been on point. He has been about it. He has been, he has not backed off at one little piece. He was like, he is holding his community accountable. And you know what, if you need as white people in this community, as white people are part of the town, about a part of town council and, you know, the finance committee and any other committee on town, you guys need to have a conversation with Mr. Vernon Jones, because I'm telling you right now, he will give you a whole new perspective.  He is one of them because he is looking at it critically. He is looking at himself critically. He is doing the work day to day. That's what it takes to be, to be a person who is actively trying to be non-racist and not be part of the systemic racism. They work day to day. Every day they're working with themselves, trying to be critical of how they move through the world. How are they interacting with people of color? Are they interacting with people of color? Because that's a question that I have for men. How often do you interact with people of color?  I will never forget the one thing that my ex-husband was told when he walks into a room, you need to sit down and be quiet when you're in a room of people of color. You need to see and hear and feel what is going on. You walking into a room as a white person, when there is a group of people of color, if there's even one person of color, you need to take a moment and listen. And that is what I have found that this whole community has failed. You guys don't want to listen.  You want to make us feel bad about what we're fighting for. We're fighting for a space to be human, to feel normal, to feel like when you walk into places like Hastings, when you walk into places businesses like 30 boatwood, when you walk into these places and you don't look around and be like, everybody's looking at me. They're wondering why I'm here. Like literally that is what people of color feel walking into some of these businesses. Everybody turned and looked at me when I walked into the door. Even the family center, which is supposed to be a space for people of color. I mean not for people of color, for people like people in the community, a free space for people in the community and let their kids play together so and so forth. You know what? I stopped going there.  The reason why I stopped going there is because for a couple reasons. One, they moved it way out of like a space that was accessible. They moved it from the center of town to North Amherst. No longer necessarily a place where people could just go to. There's all these little changes that you don't think are big deals, but they're constant microaggression. Those are those microaggressions. Whenever we're questioned about a feeling that we have when it comes to, I'm saying this and I'm saying how this is making me feel and you're questioning me because you're like why would you feel that way or I think you're misinterpreting how you know how this happened. You're questioning me. You're making me second guess myself. You're telling me that my feelings aren't valid. Every single time you do something like that and those things build up. They build up to the point where it's like then you were yelling at you.  Why? And I just want you to understand that. And I hope you do understand that. But I'm going to stop speaking. I actually am going to remove myself from the meeting because I really do have to feed my family and make sure my family is treated. So I thank you guys all for hearing me out tonight. And I hope that you really start stepping up to the plate and really doing some honest, actual work to make a difference in this community. Because I've been here 30 years and you know, it would be nice to actually see and be part of some of this change. So thank you very much. And I, you know, I appreciate you letting me talk. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm going to conclude just by saying one thing that is, I'm very sorry if the choices made about process were not the correct choices, but they were made in good faith. And what we tried to do is to start with by letting the first presentation, having the first presentation from the working group at our council meeting and then asking for the town manager to make a responding response to it and hear council questions and then come back. So the first word and the last word would be from the working group. And you know, if that was a bad choice, you know, I'll take responsibility, but it wasn't the idea of starting giving the first and last piece to the working group and having the other piece in the middle was certainly made by all of us and at least what we thought was a reasonable approach. But given the time now, I do want to draw to close and just see if some of the only ones are going to recognize at this point, so I can draw to close is one of the co-chairs of the working group. If there's any concluding comments that you want to make, I'd like to see if we can adjourn all groups. So Brianna or Alicia, you last. Yeah, thank you. So Brianna is going to make our final closing comment, but I just wanted to state also that this is just a very good example of the way that intention versus impact works and even further emphasizes the importance of our recommendations. The intention around the spaces that created in this town, and I apologize, but they do not matter. What matters is the real impact that they have. And so I really urge you to keep that in mind when you're moving forward, that your intentions do not matter. What matters is the real impact that they have on the community and the community has spoken many times to let you know what the impact is and now it is your responsibility to act, not to make excuses and not to continue to push us off and say add another time, because there is no better time. This is overdue. And so now is the best time. And so I urge you all to keep those things in mind moving forward. And I wanted to end with that comment, but it's just really bothering me also that I wanted to bring up that at the beginning of this meeting, if the intention was just to give the town manager his time to the slideshow, then the APD and the fire chief did not need to be brought in because they were not even presenting.  If there was going to be anybody else on the screen that was not presenting, it should have been our group. Thank you. Thank you. Brianna, anything else or before we adjourn? Get all the groups to adjourn? Yeah, Andy, I think just going forward when the community safety working groups recommendations are spoken about, it would be helpful for members or people from leadership to be in the room, just to emphasize Alicia's point. And I also just want to emphasize that integrity is when your intentions and actions meet each other consistently. So if your intention is to create a more equitable town, that's the time to act. Okay. So thank you. Do you want to adjourn first or would you rather have me Lynn adjourn the council first? Whatever works better for you. Why don't you go ahead and adjourn and then I'll ask Lynn to adjourn the council and I'll adjourn the finance committee. Is Tashina's hand still up? I'm sorry. Okay. Oh, thank you. Okay. I want to I want to motion to adjourn. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you for having us and hopefully in the future we can be present at all conversations in regards to our recommendations. Lynn, do you want to adjourn the council? Yes. They're the town council meeting on May 27th is adjourned. Thank you. The finance committee is adjourned. Thank you and good night all. Thank you everyone.


here with the Vixus and you have a Vidity solution right here. So who are you? That's correct. My name is John Pomeran. I'm the VP of Marketing at Vixus Systems. We're here at CES 2016 and we're demonstrating our Xcode 6800 SOC chip which is a Vidity solution enabling UHD HDR10 playback of ultra-high quality video content from the theaters. So in this case we're demonstrating content crafted by Universal Studios, sorry 20th Century Fox Studios and we're demonstrating UHD HDR10 bit. I'm just going to start a video. So what's the SOC that you have? Is it an ARM Cortex? That's correct. It's a dual ARM Cortex A9 based SOC with doing video processing and then also HDR processing HDMI 2.0. So this is 10 bit 4k support. This is actually 12 bit 4k support as well as an HDR tone mapping engine that allows us to map the HDR content to SDR TVs doing a frame by frame dynamic metadata mapping. So you do HDR support? We do. So are you the first to do all that kind of stuff? We're not the first but what we've done is implemented a very very robust HDR engine which allows us to support all of or many of the known standards for HDR is still an emerging standard. This device reaches all of those corner cases and allows us to provide our customers with a future proof product that reaches all the many use cases. And this is 12 bit H265? That's correct. It's HEVCH265. Main 12 is actually the name of the code. Main 12, yeah. And Vidity is a new platform to get 4k movies and this is a DRM that just works. Yeah, Vidity is an association created by 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Western Digital and Sandisk originally and now joined by many others including ourselves and Samsung and so forth. It's a security system that allows them to deliver very very high quality content in the sense we're talking about movie theater quality content. So let's let's try some playback. We'll start one playing here and you'll see that the TV will switch to HDR mode in a moment. It'll come up with a logo that says HDR mode is now on and now we're looking at a Fox clip reel which demonstrates the very high quality content. That's awesome. So here at the CES and in general you're talking with set-top box manufacturers or what do you do? Yeah, we do talk to set-top box manufacturers IP set-top boxes in particular although mostly at CES our focus is around Vidity and also around the UHD VD playback. So this is an Ultra HD 4k disc. It's a Blu-ray disc for Ultra HD 4k and it's actually also using some of the Vidity technology as a concept presentation of an ability to copy content off of that. So they'll just be shipping 4k on normal Blu-rays? No, it's a special new format called UHD VD. So it's a higher capacity Blu-ray? Very very high quality. Again I'm gonna switch the TV to another mode here for a moment and you'll be able to see that content as well. So in this case you connect the drive to how do you connect it? This is a reference platform so this would actually be integrated. Our Xcode 6830 SoC would be integrated with the platter into a UHD VD player. So the dual core Cortex A9? Also dual core Cortex A9. Correct. Now in this case we can see that we're watching a movie. We've got all the usual Blu-ray stack functionality navigation. This allows the device to play not only the UHD VD but also the old standards of VD, DVD and CD. Alright so since last year you had the you were announcing that you had the first 10-bit 4k H265 right? I believe that was actually two years ago. Two years ago right? Yes. So that was that was a while ago what happened since then with your platform? Well that platform has been used by a variety of customers in video gateway applications under service operators but also in several TV applications Panasonic for example launched a TV using our device to provide 4k HBC playback. Now we're moving on to the next generation optimizing more for the HDR which adds in a very significant increase in the video quality in the experience. So this looks really awesome and hopefully every movie ever made will be available in VDT 4k. Well that's true and also on UHD VD both Fox and Warner Brothers have announced that they will have many titles available by June of 2016 so really very soon we'll be seeing multiple titles coming up from the theaters and with VDT you can go even now to the M-Go Store and access the content that's available although not at this very high quality level it requires security which is only available in the Vix's chip at this moment in time. So the security is required you can you could potentially go and get a hard drive or an SSD full of movies? It requires a western digital VDT hard drive it's a special version of a western digital hard drive. This could be two terabytes or one? Yeah I think of the one two and a three terabyte version of the drive it'll be available through the usual retail establishments once you have that then you would be able to download content onto that drive and play it back with the VDT player. There are three levels of security for VDT so something like your handset might be able to play a low-quality version at a level two like a Samsung television with an integrated VDT player which exists today you'd be able to play back at a level two which gives you 4k and then level three the only device is the Vix's device which yes once again is based on the dual ARM A9. So you're definitely going to be ready by the June what date? June 26th. The release of the UHD BD titles is in June we actually have engaged customers on our Xcode 6800 product already they will be receiving their samples in February and then they have to build and manufacture their products which we expect will be on the shelves in time for Christmas 2016.