The announcements, I actually want to blend pretty much into the discussions. Attorney General Donovan is here, partly because I have, I asked him to attend and this is where it sort of blends into the discussions part of the evening because many of you were concerned and I got emails from a lot of you about feeling that somehow the work of the panel was really not getting to the places it needed to go, particularly during the last, oh, I should say seven weeks or so, certainly since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. I wrote you all an email and it was not all that I should have written. I just unfortunately really didn't have time to write everything that I should have. And I was sort of saying that, please rest assured that it is, the work is getting forth. You'll recall back in probably February now, we talked about the necessity of protecting the work products that we submitted in December, getting it in front of the legislature over and over again. That has happened, but I do have to say, that has not been easy in many ways. It's been rocky and I'll go so far as to say there's been part of me that's been a little bit disillusioned but I've been known for my doe-eyed optimism. So there it is. I spent an awful lot of time getting lots of invitations to testify to various subsets of the legislature over the last seven weeks and did so trying to put forth ideas that you all have brought up and have written about and indeed were in the report. It was quite interesting. The metaphor that I've used for it is feeling a bit like the ugly kid in high school who never gets invited to the prom and suddenly some kind of magic happens and the kid turns really attractive and suddenly everybody wants to take him to the prom and he's like juggling suitors and like, oh no, I can't see you then because I don't know, I left the stove on. That was pretty much how it was over the past seven weeks. It was crazy. I mean, I'll never hear from these people again but it was rather exciting for a while. I actually felt important for a few minutes and what I kept doing, which was really quite bizarre was literally on the computer pulling up the report which I have an icon for and reading it verbatim to people. This got a little frustrating. The first couple of times I was like, okay, you know, so on by the fifth time, literally the fifth time I was getting a little frustrated, kind of like I wanted to get snarky and say, it's big pictures and font, it's really okay. People really hadn't read it. I was really directing people to it and trying to get them to see that we had done an awful lot of work. Some of you will recall that after presenting it in December, we were asked by Senator Sears actually to provide some more specificity on certain parts of the report. We didn't get that.  But I am hoping that that will still happen. And I just want to assure people that the report now is very much out there. It could be out there some more. I think there are a lot of things in it that are actually in front of the legislature right now. I think we probably will be needed to call to specify some things a little bit better. But that is a long way of saying, that is partly why I asked Attorney General Donovan to come because we serve at his pleasure. And I'm hoping that he'll be able to sort of, what would one say, help us disseminate, help us get the work out there in a bit more of an expeditious fashion than has hitherto been the case. So I'll stop talking. Everybody else, feel free to chime in here. A-Ton, I just want to say that we've all had that same experience with reports we've submitted to the legislature. Oh, thank you. It doesn't make you feel any better, but I just want you to know that it's not you or us or the panel. And so I've gone and opened it up and read back to them things that we've submitted as well. Thank you. A-Ton, I can vouch for that. I mean, that's same experience we've all had. I think I wanted to sort of speak to a lot of us who don't have the legislative experience. I did figure, thank you. I did figure that this was probably fairly common. It just felt frustrating in that there were moments of, oh my God, we're reinventing the wheel. I'm missing law and order people. I need the TV and you're wasting my time. But in any event, I think it's actually worked. I think I felt more acutely about it because they were asking questions that were already answered in in front of them. And so I was just sort of frustrated. I'll stop. A-Ton, when we spoke about this, first of all, I just want to say I appreciate your humor and your humility in sharing this and your remarks. So thank you for that. I think we've all had the similar experience of our interactions with the legislature and certainly with reports that we've submitted per legislative mandate. But given the issues of racial equity that are being debated, given the issues of police accountability and use of force, what I'd suggested to A-Ton and certainly would put it out to the group. And I appreciate when A-Ton, you said, well, this panel serves at my pleasure. I've never really viewed it that way. I view it as that. I think we're supposed to provide administrative support to you guys in which we're happy to do. So this is a collaborative effort. But it may make sense to hold a press conference and reissue the report and get out in front of the reporters the findings and the specific recommendations as we get ready to go back in August where I can guarantee A-Ton and others will be asked to testify yet again, probably very similar to their testimony that they provided in the month of June, if not July. And so there is this window of opportunity, I think, to say, hey, this panel has been working. There are members of this panel. There are community members that have been working on these issues for years, for years, and it's not just this panel, but this panel did do some work and actually produced a report. Here are some of the things, and we're calling on Vermonters to, because there is this call for folks to get educated and to raise awareness. And this is another tool, I think, towards that goal. And I think that doing a press conference, not me, but perhaps us getting the word out, providing the logistics, convening it, but having you folks speak and to say, this is the report, this is the work, this is what we're seeing in our community. That was my thought as a way to raising the awareness of the report and the recommendations. And I would just open that up for conversation or thoughts or reactions. I'm game. I still have my prom gown. Can't wait. Others? I might just chime in quickly. Just to add to that, I think a press conference is a good idea. I think it's a lot more effective if we have the chairs of the relevant committees standing up on stage with us. So do a little preliminary work with Senator Sears, with Sarah Copeland-Hanses, Maxine Grad, Janette White, to really kind of... And think, I hate to undercut our report at all. And I remember in an earlier, before we released the report, we were talking about putting an executive summary at the beginning. And the report speaks for itself, but sometimes bullet points help legislators focus. So really maybe think about re-releasing it with an executive summary, just to help really kind of clue people in to where we're focused on. And those would be my two suggestions. To do some preliminary work with the chairs, and then have them attend the press conference so that they're publicly on the hook a little bit. And then to include an executive summary. Pepper. Pepper, my dear friend. Yes. Pepper, could I perhaps kindly and with tremendous humility prevail upon you to perhaps draft said executive summary? I would be happy to take a first stab at it and submit it to this panel. One of the criticisms that I heard loud and clear when we talked about an executive summary is that it cuts out a lot of the substance of what we're talking about. So I don't wanna do that, but I do think that directing people towards specific action items is gonna be helpful in this. So I'd be happy to, short answer. Great. Does anybody wanna make a motion? Just so we're all on the same page. A motion about the press conference or about the executive summary? I'll pass the executive summary first. I'll make a motion that we prepare an executive summary for the reissue of the report. Anybody seconding that? Second the motion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? All abstentions. Great, motions carried. So Pepper, I look forward to seeing whatever you come up with. So with respect to timing, it's my understanding the legislature's going back on the 25th of August. So we probably, I mean, want something maybe sooner than our next meeting. Oh gosh, yes. Okay, okay. Just be clear. If you get it to me, I will disseminate it. Okay. Okay. And we can do this, I would think, we'll just do it by email. There's no point in, I don't think we need to meet specifically for that. Okay. Okay. Second thing, the press conference, I would like to get a style on the same page around that if I can just get a sense of where people stand with that. So if we could do the same that we just did for the executive summary, that would be helpful. In other words, we need a motion and a second regarding a press conference. I'll make a motion that the panel hold a press conference to re-release the report. I'll second that. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? All abstentions. Great, motion is carried. So two things we've got done. Pepper's going to work on an executive summary which we're going to get around and we're going to do a press conference which is due to our report with the executive summary. Great. Can I feel- Hey, Tom, can I ask you a question? You can do whatever you like, yes. A.T.J., how are press conferences going these days? I mean, I've seen a little bit of it, but mostly it's just a single person out in a field somewhere. You know, like, what are you thinking? I'm thinking obviously outside, obviously sufficiently socially distanced with masks, perhaps on the state house steps or any other location that I guess is centrally located that people would support.  There you go. And are the press generally in public or are we like live streaming it or is that- No, I think the press will come. I mean, we got to give advance notice and make some phone calls, but I was interviewed yesterday but a reporter actually came to my house and interviewed me on my sidewalk and he just said we're desperate to get people on camera.  So I think if it's, you know, in my pillar and we work the phones a little bit, we can get folks there and you know, and I think if we get, Pepper, I think your idea of getting key legislators there is critical. And look, this is the most debated and discussed issue going on, not only in Vermont, but the country. I think we'll, I think we'll get sufficient coverage. My question, we had, you had just mentioned talking and I don't know why I forgot this, talking to a couple of key players such as Senator Sears, should I be drafting a letter or something? Hey, Tom, with the committee's approval, I am happy to call Senator Sears to invite him and get a weather report, whether or not he would be willing to attend and to make those calls and perhaps have you follow up with the specific invitation, but I think a phone call would suffice. Great, great. And I'm happy to do that at the direction of the committee. Okay, then are we all in favor of that? All in favor of that. Let's not even go through the motion and all that. All in favor of that. Aye. Okay. Thank you. We'll just go there that thank you very much. And when you're done then, I will follow up. What was that? Oh, wow. When we're, and then when you're done, I'll follow up as you suggest with a specific invite. Okay, and I guess the only thing that I would need is what would the committee's preference be in terms of a date and time and location? Do we want to time it closer to the renewed legislative session towards August? We want to do it sooner. I could go either way, but throw it out to folks. Well, what's gonna be our, is our main point of the press conference to let the public know about it or to re-engage the legislature or to ask them to do something additional because depending on sort of the intent of why we're having the press conference, it may make a difference in a little bit more detail. Yeah, I mean, I think it would be both, certainly to get the public engaged in this committee's work, but also I think it was Pepper who so eloquently said, getting people to commit, that they're gonna follow these recommendations and then do something about it when the legislature reconvenes. I see a dual purpose. I would agree. Then I would say maybe having it a little bit closer to when they're gonna start might make more sense. I think so too. Okay. I think when you do something like this though, you kinda wanna have kind of the next steps already lined up. So I feel like the initial contact with some of the chairs and say, hey, listen, here are three action items you can take right away when you start next session. So some of the initial contacts, I think should happen earlier with the idea that the press conference would be much closer to the August 25th or whenever it is that they're gonna come back. I think we're all in agreement though on that. Yeah. Yes. I just also want to say that for some reason on my list, Senator Ballant is apparently here as well.  So I just wanted you to know that she's here and listening in and hopefully will be able to participate. Anyway, just to get back to that, I'm in agreement. I mean, I think that that's a good idea is to get things going now, maybe even identify some things that they wanted more specificity on and then be able to do the press conference and then perhaps discuss that specificity as a panel. Hey, John, I see Julio's, I think got his hand up at least on my screen. Oh, he does. Hi, Julio. Hello. Does this a good time? Sure. This might spark suggestions from folks on the call who are much more seasoned in the trenches with the legislature than I have. I've been doing it for a few years. I think in connection with the executive summary or the summary of recommendations or whatever, we're gonna call it something that might be a spin-off document that could be helpful when going before the committee is just what we always called in the civil rights unit one pager that has literally one side of one sheet of paper that summarizes what you're advocating for, the recommendation and bold face and then a sentence or two explaining why you're recommending it because we've had over the years, we'll talk with people just for like on the Equal Pay Bill a number of years back. I guess it was two governors ago. And we found that we'd have to remind Bill sponsors for people who met with us before the legislative session who were asking what they could do but they just needed something in hand. And then when it came time to testify to have them have your one pager in hand, it helps set the agenda as opposed to a 15 or 20 page draft bill that might have a bunch of other folks' ideas as well. So I think that would be something that we should consider and sometimes we've done it in a Q&A format also where we anticipated opposition. Like we did that on the pregnancy a few, a couple of years ago, we were advocating pretty strongly successfully for Bill to require accommodations for healthy pregnancies in the workplace. And we anticipated what the questions would be and put it in that one pager that we could have, not just posted on the website but literally in the committee room or have a committee members have it here at their desks as they're zooming in to do that. Okay. Others, any other commentary? Yes. Just a quick one, correctly, two quick ones. One, I'm not even sure who are the members of this panel now in this shift. Could at some point we just get just a list because I know it's morphing out now and I'm confused. But more important, I think it's really important to have this as many people on this panel represented in whatever event you're doing because it's really impressive the diversity of the panel. I think that's going to carry considerably more weight, not nothing against you or any one or two people, but the idea of all of us as a crazy crew as it is and not night fighting most of the time. I think that would be impressive and I think that would gather the viewing that we'd like. I agree. I agree. Is that our standard though? Not night fighting, that's the... Well, are you good at it? No, I don't know a thing about it. No, I think that's good. And I would agree with that, that that would be the more of us the better. So, great. Anything else? Okay. I would like to move us along to talk about S-219, that wonderful bill that just keeps changing and changing and changing. It is actually known as an act relating to requiring law enforcement to comply with race data reporting requirements in order to receive state grant funding. But it's changed into all sorts of other things as well and I asked Julio if he would in fact discuss this evening. So, Julio?  So you're looking for the... I just step away for a second. You're looking for the summary of S-219? Well, we have the summary. I sent that out to everyone, but I had asked if you would actually discuss pretty much the current state of the legislation, how people... Remember, we had been attached about your perceptions of how close that bill came to what its intent was, where it would go and so on. I realized this conversation had been closed off at this point because yesterday afternoon the governor signed it. But it would still be good to know because the letter that he sent that announced the signing also interestingly made a lot of recommendations even, but request, I would say, of the legislature concerning what they look at next in regards to that bill. Yeah, I don't have his signing statement, but I can... But I've read a summary of it, so I can't help you there with what he literally said, but yeah, I could spend a couple of minutes on this.  Gosh, I think over the course of the session, of course it was an interrupted session and with the pandemic and everything, but really there were at least four bills that I was aware of, maybe five, a couple in the house, all of the ones that moved progressed in the last four or five weeks of the legislature, really Senate bills. There was 219, which was signed. There was a Senate bill 119, which really addresses the definition. We talked about it at our last meeting. That was a definition of or stating standards for the use of force and deadly force to put that in statute. There had been another bill on the House side, H-464, which rather than stating the standard in statute called upon the Criminal Justice Training Council to develop policies, a model or a standard policy for use of force. So 119 was really about the deadly force standard. Remember, that was the discussion last time about a variety of aspects of that bill, like what's necessary for a reasonable person versus a reasonable officer standard and the like. That bill had gotten through the Senate, but it had not gotten really very far at all on the House side. The House Government Ops Committee and the Judiciary Committee had been, had just been assigned to that literally on one of the last days. I don't know what was the last day of the legislature, the 26th, I think so. And that's literally when it was assigned to Gov Ops. The Gov Ops on the House side had taken testimony on it, but they didn't actually have the bill in hand. So the issue about stating or how you would put out a uniform policy regarding deadly force or force, because there was language there about officers use of force and not just deadly force. That hasn't really got, there's been no drafts or revisions. It hadn't gotten very far. At the same time, Public Safety Commissioner Shirling testified throughout the session, proposing with I think the input and agreement of various law enforcement leaders and also community members to put out or to work out a statewide use of force policy and not just limit it to deadly force. So S119 is something that House Gov Ops would take up if it wanted to, they would be the committee would take up when they return if they're inclined to take it up. The other Senate bill, which at the end was just, I think called, turned into miscellaneous law enforcement amendments was sort of a grab bag of a lot of other issues that did not really have much. I mean, I'm looking at the screen and a lot of the people I see on the screen were there testifying, it was a small number of folks that were testifying on 124, but that addressed issues like, let's see if I can pull it up here. That addressed issues like it was more aspirational. There was going to be materials here about training on de-escalation. There was going to be materials about where there, let's see, qualifications for law enforcement. Sorry, I have about 20 bills up on my screen right now, so have to indulge me for a second. It was basically a grab bag. Some of the larger issues that really did not get much airtime were put on kind of a to-do list for, it wasn't quite a study committee bill, although it had some resemblance, some of the issues that were to be addressed would be on whether the Criminal Justice Training Council would be moved and folded into the department or the Department of Public Safety. And there were going to be provisions there about the body-worn camera policy. S219, the one the governor signed yesterday, is basically just to mandate that public safety equip its officers. I think it says all of its officers. And I think one of the comments that I at least read about from the governor was that there are certain officers who don't go out in the field. So if they're, you know, they may not be able to get out of the field, so if they're, you know, they may not be, I think the point or the suggestion was that you might want to tailor it to people who actually deploy or in the field or interact with the public. I'm not sure, but 124, one of the issues was to come up with a statewide policy on body-worn cameras. And in testimony, they were basic, the committee was only considering two policies, one that was put together by the law enforcement advisory board and the other one that was proposed by the ACLU. There wasn't much discussion about other body-worn camera policies or legislation. There are about, I think 26 or 28 states that have legislation dealing with body-worn camera policies. There are probably 50 or 60 body-worn camera policies out there, but the legislature had two in front of it and was taking testimony from the advisory board and from the ACLU and trying to see if there was, you know, how much daylight was in between them and then try to see whether that could be reconciled. And those, I haven't spoken to ACLU about it, but they may be already working on that between themselves and not waiting for the legislature to reconvene. There was a call in S-124 for recommendations for revised and consistent standards for interviewing and hiring new law enforcement officers so that on the one hand, they were getting the right people for the job and on the other hand, they weren't unnecessarily excluding people who'd be qualified and would do a good job but because of maybe traditional practices or outmoded means of recruiting or screening, we're screening people out. And so that was on the list of issues to consider. Related to that was a recommendation that the ARDAP and other stakeholders, including the ACLU, I think the HRC, see who else is on here, that might be it, would look at, it just calls for review of current requirements for different aspects of law enforcement training, both basic at the academy and in the state. Training both basic at the academy and in-service on cultural awareness, implicit bias, de-escalation, responsible to individuals who might be in crisis or otherwise have either emotional or cognitive challenges in their interactions with the public or with law enforcement. And to make an assessment basically of what the state of affairs is and then make recommendations about how well that's actually carried out in practice. So that was an area. And so I was looking for just kind of like what they call a gap analysis, like what do we think is appropriate and what's actually being provided and then recommendations as to how to close that gap. Another area that was on the to-do list was for, let's see, stakeholders, let's just include everybody in there to make recommendations about what form or forms of civilian oversight would be appropriate for Vermont's, TJ is at 80, I don't know, the number of law enforcement agencies, the number I never- 77, 87. I 77, I hear someone tells me the next day, 83. What's that? I think it's 77. Yeah. About what the appropriate vehicles would be and what sort of models would those be. There was a lot of discussion in this connection in the Senate and the House about civilian review boards which I think has just become kind of a generic term for some form of civilian oversight. And there was testimony, I gave testimony, other gave testimony, there are different models. They aren't just a board that might review discipline. There are investigatory models and inspectors generally and so forth. And so they were looking for recommendations that would come out of feedback received from the community but also in conjunction with the AG's office, Human Rights Commission, Criminal Justice Training Council, basically getting an input for everyone. For those who were not present for the testimony in the Senate and the House, that was a theme that I think a variety of members of this panel, I think were very effective in the end in getting through to the legislators, which was that you needed to have more people at the table. You needed to have a broader range of voices talking about what communities were seeing and experiencing with law enforcement and what they thought was appropriate. There was a real, as there often is in the legislature, there was like, for many, I think there was an impulse to just throw something out there, pass it and then try to fix it later, which is sort of the history of civilian oversight. Any kind of civilian involvement with law enforcement is there's not a very successful history when you don't involve the community in the development of that. And so that was an area with civilian oversight. Related to that in an indirect way was to examine the issue about access to records related to misconduct complaints as well as records relating to instances where those allegations were substantiated. So not just the complaints, but the outcomes and to make recommendations about that. They didn't take a position one way or the other. It was more that different parties would provide recommendations. In this case, the Secretary of State's office was included or is named among those who would be part of that discussion. We, and Eton, I'm looking at you. Whenever they were naming people who would be the ones to make recommendations, we would always have to keep adding the line or other interested community members because you just wanna have the broadest voice that's available. And I think that was in the end on the Senate side that was successful in the bill as it was passed by the Senate. There was also language about recommendations that would come from the Law Enforcement Advisory Board, quote, after an opportunity for community involvement and feedback to recommend a statewide policy on the use of military equipment by law enforcement. And I think that is broader than what you see on TV in terms of the armored vehicles and the battle rattle, but there are also things that become available to law enforcement according to some of the testimony, like surveillance equipment. So there are, and there are bomb detection technologies, night vision, listening devices, all that kind of stuff. It's a big basket, in other words, of materials that would fall within the category of military equipment. And the Senate in the bill said that they wanted recommendations on it all as a subject. So those were the major points. I may have missed the bill as it was passed by the Senate, it was 43 pages. And I'm just trying to hit, I think, the critical areas. I think I have hit those. So. Thank you. I also wanted to. I also wanted to. I'm hearing myself. Anyway, I also have to point out that S338, which we were initially, before the pandemic, that was the bill that was definitely going to pass this session. And then the pandemic hit, and then that wasn't going to pass this session. And then yesterday it did pass and it got signed. So I didn't put that on the agenda. I didn't think there was any point in talking about it because it wasn't going anywhere, but now it's actually not just gone somewhere, it's there. And you'll recall that that requires us to work with the sentencing commission. When I find out more about how all this is going to happen, I will let you know. I feel a little at sixes and sevens that I'm really sorry if I'm not at my usual organized self, but things are happening really quickly. And it's a little hard to keep track of all of this. So I will continue to do my best. And as I will look into that, and that will certainly be on upcoming agenda, just so you know. Any questions for Julio? Okay, we're being very efficient, moving right along. And I want, as I introduce Rebecca Turner, I need to let you all know she saved our bacon collectively several times during this legislative session. There were moments where I literally got asked to testify about an hour before the meeting began. And I said to Rebecca, what am I doing? And there were a couple moments given the wonder of a computer that she was able to text things to me. Nobody would be able to see that I was reading her texts verbatim as part of the testimony from the hard app. They were like, work perfect and absolutely on point. And I just want to publicly say thank you because it was really, I don't think I've ever done anything that close to the boat and you really did it very elegantly. So thank you. Yeah, no, thank you, thank you. I'm trying to summarize the past few weeks because it's been a long time. You talk about how long you've been getting these, you know, type of SNAP, what else have you been trying to testify? Because they tried to just let you do it. Rebecca, you're an awful mate. Oh, shoot. Sometimes it helps to hang up and dial back in. Rebecca, you know, you might want to try that. Okay. I'd love technology. Mm-hmm. Same. Same as you, Rebecca. You may have to reserve using your telephone. Now you're muted. So it's Judge Greerson. Judge, you're muted as well. I'm sorry. There we go. That's okay. And Rebecca's gone, but she'll come back. I feel pretty certain. I don't want to skip ahead because there was a method to all of this. So I'm hopeful that she can figure... Hello? Hi. Well, I've called in and what I'm gonna try to do is get my video going, but turn off my mic and see if that works. Okay. So Elisey, can you, Elisey, can you, Elisey?  Nevermind, I just hung up. Can you hear me now? Yes, yeah. Okay, I'm sorry, I guess this will have to do. Let me know if you have any trouble. I thought I got the kids off the computer. So yeah, no, thank you, Eitan. It's been a good watch and Julio, nice job summarizing the crazy, crazy maze of the legislature these past few weeks. I think that jumping right to what Eitan had me on the agenda to talk about, although I know I don't have it, is that next move, right, Eitan? Through the next move next. So I think... Postal proposals. I think by way of transitioning to that subject, Julio talked about and certainly in the S219 that passed in the intent or purpose section, the bill itself says that they intend to go further. That this was but one stop, one step, right? And that they wanted to put that in writing. I heard them talk about drafting that language into the bill to make sure it was clear to the public that this wasn't enough for them, right? That there was clearly with national events this urgency because of the prioritization of police violence and to a lesser extent with these bills, the public health crisis that COVID has presented in incarceration. But they certainly committed that intent as well as what I think is significant for purposes of this conversation, language in that purpose section that they wanted to engage as many community members on this topic. And while they heard a ton of proposals, there was a deliberate decision to shell many of the ideas that went to more reform measures, to more real changes because it warranted and required more input from the community members more thought to exploration that just couldn't be achieved, right? I see the governor's letter that a ton shared with us kind of repeating that same theme. Interested in reaching out to the community members to as many folks around the state to gather ideas and feedback, right? What is the problem and what should we do about it? And also I took heart the governor's, what I'm reading, solicitation, invitation from all of us for ideas. I also took heart that his letter sort of reflected this moment, right? We're all responding to this feeling of enough is enough, the governor's words in that letter, right? My question to all of you is what does that mean? What does it mean when we say enough is enough? What does it mean when we say enough is enough to police killing blacks and people of color, right? What does it mean that we pass these bills? Is it enough? How deep does this go? Does it just focus? Should we just focus on police violence and excessive use of force, right? This committee did a great job with gathering all of our disagreements and agreements like compiling our report. And I'm happy that there's gonna be a press conference to highlight that, it's very critical. However, I just wanna remind this group that that report represented where we were at that moment in time, which was free, well, free the killing of George Floyd and others that brought this sort of mass movement or this mass awareness of this immediate need and police violence to address it, right? Now, luckily for us, that report really reflects a lot of issues around bias, racial bias and policing. It certainly wasn't comprehensive. We knew that when we wrote it, right? We knew it wasn't comprehensive in addressing unlawful police conduct as that related to our mandate. We also knew it wasn't comprehensive. It didn't even start to touch on other parts of our criminal justice system that uphold the racism. That is the problem and what we are mandated to sort of come up with ideas. So while I'm happy that we keep pushing our report forward, I think that what's really critical for our committee and what the legislature and the governor is seeking is what else? What else can we do to effectuate real reform, right? And so to that end, we have certainly gone through the exercise of brainstorming in our respective circles and expertise. I think that now in this moment, it's incredibly exciting to see what is being generated in terms of policy initiatives, ideas, reform suggestions elsewhere around the country. And I see our last bulleted item for today is to talk about how to reach out to sort of connect with other community members and others to get ideas for real reform. I think that in terms of specific ideas that our committee can come up with beyond what we've already settled upon by the report because I'm certainly not satisfied to just end our work there, right? We're not a historical committee recurrence we were just beginning. And so I just want to remind the committee members that we had previously identified parts in the system where we thought there was a high likelihood of racism impacting decisions where we could focus and target those points to really see if we could unpackage and limit the effects of racism creeping into those decisions, right? And so just Brown I think is on this call. She and I were testifying this summer and giving our specific suggestions and just certainly jumped in at any time. And I would agree with her, but the theme being less contact with the police, the better, right? But that that is just the problem in terms of minimizing contact because so many of the times what's happening in a crisis doesn't require the specialized training the police officers bring to the table, right? So there's problem number one. But instead of using this time to sort of go through all the specific reform ideas what I thought I'd throw out there and suggest is that as we did before, but now with the eyes even wider open with and with the benefit of all the ideas out there and current initiatives that are going forward in other places that we come back to the table, you know, pepper like seeing what other prosecutors are doing across the country, you know, A to get people out of jail, right? And again, the focus I think there are really two prioritizations that intersects with our mandate and concerns of racism, right? It's not just police violence, but how does this system constantly impact adversely people of color at every point that they touch, right? Whether it's initial contact with the police arrest, free free arraignment custody post-arraignment custody, you know the conditions of release and bail imposed type of charges imposed, what kind of, you know pre-offers you get what kind of sentence you get imposed once you're in jail, how who's getting the good jobs? Who's not? Who's getting disciplinary reports? Who's getting in segregation? Who's getting out early? Who's getting verbose done for a little on and on and on all the way to the end, right? We identified all these spots. Why can't we now each of us with our respective areas go back and see now what is being done now, right? Again, with the focus of real reform. Our focus, I see the proposals being thrown out there regurgitate the same old same old training, right? Training is constantly a suggestion in various forms as well as data collection. Now I don't see anything new that those two subjects bring to the current table. So to me, that's not getting us anywhere different, right? So if we're committed and interested in addressing these problems and suggesting real reforms, proposals to the legislature to a governor, then let's see what ideas are out there and what we can do. And I just wanted to close with some anecdotes because I know that many who are listening don't necessarily see what we see defenders representing people of color in the system in Vermont. Think there is a tendency to dismiss the problems happening elsewhere as not happening here, right? That people tend to talk about this theoretically and wanna get ahead of it, right? Not actually recognizing that it is here and it is a problem now. And to a shout out to public defenders in Bennington County who recently litigated racial justice case involving a car stop with four black men and seven very similar facts to Gregory Zulo, which happened a few years earlier. But this, in this instance, they were driving in the middle of the night in November and was stopped by a police officer. And during that stop and detention, questions were asked and the questions asked were of such concern and that it reflected racism that the state's attorney, Erica Marsage, upon reading the motion to suppress and dismiss in the interest of justice that was filed by these public defenders, issued a letter dismissing or a notice of dismissal with the court acknowledging that the officer's questions roadside were inappropriate and that has these people who had been stopped by the officer had been white. She questioned whether or not the officer would have asked the same thing. And I wanted to just share what those statements were. I'm just trying to find it here. So again, these four black men in a car stop not obstructing traffic and they had out of state plates, New York plates. And so the officer says, you know, yeah, it's not uncommon for guys from Albany to go to Rutland to drop off product and pick up product, right? Based on my experience, officer said, it happens quite a bit. It's a good time to travel too. Now there's no basis to suspect drug activity here, right? And clearly it's just, it is implicit that this officer suspects and is making these statements and the officer goes on.   Rutland, Albany, drug trafficking, all that stuff, right? Later on in the stop, the officer is trying to make some observations to see if they're drinking and is making some small talk and just like, well, so he said you played sports, the officer is asking the black man, I'm sure basketball was one of them. And the client said, no, no, he doesn't play basketball only football and the officer said, really? Never pick up basketball? On and on and on. Now luckily in this case, we had the body cam video. And so in a motion to suppress and dismiss, the defenders were able to take snapshots. And so several pages of filing sort of broke down and compared what the officer claimed happened and what the video showed, right? And you could see and the court could see independently the credibility check there. Were the pupils small? Well, let's take a look at what the body cam picture showed, right? So, you know, good for a state's attorney, I have a message for getting ahead of it and dismissing the case. What I wonder is why is that's the only one? I've certainly as an appellate attorney, I take these cases after they've been convicted in sentence and I'm fighting for these same types of arguments before the Vermont Supreme Court. And sometimes I win and sometimes I don't. And I think constantly all along the way, how many decision-making points had passed before it got to me, where someone could have either dismissed the case in the case of the prosecutor, right? Where the judge could have imposed a different ruling, where the defense attorney could have made a different argument, right? On and on and on. And so we're, and you know, DCF is at the table. I don't mean to exclude DCF, but again, calls that were not made properly in DCF either because you see a lot of these clients having been through the DCF system and their experiences of children and how they were disconnected with their biological parents, right? And how that continues through this cycle. I'll share one more anecdote. And this one is involving body cams again. We talk about how there's legislation and interest in exploring deeper, appropriate policies to make sure that the data that's collected on these body cams are appropriate. And that's absolutely important. We don't need children and others who are captured by these body cams to all of a sudden be part of the public records, right? Seen by all. And ACLU director does is absolutely correct. So we need to understand how much data is being collected and under our public disclosure laws, how much is all automatically being put into the public. But I'll tell you this. While we debate, well, the legislature's debating, A, whether to acquire it, whether to acquire deployments, whether we have to turn the cameras on, I lit it, it gated a case, Stacey Treos and teaching, where he was arrested for disorderly conduct walking down church street, a black man trying to get to his bus. When apparently to the officers there, they felt he was threatening because he walked too closely by and they told him to move aside to walk a different direction. And he engaged in the conversation with the officers saying, I don't understand, my bus is here. I don't need to go that way and back and forth, right? Now I was his appellate attorney. We have ultimately got that conviction reversed but at the Supreme Court level, finding it wasn't sufficient conduct, right? And in there, there was a lot of subjective causes as to what was threatening. What was threatening about this particular person's way of walking across the street and church street? Again, this is Vermont. This isn't 20 years ago, Vermont. It's been within the past couple of years. In reviewing that public record, the body cam footage of that incident was submitted. And what you can see, or I can't, I forget if it was four or five officers standing in that church street area and they're standing in a circle. One of the things that we noticed was interesting in the office was how those officers were standing so that those body cam footage could not see and get a direct viewpoint of my client's direct encounter with the officer. We got just pieces. We had to see five different cameras, video recordings, to get a sense of what was happening in that direct encounter. And the key moment there was who said what caused the initial encounter and rush for the arrest. So it was critical to see. Again, sort of looking at why are these officers positioned in that way and tilted in a abnormal way just so that the gangled body cam footage just doesn't cover what we would expect it to cover when you talk with someone face to face, right? Again, it seems to me that there are already attempts to try to circumvent the intent. So while we talk about new crimes, right? Now again, Jess Brown and I made this point. New crimes, my position will always be a completely ineffective way to go about trying to fight racism. You've got the problem of whether or not prosecutor is going to actually charge it and whether or not it will actually end in conviction. It's too far down to be in too remote. Really the issue should be focused on who are the victims and the victims' families who are being subjected to police violence or the police racism or the other government official, not necessarily the DOC officer, the DCF social worker who is doing something. There has to be immediate relief whether it's in form of reparations to those families, whether it's required suppression of that evidence obtained, right? In that criminal case, something where there is immediate correction. Those are the kinds of real reform changes I'm hopeful that we can come up with. One more anecdote, can I share this? Just make it really quick, as we've realized. This is bringing in the judiciary that focused on the prosecutors and police. Again, current events, right? Block defendants being represented by defenders going before judges pre-trial. And now the question is, what are the appropriate conditions of release that these people should be going forward to? And we are seeing judges imposing conditions, prohibiting our black clients from entering an entire county in Vermont, even though the record may clear that that's where their job is. And it's because of the sense that they are threatening. Again, these code words, where I came up during our discussions with the legislature, reasonableness, threatening, where the subjective valuations are allowed to creep in, where we bring in our implicit or explicit raises to the table. Again, those conditions and those orders have been appealed. They've either been reversed or appended before the Vermont Supreme Court. But it is here, it's a problem, and enough is enough. The question is, what are we going to do about it? I have a whole complex of questions based on this. And this isn't particularly organized because I'm just taking in what you're saying and not, you know, I haven't really thought it through, obviously. But it doesn't seem like there needs to be another more specific addendum to the report in December that gets at those high impact, high discretion points that we've discussed that we then, that we work on now and that we talk about perhaps at the press conference and then in fact submit, or is that still not enough? I like that idea, Eton. I would just suggest moving up the timeframe, not December, but why not September? Yes, yes, absolutely. So in other words, we do what we've been doing for that report that we've already submitted and people go off, give us some thought, perhaps look at the report in December, flesh out some very specific things that we, I mean, David's term is always that we wrote that report from 30,000 feet. So that perhaps at this point, we get more to 10 as opposed to 30 and get a little bit more specific about those points, which seem to be at the root of what you're talking about. Am I misunderstanding or taking this in a direction you didn't want to go in? No, that's a good suggestion. I'm curious what others think. Me too, that was a hint. Yes, I'm just, I hope you all heard, I mean, the Department of Corrections had a press conference yesterday and most of the press conference coverage was related to an incident about an inmate death, but another important thing that the commissioner did announce is his creating of an office of professional standards and also appointing Heather Simons who meant to be at this meeting tonight. She will be coming in the future. She was just unable to attend, but Heather is gonna lead that office and one of the important roles and functions for her at the Department of Correction, of course, is to really take work that we have started and continue to expand it in terms of bias and fair and impartial efforts and equity. The commissioner is very vocal about his commitment to this and things are moving very, very quickly and we have engaged some outside consultants to really help us think through what we're doing as a department, I think to really address a lot of the things that we've talked about over the course of this panel. Some of the things Rebecca just addressed now and I don't know what other departments are doing, but I'm assuming a lot of other departments are really taking a very hard look at their own systems and it might be interesting to doing. I certainly think that what the Department of Corrections is doing with the new position that Heather has and the consultants we're engaging in is directly going to impact the work of this panel. But I also don't know exactly what we're gonna have by a press conference in August or a revision of a report in September. So those are some just initial thoughts that I have at the top of my head. Okay. Other people, you've just popped up on my screen. What are you thinking? I think there, I don't agree with everything that Rebecca said just now, but I do, I would like to say that because of the COVID-19 crisis, I think at Monica's point, all state agencies have taken a long, hard look and particularly the criminal justice players, the players in the criminal justice system have taken a look at things like conditions of release and bail and hold without bail and resentencing. But I think this is kind of an app time to kind of think about what lessons we have learned from that, especially if we're about to see a second spike. And I think that while those questions don't necessarily have a direct racial component, which is what the task of this committee is, I think that we can certainly kind of think about, if we reduce incarceration at large and we also have a racial problem in our incarcerated population that it will have had a second order effect of implicating kind of these racial disparities. So I think it's a good time to start working on something like this. I'm not committing quite yet to, I think that our report actually does a lot to move the ball, advance the ball forward. And now we're talking about the legislature has not really taken heed of our recommendations there. And now we're talking about adding more on top of it. So in some ways, I don't know what the best strategy is, but I'm happy to work with Rebecca and others on kind of lessons learned and where we can go, what our next stage is. I'm wondering if, go ahead, go ahead, Jessica. Well, I was just, I sort of feel like what we're skirting around is that, and although Pepper did just say that he didn't agree with everything that Rebecca said is that when we zoom in from the 30,000 foot level to the 10,000 foot level and get into the nitty gritty, there is not, I don't believe that there will be consensus among this committee, right? So, and I do think Rebecca was trying to make this point, one of her points was that we had kind of gotten, the report we submitted reflected what we could reach, the points on which we could reach consensus, and there were definitely issues already, like when we were completing our report around sort of like, well, we don't have consensus on this, so we're not gonna include it or it's gonna be a footnote or an addendum or whatever. And so I do think that we're sort of talking now about, I just, this is a weird analogy, but like a Supreme Court that issues opinions where not everybody signs on to each part of the opinion and some people write their own opinions and some people sign on to other people's opinions. So I think we need to talk about if we're gonna develop more or flesh out or sort of be more specific about different issues that have been raised in the original report, we as a committee, as a panel may need to talk about processes and statutorily what we're allowed to or what we decide that we will agree, like how we'll agree to approach writing any additional parts or addendums to the report. Excellent, thank you. Is there anything preventing us from really reconceiving that as the report or what this proposed report, I guess, or addendum as a collection of recommendations on that are not put in any particular order or that are not even necessarily agreed upon by everyone? I mean, I know that was really big the first time around and I get it, but I think at this point, it may be more productive to put out a smattering of thought, in fact, because the, I mean, agreement also suggests a certain timeframe and that's not gonna happen now. It's fine, I do wanna just raise a point. I know we didn't talk about S-338, but that section 19 that you testified on around racial disparities in the criminal justice system study and recommendations, which has its own data collection piece of it. I mean, one of the main questions they asked a lot of us who testified was, should it be a report that you all submit together or should it be separate reports? Should we allow for having, and the statute, the bill that passed actually says the report shall include any dissenting opinions among the stakeholders. So, you know, there is some, there's recognition there that this panel has different opinions and it may not be completely resolved, but the legislature wants to hear all of them. I personally am liking that idea, but that's just me. I would say that I think we've been working for what, two years now? Econ, and you know, we've done a fairly effective job of coming up with a consensus report, but I guess I would agree with Rebecca. And you know, we've done all we can from a consensus standpoint and maybe it's time that we have to start drawing lines and saying I agree with this or I don't agree with that. You know, as the committee knows, there are times when I cannot take a position one way or another because of my role in the judiciary. And, but I think it's time that we confronted some of these issues and you know, we can't all agree, we can't all agree, but I think the legislature needs to know that. And you know, we had a section when this emergency started that was essentially was going to attempt a revision of review of sentences. There's a 90 day provision in there now. In one sense, we tried to make it benign in that it required the defense in the state to agree beyond a certain time period. I mean, that's an area that would allow parties to, if you will, revisit some sentences for a lot of reasons. I just think there are ways that we could move ahead that we can't all agree upon. Yeah. There wasn't total agreement on that provision. I'm just using that as an example of you know, there was a fairly spirited discussion in the legislature about that provision. It didn't get included, but it doesn't mean that it's not a reason to discuss it and move ahead perhaps that way. So I think this panel has evolved to a point where you need to move forward, not necessarily all on the same page. It's my thought. Thank you. I'm gonna stay on as long as I can, but I do have to leave before. Right. Thank you, Brian. Eton? Yes, Jeff. I would simply say that I have no problem whatsoever in presenting a menu and to encompass, I don't think as wild disparities as it may seem when we're arguing amongst ourselves, but I do think it is our job to present a fairly straightforward menu. I think the time for the philosophical document will not benefit the time that we're in, the times that we're in. And I think we need to push whatever issues we're going to push fairly soon. Sure, sure. Yeah, I, yes, I agree. Yes, thank you. I would just, the only thing I would add here, I think there is some power rhetorically in having presented a report that represented consensus and now looking at doing something that's actually the opposite. I think it shows where the real profound contradictions are and it actually focuses attention. That would be my hope. And I think that that makes sense. So I'm actually kind of getting into the idea of doing this at this point. Also, just in the level of time, it takes a lot less time to do this if we're not all having to sit at a table and come to consensus. It really would mean going back to our different agencies, possibly looking over the report as it stands, fleshing things out in there, coming together and putting that together into a document that doesn't necessarily mean this is what we all think. This is what we all think separately. May well be it. I mean, we're not, yes. Go ahead, Rebecca. It sounds like there was a building consensus. What if, you know, I'm just thinking of the exercise that Judge Grierson, David Schur, Pepper and I experienced when we were hashing out our certain ideas early on and we met. Yes. And thought, okay, where is there, where are there overlaps? And I think an idea is to do that again here and not just with the government members on this committee, but then also have sort of like whether it's a subcommittee or something with the community members and going into the next agenda item, community members and others on the panel who have ideas on who else should be contacted and heard, right? Solicited and included in the sort of rush brainstorm and also find where we have areas of consensus, DOC, DCF. And I'm willing to work with others, you know, outside of these many leading up to the next one to generate first ideas. So we're not just all working individually on our own. Okay. What would be a good step now at this moment? We need an action. Can we make a proposal? I like what Rebecca said. And can we make a proposal to do just that? Great. In other words, right now we should figure out subcommittee, Sheila? Yes, that's what we need to do, yes. Okay. I mean, I don't know what other people think about it, but I felt similar that I would want to bring this back to our community here and where we have a strong community even across the state of BIPOC and would love for the community to be involved in this conversation and give their voice. And I would like to move it sooner than later. And I think dissenting points of views is gonna be natural. I think that there, I agree that there are some things I think that we should agree upon. And so though I like this idea, I think that there is also concern on whether we all agree on the fundamental things. And I think that this committee has moved in many ways to where how we're working together, the things we're doing and how we're talking as much different than like three years ago or whenever we started. But it's still unclear of whether fundamentally we all understand and believe in what we're doing and what terms we're using to convey that, such as white supremacy and things like that. So I think there are some basic things that I think that we all need to really try to come to consensus or understand why we're not in consensus with. And then those other points from there on, I'm comfortable with having diverging points of view and submitting it in that way. Okay. I, all right. My brain's a little rusty. We've got to figure out, I would guess at this point some subcommittees, which is going to be a little difficult because we got a lot of people from a lot of different places here. So I would entertain some suggestions at this point. So what we would have, just throw some stuff out. We have DCF and then we would have the subcommittee that was what? Brian and Rebecca and David and Pepper. That's start for two. For Julio's benefits, since David's not here, could you specify what the forward- For that subcommittee would be? Rebecca, you do a better job of summing up what you all did because I remember that night I glazed over. Well, that's when we went, met face to face. We went to the AG conference room and, oh, I forget how we got there. We had a list and then we just figured if there was any overlap and where we had agreement and no agreement and we just shared where we were coming from. So it's like the conference committee? Conference committee. Okay. I guess my question is, I don't know what lists we're working off. I mean, we have the report. Okay, I know. So, but do we need to, what's the step before that? I feel like I'm missing a step around like maybe some more concrete things that people are, I mean, I heard a lot of people say and I agree, we need some more specifics. How are we gonna come up with those specifics or are the subcommittees doing that? That's what I'm not following. That's a good point. I would hope the subcommittees would do that. And to the extent that there seems like, DCF, DOC, RAPs here, I can see the community members, that in terms of overlap and sharing and brainstorming and then going back in and out with our subcommittees, we can share as we feel appropriate our ideas, specific ideas for reform so that if we're not specifically involved in a subcommittee, whether that group can respond or think about it and whether they like that or not. So that we don't, I don't know. I think that's the... I'm sorry, this is Jeffrey from DCF. And part of this is my own newness to this particular role in any of the previous conversations that have happened, but I'm trying to tease out of this conversation. What happens with those subcommittees? Are they pulling? Are they examining specific like subject matter areas like DCF, DOC, XYZ, and then teasing out meta threads from those that then get combined into these suggestions? Or is it rather that the approach about where the dissent or the lack of consensus or the tension might be is inherent in kind of those, the issues regardless of where, like which lane they're sitting in. I'm not sure if I articulated that really well. I'm just kind of trying to wrap my head around kind of the siloing of those subcommittees by the division department. Ryan? So, I mean, this is just an idea, but we start with the report as it is presently reads and this subcommittee could start by looking at that and deciding what areas within that report we perhaps want to expand on or revisit with some of the ideas we had before. And as we explore those areas, we then may, if it touches on DOC or DCF, then we bring them into the discussion. So I don't think we want to exclude anyone that has an interest in a particular issue, but I just look at the subcommittee as maybe taking a broader view at first and seeing what issues that they think are important enough to expand on from the original report and then bring in the folks that have an interest in it. That would be one way of approaching it, I would think. And then as Sheila's saying, taking some of that back outside of the panel and taking it out to constituency, yeah. Right, right. And then come back, obviously the committee can take some work until they present it to the membership as a whole. Right. That's the way I would envision it. I like that. I know that wasn't very thoughtful. I like that. It gives us something to hold on to. It gives us something to work from. It gives us a template, some ideas that are already out there. It means we can flesh them out. I think Jess is because really right that once we get to flushing those out, it's gonna get more contentious and that's fine. I don't think that's a problem. I think that's actually a strength. It just means that what we need to do is everyone needs to look at the report again. Right. And start fleshing some stuff out. I mean, in that respect, if everyone did that, they might identify areas that they want the subcommittee to explore further or to take to the next level. So why don't we start with that? An individual effort that we all do it. And then we worry about subcommittees at another moment. It is only the beginning of June, I mean, July. One of those Jay months, yeah. So I think this, I would say that that would be the way to start with this. So Aitana, if that's two good ideas I've had, then I think I better leave. Well, that sounds great. I mean, if you like those ideas, then I think I better leave while I'm ahead of the game. But I think that's a way to start. Then it makes everybody go back to where we were. Look at where we ended up and where do we go from here? And then the subcommittee can build on it. And then we'll worry about the subcommittees a bit later. Right, right. Because it's just too much to bite off right now, all of us, I think. And everybody needs, I think, to have that input as to areas in what really is a completely different world than when we wrote the report. Exactly. Or at least new issues that we have to address. And maybe we take another look at what we avoided before. Right. Maybe what was non-consensus, it needs to come forward, exactly that. So I would say, I'm just throwing this out here and somebody could make a motion on it if they want, that we all go take the report and start fleshing out moments in there that we find personally compelling. We talk to constituencies about it in that process and start with that. Just start there. The next step is another step, but just start there right now. That would be what I would suggest. If there needs to be more discussion, there does. If not, I think we need to make a motion or someone does. I'll make a motion to that effect. Can we take up the report? I'll second it. Then we vote. All in favor of this process, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed. All abstentions. Okay. We have homework. We have homework. And that homework will, I hope, involve taking this out to people outside of this panel and getting their input on it as well. I will adjust because it might make your lives simpler. I have a little icon right here on my desktop to call up the report because I never knew when I was gonna need it in the last seven weeks. So I will send that out to everyone again as an attachment so you have it right there and you're ready to go on it and you don't have to look through two years of emails to find it or something. And I will do that, probably not tonight because I'd kind of like to have dinner, but I'll do it tomorrow morning after I have coffee. Wonderful. Sounds good. Okay. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see everyone. I'm gonna suggest here, going forward, I had put in the mechanisms for community feedback. I'm not sure, and please feel free to stop me. I'm having a chair moment. I'm looking at it and going, oh my God, this is another huge thing. And I feel like we just sort of discussed doing this in regard to looking over the report and coming up with report version two. So my sense is perhaps this should be tabled because we're already gonna be doing it. I need feedback because this is eight on having a moment. Well, Julio has a question slash comment. Why, of course. So the legislature is going to convene at the last week of August. I don't have a sense for how long they're going to be in town. They have left, they've drawn up in the bill that the governor signed, as well as the other two bills that passed one chamber, a to-do list of a dozen plus significant law enforcement reforms, very few of which are small topics. Yes. And so when you're talking about community input regarding the task force, the R-DAPPS report, there are items in the legislation that are not specifically referenced in R-DAPPS report. And so the legislature, and from witnesses there, we're saying these are issues, the legislature cannot proceed on unless we hear from the committee. And so the question is with respect to the very specific topics like civilian oversight, like body-worn cameras, like de-escalation training that are actually mentioned in those bills and the to-do lists, whether members of the R-DAPPS committee feel like they have a role in working with other groups to organize community discussion either through online town halls or bulletin boards or other means of collecting feedback on those things that are in the legislation, since those are closest to enactment, I think. And so I just didn't know what, and I'm brand new to this as only my second meetings. And I think the first one, David was there as my training wheel. So this might be my first solo ride. So I just wanted to know what members thought about that because I don't know how much time they're gonna actually devote to this in August and September because I think the budget is gonna be a very, very big issue for the legislature. So I don't know if people were thinking about coordinating and working in the next month to get that ball rolling. It takes a while, Eitan, as you know. Others on the call now, it takes a while just to set those up. So I'm interested in hearing others' thoughts about that. Anybody? I mean, my sense, I guess, would be they're coming back in at the end of August. We have time to look at this. We have certainly another meeting between now and then. And this should be at the front of next month. And then is this our plan also to try and incorporate this into the press conference idea or were we thinking of doing something that was going to impact future legislation? Because as Julio said, I don't know how long they're gonna stay in Montpelier once they do reconvene. And so obviously we can do as much as we can do during that time period, but... Right. This is Rebecca. You know, Julio, I hear you. I'm of the opinion whether they're here for two weeks. There's no way we can come up with the substantive answers that they were hoping we'd give them last month because the same issue is applied, right? I agree that we should be trying to reach out. I just had thought Sheila had suggested something fantastic which is using contact and reaching out and doing something less formal. I'm open to a more formal arrangement of reach out. I think formal and formal is good. I don't know if we need to decide that at this meeting as others have suggested is my point. I have to say that when this came up, when I was testifying, I brought up the fora that you, TJ sort of instituted around the state. And I kept saying, this was long. We all got educated as to how long it needed to be that you would think you could do it within three weeks and you really couldn't. And everybody's eyes rolled. It was like, they liked the idea but they wanted it to happen in, you know, 48 hours. And I was kind of like, we got a problem here, folks, because that's unrealistic.  It's not possible. But they'd like the idea of the fora around the state. I mean, it was, it was ironic. I mean, I just got to a moment where I didn't even know what to say. I was going, all right, well, you can't have it the way you want it. I'm sorry. And that didn't go very far. But I mean, that's one issue I've got here. I mean, and Julio, I think you've got a great point, but I just, you know, that remote town hall meetings, online comments, none of this happens in a short period of time. Yeah, and just to clarify, just to clarify, I wasn't saying that this get done by August. I was saying, are there plans to get this rolling and work with other groups? Because there are a lot of things in this legislation that are not in the RDAAP report. And I think it's good that RDAAP continue and expand on its report and maybe refer to some of that, but that's going to take time. And there may be a parallel. I don't know if it's a parallel track or if it's a single track for a lot of things that are already on the runway, the legislature says, we've identified a dozen things we commit to working on, many of which, like I said, are not, there are many topics from Rebecca brought up, great topics, and the report has great topics, but they're also a lot broader than the dozen very specific topics that are already before the legislature. And I know everyone has limited bandwidth. So I'm just wondering if people are thinking about, we don't have to decide today, but I'm interested in people's thoughts about what role does this committee play or panel play with others to have those four to talk about body-worn cameras, to talk about de-escalation policies or pre-text stops or whatever the issues that have been laid out, because my fear is that if that doesn't get very far, then it's going to be the same 10 people sitting in a room or a virtual room going through red lines with Red Ledge Council. That's my worry. My thoughts are that, of course, we have to bring this back to our communities. Again, not about us without us and it needs to be the most impacted communities that are given the opportunity to have voice in this conversation in multiple ways. I think that going in formal is great. And I think that we should be doing that both as individuals where we are positioned and who we have access to. But I also think we should do it in a more formal way such as around the state and having town halls and making it at different times and various times and having a few different meetings so that people can be able to access that both maybe in person with their people in their community as well as something where maybe they're not in community like that or because of COVID it creates the barriers for them not to be in those situations. So we need to have the voices of the community because every time we create what we're creating and we give what we give and then we get the pushback from the community because we didn't involve them in their voice in the process. So then we keep on going back when really we should have just at the beginning had a held space for people to give their voice an opinion. So I would be interested in supporting us reaching out to the community and informally as well and structuring something so that we understand that we're brainstorming around the state of what connections do we have and who are the most impacted populations and people that we should be directly reaching out to to make sure that their communities are getting this information. Here, here. How about, I'm gonna recommend given that time is short obviously we can't go through this completely. I really like what Sheila just said. I just think that's it. But I think we need to talk more about what Sheila refers to in terms of going around the state and having those more formal meetings. And I also think Sheila, if you're available at some point I think you've got to like talk to the legislature about this too, because I think they need to hear it. They've heard it, I'm boring. They need to hear it from other people right now. And I would really love it if you could say this. So, for what that's worth. I'm not channeling you. I can't do it. I tried really hard. But I really think that we need to do that because there may be a part that has to be said. You guys, it's just not gonna happen overnight. It's not gonna happen overnight. If you want folks to talk, it's gonna take time. Stop thinking in like business models. It's just not gonna work. So that may need to be something that gets said with a rubber mallet, all right? Well, this was fun. Thanks everyone. We all, I'm gonna send out the report in the morning so everyone has it, can make more specific comments based on it, not worrying about agreements. Take it back to communities, get comments. We will come back and do this some more and refine it from that point. The next meeting is the 11th of August. Same time, six to eight PM. All other bits of information will be conveyed in emails, which I know you all love. All right, anything else anyone needs to bring up? Oh, okay, a motion like, you know, to have dinner. So moved, great. Seconded? Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye.  I will see you all in August. We're before. Thank you. Bye everyone.


Hello everyone, I am Pauline Rooney, and I work in e-learning development with the Dublin Institute of Technology. OK, so to date our work in learning analytics has mainly focused on the VLE, which is Blackboard and DIT, and primarily at the module level on our postgraduate programmes within the Learning, Teaching and Technology Centre. For example, TELTA, our acronym for our fully online module on Technology Enhanced Learning and Teaching Assessment. So the data that we would have looked at today would include things like number of student logins, time of logins, resources accessed, student assignment submissions, student grades, digital badging or achievements as Blackboard calling. And our objectives in doing or looking at this data were threefold. Firstly, to identify at risk students and affect appropriate intervention in order to ease attrition and to support students through their learning. Secondly, to get an insight into students' online behaviours and their working practices within the VLE. And thirdly, to determine if there was a correlation between their online engagement within the VLE and their learning outcomes. And we haven't completed the empirical research in that area yet, but our initial glance at the data would seem to indicate a positive correlation between the two. So opportunities, first of all, and many of these we've already touched on this morning, but there's obvious potential for easing attrition by identifying at risk students, particularly in the earlier stages of a course, and there are also opportunities we find for empowering students. As part of our learning analytics work, we provide students with reports on their engagement, with analytical reports on their engagement in the online environment, and also anonymise summaries of their peers' engagement. And by doing so, we hope to give them an insight into their learning practices and also to allow them to compare how their own learning practices relate to their peers. And surprisingly, many students are surprised at their reports. There are also a lot of opportunities for cross-functional or departmental collaboration with a view to aggregating data across systems and departments within the institution. I know many of us have already touched on that this morning. But there are obvious challenges. First of all, access. We have access to the VLE data. That's straightforward. But accessing data across different systems within the institute, for example student registrations, is challenging at the minute, because we don't have aggregated systems at all. There is no synchronisation between those systems at the minute. Secondly, while we have access to the VLE data, making sense of that data in Blackboard and interpreting it requires additional analytical tools for which Blackboard charge handsomly, which has budget implications, resourcing implications. Secondly, there are challenges with regards to the collaboration across departments. I'm sure we're all familiar with those types of challenges. They're not only technical very much. Collaboration is challenging on many levels. There are resourcing issues. In order to progress our work in this area, we're really at the tip of the iceberg. In order to progress our work, we need time and we need staff to be able to focus on this as an institutional priority. We also need professional development for staff. That's one of the things I'll talk about in the next slide. We need to be able to educate staff on how to collate data, how to make sense of that data, and how to use that data to inform their own practice and to support students. That leads on to the final point. I think it's a challenge for all of us within our own centre is to remain data informed as opposed to data driven, whereby we're using the data to inform our practice and to ultimately enhance the student's experience and to enhance their learning outcomes, if you like. Keeping in mind that the data is only one part of a picture and that it's not the be all and the end all, if you like. What next steps would I like to take? First of all, I'd like to develop a DIT code of practice for learning analytics, which I think would be an important foundation for learning analytics practice across any institution, across the sector as a whole. It would, again, importantly take into account the legal and ethical issues which we're all grappling with. Secondly, I'd like to support the cross-functional collaboration, which will be necessary to develop the infrastructure and to share and aggregate the data across the institution as a whole. Finally, I'd like to initiate some kind of professional development for staff. Again, we're sitting on a mountain of data, but it's about basically helping staff make sense of that data. Again, I'm talking very specific at the minute, but helping students make sense of that data and use it to inform their own practice and to support students as they progress through college. Thank you.