order of business is roll call and determination of a quorum. Okay, moving. One, two, three, four, five out of seven, which is a quorum. Up next is the additions and modifications to the agenda. So originally I talked to city attorney Blackwood and she was going to join us at this meeting to help us talk us through meeting laws and some other training related things, but City Council had to schedule a special session tonight and so she's currently being occupied there. We did talk and she'll be with us at our next meeting which is tentatively for the 23rd of March. With that being said, I motion, I'm sorry, I'd like to amend the agenda to remove 5.01 and 5.02. City Attorney's office has not gone back to you with that and I was hoping to get some clarity on that with her today but she's not here so she won't be able to discuss that with us. We have a motion for that amendment or to have someone to first amend, sorry. Motion by Commissioner Durfee. Do I have a second? Seconded by Commissioner Saguino. All in favor, raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. Are there any further modifications or amendments to the agenda I don't have? Not seeing or hearing anything. Next order of business is approving approval of the minutes from our last meeting on 126. Motion to adopt the agenda minutes as is. Do I have a second? Seconded by Commissioner Saguino. All in favor of, all in favor of approving the minutes from our last meeting on 126. Raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Aye. That passes unanimously and up next we have the public forum and with that I'll give it forward to Shannon. Can you hear me okay? Awesome. I do have just two sign-ups Jeff Nick and Tyler Bedot.  There you go. Hi. Perfect. Everybody hear me? Yes sir. Yes we can. Thank you. All right thanks for this opportunity. I don't know if you know I'm a chair of the marketplace commission and I've been a chair for a number of years. I'm speaking on behalf of the commission, merchants, customers and visitors to let you know that we really have great concerns about the reduced police coverage we're now experiencing. We managed to get through this summer during the pandemic. Obviously we had less traffic down here but we coming out of this pandemic and now of course with Amazon being a great threat to our small merchants we need to do everything we can to create a positive and safe environment downtown and the police really help us to do that. You know the street itself generates over two million dollars in annual tax revenue and grocery seats tax when restaurants and bars are operating fully bringing in over a five hundred thousand dollars in tax revenue and at the time the grocery little history here back in the Clevelle administration they increased the grocery seats by one percent with the promise that we would receive more police coverage. So that's largely been forgotten in all of this discussion here but you know we deal and if you come to church you you know some of this but the issues we deal with on a daily basis you know really have to do with the quality of life that we're trying to create down here. We deal with the smoking people ignoring the smoking ban, skateboards, bicycling and then it ratchets up from there. It goes public intoxication, fighting, public urination, blocking the sidewalks, shoplifting. It's a difficult environment at times. You may come down during festivals and whatnot and everything looks perfect and that's what we want to have all the time but you know there are many times that things can get out of control or create an environment that's if not unsafe feels unsafe and feels like you know we hear we have when we you know in short we have a bad behavior problem that can get really unseemly at times and the police really do a great job for us when they're down here to calm the waters and to keep the bad behavior at bay so they're a real asset to to the marketplace and I'd like to suggest that the marketplace commission be part of the solution and helping move forward and find a way if there are different ways to do things i'm suggesting the things that we need done um rather than policing we need to be part of that conversation because we're a big part of the community and we have a lot riding on how we come out of this pandemic and how we continue to create a clean and safe and positive environment down here so i appreciate your time and hope you take my uh comments to heart thank you thank you for that and next i had tyler bedos the bpoa president had requested to speak but i'm not seeing tyler in the list if you're there you can raise your hand share i don't see him in the list that's all that i have all right then um thank you and um if there's anybody that is part of that's viewing this in the attendees list that would like to save living um use raise your hand and we'll promote you to a panelist i'm seeing one um okay grace file yeah hi thanks jebu um i just wanted to respond really quickly to that last um speaker who spoke um and i just wanted to point out that a lot of those problems sound like problems that could be handled by um someone who is not a police officer a lot of those problems sound like things that could be handled by someone who doesn't have a gun um and i think some of the other problems it sounds like he was referencing some of the unhoused folks who generally are in that area um and i recently had a long time burlington resident tell me um that he witnessed bpd shooting a houseless man in the chest with a beanbag gun because he wouldn't put down his beer so maybe that's part of what he means by um the police heap that area looking perfect all the time uh maybe they do that with violence and we know we they do that with violence um so i just i just wanted to bring that up thank you thank you for that is there anybody else amongst the attendees that would like to uh for the question or comment i'm not seeing any um this moves us on to then the item 4.01 which is the chief's report and with that i give the floor to either one of the chiefs hello uh hi everybody and and thanks so much for for letting me join you and and have some uh of the opportunity to speak tonight um i am trying to find something i'm sorry just a second uh the um i don't have a lot of uh data etc for for the evening um i think there are some things that we are going to be talking about later on this evening particularly around some ideas for moving forward addressing data and and things that we have uh where we have some real uh progress that needs to be made um but i also wanted to uh um to take an opportunity to talk about the fact that uh we are in in black history month um and i i wanted to just point out that uh that although it is black history month in many ways that count black history month is american history month and american history and black history and the black experience are inextricable uh and both experiences are inextricable from policing i have some some general remarks about this and also about ideas for where we go i want to acknowledge that these are things that have are not necessarily new they're things that i worked on several years ago uh with with other police leaders and some of these remarks harken back to previous remarks that were made but i think that they deserve to be restated um the fact that that both these histories the american history uh the black history and experience are inextricable from policing and far more often than not that has been a good thing many of the best parts of america's history would have been impossible without police and what policing and public safety provide the things that the constitution promises justice domestic tranquility the general welfare the blessings of liberty in other words all the freedoms that we enjoy the freedom of speech of worship of from fear these sit on a foundation of public safety of a shared rule that we all work on together in order to experience uh some semblance of stability but that has not always been shared because far too often the relationship has not always been good and refusing to acknowledge that is reckless and irresponsible many of the worst parts of black history would have been impossible without police too slavery our country's original sin sat on a foundation that was codified by law and enforced by police and for nearly a century after the 13th amendment in 1865 in many parts of the country the legacy of that that vile legacy of that of Jim Crow it sat on the sound fan the same foundation and over the history since then we have seen that unequal relationship expressed again and again there have been times where we have had a system that has been supported by police whether a hundred years ago whether 50 years ago whether this summer where police actions can be a flashpoint in the 1960s we had riots and recessions and political turmoil everything this side of a global pandemic and that caused a backlash that ushered in 20 years of increasingly ineffective policing throughout the 70s and the 80s police forgot that their duty was to prevent crime and disorder and instead they did a little more than respond for two decades crime fighting took a back seat to report taking and crime and chaos nearly obliterated some communities but 30 years ago policing began a new chapter it embraced data and it made safety the key not response 20 years ago in burlington we pioneered a version of community policing for vermont that changed almost everything about how the police worked we changed relationships and neighborhoods the old north end the hill section these are different parts of the city after those changes that were affected 20 years ago and police working with with neighbors and with lots of partners like the Howard center and the university and nonprofits and schools and anyone who wanted to come to the table helped make burlington as safe as it as it has ever been and despite that magnificent accomplishment we've seen in the past years that police can still be a flashpoint not just in minneapolis or canosha but here too my concern is that those gains that have been made at the national level and especially here in our community are threatened by the fact that we do not have something that we need which is trust this is a high-stress job and cops absorb suicides and murders and beaten children and mangled car wrecks and because of that police culture can seal itself off and we have to fight that we have to embrace more vulnerability in order to connect with the people that we serve because there is a crisis in front of us and that crisis isn't the staffing crisis which is real that staffing crisis is a symptom our crisis is that to police we need trust and in important parts of our community we're not trusted and it's a lack of trust that's driven by a lack of understanding that goes in both ways so where do we go with that in in as we look at ourselves here in in black history we are working in the department on a number of things about that we've been engaging with a woman to talk about racial bias about how to navigate cultural competency about anti-racism that is an iterative process that unlike other previous examples where it was one and done and a quick session two hours four hours maybe a whole day this is something that's going on and on and involving conversations with groups and in their teams full shifts attending these lessons together in order to have conversations and talk we need to to have history lessons we need to understand about the uh the problems that that beset this country it's history that still belongs with us today whether we're talking about slavery or reconstruction or Jim Crow or unequal access to VA home loans or the GI bill or blockbusting or backlashes against busing or the whole black experience and we need to remember that there are things to build on as well even here in Vermont Eliza Healy the marvelous Healy family a woman who was a pillar of the church who ran the school and the convent in St. Albans in the late 19th century Stephen Bates black man and a sheriff and chief of police in virgins who lived around the same time these are lessons on which we can build these are foundations on which we can build there's no magic word and there's no quick fix for any of these things and this has beset us for our history if there was something we could say some balm and gilead that would make all of these sins wash and somebody would have found it by now that's clear and so here we are with the police dropped in the midst of all this and nationally that's happening it's certainly happening in our community we talk about for example defunding and the most generous definition of defunding means reallocating money to build new resources that handle problems that cops currently handle but which should never have necessarily been part of their mandate homelessness or substance use disorder or mental illness but as it's worse defunding is punitive and it threatens the very communities that it purports to help the most vulnerable communities where poverty bites deepest where crime is most common where opportunity is more rare and yet even the defund movement it tacitly acknowledges that that too many ancient systemic problems have been undeservedly laid on the plate of the police and yet it also takes the ancient systemic problem and says that the police own the lion's share of that and the idea that a sin that has beset our nation since its origins and been with us on this continent for more than four centuries and defied the wisest thinkers and the most noble souls and survived civil war and jim crow and civil rights the idea that our country's most entrenched and wicked crime belongs in vast disproportion to the police is ridiculous it's unrealistic the idea that the cops alone hold its solution is ludicrous it has to be all of us because it's ours to set right it's ours to pursue a safer fairer city a place where the cops know the people and the people know the cops a place where public safety means public safety for everyone and where are the concrete steps for this because it's easy to talk about these things in the abstract and it's much harder to come up with concrete steps and later i think we will talk about some of these things because we can work on collaborative programs the kind of community groups that professor commissioner saguino has suggested we can talk about the things that director dodson is working on iterative conversations a series that is in the works that we can re-engage with important parts of our community parts that we haven't necessarily heard from in the past while also embracing the things that are being brought to us by passionate members of our city who want change we can talk about having the department change so that it looks more like the city that it serves that we seek to to work with other entities to make promises about about increasing gender diversity in our department other kinds of diversity in our department and once for allowed to hire again and grow again but we can also talk about involving the community in our training and our tactics we have to build on these things that we have done well in the past learn well from what was done wrong and move forward all of us together because as we speak here in this month and as we talk about where we've been over the past nine months now as a city in the midst of this global pandemic and in the midst of something else that's been happening across the country but here too we have to ask ourselves what is this opportunity in front of us and is it an opportunity for all of us together and so you know it's easy to take for example the quotes from Martin Luther King it's Black History Month and that's what people go to but the notion that the arc of the moral universe is long but bends towards justice is something that I believe and that I want for this police department for this city and want to affect with the members of this police commission as well as people like director Dodson invested in transforming this city we can bend it all of us more together than we can alone and it is ours to set these things right and to set this agency on the right course and I wanted to take this month as an opportunity to acknowledge that thank you for that chief um any questions or comments for the chief in regards to that are you asking us uh yes if you ever have a any question or comments for the chief yeah no I just want to thank you for that chief Mara I really appreciate that thank you if that concludes the chief support I think we should start hi this is me though I am a little confused I there was some things I definitely appreciated but there were other things that oh my gosh when we talk about the history of this country and the history of policing I think we really need to have a thorough understanding of how far back the history of policing goes and how it's I don't think we're really fully appreciating you know going back to slave patrols and Jim Crow and just how oh I'm trying to figure out how to put this um it's so well before you know the 60s you can certainly say that that that was a tumultuous time which went into the 70s which was a tumultuous time the 80s had tumultuous times the 90s had tumult I mean the 50s the 40s the 30s I I hear what you're saying but I just I'm really concerned about a potential lack of sincerity I guess is what I'm trying to say because if you have a true understanding of history and that has been a bit concerned of mine in terms of you know wanting to get more information specific information on the bias training that officers get because it's pretty well known that a lot of the bias training if not almost all of it doesn't truly include historical perspectives you know because we keep hearing people talk about how these concerns about systemic racism white supremacy you know racial equity oh this is coming out of the blue quote unquote this is coming out of the blue why uh why is this suddenly an issue um and when I I see people and I hear people say things like that I'm I'm just amazed I'm just amazed it's like really not paying attention and another thing I really worry about in in Burlington is when we I'm interested in more about the current training that's going on that you were just speaking about um because to me it sounds like it's different from what's been done before and I think that's important because what's been done before I don't believe has worked for the department I I want you know I always I don't want to beat the dead horse but you know I everybody knows I'm constantly talking about the lack of community engagement which is really important for this department because the overwhelming number of officers don't actually live where they serve so they're not living in a community that is changing and what has also been the point of discussions in the past is the diversification of Burlington and Winooski and how people are just not dealing with it um I I just I just have some concerns I I don't know I'm going to have to think on this because I don't want to go into a rant but I feel that there are some things that need to be said to respond to that thank you thank you for that Mila any uh further questions or comments for the chief in regards to uh in regards to the report I'm not seeing or hearing any uh moving on to agenda item 5.03 video availability path forward um so I know I know after last meeting um and I know for most talking with individuals some commissioners there's uh just some concern with the availability of photo sorry video availability of video footage and access to it um and not having access to it and I I guess uh kind of wanted to see what is the path forward for being able to view videos in response to complaints um because I know uh there was some disagreement over not being not being allowed access to video that was not directly that wasn't uh involving the individual but that um that was on that was on that was on scene so so yeah um I guess I'd like to know where are we at I guess in with regards to axon accounts for um just where we can be able to see some of this video um and yeah I open forward to any of the commissioners I want to further elaborate on this well I will say that uh I know with regards to uh the point that I was discussed last time I do know not having access to some of the video I know some of the reasons that were righted to us for not being able to see some of the video um but I will say that not having access to it while while reasons are understood it it can be construed that looks like something's being hidden if we don't see I guess all the all the video footage that is uh that was available uh there so I guess how can we rectify the situation moving forward because I I do feel that we should be able to see these videos um I mean especially if you're seeing an executive session and privately you know we are kind of bound by the same things to um to not um I guess disclose the stuff so I don't see an issue with us seeing these videos in executive session or privately amongst you guys or however ways these fit um I guess I'll let you respond to that unless you would like me let it go first sorry I'm talking to you sorry sorry I'm talking to you on that chief my apologies um yeah so we are uh we're looking into the access of making axon accounts for people and would then be able to send video to allow people to watch videos through that axon account anywhere that doesn't uh address the uh issue that we had with the videos in question right now that have to do with the uh with a specific incident um if if videos have been sent to family court for example those are not eligible for release they can't they're not something that can be shared the law is very clear on that and uh and I think that you will find a different statement from the state's attorney now even um then you had before because it has been moved and and was in the process of being moved when she made those you know it was in the process of being moved it's moved now and that makes a difference for specific in in some instances in other instances there is no uh hindrance and in other instances I would say especially for ongoing uh crimes I mean I I look forward to the day when we can be together again in a space and watch these things in the same room with one another in a controlled environment um and not through axon uh which has has certain risks uh with regard to dissemination etc they're not risks that I think are pronounced but they are they do exist uh that is a separate issue from particular materials that belong to matters that are under uh family court investigation uh I believe Milo had her um written forth all by uh Stephanie so there was some language that was used that that was different from the language that was just used now you know there was this implication that you know if it wasn't an issue related to family court or such um and I wish I could remember exactly what was said but it's basically implied that we couldn't see all that we wanted to see like there was a refusal that was very concerning and are we entitled to see I mean my expectation would be that we would be able to see all the available footage if we asked for it outside of specific legal circumstance as opposed to you know here here's what we'll let you look at because that came off as being you know you know we throw around the word transparency a lot but we um we could do better thank you um if you're Sabina followed by Mr Hartley yeah just speaking generally um I shared with um commissioner Gamash that I had a conversation with uh assistant attorney general julio Thompson and he is an expert in civilian oversight boards and um we talked about that issue and what he shared with me is that typically what happens is that there's an MOU a memorandum of understanding that uh is agreed upon between the police department and the citizen body and I'm thinking maybe that's a route that we should go is to um to discuss that and memorialize it so that we have a standard approach going forward uh commissioner harp thank you yes this is uh rando harp uh so I'm there's some things I think are probably fairly either uncontroversial agreed to among all the relevant parties here right so and that is just that when there is either a specific allegation complaint about wrongdoing or allegation of wrongdoing or when there's uh when when when someone either commissioners or members of the public police commissioners members of the public have particular reason to worry or suspect that there might be specific instances of wrongdoing that commissioners have access to any footage which might be useful in determining whether or not such wrongdoing occurred it also seems to me as though there's there there is or ought to be general agreement that uh commissioners do not have access to any officer body cam footage which has been recorded for a day absent any particular reason to view it just because it's my understanding that that's access that's uh begin that that chiefs don't have access to that's access that is not permitted in general just that you know that officers are not wearing cameras in order to allow all of their movements during the day which isn't recorded to be viewed absent any particular reason so those two things seem to me to be both um and people correct from wrong those things seem to me to be relatively uncontroversial uh commissioners ought to have access to all footage which directly speaks to a particular allegation of wrongdoing which might inform particular obligation of wrongdoing and police commissioners do not have access to any footage that we might like absent any particular reason to view it um so then the if if we all agree on those two principles and I said people can correct me if I'm wrong if we all agree on those two principles I think the question becomes you know how is it that commissioners can be certain or can be reassured that if there is a specific allegation of wrongdoing or there's particular reasons that commissioners have to suspect that there's been wrongdoing that commissioners are in fact receiving access to all the relevant uh footage that might inform that particular question that I resolved that particular question um and I do think that there's some concern among commissioners that if all if it is always subject to the judgment of for example a a chief or member of of BPD command staff whether or not some footage is relevant in resolving a question uh then there's going to be concern that that is a system which at least in principle could be abused right that as a system which you know in which there could be footage which is withheld from commissioners because command set decides that it's not particularly relevant for resolving a potential worry about about um misbehavior even though it is uh so I think I that's why there's a general principle seen to be that for officers that are on scene um you know if commissioners want to view body camera footage of an officer who was on scene and responding to an event and that event has a complaint attached to it then commissioners could in principle have access to that body camera footage of officers that are on scene um it might be that there need to be kind of additional precautions and protections that are taken with respect to that footage but that seems to me to be a a kind of a useful principle to adopt and so I guess I'm wondering whether or not that is in fact a useful principle to adopt whether whether the either the other commissioners that used to see problems with that with that general principle I I think that I agree with that I mean I think I think that if any officer that's on scene at a should be we should be uh should be available to us to to view um I agree with that line of thinking um curious to see what uh other commissioners think and I guess I'll let you uh chief mirad respond to that and any any commissioners I want to uh comment on that I think that that's certainly true in general as as commissioner harp stated um I think there are instances in which it's not going to be the case whether there are amicort implications whether there are witness or criminal investigation implications and whether there was for example a single camera that that if all the other cameras are after the fact and the incident the incident that's being judged is over by that point then I'm not certain what that relevance is especially if those other cameras do include things that are protected like witness statements or aspects of a criminal investigation or matters that may end up in the family court uh commissioner harp I I'll let Chris just go in and go first since she had her hand go up I missed that my apologies it's okay uh yeah I thank you um commissioner harp for that and chief mirad this I'm going to raise an issue that I've talked to jabu about um commissioner gommash about and um and that is that I think that we as a commission need some support expert support um I mean I think this is too complicated to resolve right now in other words and I think there are complexities to this that need to be sorted through and so for me what I think would be important is to develop a process that would give us give us the support that we need to be able to uh work this through with the chief and develop an mou or some document that uh clearly lays out the criteria for sharing materials with us and so forth so that's what I would propose see any other hands commissioner harp yeah thanks so I mean I I'll I certainly don't have a problem with uh continuing to discuss the issues at stake I don't see kind of I mean I I'm not entirely in agreement with commissioner suguino that this is not a discussion that we had right now and working through what the what the relevant uh issues are and what possible solutions might be um so I guess I'm I'm I'm certainly a little concerned about the statement about things that might potentially end up in family court uh that seems like it's casting much too wide of a net in terms of right so I mean I think that material which might be relevant for uh the for the adjudication of a complaint but which might end up in family court in the future that that doesn't that doesn't strike me as a reasonable basis to withhold a particular video that being said I mean I mean I just I certainly understand that there's and that that it's unlikely that officer footage which is after an event has occurred um or which you know what kind of only begins recording after an event after the resolution of an event that that officer footage is unlikely to speak to the to the complaint directly uh it it seems to me as though if there is kind of a time at which a complaint in which the the incident that is under complaint has been resolved it seems to me as though that is certainly a principle for kind of excluding footage which is which begins after that period um you know I cannot again unless there's a unless there's a specific concern or allegation by uh a member of the public or by a commissioner that some of the things which are discussed speak to wrongdoing or potential wrongdoing by an officer right so again like it might be that you know just for example I'm not suggesting this about any particular situation right but it might be for example that there are concerns about whether or not officers are taking witness statements correctly in which case obviously that footage would be relevant for commissioners to view so it so it given that any action an officer performs is potentially subject to is open to misconduct I don't think there's a kind of there's a a firm and fast rule or reason for excluding any video from being able to be viewed by a commissioner but it does seem to me as though if there is something which is kind of directly which directly speaks to the incident which is under complaint uh that isn't sure what should be available so it seems to me as though kind of footage which is which begins recording after an event has has been resolved it does strike me as things which are reasonable to be excluded from from commissioners for being having access to on the same grounds that um you know again I said that that commissioners don't have access to just any footage which is recorded but any officer which is on scene and is recording at the time of an event happening does certainly seem to me as though it's available for commissioners to view as part of the resolution of a complaint and I'll just say again briefly about this you know I'm not I'm not quite sure how we ought to be interpreting the language of the of the policy document governing the the the role of the commission in overseeing complaints um you know part of the language suggests that any any material which is viewed by by the chiefs or by command staff in adjudicating a complaint is also part of the record and so it I guess it's so hard for me to understand that how it would be that you would be able to determine that video is not relevant to a complaint unless that was material which has actually already been viewed in which cases like it might be part of the record itself so yeah so I would certainly hope that that that we don't have a situation where chiefs are viewing footage deciding after they view it that it's not relevant and then excluding it but not kind of provided reasons why that would be excluded um so I kind of want to know kind of what counts as part of the written record for resolving complaints you can get more advice about that but otherwise like I said I mean I don't suddenly have a problem with footage which has been starting to record after an event has been resolved being excluded from what's considered what's consulted for a complaint but you know like I said but I think that it's helpful to have some additional confidence there's not merely the judgment of a chief after having viewed something but whether it's relevant all right so I know it went on long that's all I have sorry commissioner also I'm going to commissioner dervish I'm sorry director also commissioner dervish I've been first I need the following I'll be brief I just would be interested in um Stephanie didn't make a motion but you know it seems to me that having the more that we can have you know times are changing and the more that we can have written down documented and an understanding of you know what we have access to what we don't have access to what we can make sense I mean um you know we've had some great discussions here we really have um but you know going back to commissioner Grant's point about you know discussions you know you can't quite remember you know what was this what was that um I like the idea of an MOU initially and I just wanted to mention that um to uh the group and to uh commissioner Spuino thank you for that suggestion I like things written down I like very linear director Dotson thank you um connected to that point of uh commissioner Segrino and um sort of expounded upon by commissioner dervish I uh when commissioner Segrino talked about um the access to some degree of expertise who might weigh in uh I was thinking that uh there probably is an opportunity to if it isn't already there I would say that implicitly it should be there in the contract for the operational and functional assessment by cna uh they've got a large team a number of experts and I've got to imagine that uh in their assessment nationally of different municipalities there are oversight issues and they could give us some best practices they could give us some guidance on the MOU um you know just how we cannot be the first municipality that's looking into what access does the oversight body have to body cam but it's gotta be out there and so it seems like a pretty easy thing to put in there and like so many other things that we're debating to have a external objective uh expert opinion to throw into the mix seems like it would be helpful I can't imagine um getting this piece of information from cna should be terribly difficult I agree with that um uh I see for sure Grant's hand up so um I agree with uh commissioner Segrino's suggestion and I think in terms of what was previously um discussed in there were some things around public oversight that I had disagreed with because I felt that the police commission should be given more power but lately I've been really really concerned about um you know there's a lot of community concerned that this is not an independent body and there are things that happened that recently that really make me feel that way like wow we're not an independent body because I would say we are an independent body and this is why we are an independent body but then things happen and like wow we're not really an independent body we really get run over sometimes I mean that is the way I feel sometimes so I think it is really important for us to have um an independent legal voice that can be um objective right and provide information and guidance that we seem at times to have to fight to get and I do understand when it said that well it's not appropriate to view certain footage because of certain legal things that are going on but you know there was a statement that didn't put it that way it was just like I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you and I found that very disturbing so I do think it has to be put to the forefront um and I hope this is something that we can really start to look at and make some make some really specific goals um toward achieving it thank you thank you and uh I'll jump in and say that our next item touches on this um so I guess moving forward um if not can resolve right now obviously but I mean I I think um from sorry Chris Sabina yeah you know maybe just to keep momentum going I'm just going to throw the idea out I'm not sure if it's a good one or not but it's often easier to react to a document so it's possible perhaps if the chief can to outline the sharing of information in a document and then we will you know either share it with cna or get some support in reviewing it but having a starting place often is a good idea so it's a thought christa great is your hands raised for another comment or is that oh no I'll put it down sorry sorry um I'm I'm happy with that idea of any any other further ideas moving forward or on this that any commissioners may have not seeing any um chief mirai is that a possibility uh to have something for that well for next meeting yes I mean it exists it's the role of the police commission it's the document that we have well uh well well it's not clearly out well this we're still having some issues with it because just do the fact that we're still talking about right now so I do think um that we need to kind of I guess come to a better understanding um over this so I guess with I guess with that work um in that case and maybe I guess we'll come up with a document then and bring it forth and try to meet somewhere in the middle then um and you know further questions or comments with regard to this agenda item you can also give that document to cna and I don't know you know certainly sorry uh continue okay I was gonna say I believe cna has a list of all of our department or they will be getting those from all of our department directives and things like that so um they will be going over that um it's my assumptions but I'll I'll reach out and make sure that that they absolutely do um to make sure defeat uh I just want to ask a question about the timeline for cna I know director dodson was on the call and I had really not heard any information about um where that was at and I think um a lot of what we're asking is going to roll into that so do you mind if I ask about that to director dodson can you respond to where that's what the timeline is with cna Mr. Dawson thank you uh commissioner derpy so uh today I talked to both the program manager uh and the contracts manager uh there uh have been some uh yes I would say uh logistical things happening in terms of getting the contract executed um but I think that is uh pretty much ironed out and so uh if the person on the other end is available I've been pushing and and uh making sure they understand the level of urgency on our side to move things along so I'm hopeful that tomorrow I'll be able to talk to the program manager about timelines uh when uh if you I think you have access if not uh commissioner derpy I can get it to you what they said in the um the response to request for proposal and they pointed out kind of how they trotched out the work and the things they were doing so I'm going to try to get some dates to connect to those various activities they have and then as soon as I have that I'll be putting I'll be sharing with all the relevant stakeholders as it were so so I hope uh you know tomorrow but but certainly by the end of the week um we should have some clarity about how they're going to reach out to people what that looks like logistically uh when it's going to happen uh how they see the work kind of um playing out over time um just one comment on that I I don't have access to a work plan or anything really but I assume that it will be coming soon so um because I just I it had kind of we had talked about a little bit in yesterday's meeting and I know there were contractual things but I think part of the part of what we're really going to get digging into um is going to really you know you know the people on this call will want to see okay what what's what's the work so that we can really build on that and um I'm I'm worried that we won't see it you know in time to really take some of these questions and take some of this work and and move on but thanks for the clarification on the timeline and I'll I'll look for something um in the city email this week. Just to further because I want to make sure that you Commissioner Durfee and all the other commissioners feel like you're uh involved the way you need to be and you have the information the only current document that speaks to what cna plans to do um is the same document that you all evaluated and choosing them so so what they've responded to uh the proposal they sent back is the only current thing that talks about and in that document uh there was a place where they they didn't put timeline on it but they talked about the pacing and the phases of the um assessment so I could resend that to anyone who needs it but if you you know if you looked at that that's the document I'm referring to um and then in terms of your uh interest and concern about uh knowing what's happening as soon as I connect with the program manager and we solidify the scope uh and scale of the assessment I will make that whatever that we comes out of that I'll make that widely available before anything goes I'll say hey here's what cna is proposing to do does anyone have suggestions amendments etc uh before they jump into the work thank you you're welcome thank you for that as well any uh for the questions or comments on this agenda item director nanson I do wonder uh point of clarity and I know who on the commission has thought about this um but uh as someone who has uh access to all the pieces it strikes me that there there would be some value for the commission the council for the city to get some clarity about how much of this current phase of the um trajectory of our work and police transformation is about strengthening and refining this commission and how much of it was is about whatever comes next in the charter change right so the charter change proposal got vetoed uh there are a lot of things in that that would have impacted what happens here and I just think as we go forward for people's effort of work and just for clarity uh where are we at with that are we going to have a new proposal that uh has some idea of putting together an oversight entity um that comes out of that process in the veto or is that kind of sidelined and we're just going forward the commission um it strikes me that uh there could be some parallel things happening and the more coordination just feels like it would be helpful but that might just be me um it's not just you okay commissioner harp it's a p thank you yes this is rando harp uh yeah I mean so it seems to me as though to some extent what comes next with any proposed charter change this is up to city council slash charter change uh you know they I'm certainly happy for them to consult us on what's the future structure structures of oversight ought to look like I think we in this uh body have some ideas about that um and I think that you know that that we on this body were perhaps not as fully uh involved in the process of of the last proposal for oversight that was put forward but and but I think it's not up to this body to make a direct proposal I mean we could certainly do that and I defer the chair about that but you know it's not up to this body to make a proposal about a charter change but I think certainly that this body has some opinions about what sorts of things ought to go into the next suggestion for a charter change with respect to um policing police discipline etc so um yeah let me so I think it it would be again I defer to the chair it might be worthwhile for us to discuss either making recommendations proactively or trying to be involved in that process uh more fully in the future but otherwise I think it's it's you know it's since it's not something that this body has any control over directly it's not something that's we can really take a stand on what what we're doing what we don't do um I mean I guess me personally um I would like a hand in it for sure but as as you put as you brought up it's not necessarily our call to make so I mean if invited absolutely happy I think we'd be more than happy to put in our input but yeah um I think we'll also kind of see a lot of how this moves forward to after the mayoral race um and that will at least slightly limit a path forward I think or at least um how that what that path may look like um all right then any further questions or comments on this agenda item uh I can assure it or fee yeah just a comment on the um charter change um you know you know I I really do um and and have talked with other city counselors and I really feel that police commission should try to be part of that conversation I think we can request to be part of that conversation I think it makes sense I think we have a lot of you know we can just look back and see um throughout the summer months you know how many times we were not consulted and we inevitably end up with the question in front of us anyway after it's been um kind of batted around so um whatever we can do and you know being new to the commission since six seven months in um I I would definitely uh strongly recommend that any policing conversation include us if invited but also to you know it's it's okay to get out in front and say you know let's let's try to try to work together because I do I appreciate the the forming of the joint committee and I and I envision conversations um working you know through that body I should grant I just wanted to say I whole hardly agree with what uh commissioner Durfee just said there's really we've been behind the ball so many times almost as an afterthought um so I would really like to see that narrative change thank you any other questions or comments I'm not seeing any um moving on to 5.04 which is uh please commission independent counsel and discussion originally um I had well uh city attorney highlighted in black was going to be here to help us out with this a little bit um because I had reached out to her expressing hope that um you could have um some sort of independent council moving forward just kind of mean due to the fact that I mean uh not only do they represent um this whole city browser which was the bpd so that does provide a bit of a conflict of interest and also they're just quite quite overworked as well too um with with uh all the affairs of the city and I think it would be most beneficial to us as it's been stated before for some other commissioners that we could use some outside council with training and kind of just everything um so with that I'll let's open the floor with discussions and how this would look like uh what kind of training well we we should seek out and kind of any any ideas or comments in reverse of this and I see commissioner harps hand up right now I was only longing to say that I see uh attorney blackwood in the in the audience oh all right good the meeting was uh fast and expected greetings welcome thank you thanks great I uh apologize I had planned to be at your meeting tonight but the city council had a special meeting um which just concluded so um uh independent council um so under the city charter the city attorney's office is responsible for all the legal matters of the city and and therefore uh request for um council um generally go through the um in making decisions and we have some budget for independent council the city uses independent council I thought it might just be helpful for me to give you some of this background the city uses independent council whenever we're in a situation where a um a public body so let's say um well one of the examples we find a lot is in if in DPW someone is denied a licensed as a plumber or something like that and they want to appeal that decision to the public works commission then the city is usually the city attorney's office has usually been working with the department on the issue and then and therefore we hire outside council independent outside council to work with the commission in that situation uh occasionally that the same thing is true um in tax appeals that go forward uh particularly um tax related matters that go to the city council uh sometimes we have higher independent council or the city council as well so usually in situations where the city attorney's office has been working with the department and and will appear before the commission on behalf of the department uh so those kinds of issues if so right now under the charter if a police officer chose to appeal a disciplinary decision they can appeal it to you in those cases we would be retaining independent council for so my understanding is you want to explore perhaps expanding that and I'm happy to to talk about what those kinds of parameters will be and then the next piece will be we'll have to figure out a budget and and where we can where we could find money to do that so those are those are the issues um as we as we deal with them right now and when we hire independent council just to be clear usually in in the city our office has been involved in selecting them because we at because I my charter am responsible for the legal state of the the city I need to be fairly comfortable that whoever is advising you as you know a proper background and licensing and all that kind of stuff um and and and probably has some knowledge and and and reputation in the community in relation to you in in for a minute for the for the other kinds of situations frankly those groups um allow us to choose independent council allow my office to do that and we have a couple of firms that we have used that deal and and we usually look for someone in a in a firm that has experience in the field that is um is being sought but again I'm talking to you about how we normally work and I you know I want to say to you that I I feel I I certainly understand the interest in having independent council and in the police commission having as independent a role as we can as you can have under the current charter um and in in the the limitations the uh therein but um and so I'm happy to figure out how we can do something that both um meets you know my obligations and meets your needs about what you think you need as a for this independent council. Thank you for that. uh Commissioner Sugrino. Thank you. I mean uh so I think just talking through what we would need support for um my thinking is it it doesn't necessarily have to be legal counsel but it could be somebody that advises us with regard to policing issues um so one name you know that comes to mind is is a person like Gary Margolis who as a background um so that would be one route and I think it's worth um maybe having a person or two explore this uh and bring back an proposal to the commission um with regard to legal counsel I could imagine that it would be like on an hourly basis if there are issues that came up so for example reviewing the issue let's just say that CNA doesn't do this reviewing the issue or helping us negotiate or maybe that's just around a word but to develop an MOU with the chief with regard to what materials are shared with us uh so that would be you know fairly short term so I'm thinking of intermittent support like that uh in a sense I'm a little uh you know I think that we don't know what we don't know to a certain extent and that's why it would be useful to have somebody look into this more deeply uh see what other commissions do and articulate very carefully the circumstances under which we would require that support and then to think carefully about what the qualifications would be that we're looking for. Richard Dervis. Yeah and I um I agree with with that um we've what Commissioner Ceguino had just shared um I don't think it's so much legal counsel um that we need I think it's more of a consultancy you know we we we often have these questions as a citizen oversight board that we we can't possibly answer and what with the I think what we're deliberating over sometimes is is just so important um you know it impacts people's lives it impacts you know the safety of our community and so um you know I I know Gary I appreciate his long term career and when I look at you know what he's done in the community and in his in his career I I I can compare it to the consultancy that we chose uh you know there has to be that's that's why we're hiring a consultant but like just Commissioner Ceguino's point you know once once they're gone um you know it's not it's impossible for us as you know community members to retain you know all the knowledge that that they share and then you know with you know eminent change which which I think is going to happen once they're through it would be good to have someone that would help us you know outside of the police department but with that that type of knowledge because oftentimes you know even when we're voting you know I'm looking googling things and looking things up and desperately trying to get a hold of people just because I want to make the best decision for the safety of the community so I I appreciate that that this agenda item and you know and the the fact that it is flexible and also what you shared Eileen about the constraints of a outside council. So I guess moving forward then um I think I mean I guess what's I guess I was asking them what's the best path forward then in uh in terms of I guess kind of sticking this out because I will say I don't necessarily know where to kind of search out this information for um sorry Eileen yeah just in terms of path forward I think that one of the key things we're going to have to do is we're going to have to figure out money we're going to have to figure out a budget because right now uh and historically the police commission doesn't have a specific line item you know for you all to do to have any independent consultancy and I understand that needs so one of the we are heading towards budgeting season here um I'm I don't know you know I I'm happy to uh John and I can consult with the um CAO and see about whether or not we can find some money this fiscal year or not um but we certainly can also figure out doing some budgeting for next year um and um I so I don't know that I guess I don't know that you want to have anybody come in and make proposals until we have a sense of that but if any of you has um a contact I personally don't know Gary Margolis but if if one of you did know him and wanted to just have a conversation and give us an idea of some kinds of costs we could look around um and see what we could maybe put together something for you bring it back to you so you all can look at it that that lays out some some kind of um scope of work and potential dollars that we would be asking for in a budget um yeah I think I appreciate that I'm seeing some head nods around there uh Richard Murphy yeah I I think you know and of course we're we're you know feel bad Gary's not listening we're throwing around a name but um I think you know and I and I want to just be sensitive to the fiscal year budget planning um it's also a mayoral election so um you know I definitely definitely definitely understand that and think it'd be something to um look forward to I also think the consultancy um plays a big role in terms of what um they would recommend but uh I think either way um coming up with those preliminary um steps would be great and I'll involve Bob cut we'll involve Kyle of course I'm sure that's like uh director Datsun sorry I'm sorry you're you're muted thanks Chair Gramosh um I can't help but circle back to the idea that there seems to be some opportunity uh and some efficiencies that could be achieved by trying to have a single conversation what what I learned from the charter change process and dealing with Nikole and looking at oversight models it certainly does not seem that um municipality of our size with our volume of complaints is going to have occasion in the future to need two different bodies doing work that I think could be integrated into a single body what that body is you know is is is up for grabs but but the idea that we would have two bodies and that we'd start strengthening this body in the absence of things that we're calling for but then we have some then some some concurrent process comes up where we're looking at more or less similar things so when I hear Commissioner Saguino I think that is again that entity could be what there's lots of best practice for and lots of communities have a monitor and that monitor I would argue would have these skills they will have the requisite skills and expertise and they are that person who when the citizens who don't necessarily have that expertise are looking at things that having the requisite expertise that comes from an objective place would be helpful I think that individual that entity is the person who could provide that and and so that already has been on the table and it makes sense to me so the idea that we in the future you know once again from my from my vantage point the idea that we would have a single advisory and oversight entity that would be resourced with a professional who has been hired in a full open process to get the best professional we can who brings in knowledge of law enforcement procedural issues of the law and these things that are often helpful and that that happen in one process just seems like it serves us well because there's money and time and other things involved and I just feel like there's going to be redundancy and other things that I would I would hope that we as a community could avoid it most of it seems like everything's on the table the things we want to do the demands the reform we want to do and if there were a certain level of trust once again that that we all want the same things we could probably begin to you know combine efforts and do things in one efficient move because in the absence of having that charter change I feel there's a interest because personally I respect this body I think all of you bring a great deal of heart and intelligence to it and you appear to me to want to do right by the community and so you're you're advocating in these meetings to strengthen and refine your entity so that you could do the things that are part of this conversation that we've been happening having for the last year and to do that and then to start back up another process that will supplant this just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me Commissioner Saguino um thank you for that that's I really appreciate that and I think the last thing we want to do is to have redundancy and so forth um so this is my thinking about this is that we don't know what's coming next we don't know if there will be another body and we don't know how long that will take and yet we have demands made on us and I feel you know especially with the last the last couple of months that we really do need that support now if it is a consultancy so an on-call basis uh let's assume that there is a new oversight body that's created then we haven't permanently locked somebody into a position so we leave it flexible for a while but it could be it could be a year before we re uh you know revisit the chart of change issue and it actually happens so that's my my thought um Director Dodson is that that we need I think we need to do something now uh and that that's that's my thought is I think we we probably need to do something now to give us some support so I think us becoming more professionalized if you will is important training is one of those things uh but also creating the opportunity at least to be able to consult with somebody on a case by case basis until we do actually get that new body that that that's my thinking much you know happy to hear what others think about that or whether we should wait I I agree with your like uh thinking of that commissioner so we know absolutely 100 um I mean if if it's say it's flexible you know it's I think that yeah allows us the new ability to move if we have to move or strengthen on what we have here moving forward Commissioner Harb yeah thanks this is Randall Harb uh so I I guess I'm not entirely clear or sure about what whether or not this body has come to agreement about various decision points it seems like there are a few decision points that are that are here right um the first one is just right so there's the further discussion which Director Dodson has talked about about what you know what the powers of a properly formulated oversight body should be in Burlington whether this current existing body has those powers or not right so one question is like what's the ideal format of an oversight body and is a charter change you know what is the charter change committee going to try to uh take the steps to implement such a properly outfitted body or not then of course the question is it does that body have the name of the police commissioners that have another name or are there two bodies that exist afterwards that's one question another question is going to what sorts of things right so a second question is does that ideal body whatever it is have the need for independent outside counsel whether that's legal counsel or just kind of advice that seems like a separate question it seems that people are kind of discussing this as though that issue has been settled I'm not sure whether that's been settled or not but that that's the second question of whether such a body has you know ought to have or has need of independent counsel and then the third is kind of what we ought to be doing right now in the here and now whether we need independent counsel for resolving particular questions or not that seems like a third question which is independent of what you know some ideal oversight body has in the future and I guess I'm I'm I guess I just like more discussion about what specifically we're asking of outside counsel right the talk is about kind of having something you know just on a kind of as needed basis rather than officially you know bestowing this body with accessed outside counsel whenever we wanted right but then the question is like well what's what are the specific questions right now that we're asking for help with from outside counsel and I'm not sure what that is I guess maybe I've missed that discussion um I think it kind of aids with uh with our independence for lack of a better word um I mean as Christian Grant mentioned before um I mean there's times where it's like where this doesn't feel like we're an independent body I mean so see this with you in the public and I think that this would help um with that and I think I know I need to also just kind of help us out too just trust me with like new as like new people join the commission and just turn over you know it's kind of help people get their feet running when they kind of get here this this hard it would be that I think but uh appreciate your heart back to you um yeah thank you uh chair so that that sounds to me as though a request for a essentially kind of a permanent attachment to this body or a permanent line the budget which says that we have this independent counsel who is attached to us that we can consult whenever we need that's not a kind of case by case basis that seems like a request for something more permanent and it seems like that my understanding is that we kind of um had rejected the need for that so again it might be that an ideal oversight body has that are we asking and again I'm not saying whether I think that's right or not but are we saying that this body has need for the independent counsel and then I guess yet separate question is I mean say independence but if there are questions about kind of if there's legal advice this body needs is there a reason why the the counsel that we have access to cannot provide us with that particularly legal advice question um sorry I'll question Graham sorry I didn't see you either uh no that's okay thank you um so Randall brings up some good points but I would we all know there's been a lot going on there's been a lot going on and and we I know for me I feel having like an independent counsel available who I sometimes don't feel like I get a straight answer or I get an answer or or there's too many moving parts right and answers change uh depending on what you know motivations are um and I feel at times that we I feel the times we need people to advocate for us you know I I don't just spend a couple of times so I've been I have like left a couple of meetings where I was like wow that got way too heated I feel like I've been bullied um and I've had discussions um with the chairman I've had discussions with director Dobson about it um and a few of the other commissioners and I just feel that it would benefit us to have someone who is looking out for community interest right because we represent the community and we're representing community concerns and sometimes I don't feel that we have uh support to do that work um and sometimes the answers aren't available to us like during actual meetings so that is why I support that idea and maybe it's something temporary until we get past these upcoming processes that we're going to be going through um and as we've mentioned before it's probably not going to happen until after the mayoral election um and we have two uh of the uh you know the the consultants starting their work um so maybe not a long-term budget item but I just feel to keep keep things moving it would be helpful thank you any other questions or comments not seeing any so I guess moving forward then um I I mean I yeah so I guess moving forward then I guess uh well I guess that people want to reach out to me and kind of I guess be like hey do those kind these are the things we need to look at um that we need um I I'll try to put something together so we so our next meeting we can kind of um have a have a more clear idea of like what we're looking for in return in terms of council um training and um a monitor and those kind of things so yeah I ask that any of the commissioners here please you know me or contact me throughout the week and just our next week's with ideas Christian Harp so then is the idea that there would be a relevant motion at the next meeting rather than this meeting or would there be a motion at this meeting to resolve what it is that this commission is looking to do um I think I think that should I if anyone wants to have other ideas please chime in I think the motion should be at the next meeting after you kind of have a bit more narrow focus of of what we're looking for anyone who's here to that please please please chime in or have a comment at least oh yeah I have no objection to that all right then um moving on sorry sorry to say that that that was Randall Hart making that comment I know I'm I'm you my video is off so I'll make sure that was clear thank you sorry chair that's all good um I'm not seeing any further hands or you don't want to comment on that so moving on to agenda item 5.05 uh strategic plan from the bpd to reduce racial disparities and use of force and on that I turn floor over to one of the chiefs hi thank you again um for giving me this opportunity I'm gonna if I may share my screen this is uh so um this is a big big topic it's a key to some of what we were talking about with regard to trust and yet I think there is also a a complicated chicken or egg arrangement here in which we are questioning sort of uh which comes first and and how we get to one or to the other um I think that there are a lot of directions in which we could go and this is not going to be perhaps as prescriptive as some might wish um we we do have a lot up in the air at the moment there is a an election that's happening uh a week from today there are there's going to be a a search for a new police chief at that point um and so there there are things that really can't be put into complete motion at the moment and yet there are things that have been uh looked at things that were already in motion and have been disrupted by uh by covid by budgetary issues that came out of covid initially uh and then new budgetary issues that came out of the killing of george floyd and the decisions made in the week leading up to the the budget decision in june and then where we are now and as I said in my previous remarks the the crisis that we are in with regard to staffing is is a symptom it is a symptom of a crisis of trust and so how do we address those things and some of the data that's being talked about is our components in those in both of those their components in our our staffing crises in some ways because they contribute to a a situation in which trust erodes and officers are questioning whether they want to be here in that kind of environment so the issue is trust um and plans to address disparities are a component in trying to regain that although again I I remain I remain a little bit uh not confused and not unconvinced but I I am non-plussed at whether or not it's a matter of doing the one before the other I I think ultimately it's going to be a matter of buckling into each at the same time to the best of our ability into the greatest extent that our bandwidth allows um and just trying to make our way forward but there there's something here a new am stat and that that comes from something that uh commissioner saguino has mentioned that's come up in previous meetings uh it's been I shared something in an email with all of you about it uh and it has a real potential there to to link with parts of our community that currently feel underserved that currently have some of these issues with trust and how do we do that and I think that the model uh just in in a in a brief brief position the constat model as it was developed in the early 1990s by uh bill bratton and jack maple and louis annamone primarily at the new york city police department that model was the single most important tool for reducing crime at a time when crime had in 1990 hit its apex across the country and the results that you see in new york significantly owing to comm stat far far exceed the rest of the nation and the notion that somehow the nation as a whole was undergoing a crime decrease at the time and that it was engendered largely by significant reallocations and deployments of new officers that uh had been set in motion under president bush and then achieved under president clinton uh that is belied by the fact that new york's results were so out of whack with everyone else's results in a very positive way that model was an efficacious incredibly uh useful model and what chief del pozos great uh idea was here in working with mayor weinberger was saying that it doesn't need to be inside a single entity there are books written about the statting of america and the comp stat process bob bain at the kennedy school has written a thick tome on it and the way in which those uh systems were used in a whole bunch of different places but what was unique here is that it was the first time that it wasn't within a single uh administrative excuse me a single entity or a single uh profession or a single uh agency but was rather bringing a whole bunch of people to the table the idea of taking what comp stat and that's a comp stat with two m's the the burlington version of it and using that as a model for trying to address other kinds of instances is incredibly uh full of potential and it was a key in the rfp that i wrote for the joint committee to edit and submitted back in september hopeful that we would have been further down the road than we are on it now but the idea being that giving that roadmap to any potential applicants for that rfp that whatever consultancy came in would say i need to dig into what happened with comp stat in burlington understand it and use it as a model for what we could talk about uh here and i think that's that's what we're getting at i i you know i welcome any more information from uh commissure seguino since she too has brought up this idea and discussed it um and new am stat is a that's just a placeholder name i i don't mean that i've recently had some conversations with with director dodson and and uh skylar nash of the reib that maybe new american is isn't a term that we're we're going to continue to embrace and there's all sorts of those those questions of language etc are constantly evolving so i i that's a placeholder term i i shared with you also some ideas about neighborhood connection teams and an idea that i had had uh for a while now and and placed into a previous presentation i shared that too in that email i talked about with all of you uh all of these things include reestablishing links to a alv to parents university etc so that we can get some of that understanding sharing that i talked about in my previous remarks earlier this evening in play we need to be able to have all sides of the equation understand all the other sides better and and uh you know we're this isn't a simple one-to-one this is this is a you know 20-sided d and d dice a 100-sided die this thing's got so many different facets that we're looking at and all of them have to be in proportion to one another and working with one another and understanding one another we've had historically strong relationships with a alv this year we were supposed to be giving our our most important citizens award to a member of a alv uh tata red sebi but we couldn't because we did not have our our annual police foundation dinner the queen city police foundation was was going to be making that award incredibly important because of work that that she's done and reinvigorating those relationships is absolutely necessary we've lost some of them again it's easy to blame covid but that's because the blame is true and it's not merely an excuse precision policing i'll explain that a little bit more um the policing project i think a lot of people in town heard that there was a terrific talk last week on thursday i believe with marina mcgill of the policing project and nyu i had a long conversation with her and and former chief morrison as well who's now working on on policing policy issues at the state level uh and and talked about some things that the policing project is working on basic minimum standards and assessments involving those uh a promise to try to get to 30 percent uh gender balance in a police department um and when we're not allowed to hire then even trying to achieve that is a little bit difficult uh but it is something that i feel a pronounced need to explore and i there's there's not a member of the leadership here who will uh who won't confirm that i routinely bring up the fact that i want a better gender promotion inside and i want to be able to to ensure that that we're doing that in a in a better way um and then finally a deeper dive into the data with the intent to determine where we go and as regard to that the data you know we've published a lot of very good data um and i i think that the data that is available in in more than than three years of traffic reports and three years of use of force reports and the most recent arrest rate report as well these are things that this department has put out on its own and embraced and looked at but we get to this trust issue too we get to the trust issue about what the data says about what our data says and also about how people interpret it and even not interpreting the specific documents that we produce but just whether they the degree to which there is received understanding about the very problems that we face on a city level which i'd rather focus on but on a national level too which which bears uh importance because the national level as much as i would love to divorce ourselves from it and and really be judged on Burlington's merits and Burlington's merits alone because i think that we stand up and i think that we have a lot which we of which we can be proud but as much as i want that i can't because the national situation is is so uh so encompassing um skeptic has produced a a recent series of reports about uh the the presidential election and situations in the u.s. it's civil unrest in the presidential election study um they've done surveys on a number of questions and among them were instrument questions like this uh about race and policing and the question is if you had to guess how many unarmed black men were killed by police in 2019 and we see here uh that by self-identified uh political leanings from respondents um we have very different results about what people think the actual numbers are now the greatest greatest problem in in policing policy and data collection is the fact that we don't actually know the true answer to this uh Jim Comey was complaining about this five years ago after Ferguson and when he was still the FBI director and it has been long known that the data is not is not there at a national level there's no way to compel it and there's no central repository that mandates the provision of it but in the meantime we've had several entities that have really gotten much much much clearer data and is it is it perfect possibly not depends on how the terminology is used but one of them is the washington post's database on this topic on the topic of officer-involved shootings that lead to fatalities and theirs is really really clear and really strong and the results that it presents are far different than what we see with regard to receive knowledge here similarly what percentage of people are killed by police and based on race that too is a question that is indicative of a level of overall lack of understanding on these topics from the public at large and so i bring these up to to deal with the to address the fact that the data is it's difficult to get around the data when there are really strong misconceptions about the data in general and this is across the board these are thankfully problems that we don't have here in burlington we have not had fatal uses of force the people of color in burlington from the burlington police department and that is is important because these issues are national ones not burlington ones and again i do want to concentrate more on burlington ones and that's where i get to this and to this issue of disparity and bias and the extent to which they are the same as as one or the other if we look at our city and we take a look at our city by gender we know we we have 51 percent female our driving population by gender using crash data is is about 47 and 53 so it's women drive a little bit less than men by crash data our car stops by gender are are out of whack from that 36 percent 64 percent and our arrests by gender are are even more so and i i don't know whether or not uh to move this around our use of force by gender is even more pronounced in difference and now the question is um is this is this bias it's certainly disparity is it bias is it gender bias that's based on on the the the officer having different expectations for one group than for another group or is it more complicated than that and is it something that is driven by behavior uh do we see certainly insurers will tell you that the car stops by gender disparity is driven by driving behavior insurers will tell you that women are cheaper to ensure than men because they drive better they are less aggressive in general and they are less prone to for example enforcement and tickets etc now is that is it all behavior is it some part is some part of it bias as well i don't know and we certainly do want to dig into that um i think when we look at for example the uh the pies below that then we see not just arrest by gender but black arrests by gender and black use of force by gender and the disparity becomes even more stark and so our questions here are where how we we look at this how we address this and those kinds of questions are are really key before we can start to find hard paths forward i talked a little bit about precision policing before and this notion and this this is the guiding concept for me about what we need to make certain that we are working together as a as a as a community and as a police department together and it hinges on on something that stems from 1829 and Sir Robert Peel and the idea that the police are the public and the public are the police and and the police are are merely members of the public who have been paid and and given training to do things that are really incumbent on all of us as members of a community um these aspects here the idea of of increased communication which Commissioner Grant talks about all the time uh the idea of of fairness and police legitimacy that stems from that fairness and flows from that fairness uh the idea of of the of making certain that everything that we do with regard to our training with regard to our role call talks with regard to how we hire uh is designed to ensure that we are are recognizing and embracing and and doing all that we can to support dignity and diversity amongst both our officers and our other employees and amongst our citizenry um and then all of these other parts that actually get into the crime aspect of it particularly focused and crime and disorder enforcement because that is going to be a part and it's going to remain a part and frankly as I've said before we have been in an artificial lull over the past almost 12 months now I mean it's the very end of of February on March 10th this department went into lockdown uh and uh proceeded to close ourselves off from the rest of the world before any other part of the city had done so and I I I had some discussions with Chief Morrison at the time about it I really didn't want us to for example kick out uh Alanon meets in our in our community room or met in our community room I didn't like sealing ourselves off in that way but it was right and within a few days the city had chosen to do the same at across its facilities so it's been a year that we have been in this posture um and that posture has resulted in an artificial lull in our our call volume our incident volume and especially with regard to crimes and disorder uh that is not going to last most of the members of this department have now had the opportunity to the sworn members of this department have had the opportunity to get vaccinated many of them have uh we're going to be changing certain internal postures because of those vaccinations the cdc is telling us that that people with vaccinations can behave in new in new ways um that's going to cause changes and we're going to feel them this spring and certainly this summer building trust gets back to it because as I said the crisis is trust and and how we communicate with partners establishing a com stat process for new american communities to meet and discuss issues not merely those associated with public safety it would be far more than that it would have to be more than that it wouldn't be led necessarily by the police department in fact if in a perfect world uh I would want one of the csls that we are looking at to be the kind of person who would take on the administrative role of really managing the process not the leadership role the leadership role is going to have to be a member of the community in the same uh with with the gravitas to do it in the same way that the mayor and chief del pozo were instrumental in being able to convene and and keep com stat going in its early days um but a person like one of our csl positions uh if we are able to keep them here in the police department where they belong um would be the kind of person to help administer a program like this director dodson's conversation series something that he's been working on a lot recently and he's getting rolling and I'll allow him to speak more about that than I um and then you know transparency efforts that are included in the policing project's basic minimum standards this is the neighborhood connection team that I talked about and and this is something that is a position that I envision to be a lot like beach and parks beach and parks is one of our most valuable programs here in the city it has been a path for for people to become city employees and a variety of different departments but particularly in the police department and we've been able to bring in young people um from a range of communities uh and a range of types to come in through that role it's it's a good it's a good job you can basically get to stroll up and down church street and go to north beach and be on the bike path all summer and their bikes and the weather's nice and uh people are pretty and you're out uh having a good time and it's it's a great program I envision this is being something that builds on that but moves away from the downtown area away from our parks and instead goes to neighborhoods like the like you know parts of of the old north end parts of the new north end and and starts to outreach based on on cultural competency and and reaching out with groups that aren't necessarily having as much connection as we would want right now we've established a lot of these uh the the basis for this we've established the basis both through work that director low has done at the city level to ensure that the efforts that we've made with regard to covid are able to penetrate all parts of our community work has been done at reib with this important work um but I think that what we need now is is to be able to go into the community get members of the community in a perfect world to be parts of this team um although you know we they're they're explicit rules about how you hire and what you do but we can talk about language skills as being a prerequisite we can talk about cultural competency as being a prerequisite uh even if we can't talk about for example ethnicity or race as being prerequisites um but we can say that this is what we're looking for on a team like this and people who can make connections with those other parts of the community and and that's that's what I have um and I know that that's probably not as prescriptive as perhaps was was hoped um and isn't as uh as necessarily uh bulleted as as we can look at but but this is a huge topic and again I do think that we're in a complicated moment with regard to how we are able to actually embark on this path or not um and I will stop screen sharing and give the I can't there and give the the floor back to you Mr. Chair uh thank you for that um I'll take question in the comments now from questioners I see questioner Harp stand up yeah thank you this is uh Randall Harp um so I I guess uh this is an invitation to say more I'm looking at the agenda uh in item five previously 5.05 might be 5.03 now the 5.05 was a strategic plan from BPD to reduce racial disparities in use of force and I guess I'm I'm looking for more guidance from you about what the so I I guess the only discussion that I saw about uh racial disparities in use of force was a discussion where it seemed like you were suggesting that there might not be a disparity a racial disparity in use of force which merits attention from BPD the causes are difficult it's difficult to know and then you went into other programs that BPD might be trying to implement down the line so I guess this is an invitation to say more about whether that is in fact kind of the the bulk of the presentation about the about BPD strategic plan to reduce various and racial disparities in use of force uh let's hear back uh Chief Mirad if and uh after you uh Mr. Grant so no there are there are things we are we're looking at every single instance of use of force we want to make certain that we are are tracking them um again we implemented a new system called benchmark that we are in the process of rolling out still internally uh are the marriage of benchmark to Velkor has not been as smooth as we had hoped and therefore it's going to require double data entry by officers but that is going to be a lot that's going to allow us to track whether or not we see any kinds of patterns in these but with regard to the uses of force themselves we are also looking at you know changes in certain things and and determining whether or not those changes are feasible I think that there are we know for example that if we take uh pointing a firearm only out of the picture um that we actually drop uh the the use of force disparity is no larger than the rest rate disparity so that makes a big change there um and firearm pointing only happens disproportionately during search warrant execution so is that something that we can change as a policy matter I don't know I'll tell you that watching two FBI agents get shot dead at a warrant execution in uh in Texas tells me that there's a reason that firearms are often out at search warrants um so that the you know we're not these aren't search warrants that are executed for something that's already in position these are dynamic search warrants of the location um and that is something that we'll that we are looking at however is that a policy we could change that policy alone could reduce the a significant portion of the disparity but is it something that we can do safely those are questions that we're we're looking at I don't have answers for you yet but they are components of this as is the tracking system that Benchmark is going to provide mission agreed all right so I guess I'm a little bit confused because I expected a very different type of presentation we had discussed a few months ago when we had the presentation of the data and we were reviewing the data and we were viewing that report and there were just a couple of things that really stood out with sore thumbs where you could almost pinpoint particular times of day where uh particular incidents were occurring and it was just this huge it was such a dramatic amount of of use of force and so we had asked for presentation to occur by February here we are in February as to what is the plan of action to address what we talked about at that meeting so I would be expecting that you would be looking at that particular data looking at the officers the particular officers involved in those instances and coming up with a plan to to look at what you know what's you know what's happened why why was that particular it was like the downtown district it was it was literally certain a certain time framed and I this isn't at all what I expected I I don't even I just feel the department can be doing better right now like yes we have these consultants coming in yes we have to wait for certain things after the mayoral election I get all that but I still believe that there are things that could be going on right now where the department could be doing better and that means taking a hard look at particular officers I mean you've got to be looking at that information individually you've got to be you know seeing okay who do I have in those spots because we know we like certain officers only want to work at the airport so that leaves other officers to be in particular areas at particular times so ideally if you're looking at all that individual data which I guess would be my expectation but maybe it's not happening you should be able to see who needs you know my grandmother had this way of saying now I have to give you a talking to and I just feel that it's like not getting addressed it's not getting addressed and I feel like why did we have to say that that we're the ones to ask you to come up with a plan it should be obvious that there's some kind of plan that needs to to become up I I really get concerned about this narrative that I sometimes feel that there's a narrative that when you like you said earlier it's not all the officers fault well they're quite frankly are some things that are certain officers fault I'm not making a blanket statement about the entire department I'm not doing that as a matter of fact I've said repeatedly that the behavior of certain officers continues to take the department and also by protecting those officers it's not a good example for the good officers in the department you know so the argument that officers are leaving because you know they you know was it somebody posted oh everybody hates them or or they they feel no support I'm like you know what I'm not sure that's all coming from the community I'm not sure that the atmosphere in the department the culture in the department is supportive to officers who may want to do something differently and maybe they're going someplace else because they feel they could they can actually do a better job because maybe doing a good job is not supported in certain ways in this department and I I I don't want to hear about the department being up against the ropes you know come off the ropes and say what can we do here I go again community engagement right get to know the people that we police uh let's let's work on de-escalation by not escalating something to begin with how can we approach people better you know these are things we can work be working on now I feel and I feel that certain things can be done without putting themselves in danger uh so I just I just feel that you have to be looking at certain individuals you got to be coming up with a plan because you had these data points that just stood out like sore thumbs and any way you want to try to you know yes we can talk about the times we can talk about what's going on but the the bottom line is sometimes you just you have people that need to talk into you have people that have a bias that is affecting how they do their job and when you protect them that's just not sending a good message to good officers who know they could be doing a better job when certain behavior is excused and defended it's it's not sending a good message you know and the bar is set so low the bar is set really low it's just I get it's legal it's legal okay it's legal but what's the morality of it right what's the morality of it it's legal but is it right what can we do to be better to be legal and to be better um so I will stop there for now thank you um I saw sorry I thought you saw this hand up you want to respond to that or what I was just going to say I'd be more than happy to discuss this in executive session but I don't feel it's appropriate to really go into detail here okay Christian Hart yeah thank you I guess uh one of my questions would be um what the department would like to see out of the data so uh so so so putting aside whatever the numbers are right now what would the department like to see out of the numbers to suggest that the department is you know does not have that there are no concerns that ought to be addressed with respect to kind of how the department is is doing its policing over with respect to uses of force so there's a a suggestion that you know if you take out all of the all of the displays of weapons incident to the execution of a search warrant then the numbers would be equal right okay so like if if that's the sort of thing that one is looking for ideally if you take out the situations which officers have no discretion whatsoever about whether or not to use a certain kind of force then one would expect to see out of all the episodes where officers do have discretion one would expect to see uh kind of equal uses of force and equal severity of use of force among the incidents that are then used and so if that's the case then okay then let's say that and let's look at let's interrogate the data to see whether or not that holds up or if the claim is like every every incident which is which is kind of classified by officers in the same way removing as much officer discretion as we can or every incident which is classified by officers in the same way or everything which is called into dispatch in the same way you know the same percentage of those sorts of incidents see a use of force okay we can look at that also we're going to interrogate the data for that to see whether or not those hold up so I so yeah I'm sympathetic to the claim that you know that that data might be superficially misleading that there might that there might be things that we need to look further into to know whether or not the the kind of the uses of force represent cases of poor officer discretion or not but I think it will be helpful for the commit for the commission to have some idea about what you're looking at the data for to know whether or not you actually think that there are things that are worried that are worrisome because I mean yes so I yes that there are going to be downsides to to not having guns drawn whenever a warrant is executed they're also obviously downsides to having guns drawn you know we can do a kind of cost analysis but but if the claim is that that's not what you think is a sign and that the that the actual sign there might be problems of this then let's talk about that but I but I guess I kind of worry that whatever that we can always look at the data whatever they are and say there might be things that excuse all of this so that kind of somewhat ties our hand about doing anything I think it's better to say okay well you tell us what the data ought to look like then and then let's look at the data to see whether that holds up I see Commissioner Ceguino's hand I'm sorry you're reading thanks thank you for that report and I think you know I hear from other commissioners that people want more I appreciate you taking this as a first step and I am wondering if part of the issue is maybe not having enough time to look into the causes I mean correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding what you said is that you still are not clear as to what the sources of the disparities are and I I think Commissioner Hart's recommendation with regard to the data sounds like a good one so I would I guess what I would you know ask is maybe for you to stay in communication with us and give us what I would have hoped for as a timeline for addressing for whatever you're going to do to address this I really appreciate the connections with the the variety of communities and I think that's a an important step to take but as I said I think it would be important to develop a timeline and to articulate that to us and continue to communicate with us as you work through this and get a more detailed plan is it your expectation that the disparities disappear both racial and gender that the gender disparities disappear as well I think that's the kind of question that I find to be if you will forgive me for saying this you know not respectful quite frankly that I had I was saying nothing about that I was but you're asking for a path forward for what to do about these things that's correct I'm asking for the path path forward about what to do about these things that's right so the path forward includes an understanding of where we want to get and where we want to you know at what point we want to arrive and so that's that is what I'm asking I'm going to say this and God only knows this will make show up on social media but there's a gender dimension to the way that you interact you and others interact with us and that kind of statement just trying to kind of put me on the spot rather than responding generally to what I said we had this discussion last time at the meeting with regard to the issue about whether it's to eliminate racial disparities or to eliminate unjustifiable ones and so forth so I think that is passed I would just ask for a respectful conversation here I apologize if it felt that I was disrespecting it being disrespectful I was not I had an order I saw the hands of commercial grant their fee and harp okay um I too found that statement to be really disrespectful no one has talked in terms about disappearing right that's a pipe dream it really is the way things are you know let's not even talk about the nation let's just talk about Burlington the way I mean what has been in the news the last few days those ridiculous signs those disgusting signs you know we don't have to look at the nation we just let's just start in our own backyard I will say what I have said numerous times before we can do better we're asking you to come up with a plan to do better and you know who your problem officers are you can run the reports and see those numbers as a matter of fact that would be great for a future executive session let's look at those numbers not as totals but let's let's help you right let's look at those numbers and look at the particular officers you have got to have officers based on the way they behave in the street but people know who they are you're like acting like nobody knows who they are they're going to stand out like a sore thumb they are and I I just I just you have to want to do better it's like you don't believe you want to come up with and I understand you want to support your officers you wanted to thin your officers but you sometimes you just go too far to try to deflect from the real serious issues that are affecting this town where you have a part of the population that is so disconnected that it is dangerous and you don't see that you don't really at the times that you understand that you can't do your jobs properly and safely if you don't make an effort to do better thank you Mr. Turkey I think what I'm hearing is we really I think the expectation was as Stephanie said you know a little more you know data driven definitely you know more specific I get it I just want to say the last two meetings it really does make me uncomfortable to be in a combative situation where comments are being said on on both sides where everybody's all upset this is the police commission and you know there's there's people in attendance watching so let's let's reset here I think everybody's opinions are important and that's that's great you can say whatever you want to say but you know uh I mean I can't call a point in order I'm not the chair but like we we need to not make assumptions about you know direct comments about oh did you want to see that did you want this this cross talk really we've got important work to do and there's so many people waiting for us to do that work so it's good to share opinions but we've sat through four years of absolutely no decorum you know no no order and so if there is a issue that needs to come up you know in executive session that's fine and if there's you know we have to respect the women on this call and you know unfortunately that you know last comment it didn't it didn't sit well so I'm just really wanting everyone to reset and so because there's there's been plenty of times where you know I'm I'm just a a servant but you know I've wanted to leave the call just because it's just gotten so contentious so I need to say that for myself and for the community who's waiting for us to move on Krishna Harp almost uh Krishna Sagina yeah thank you uh so again I won't I won't say anything at all about you know issues of of tone of respect I I do think that it's fair I think it's entirely fair of uh of someone in this case the chief to ask us generally um what like you know if the request that we're making is for a certain kind of progress what does that progress in our minds look like in the same way that I asked at least I understood myself to be asking but you the same question right which is like putting aside the specific question of what the data look like right now what in your mind does a kind of ideal situation or an end point look like I think that if we can't articulate those end points as clearly as we can then there's not going to be any kind of you know basis for a common agreement about what progress looks like because progress requires that we have some kind of goal or end point in mind so that and so it was with that in mind that I asked the chief to say what he would think the goal would look like if um if if he were happy with the data as indicating that there were not kind of problems or concerns with respect to racial disparities and so so I'll answer the question that he posed with what I take to be uh you know the the spirit of which is what do I think that that end point would look like and do I think that that end point would not have any disparities whatsoever either along gender lines or racial lines or whatever and so I'll answer that question and just say again from my perspective no I don't think that that kind of well I mean there are two ways to talk about ideal right in an ideal world yes in an ideal world there would be no disparities along racial lines because in an ideal world access to quality of life resources that would be distributed equally among everybody you wouldn't have certain groups of people who are more often uh living in communities environments which themselves make it more difficult uh to get by you wouldn't have um you wouldn't have certain behaviors criminalized which are incident upon things like poverty and so but it's it's certainly clear to me that and I'll speak colloquially right now if you put all the black people in the poor areas of the country and then you make certain kinds of you know if certain kinds of criminal behavior are just also associated with living in poor depressed areas of the country it's not at all going to be a surprise that you're going to have more criminality among people that are forced to live in these areas of the country so that and that's not a problem that a police department in and of itself can solve a police department can't distribute resources equally around the country police department can't solve you know hundreds of years of systematic racism and oppression it's sort of like police departments by themselves can't do that um but even with the recognition that you know that that part of the problem that we have part of the structural racism that we face is the fact that black people and other minorities in this country tend to already be poor to live in worse areas tend to have to engage sometimes behaviors which are either criminalized themselves or an incident criminality even with that even when you put aside all of that the suggestion is looking at various kind of studies and they have been collected i'm happy to kind of distribute some of these after the session the suggestion still is that there are still when you look at kind of discretionary actions of and we'll talk about police officers right now because this is a police commission we look at discretionary behavior among police officers in general across the nation uh you will still find kind of increased uses of force when it's up to officer discretion against minorities then you have against white people in this country like i said and i'm i'm just talking about nationwide trends right now so i'm not talking all about burlington right so then the question becomes do we have reason to believe that that is a problem in burlington or not and i think basically that's the question that we're asking right it is you know when we look at the data when we look at the data on on the kind of the police commission side or as individual commissioners we look at the data as a chief do you see concerns about that or not and if you don't see concerns the question is like you know how do you explain the seeming disparities so that it's good that you're not worried about the seeming disparities right again i'm happy to agree that seeming disparities are not in and of themselves a sign that there's a problem but seeming disparities are seeming disparities and so like if so if you're not worried about seeming disparities then i guess the question would be like you know what is it about those numbers that suggests that there's not a problem and and then again and to to control against what some commissioners kind of suggestion might be a an an easily understood desire to kind of both defend and support the officers who work who work for you to maintain officer morale and everything and given that that these innocent desire is there a way of trying to identify patterns in the data which kind of you could tie yourself to and say like this is what you're looking for so it's not a question of whether or not you kind of want to defend officers or not it's just a question of what do the data look like so yeah so so again so if you're asking me do i think there are going to be no disparities no i don't think there will be no disparities because the world is the way that it is it's not it's not an optimal world what does that mean i don't know but again but but my idea would be ideally that whenever you can isolate in as quote unquote objective way as possible whenever you can isolate certain call types certain officer response types uh even you know you can do kind of you know coding of of person behavior with with video auditing if you can identify kind of similar inputs and then measure what the outputs are that would be the thing that i'm looking for but you want to fix it to similar inputs and and so i don't think that just looking at at the the race of the person involved is except the similar inputs i do think you can kind of draw down deeper into the data and find some of the call types etc and say okay let's let's try to now look at the data against those things so that that's my suggestion to try to put as what i take to be the question that we're all trying to answer here thank you chair um so i guess the path forward on this um that's where it's right now i guess um so i guess how do you move forward um what like what's grandfall by derpy he would like um the department to take an honest and objective look at the data that had and i will i have to go through and look at the notes to pull up the exact meeting date where we had reviewed that data because we had a discussion about certain things that did in fact stand out and were of a significant concern to the point where we did ask for a specific plan so um i'd like to find out find that and i would just like to engage have that process be engaged in um it it literally breaks my heart to think that nothing's being done about that um and then would also just didn't really sit well with me i mean when we can talk about warrants and it's it's horrible when officers lose their lives but you know if we want to talk warrants brianna taylor right say her name many others it's on both sides so we can not lose focus of that thank you derpy i'm gonna yield my time something i think that we'll have to revisit um there's an ongoing thing and and uh it's my hopes that maybe hopefully next meeting we can have something of um or it's expand on this and just kind of further is work on this and try to do better because that is that is what's being asked here um any further comments questions regarding the suggestion i see director dodson yeah i've uh i've actually been um listening i i don't purport to have any um pat answers here i listen to what commissioner derpy had to say i think uh it was also um president what um commissioner harp had to say um i'm not in any way uh weighing in directly on the tension that was experienced uh just before in the meeting but i but i am i'm eager and i'm hopeful for our community to figure out a way to move um our collective overarching conversation about our public safety apparatus and about the issues of race particularly as much as we can as they pertain to burlington um it clearly happens in a national context but when the only lens uh that we have when we have the conversations is in light of that which uh is happening nationally i think it really makes it very difficult to figure out what it is that we can do here in burlington um but i do think if we can figure out a way um and this is not in any way meant to let any stakeholder player off the hook we all are accountable um for all that is occurring but it just strikes me that they're that we can perhaps put our heads together our hearts together to figure out um a a way a path um as it relates to how we have the conversation that can change things i don't you know the the chief alluded to a process that i've been trying to get going with uh his support and the deputy chiefs and others within the department um and it's only based on my experience outside of this context but in other challenges conflicts um conversations dialogues and that was um one thing i think uh is a continual challenge in our community um is uh and commissioner grant talks about this but making sure that we create the circumstances and the supports to uh actually empower and amplify the voices of our bi-poc community uh i've you know commented that i think it is notable and problematic that the conversations i have access to um actually have far too uh few bi-poc voices uh speaking out on uh our own behalf right so so one night there was a possibly 150 people called in uh for a public comment most of it talking about what was happening to bi-poc folks and i think there's about 10 bi-poc folks in that number maybe now there ain't a lot of us there's more than 10 there's more than 10 of us who are experiencing these things and more than 10 of us who have lived here for some period of time and more than 10 of us who i think have very credible legitimate um important voices to bring to bear and in the conversations i'm privy to there's often an absence of that voice um and so we did we began a little experiment and i was saying that little experiment the other day five long-term bi-poc folk from burlington five cops and we talked and everyone started by saying who they were why they're here how long they've been here cops talked about why they became cops and it was from my vantage point i have access to most of the conversations it was one of the healthiest i've been uh present to there was a uh black man who said that when he sees the black lives matter flag we're talking about the black lives matter flags he said that that flag is saying to white folks stop killing us there was a cop who just stopped counting his tracks and said you know i never really understood it that way i didn't look at it that way i thought there was deep empathy in this cop's response and the cop said talked about his own biases that's the kind of circumstance we want to create circumstances where human beings can show up that way we left i think all 10 people felt like it was a positive conversation i don't think i've been in any other conversation i don't think i've been in any not a single council commission during committee meeting where everyone left saying that was a good conversation but these were people everyone didn't always this group of people didn't all have the same ideas and these bi-poc folks some of them had said they had difficult experiences at the hands of the burlington police but they also respected that as commissioner grant said that there's a whole bunch of police there and some of them are police that have moved on this is you know these experiences were over time and so you know i'm sorry for holding forth but i but i i'm just fearful i look and i just see the kind of stalemate and the kind of dead end that for me exists in our national politics and it really disturbs me and scares me um because uh you know we could just be log jammed and um and end up in a stuck place and uh and all be the worst for it and it's going to take all of us to figure out how we all show up in a way that avoids that um that trap um so that's my piece thank you thank you for that any uh further questions or comments on the student item uh christia grant hi so i would um like to thank director dobson for that information i find that to be the type of information that is exactly what needs to happen and what needs to be shared because i have a lot of issues with quote unquote traditional bias training it's literally in one year out the other and when i've talked about public engagement i literally have been talking about what you just described because it is far more impactful and going back to the fact that we know that our officers for various reasons don't live in the areas that they serve and protect so it's important that they're actually talking to people in the community to avoid the stereotypes that exist so don't keep these conversations a secret so to speak so i you know maybe you don't talk about who is involved in the conversations but you know describing the type of conversation like taking a a different method having that level of interaction that's what's important that's what people need to hear what's happening because that's what's going to improve you know what the chief is discussing earlier you you equate certain things with trust some of them the way you equate things like with use of force and trust i i don't agree with but yes there is an overall issue of trust in the community and what was just described is exactly what people need to know is is going on and hopefully more of it will go on because then you start to create these personal relationships and improve upon them because they've been really lacking in our community thank you uh commissioner fee follow like dirtha natson uh i did hear about that conversation and thank you for facilitating that i know that it was a thing and um from some folks because it seems like there's not a lot of black voices that have been involved in those type of conversations and i was very encouraged to hear um about that from actually a couple of folks so that's great i think for this agenda item um my suggestion would be you know it it really wasn't from from my standpoint having written a lot of strategic plans it wasn't quite the strategic plan that everybody had hoped for so i think it can be ongoing you know i i think um you know we are at a mayoral election we have you know we pointed out all the things that are you know up in the air and we've also know that we need action now so i think if we um are all amenable that it could you know could be an ongoing you know conversation because it certainly is probably the pinnacle of what we're here for um and certainly what happened last summer and also um there's some some things going on in montelio right now that would impact this conversation so um good good discussion um a little heated at times we've got to remember what we're talking about so i i just wanted to try to give you jabu you know chair gamosh you know some perspective and you know the ability to you know we're not we're not moving on you know it it wasn't exactly what we hoped for but uh it sounds like all parties are amenable to to to doing something you know you know ongoing okay here with that absolutely um commissioner dotson do you uh sorry director dotson uh yeah i think i was on your hand before thanks uh commissioner gamosh and just um because commissioner grant responded thank you commissioner grant and and please nothing is meant to be uh any sort of secret it it's come together relatively quickly there's a certain um sort of uh hurting chickens uh element to the to the work and covid and people are busy so it it was something that's been talked about but i do uh think that and i don't there's there's no secret to the participants um the idea was first uh put together by kevin garrison kevin garrison senior lives in a new north end uh born and raised in uh barlington grew up in the king street neighborhood group going to king street uh neighbor youth center was a football star i think at bhs back in the day um and uh raised two kids went to bhs and uvm with his wife and very active in the community uh craig michael was a popular dj mc singer he went to st mike's back in the mid 90s and has been here ever since uh has lots of relationships around the community uh vinson michael vinson michael uh went to shamp plain back in the hoop team from paterson new jersey um was married to uh nadia michael whose family is uh a anchor in the black community here she has two cousins and she and uh some other siblings went to bhs she went to st mike's uh her cousin went to st mike's the other one to shamp plain they're a bedrock of the um black park community lucy young who is the granddaughter she grew up in burlington went to burlington high school uh she's the granddaughter of jackson and lydia clemons lots of people know they've got this beautiful farm out in charlotte was made to a historical site there uh they're they're always thinking it was kind of like the first black family at chitlin county but they came back in the day they've been in uh and raised five kids in charlotte and the fifth person is rajan rajani edens uh participated rajani he's a poet activist around town he was at most of the protests this summer um real active thoughtful uh uh brother who leads with his heart um and then on the police side there was uh sergeant dwayne mellis african-american sergeant minwin uh vietnamese uh gentlemen both in the leadership uh dc labreck who's on this call um and uh krautaville officer krautaville is a detective and finally it was kelsey johnson officer kelsey johnson uh so uh so nice broad representation and it was a great conversation we hope uh commissioner grant to roll this out this is uh and once again it's more opportunity my feeling is that uh actually uh and i think you share that this uh topic deserves dialogue and unfortunately as far as the public is concerned i would argue that dialogue's not possible at council joint committee or um uh commission meetings right people call in it's one way that there's no exchange they say their peace uh they get to say public comment and then it moves to this privileged space where only the people uh uh on the commission or like with myself and the uh chiefs today get to be involved but there's a conversation that occurs with robert's rules and parliament's procedure it's not in my opinion the best setup for a robust conversation uh so this hopefully brings out new voices all five of those people are people i had not heard from at at not one meeting none of them called in i had not heard what they had to say and yet all of them have deep deep rowington ties everyone's by pock and so for me that's valuable because we're talking about them their families their experience and so this is a process to try to draw more of that out um we hope to move it forward we've been talking about using the why mainly because it's a great safe space uh it's large enough that you can actually bring people together physically so get off zoom and actually be in the same room and i've worked that out with the mayor and everything to uh get clearance for a certain number of people so uh so stay tuned we're going to um be trying to set that up to a point where we'll invite additional people and there'll be a process to get people in the community together talking about these issues hopefully in healthy respectful generative and productive ways none of which and and all of this uh uh you know so so to the chief the chief has been incredibly supportive of this he's been a partner to me and putting this together he helped to organize his officers he went out and said that he supports this other people supporting it uh just the other day i had a good friend of mine afghan brother who i'm close with he was stopping by to talk to me and spontaneously i asked the chief he was available and so for two hours he'd listen uh this gentleman did not necessarily agree with the chief uh but they had a really respectful dialogue we talked about some things that were in the news um and so uh you know i feel like i'm in this crazy perverse position of um having to uh or being a being seen as defending the chief i'm just trying to say what is i have access to other people don't i see things that people don't see and i think that uh these additional things that are happening help to more fully flesh out the picture as we all work through these difficulties and do what when when i'm with him uh the chief acknowledges the need for growth acknowledges uh the bias and racism that has to be present in an agency that's part of the context of america where these things exist so i i do think there's a opening for us to do this work and have these conversations and move forward and and build the agency that honors all of us thank you uh commissioner graene i think that's on your hand up uh yes so um i guess i'd like to see so as i said earlier great to hear that type of discussion when i have spoken about um community engagement before that was definitely one of the things that i um ad nauseam and i quite frankly recently really given up on because there just seemed to be uh with with the rhetoric uh no it just seemed there was no desire so i am happy to hear that that's happening and i'm happy to hear that i'm going to continue to work toward that so what needs what i feel needs to happen is that in these conversations that we have we have to talk about these things that are happening so um you know how we've had the conversation before where you know perception is reality well if you're not informing and you're not giving out information and you're not indicating that there's some movement ahead to reach out to interact with the community in ways that hadn't up and done recently then you know you're creating this reality for yourselves right and it's reality that that people don't like um on so i i just wanted that to be kept in mind you know to yes do more of this and and yes let's let's talk about what's what's happening because you have me and there's things that i do around town where yeah i can help with engagement i can i can do a lot of things but i've just been left with the thought that this is a department that doesn't want to be engaged at all so i would please you know invite you to to think about that you know and and here we go again how can we do better thank you awesome thank you for that and thank you uh director dodson for that as well too um just good information to know um so i feel like we we will be retouching uh we'll be we this is an item we'll be coming up again in the future um i think it's something we need to retouch on and