How are you? How are you? I'm in there. You guys are now live and recording. Okay. It is 530. Let's get started. My name is Alicia Walker. And I'm calling this meeting to order as co-chair. Governor Baker's March 12th order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law allow us to hold this virtual meeting of the working group. Given that we have a quorum present, I'm calling the May 20th, 2021 meeting of the community safety working group to an order at 531 p.m. I will call upon each member of the working group by name. At that time, they should unmute their mic and say present. Mr. This will indicate that they can hear me and we can hear them. Please remember to mute your mic after saying present. Mr. Vernon Jones. Present. Mr. Cage. Present. Ms. Ferrara. Present. Mrs. Owen. Present. Okay. We will first hear any public comment that members of the public want to provide to the working group. We will not respond to your comments, but we'll listen to your comments carefully. You see the agenda. Yes. Thank you, Ms. We will then have a conversation about the budget for our recommendations. The memo sent by Mr. Vernon Jones and the last town council meeting. Next, we will have a brief discussion on where we are with the final presentation for the town council and the presentation for the finance committee. Our first order of business is the public comment section of the agenda. If any member of the public would like to make a statement, please raise your hand. We will then have a brief discussion on where we are with the final presentation for the town council and the presentation for the finance committee. If any member of the public would like to make a statement, please raise your hand. I will recognize you and ask Ms. moisten to turn on your microphone. I ask that comments be limited to no more than three minutes. The working group will not respond to your comments, but we will be listening intently. Hi, love. You're somehow in here. I don't know how that happened. I'm going to switch you out if that's okay. Of course. My apologies if I clicked on the wrong thing. And now I don't know which one of you I'm going to end up moving over. So we'll try this. Carefully. Success. Excellent. Okay. Thank you, Ms. moisten. And again, I just want to open the floor to any public comments. If there is anyone in the audience who would like to make a public comment at this time. I don't see any hands raised at this time. Okay. So is it okay to just move forward at this point? It is. Yes. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. This is the time for members to update us on any work they are doing or events that are coming up. Does anyone have anything that they would like to share? Hello, Ms. Pat. Hi, everyone. I'm Mr. Garner Jones. I don't know that I need to be the one to share this, but Alicia and Brianna and I all went to. The dispatch center. And I just wanted to share this with you. And I just wanted to see their operation and have it all explained by Mike Curtin, the head of the communication center there. It was very interesting. And I guess the other thing I'll mention is. Just in the last. Five minutes, 10 minutes. We have an email from. Then grease murder some questions from the town council. I don't. I'm not suggesting those have to be addressed in this meeting, but I just wanted to make sure that we have an email from Mr. Backelman. Thank you, Mr. Vernon Jones. Does anybody else have anything they would like to share at this time? Mrs. Pat. I'm just grateful for the community for coming out to support the work that we're doing. I'd be. At the town council meeting on Monday. It was very powerful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to mention. Is this the time to talk about the. Document that the three of you worked on. So I was going to add up shortly. I think I was going to bring that up shortly in the meeting. I think we have a couple of other things to address first. If you don't mind. I don't mind. I just wanted to make sure. Yeah. So that's going to. I wanted to share. Thank you, Mrs. Pat. Thank you. I was going to bring up the final slide. I think we're going to do a little bit of a discussion on what we want. Cause I know that you all went into the dispatch. So I guess at an appropriate time, maybe when we discuss the document, maybe if we can get a little bit more details in terms of what you all learned that might be important for. The kind of fine tuning of the crest program. I'd be interested in hearing that later. Yeah, absolutely. Miss. I think that would be a great time that we would be able to share some thoughts with you guys and answer any questions that are there. Thanks for that. Thank you. Are we going to be talking about. The presentation next week at all. Do we have time to do that? At this meeting? Yes. So we are hoping to close with a conversation about. The presentation for the town council, as well as the presentation for the finance committee. Miss Farera. the document, the press document, but I do want to make sure that we do get the presentation for the town council and the finance committee. I think that's really important. Yes, thank you, Ms. Ferreira. So if anybody else has anything to share, now would be a good time. Otherwise, I will move forward in light of the time. Okay. So for those of you who are not able to attend the last town council meeting, there was a public comment lasting for close to two hours with overwhelming support for not just the Cress program, but all of our recommendations. As a group, we need to decide if we're going to keep asking for police positions to be held, or if we are asking for everything that we want. I want to open this to the group, as it is important for Brianna and I to know as we craft impressionable closing comments with calls to action for the town council. I was non-there, so I didn't hear that. Can you provide a little bit more detail, I guess? What do you mean there was two hours of public support? I mean, Sheldon, what? I guess I'm confused. Yep. So the last town council meeting was the first part of the budget hearing. And so the meeting opened with a public comment section. The public comment section itself was almost two hours long. And very many of the public comments were in full support of our recommendations, not just the Cress program, all of our recommendations. And so Brianna and I were going over the presentation last night, trying to make some final touches, and decided that our closing slide should include a specific ask to the town council. And so we wanted to open the floor to ask that as a group, like at the conclusion of our presentation, will we be asking the town council to, for example, continue to hold the two frozen police positions to not increase the budget for the two additional positions or what exactly our ask will be as a group from the town council? Mrs. Pat? So CSWG hired the seven gen, and they made a very good recommendation of have to reduce the police force. And I think we should go with that recommendation. And it's already done. I think we should follow that. Like couple years, there will be 50% reduction in APD. I'm very comfortable with that recommendation. Thank you, Mrs. Pat. Mr. Vernon Jones? Yeah, I think we should stick to our recommendation for next year, which I think in our report is that the police department be reduced to 43 sworn officer positions. And I think we should continue in front of the town council to recommend everything we recommended in our report. And with regard, I don't know whether everyone saw with regard to the document that I sent this week, I propose we remove the budget pages from the end of that and only send the details about the Crest program. Mrs. Ferrera and then Mrs. Pat? Yeah, so I read all the documents. And I know that before, I guess you all have submitted some type of budget that would have like decreased what we had originally funded. But then, I guess, as you're saying, as the Vernon Jones, you're back to supporting the budget that we had submitted because I saw Ms. Pat's email saying that we had already submitted a budget. And I'm in agreement with that too. So I was just waiting for the meeting to basically say that, yeah, we need to stick with what we already sent. And so for me, I don't think it's a question of either or. It's a question of all the above. You see what I'm saying? It's a question of them fully funding our recommendations that we recommended. It's about them freezing those positions indefinitely and not hiring anyone new to the police department. No, you know what I'm saying? I think we need to be, you know, we don't need to be separating. We need to say all of the above, you know, because that's what needs to happen so that they can have the funding because they gave us pennies. So how are they going to be able to fund us if they're not at least not hiring any or increasing the police department and so on and so forth, you know? So I don't think we need to be going on either or or really kind of being timid about it. We need to be very focused and be strong and say this is what we need. This is what we're asking for. And they need to provide what we're asking for because this is what's better for the community, especially the marginalized communities that we're trying to make sure that their lives are better. Thank you, Ms. Ferreira. Mrs. Pat and then Mrs. Ellen. So I mean the community has spoken, you know, I could feel the support on Monday. And so we need, you know, I'm agreeing with Ms. Ferreira. We need to stick to the original budget that we put it on and then pick it back with Mr. Ross. I'm okay with the report itself if we take out the budget. However, I would like us to, you know, discuss the Kahoot because the 7th gen, you know, we're concerned about Kahoot. I think the whole point of getting consultant to work with us, if we don't consider their recommendation, it will be almost like a slap in the face to them and also a waste of time. I will agree to submit a report that to take out the Kahoot because it is controversial. There has been death killings even with that program. That's one of the concerns. So again, the majority goes, but I wouldn't support submitting the whole report with the Kahoot on the report. Thank you, Mrs. Pat and Ms. Ellen. I just want to say, I think that we should ask for the full amount that we asked for it because I did again attend the town council meeting and there was an overwhelming amount of support for our recommendations and Lynn Griezmer, the president of the town council, just emailed us and they're already wondering what mile markers would exist for Cress and how we're going to measure efficacy and I don't think Cress is going to be effective unless we fully fund it. Thank you, Ms. Ellen. Yes, Mrs. Pat. I just wanted, does anybody have any issues with Kahoot program? Because I do, yep. Yes, Ms. Ferreira? Well, I mean, I guess, Ms. Pat, I think, you know, I definitely heard what Sevagent had talked about it, but I thought it was more kind of contextualized in terms of like, it can't be like, you can't have Kahoot, right?   If you have both, they're still going to have killings. That's the way I kind of interpreted it. I didn't interpret it as like Kahoot was bad or something like that.  We're trying to put things in place. And then because now a lot of calls are going to be handled by Crests, you need to make sure that the police are not responding to those calls anymore and that they're not going to be doing those things and lessening the police force. It has to be both, you know, it can be one or the other. Because if you just do one, and then the other one is still out there armed and responding to those things. And that's why we need, right? And I think that's the thing that it shows. I think Kahoot's really shows that we need a 24-7 fully resource program. Because if you are still having the police response to mental health issues and respond to wellness checks and respond to, you know, homelessness and substance abuse issues, you're going to have those same problems, right? So that's, I think, that's why I'm kind of like, I think it might be a good idea to keep that to kind of really showcase the fact that you can't have both of them coexisting. Once one is in place, you have to decrease the other and you can't have that the police force responding to those to those complaints because you're going to have the same issues. So my concern. Mrs. Pat, why don't you go ahead and then Ms. Ellen, Mr. Vernon Jones, if you still have something to say. So my concern about Kahoot program is not the name Kahoot, but, you know, you know, establishing trust and credibility in our community. Anything that has to do with, you know, armed force and police officer for people to get help, they're not going to, you know, then they wouldn't like it. They won't trust, you know, the Crest program. I also read at the report and I think the two co-chairs and Ross, but I read in the report that we may vote on tonight that the APD will be helping with the training or something like that. I support the LEAP program, even though I have a mixed feeling about having anyone with law enforcement background doing training for Crest staff, I'd rather have a BIPOC Crest director in place to help with the recruitment of responders, dispatchers and training. I'm not saying that the director will train people, but to be part of the decision-making as who, you know, he or she will bring in to train these responders and dispatchers. And I read something about cell phone and I'm all for cell phone, but we have to have a dedicated space where there is, you know, land phone as well with the dispatchers. In addition to the communication center, people will still call 911 and they can, you know, routed the appropriate call to Crest program. And Crest program can still have its own number as well, but to just have cell phone only for Crest program, I think we should have in addition to cell phone, land phone or whatever. Also, I think we shouldn't settle for one van. It has to be two vehicles. I like the idea of having one of the vehicles to be handicapped and regular mini van. I like that proposal. So there are like few things we need to flesh out with the report hopefully tonight, but thank you guys. At least that will show the town council and the finance committee that we're really serious about this proposal, about this Crest program. Can I just interrupt real quick? So Terry Mullins from Seven Gens is here to answer questions about Kahootz, if you need questions answered. Okay, I will ask the group. Would you guys like those questions answered now? Is that okay? Maybe after this round of questions around Kahootz. I think it would be good for Terry to clarify what they shared around Kahootz so that we can know whether we need, you know, we should include it or not. I think let's finish up this round of questions before we bring them in. Okay, great. I'm in agreement with that. Thank you, Mrs. Ferreira. Ms. Owen? So my comment with the Kahootz program, I think that the Kahootz program has limitations to promoting racial equity in the community, but I think that only supports our other recommendations with the BIPOC-led Youth Center and the BIPOC Cultural Center. So I have mixed feelings about it, but I do understand the limitations to the Kahootz program. Mr. Vernon Jones? I don't think anything in any of, well, I think we made two important decisions that make crest different from Kahootz. One is we decided we wanted our press responders to be employees of the town so that we had control over who got hired and we provide the supervision. The other is that we decided we want to program with a consciously anti-racism focus and those two things are very different from Kahootz. Kahootz is contracted to a mental health agency and we, well, a third difference is we actually identify a broader range of calls that we think crests can handle than Kahootz currently handles. So I don't see us as using Kahootz as a model at all. The only two references to Kahootz in the document, the details document, one is that we use them as an example of how many hours of training are required. And I did that because, you know, 500 hours is more, maybe more training than some people are thinking about and it seemed like that was a useful thing to be able to quote. And the other was crests, Kahootz because it's been around longer, is the best example of how much money can be saved by having community responders instead of police. So those two references regardless of what we think of the Kahootz program to me are still relevant, the number of hours of training and the potential savings. But I don't see us copying Kahootz. You know, I see us with many differences from Kahootz. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Vernon Jones, Ms. Ferrera. So, yeah, and I think, you know, you already heard me what I said about Kahootz and I think, you know, again, I'd like to hear from Terry to see if he has any clarifying information. But again, I don't think it's a bad thing to keep it in there, just to kind of show, as Mr. Vernon Jones said, and Ms. Brianna and Ms. Owens, that there's a lot of differences in terms of what we're doing, which is specific to Amherst and what others have done, but that doesn't mean we can't, you know, pick and choose. But the other thing, though, that I wanted to make the comment of is what Ms. Pat had kind of started commenting to was this kind of further document around, you know, the detail. And thank you, again, obviously, for sending us that and really thinking more about the detail around Crest, which obviously is important, right? Those are some of the questions that the Town Council may have and things like that. But I am in agreement with Ms. Pat when it's kind of like, as I was reading it, and I didn't make kind of specific notes on it, I guess I should have, but I didn't. But I was seeing it very kind of heavily laden as like, you know, really kind of getting our Crest getting its marching orders from the police, you know? So I think we need to kind of, you know, review that. I mean, I'm willing to review that again and send by notes, but like around the training and some other things, you know, this patch, I want it to be very clear, you know, in terms of this patch, that there's going to be another number and then obviously it can also be this patch from the police. But I don't want it to be looked upon as like a police addendum, you know, that Crest is going to be kind of like another arm of the police department, because then we'll start it off right on the wrong feet, you know? And that's why, again, I say they need to fully support this, resource it, staff it, because if not, that's what it's going to be looked upon, and then it won't be trusted, and then it won't be utilized, and then it'll fail. So those are the things that we need to be very careful on. Thank you, Ms. Ferrerath. When were we planning on sending this document to the town council? Did we have a date by which we wanted this to be finalized? Mr. Vernon Jones? Well, let me say first, I, you know, I've got the document in front of me, and I did most of the writing on it. I can't imagine what, I don't understand where you think this is about the police. There's nothing in here about the police training them. The law enforcement advancement project is, you know, if you've read their report, that is, they have some police officers on staff who have total converts to the community responder program, but they are not a police outfit at all. If we... I guess, like for one, I guess, Mr. Vernon Jones, sorry for cutting you off, but I guess for one, like for me, like the dispatch, right? You know, in the long-term, press will likely need its own dispatches, but for FY22, the press response will be dispatched by the existing 911 operators and dispatchers. We'll develop clear criterion decision trees, blah, blah, blah. This will involve identifying the types of needs and indicators.  You know, we can't just rely on the dispatchers from the police. So that's one, I mean, obviously, like I said, I didn't write like all the specific things, but there's different little areas that I think, you know, we need to kind of be clear and we need to kind of really, you know, clearly state that this is what we're looking for. Can I make a proposal? Can I make a proposal? Yes. I think the sooner we, you know, this document is sent to the school committee and to the town council and the finance committee, the better. If I may, I wonder if this is like too much to ask if Ms. Ferrara and Mr. Ross can like play test, you know, work on this and send it out tomorrow to them? Or do we have enough time to do it tonight? I can, I can kind of go through it, Mr. Ross, if you want, after the meeting and just send you like my, my kind of notes and stuff, if you want. Mr. Vernon Jones? Well, let's see. Let me, let me comment first about the dispatch.  So whoever's answering 911 calls needs to be able to refer calls to Cress. And the, I, I, I don't see any way around that.  And then we need a direct line as well. As far as, you know, I'm going to agree with this pad. I think the sooner we send this the better. And because I think it's important that we allay whatever concerns there are on the part of the town council or the finance committee that there aren't enough details worked out to go forward with the program this year. I think we have more than enough details worked out for that. The issue is that we, we want this to be sent from our whole group. And this is the last meeting at which, you know, by the next meeting, it'll be too late. It'll be after the town council meeting and it'll be too late to get it to the finance committee in a timely manner. But if you want to delegate, you know, if you're in general agreement, I'm going to delegate working out the fine editing details to Deborah and me. I'm happy to do that. Ms. Ferrara. Yeah, or if I mean, I'm willing to go with the, you know, with the majority of the group too. I mean, if everyone else is comfortable with it, I mean, we can move it forward. I don't have an issue with it. It's just that I think that in terms of trying to find two, I just don't want us to pigeonhole because remember again, we don't, you know, we're still trying to really flesh out this. I just feel like I don't want us to kind of rush so much and provide all these details when we really need some time to also flesh out the details, you know what I'm saying? Because remember what we put in writing is what they're going to hold us to, you know, and this program is going to be very much alive. It's going to be very much changing. So that's my only reservation in terms of trying to be too, too quick about, okay, let's just throw it out there because what we throw out there is going to be what it's going to sit, you know? So that's the other part. But again, you know, I know I'm more, you know, I like to kind of be cautionary about some of these things. But if the will of the group is, hey, let's throw this out there because we need to get something to them because they're asking these questions and then do it. But I have caution with some of that. Ms. Pat and then Ms. Ellen. So that's actually not what I'm saying. Like, there are some wordings in the report that I'm very uncomfortable with. There's nothing in the report that says that the BIPOC director will participate in recruiting and training responders. And just to remind us that Terry is, you know, in the audience and we don't know what his schedule looks like this evening if we want to ask some questions so that we don't lose him on Kahoot. Ms. Ellen, if you wanted to respond first and then we can move into more questions if that's the end of that conversation. So my only thing about fleshing out the details is I do agree with Ms. Freira. Like, I do feel like we are kind of rushing it and what we throw out is once it's out there, it's out there. But on the same page, I'd feel like, I feel like as a group, we've been in limbo as to the expectations that we're supposed to meet. And I'm still a little bit confused. On what? For me, I'm just confused on our role with town council and why we are rolling out like these details right now. Are we giving the town manager a vague overview of the program we want? Or are we giving him details? I would prefer we give him details so it's the program that we envision and we are able to incorporate our lived experience and the experiences of people in the community who we're connected with, but also we're just on such a tight timeline. Ms. Freira? Yeah, I think that's the kind of thing Ms. Owens kind of made it clearer for me. I guess that's the thing, you know, I think it's just kind of like, you know, we have the town council meeting and then the finance committee meeting and it's kind of like, okay, you know, we not only like provided you the report which was our charge, right, was the report and the budget, the recommendations, but now it's like, but now you also have to provide all the details like, you know, now, you know what I'm saying? I mean, I don't think that that's fair. So I'm fine, I guess, to do it, but again, you know, what have we put out there? I'm going to stick with. Mr. Vernon Jones? Well, my fear is that whatever people say about what's required, that we will have people vote against us because they feel we haven't figured it out far enough. And I think we figured out a lot. And this document is an attempt to sort of say all the things we've talked about and figured out. I think if the group would approve it in general and leave it to Ms. Ferrara and me to try to do some edits over the next few days, that we could be resolve some of the things people have been concerned about, we can make it clear at the beginning of the document that these are our answers. This is the way we conceive it now, and that exactly how it gets set up will need to be developed over time with the involvement of the community safety working group. And I think with an introduction that keeps us in the role of being involved in working it out and says, you know, sort of here's one way it could look. And I think that if people are comfortable with that, that Ms. Ferrara and I could work out other issues in the text. Mrs. Pat, Mrs. Owen? So I would like to see, you know, and I'm fine, you know, for both of you to work on it. And I would like to see the final version, you know, before we send it out to the town council and the finance committee. But there are some language definitely that I'm not going to agree with. I don't think we should be in the business of having the APD do any type of training period. They should not, we can still, Crest should collaborate with the APD, but they should not be providing leadership. It's the point I'm trying to make. It should come from the Crest BIPOC director. It's a non-starter. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Pat. Mrs. Bellman, and then if I might make a comment. Hi, everybody. Sorry for being late. I agree with Ms. Pat. At no point do I feel like the APB should be, the APD should be trained. Even if it's on the behalf of Crest, I really think it needs to be, it needs to be, it needs to be non-police people. And I say that for a couple of reasons. One, I feel like we need to, I talked about this before, about having people who are involved in this program trying to keep them local to this area. And you know, you run into that when, I just, I really think it should be local. It should be local because when you're local and you live here and you have the potential to experience things here, you have a different understanding of you know, what's going on versus if you live elsewhere and then you're coming here for work. It's a different, it's a different vibe. It's a different energy.  You know what I'm saying? Like, so that makes, I feel like that's one of, that those two things are really big for me, that it needs to be, it needs to be our local community and it needs to not be officers. Officers were already trained in a certain way.  They still, there's still a mannerism. There's still an energy. There's still like, for lack of a better term, the blue code. The, that is still, like you're not just going to take that away. If you're going to just take that away, then we wouldn't have so many officers having a hard time reporting officers who are doing bad things to community members. So in no way do I trust training an officer to be running or any, like, I just, I have no interest in having them be part of this program except for, you know, the need to like, the need to like, we know, we know we need to go through 911. I know that you should go to the police department. I know that needs, you know, and, but I feel like, I feel like we're, we're treading on very thin water to involve them much more than just that. So. Thank you, Ms. Bowman. And if I might make a quick comment, and then Mrs. Ellen and Mr. Vernon Jones. So I just wanted to state my agreement with Mrs. Ellen's comment earlier, and that I'm sort of feeling a little bit conflicted about these things. On one hand, I believe we were all sort of very eager and ready to come up with details and were instructed to give a vague idea of the goal that we would like to accomplish with this program rather than to flush out the actual details. And now that we're coming to the end of our work, we're being asked about the details. So I do understand Mrs. Ferrera's hesitation was throwing everything together, but I, but this was not our fault. And I don't think we anticipated having to come up with these details at the last minute and that we would have had these thought out ahead of time, if we would hadn't had, we would have known that this is what they would want. And then I also just wanted to suggest that if we do decide to have Mrs. Ferrera and Mr. Vernon Jones work on this aside from the group that you take into consideration the email that we received just shortly before this meeting from Lynn, who is the head of the town council, because she actually sent us questions specifically from the town council. You may be able to answer in editing because there was questions specific to dispatch, questions specific to hiring. And so I think that if there's a way to also answer those questions, or if there's a way for us to discuss those things at the end of this meeting, that that would be helpful in you guys completing that document and answering sort of all of the questions and gray areas for the people who are skeptical about this program. And I also just wanted to suggest, if possible, that we move the rest of this conversation to after meeting with the social services, because I think that this document itself is really close in hand with the final presentation and the presentation to the finance committee. And that some things that come up in that discussion may influence the information that's also put into that document. But then I would like to pass the floor to Miss Owen and then Mr. Vernon Jones. I'll be really quick. I'm completely okay with Mr. Vernon Jones and Ms. Ferrara working on that draft. I just wanted to say while you guys look over the details for all of that, I'm wondering if you can include in this document that Cress is an alternative to policing. After attending the last finance committee meeting, it seems that there was a little bit of confusion as to Cress falling under social services. And it just goes back to our charge and Cress, again, is a program that is alternative to the APD. So I just want that to be emphasized in there. Thank you, Miss Owen. Mr. Vernon Jones. Yeah, I certainly agree with what Miss Owen just said. And yes, we can certainly do that. And I also totally agree with what Miss Bowman said earlier. We're not talking about retraining police officers. I don't think anybody on this group has ever seriously entertained that idea. And that's not, there's nothing in this memo that suggests that that would even be a possibility. There's also nothing in this memo either about the APD being involved in training. And just a further step about the dispatch, the dispatchers are not police officers. And the time we spent with them, they, and they were, my curtain was very good about the possibilities of the computer system being used in a way that kept Cress records completely confidential from the fire department, the EMTs and the police. So I'm in complete agreement with everybody's statement about the importance of, I mean, we want a good working relationship. We want the police to refer calls to Cress, but we certainly don't want a police tone or training or perspective informing our Cress responders. The whole idea of Cress is to have a different perspective and different skills and different responders. Is it time now to bring in Terry? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I should say one other thing. I have a conflict and I'm not going to be able to stay past seven o'clock tonight. Uh-oh. Okay. All right. So, Ms. Ferrara. So I guess, so I guess just so we can finish this off before the services, especially if Mr. Vernon Jones has to leave. I guess, so when, so I know that you all want Mr. Vernon Jones and I to kind of look at that this document and kind of flesh it out and really kind of put in, make sure that it has the language that I comport with our recommendations and things like that. So by when? Because again, I'm feeling very rushed and I'm, I'm going to be out of town like Saturday into Sunday. I'm out of town. So, so like, when are we supposed to do this? So that, and when are we supposed to be getting this in the town council? It's my, the meeting is on Monday. So I mean, again, I can, I can put up my ideas in terms of things and my thoughts or whatever. And I can send it to Mr. Vernon Jones, but then, you know, I have a bunch of other things I need to get to. So. Thank you, Ms. Ferrara. I just wanted to say that we did also receive an email from the town council, Lynn, the head of the town council stating that they wanted our presentation and all of our documents actually today in preparation for Monday's meeting. And so we did ask them for a little bit more time, but as soon as possible is what I'm getting from the town council. They would like the documents as far in advance as possible. Mrs. Pat. So I was just saying that I would write, I would like to, you know, send my comments to both Ms. Ferrara and Mr. Ross, because I do have specific concerns that I have with the report. It's what I was going to say. Will it be too much for both of you if we say by three p.m. tomorrow? Is that too much rush? Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that's the thing. I think what we could do because the thing is, though, you all want to look at the final final document. So, you know, I think why don't we do this? Why, Ms. Pat, why don't you send your comments or anyone else that has any kind of comments or even questions, answers to questions that, you know, Ms. Lynn asked and everything. I think you send that to Mr. Ross. I'll send, yeah, tonight and then I'll send my comments. And then Mr. Ross, if you have anything to kind of share with me in the morning, but we have to get a final to you all before then, right? Because we're trying to get this out. We're about 12 noon to CSWG and then three p.m. to the school committee. Oh my goodness. Yeah. And finance committee. What do people think? I think that's what we'd have to do. Does that work for you, Mr. Vernon Jones? Well, I'm willing to work late tonight, early tomorrow, most of the day tomorrow from, what, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. I'm in a conference. But I could, I can do it after that. Another possibility is to, you know, our presentation, if we have this done in time to send it to the finance committee, but don't send it in advance to the town council. We could use it at answering questions from the town council without giving them a last minute document. The town council meeting is really about our whole proposal. And this document is just about Cress. The finance committee meeting is really just about Cress because that's the only thing that's in the budget, basically, at this point. But I'm willing to work late tonight, early in the morning, or tomorrow night, and get it out, whatever works for everybody. I'll get my questions tonight. I'll send it to both of you tonight. I can also do the same. Yeah. We can all do that tonight. And then tomorrow we can work on, well, I guess in the early morning. Well, what's your schedule, Deborah? You said you were tied up tomorrow.  So it's really like tonight. And then, you know, later in the evening. Yeah. So I think we just need to get all our comments in tonight. And then we can see. But I'm saying like, so if you all get, do we need to send all the documents of the town council to at the same time? Or can we get it like, like, let's say later that you can we send them everything tomorrow evening? What do they say? Do you Mr. Ross is in a conference still 9pm, you said? Well, I can work from six or seven in the morning until nine in the morning. And I probably could get an hour lunch hour as well. It's up to two, I feel it's up to you and me forever. Deborah, would you have a little time in the morning before work tomorrow? Yeah, I could probably have a little time. Yeah, like maybe like eight to nine. Because I have to put my kids on the bus and all this stuff. My youngest I have to put them on the bus. Okay, let's let's assume we get things tonight. I'll work on it tonight and then you and I'll have an hour together eight to nine in the morning. Okay, I don't want us to lose Terry or unless if you want us to if you they can also send comment to us. Yeah, and then we'll send it to you all we'll just send it to also you can can look at it and then then we can finalize it and send it out to the town council. I'm talking about Terry. If it's okay, I was wondering if we can reach out to Terry and see if they would be available after we speak with the social services because I think the answers for the cahoots will be for our final presentation and for the content and information that we use for that. But that we do have attendees in the audience looking for the social services conversation. So if that's is that possible to find out miss moiston. Yes, Terry, could you just please raise your hand if you're going to be here throughout the meeting. And it looks like he did that or they did that. So yes. Okay, so if that so if it's okay with everybody in the group just in light of the time, I would like to move on and then we can double back to this conversation afterwards. Okay, great. And so just before closing out the conversation and moving to the social services feedback, I would like to take this time to speak on behalf of the group and recognize all of the work of miss moison and all of the help that you have provided the CSWG finishing part a of our charge. We're so very grateful to have you and appreciate all of the work you have done. Thank you. And we wanted to ask at this time if you would be able or interested in joining us at our presentation on Monday. Oh, absolutely.  So yes, absolutely. Thank you. Okay. And so at this time, I would like to welcome the organizations one by one to answer the social services questions we put together prior. After each organization presents, we will leave time for group members to ask questions. So is it okay at this time is moistened to welcome organization leaders and organizations. Miss Greeny founder and executive director at Amherst Community Connections. I don't see wailing here though. Okay. We also have Lev Ezra from the Amherst Survival Center. And she's under Brianna. I sent Lev my panelist Zoom link. So I apologize. That's why Lev is showing up as Brianna Owen. Yep. Here she is. Hi, Lev. Welcome. Yes. Thank you. Great. I'm looking forward to speaking with you all and I'm wondering if you could go to another organization first. I had a kid who got hurt and I'm listening in on this call as I get home and I should be able to be more focused in a few minutes. But organization could go prior. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much. Okay. Okay. Do we have Martha Hanner and Marcy Sklow from the League of Women Voters Racial Justice Task Force in the audience? Can we bring them in please, Miss Moisten? Hello, Marcy. Hello, Martha. Thank you guys for being here today. I think we sent you a few questions in advance in preparation for this meeting. And so I'm just going to pass the floor over to you guys to go over your responses. Hi. First, I just really have enjoyed all the work that you've been doing and getting to sort of know you just through these exchanges and observing you on the screen. I'm a little confused because we're not really a social service agency, the League of Women Voters and we don't fit into any of the categories that would answer like we don't. Well, I mean, I'll do my best. Martha, you can chime in too. So Martha and I are both Amherst League of Women Voters members and we're also part of something called the Racial Justice Task Force. And this is, I'm the chair of the Task Force and there's about nine, 10 of us. We started last summer and this was a recreation of a different committee of the League that looked at local social action and also social justice work and we sort of refined it to be racial justice work. And we've done a few different kinds of activities and we've put out a few reports, one of which I'd like to share with you, not in detail, but just tell you a little about it. Martha sent it to you in advance of this meeting because it's about hiring for how to do racial justice and more diverse hiring. But we don't really serve a population. We like to think that we hold the container for democracy. That's sort of what the League, in my vision, that's what the League does. It creates opportunities for education in terms of elections and candidates nights, who are the candidates hearing from them. It's a non-partisan organization, so there's never any sort of being for one candidate or another, but just to inform everyone and educate everyone. We do a lot around voter registration and trying to get more and more people registered to vote, educating people about voting, educating people about the different things that are on the ballot, et cetera. So those are the services we provide, education, information. We ran an event in March where we brought together different groups working on racial justice in Amherst, trying to get the silos dissolved a little bit because they're really important groups, grassroots groups that are doing important work, but they don't always interact with each other. So we created that opportunity for 185 people came to this event on Zoom and heard from the different groups about issues that were difficult for them. We are in the process of trying to create a network of different groups working on racial justice stuff, and we've invited you all to be part of that network. So we don't work with the Amherst police. It's kind of funny trying to answer these questions. What changes would you like to see? I can only speak for myself. We don't have, as an organization, a kind of a list of services that we'd like to see, but there is a definite policy program from the League on racial justice, on social justice. I think Martha, is there one on policing? I'm not sure if there's specifically one on policing. But generally speaking, the League is definitely in accord with the work that you all are doing. Let's see. There's a lot of issues that have not been addressed in town. I mean, it's a little awkward for, we didn't really understand how you, to what end you were inviting us tonight and spoke before this meeting to try and kind of figure out how we wanted to present ourselves to you and to ask you what you need from us, how we could support you. But that's not really following the type of what you're looking for with this list of questions. So I don't want to sidetrack your agenda, but we gave you the indicators report that talked about data and the lack of data in Amherst. That was a very important recognition that we discovered last summer, that that in itself is evidence of institutional racism, that there isn't the foundational understanding of where we are as a town on certain fundamental issues, questions around race. And this new report that we just did is on hiring. And it's based on one of our members' experiences, where as the executive director of a non-profit organization, she and her staff were able to increase diversity by 40%, which was quite a big deal. And there was almost like a step-by-step way that she shared with us and then our group created a document to kind of set that up. And yeah, we support Cress individually, although we haven't as the league made a formal statement. And that goes through the steering committee of the league. And there's a whole process for that. So Martha and I and the others, there are others from our group on this webinar as well. And, you know, so at this point, we're informally here as the Racial Justice Task Force, but we're not formally in some way making a statement for the league. That said, we do intend to write a statement of support about what you're working, you know, what your proposal is for town changes in policing and all of this. And that is something that we will be working on and getting approval from our steering committee and then having it, sending it to the council, et cetera. Does that, Martha, do you hear that? Yeah, I could say a couple of things. So I'm Martha Hanner. And we moved to Amherst after we retired. So I don't have, you know, a long history here. I'm an astronomer by training. So maybe I'll give a cosmic perspective or something a little bit. But I mean, I think that what you are doing by proposing the Cress is just so significant. I mean, it's really a paradigm shift. It's something that really is starting all over the United States. And, you know, we can help be in the forefront and, you know, help make it happen and, you know, help make Amherst be part of the change going forward. And so I would say the important thing to emphasize to the town council and the finance committee, but, you know, to the town in general, is the significance of this as just as a change in focus, a change in emphasis, and make it, you know, just as positive as possible that way. And, you know, the decrease in the policing will be, you know, a natural consequence, as I see it, of the work that then Cress slowly but surely takes over. It's also going to be a long and careful process to bring it about. I mean, as I read your report, I said, my goodness, you know, the kinds of special training and expertise that's going to be needed by the people who are organizing Cress, becoming the directors, getting it going, the training that's going to be needed for the participants is, you know, really significant. It's really going to take time. And I suppose the other thing to emphasize now then is the need for, you know, the substantial enough budget for this year to bring in, you know, at least, you know, a couple of the really well trained people to help get this going. That would be my two messages there. But this is really just so significant getting Cress started. It's really important that we do this. The other recommendations too, I think, as I see them are important and will come and do time and so on. But again, we have to say that at the moment, you know, please don't say the league is saying this yet because, you know, I think you understand that because we strive to be nonpartisan and so on, we do have a process we have to go through before we can, you know, make a public statement. We used to do this even when we were supporting town meeting articles. We had to go through a process and so on.  You really work tremendously hard. And we just want to hear from you what specific things we could best do to help. We do intend to make this this diverse hiring diversity memo one of our focuses over, you know, the coming months and so on by by talking to members of our boards and committees and helping to bring about some change to increase diversity and so on in very specific tangible ways and would welcome your suggestions on that. But I guess now just any questions you would have or comments of what you wish we should do? Well, I have a couple more things. Yes. Oh, okay. Excuse me. Yes. I'm looking at my notes from our meeting earlier when we were trying to kind of anticipate what you would be asking of us or what we could offer you and the first thing I wrote down was how can we help? How can we help support you in your work? And then in terms of meeting up with the council and meeting with the town manager, you know, hearing this conversation prior to this about the specifics of Cres and how it would work and how the training would happen. All these specific things like you're right, this wasn't your charge to come up with the details of a brand new program. I mean, that's asking a lot of, you know, especially given your time constraints. It just seems somehow, you know, very difficult and unfair. But the question to me is, is there agreement? Can there be consensus agreement between the council and you all about the principles that you are offering and the principles of Cres and the principles of the other wonderful programs? I just, I feel like that is the big picture that if you, you know, and I'm saying me, but we all kind of thought this way, if you can get the council to agree on the principle, then where the money comes from? What is the process of creating a brand new program? Does it take five years or one year?  And I'm not saying it should go slower. And I just really, I feel like that is what's important is to get a sense of that agreement. And let's see. There was just one other comment that one of our members was making about using the word civilian in your language. So I'm not really answering your questions, but I hope it's okay. We're taking the few minutes to tell you these things. And the word civilian, I think it's in your, in your report under, under the number one about creating Cres. And we, let's see, we recommend immediately creating Cres program to be a civilian unarmed alternative. The comment made, and I'll just use this little airtime to make this point that the word civilian implies military, military civilian, and that the intentionality is to not just create Cres, but to change the culture of the APD and that it, it isn't a military organization and it shouldn't be. And so change it, you know, just rewording that language of getting civilian out was important to one of our members. So anyway, I don't know if you have any questions for us, or if there's any other follow up that you want to have with us alone or with, you know, off in any way, we're available to be supportive to you. Thank you, Marcy and Martha. Are there any members that have any questions? Mrs. Pat? I actually don't have a question, but I just want to thank both Marcy and Martha. I've known you, Marcy, for a long, long time. You're a beautiful family, and I know you personally, and so many of the lead members have been supportive of our work. So I just want to say nothing but, you know, thank you very much. It will be very nice if, and I know that it's time constrained, if a league could at least make a statement of support. Absolutely. That's my hope. I'm one of the people that push to have lead come and talk to us.  Thank you very much. Would you need that by Monday to be in the record by Monday for the meeting, or is it something that could take a little longer? I mean, we're meeting on Monday. What do people think? I think by Monday, and it's kind of like to short a notice. It might not be possible because of our own internal things, but it might not be possible. But we'll see what we can do. We do have a league spokesperson who you know, Adrienne Treze, and maybe we can work with her to see what we can do for you in terms of a statement. I mean, I'm a member, but I'm not an active member. I wasn't an active member for over 10 years. All kinds of members are needed in the meeting. I should be more active, right? You're active enough in this capacity. Thank you so much. But League does a good work. They do a lot of good work. And, you know, for some of our young folks who may be thinking about running, League is a wealth of resources where people can get, you know, how the political process works. So these are the people that make it happen. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Pat. Ms. Ferreira, did you have something you want to say? Thank you. Yeah, I did. I mean, obviously, I wanted to thank, you know, the League of Women voters for all the ones that they do, and for them coming out tonight to talk about some of what they did. And I think that's the thing that I wanted to say. I mean, obviously, the questions were geared more towards the social services agencies because they're the ones that are the majority. But for you all, what I was interested in hearing, and I think you shared a lot of that information, is that what are you all doing in terms of focus on racial justice, right? Social justice kind of impacts. And also, how are we in alignment with the work that you all are doing, right? So that to kind of, and I think you've said it, and obviously if you can formalize it even better, but to kind of like make sure that we're not duplicating things, but that we're being supportive, right? And I think that was the importance of when we met with the reparations group last week was, okay, how can we be supportive? Because a lot of times what happens is that there's all these different groups doing work on racial justice. And then what we're doing is either we're doubling on things and not really kind of, we're wasting a lot of really minuscule resources, right? Because we don't have a lot of resources. So how can we kind of all do this work in a way together so that then we can maximize the resources and get more of the impact as opposed to doing the work in silos? So for me, I think that's what I wanted to kind of hear if there's anything specific that obviously we could promote in terms of what the work that we're doing, how we can continue to kind of build together. I love that question. It's a great segue for me to give a pitch about this network. And the idea of it is, and okay, so it started with this event we had, and we didn't invite you all to be a panelist in the event because we made a decision that it would be the grassroots groups and not the town groups. So Human Rights Commission and you all were not invited to that. You were invited to come, but not to be on the panel. But then for this network, we really are broadening it quite a lot. And the idea is to share resources, to share information, to share about events and to work together. But also, just in that one night, that one event, 185 people came to that. And there was momentum. There was an interest and excitement. A lot of white people want to know what's going on and how they can be supportive. And so there was this bigger vision kind of of, we could create like a resident movement of interest and support and activism around racial justice issues in Amherst. And it would depend on what the different groups doing the racial justice work would want to have as a network. And the leaks role would really be as conveners to be the container. So we could help be the administrators and send out the emails and get the date and do the zoom and all of that stuff. But that really the agendas and the focus and what's important would come from the groups themselves. And all the things that take time that nobody has the time to do, that's what we would take on. So that's what one of the things that we hope might come from the work of our task force is to help this come to fruition, to have this kind of a network. And we'll see. So far, I don't know if you all got the doodle poll for it. I did hear from this Pat. Thank you so much. She responded right away. And it's at this point June 6 was the day that seemed like a good time for everybody from 2 to 4 p.m. But then where you were thinking maybe we should wait until after all this budget stuff, after Juneteenth, after Race Amity Day and just create a different time and do it later in the summer. So we're open to seeing we're not trying to add one more burden on everybody that's already real busy. But we do hope this could be something that could help just to increase the momentum of the work. Thank you. Ms. Owen. I'm Marcy and Martha. I want to thank you guys both for coming to the meeting and sharing this, sharing what you all do and coming on such short notice. I just wanted to confirm the date for that event. You said June 6 from 2 to 4. Well, that was our proposed date. And it may, if people wanted, if people are available, it's a good day. So far there were like seven folks that weren't, there were 12 people who responded, five of which were us, our task force. And we don't really need to have a network within ourselves. But other than that, if it is a good day, go to the, I can resend the doodle poll email too, if that would be helpful. I'll send it to you, Ms. Owen. And then you can, you can pass it along with that work. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. Sure. And if none of these dates work, we can just go back to the drawing board and do it later in the summer, you know, because there's a lot going on between now and into June. Are there any questions, any other questions from the group? Okay. I also wanted to thank you, Marcy and Martha for coming. I think that it was very important to have you guys here, because we align in that we're fighting for similar goals here in Amherst and have a similar vision of making Amherst more equitable. So thank you guys for sharing that information and the resources and documents that you have with us. And I look forward to reading your report on hiring practices. I think that would be very beneficial for even the implementation of the Crest program itself. So thank you guys for your time and for your information today. And if it's okay, I would like to invite the next group to come share with us. Sure. Thank you. Thank you guys. And Ms. Moisten, if Lev Ezra is available, I would like to double back. I believe that she has her hand raised. Hi, Lev. Thank you for being here today. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me and sorry for my disruption earlier. Appreciate the chance to talk with you about the ways that this could interplay with the Amherst Survival Center. So yes, I'm Lev Ben Ezra and I'm here on behalf of the Amherst Survival Center. The Amherst Survival Center connects area residents with food, clothing, housewares, medical care, and community all through the power of volunteer efforts. And we certainly have a very strong focus within that on our food and nutrition programs, but we really offer much more outside of the pandemic in our full operational capacity. I always describe the center as really first and foremost as a community center where we have lots of resources that people can access to help meet their basic needs. And so when you ask the question of what population do we serve, I would say everyone. We serve people who we serve people who eat and we serve people who wear clothes and we serve people who have medical needs and we serve people who are interested in engaging in community and talking with their neighbors. And we certainly have a strong focus on providing resources that are helpful for folks who are living with low incomes and thus struggling to make ends meet by providing food, free clothing and housewares, free medical care, free access to other resources like SNAP enrollment or fuel assistance and those kinds of things to help make ends meet. We also have an array of services specifically for individuals who are experiencing homelessness. We have laundries and lockers and shower facilities and provide mail service as well as again in our full operational mode, really serving as a place to be a warming center in the winter, a cooling center in the summer and a nice place in all the other seasons in between. So yes, in terms of the specific services that we provide, we provide prepared meals. We provide groceries, both the full grocery shop for in our food pantry as well as daily access to produce and bread. We provide free clothing and housewares in the community store. We provide free medical care in our clinic. We have a resource center as I was mentioning earlier with volunteers and staff from other organizations helping people to link into other things and then a plethora of volunteer opportunities for anyone who's interested in engaging in that capacity. And the next question that you asked was in what capacity do we work with the Amherst Police Department? We do not have any current formal partnerships with APD. Our most frequent interaction with APD is in response. We have an alarm for our building and so occasionally when it goes off in the middle of the night or something like that, APD responds. We also have times when we set it off accidentally by not closing the door correctly or those kinds of things and the APD responds. And then we call our other interactions with police. I would say it's more common if we have to call 911 for something that it's a medical emergency, in which case police often arrive with EMS and then it is very rare that we would have an emergency, something where there is fear of imminent violence that we would contact APD to respond directly to that kind of an emergency. But that is how we have engaged with them. Is that what you meant by that question or is there something else you were looking for? I think that was a really good answer. I think we were just looking for any information you're willing and wanting to share in whatever that question means for you and your agency and then for any follow-up questions. Great. So in response to the proposals that you shared, I definitely think that the Immerse Survival Center and I spoke to this the other night would benefit significantly the Immerse Survival Center and the community that we serve would benefit significantly from a unarmed civilian community responder type team. Certainly we have situations in which where it would be helpful for us as a staff to have backup and our additional support to respond things like a mental health crisis or someone who is significantly intoxicated at a point at which they're violating our code of conduct and are making the space uncomfortable for other people and we need to address that or other things that arise, some other form of crisis where there is no violence taking place. But it would be very, very helpful for us to have an alternative to call. I did want to mention specifically that I think from a usability standpoint, I would very much appreciate that coming through the same dispatch option of calling 911 and I think that also because there are times where there are multiple layers to an emergency that's actually taking place, it's very helpful to have one dispatch that we could, one number that everybody, you know, five-year-olds know about 911 like that everybody knows and like that's the go-to for an emergency and to be able to have them then connect us appropriately based on the situation at hand. So yeah, so I definitely think that would be a significant benefit and I think one of the ways that I would just add to that in terms of our broader mission are that we certainly see more significant policing clearly of BIPOC communities and also of lower income communities and we're working with a population that is compared to our MRS population at large is disproportionately many more of our BIPOC community members. Also we work with many folks who are currently undocumented, we work with people who are currently homeless, etc. and have other other reasons why there is additional fear of the police and so being able to or additional, you know, other negative experiences there and risks in engaging the police and so it'd be helpful to have that alternate response. I did want to, in reference to the other the other components that you talked about, I would just encourage obviously I'm not aware of the depths to which you've engaged with other organizations throughout this process so I won't purport to make any assumptions there but to whatever extent it hasn't yet I would certainly encourage coordination with existing organizations around some of the resources that you're hoping will be provided via the youth center or the cultural center such as for example family outreach of Amherst or big brothers, big sisters. There are community action youth programs as another part of community action that serves young people bridge family resource center as another organization and so there may be there may be opportunities to collaborate or connect there or there may be reasons to go in a different direction but would just pose that and I would certainly we also have, you know, LSSE or the school or, you know, other entities that are providing programming and I don't know if there are appropriate collaborations there. I would also indicate that when we are when the Amherst survival center is again able to operate in a community center capacity that we would be very interested in exploring additional opportunities for connection there we have a beautiful space and have lots of delicious food and have lots of people who, you know, come in are comfortable there and we would love to continue to expand that and have it be more accessible and more welcoming and just a space that could be a space that is what the community needs it to be. Um, so I'm certainly interested in talking about that. Um, and then the last piece that I just did want to mention and doesn't directly fit into these proposals and to these items but in terms of just other issues that are kind of getting addressed as the town overall is and many different organizations are working on racial justice and supporting the anti-racism focus is really thinking about ways that as a town we can support employees who are coming to this community to work, BIPOC community members who are coming to this community to work and supporting employers because certainly, especially for folks who are coming from other communities and other towns where they live having Amherst feel like a welcoming place and one where they are safe is a really core need in order for employers to successfully recruit and retain the best available talent of people of all different backgrounds. Um, yes, I think, as Marcie sort of mentioned, I think I've, you know, wasn't 100% sure sort of what format to be presenting and so I hope what I shared was useful but I'm certainly happy to answer any other additional questions that would be helpful to the group. Thank you, Lev. Are there any questions from the group? This is that. The mine is actually not a question. First of all, how is your child? Is he okay? Did we lose you? We lost him. Can he hear me? Yes, I can hear you now. Sorry about that. That's okay. How is your child? Thank you so much. He is being taken care of by his other parents at the ER but I think is doing all right. What feels better? First of all, I want to also thank you for your support, for your strong support of CSWG on Monday and advocacy. Your testimony was actually powerful, you know, we're very grateful. Thank you. And for the work you do at Survival Center, it's such a great resource for the community and I know for some folks that was that my program serve, you know, benefit from you for what you guys do. So just want to thank you for your service and your leadership and for coming out tonight to present to us. Thank you for your advice and that's what I want to say. I'm very familiar with what you guys do. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Ms. Pat. Are there any other questions? Okay. Thank you, Lev, for coming and sharing with us today. I also just wanted to thank you for your support at Monday Nights Town Council meeting. I also heard your public comment and was very moved and feeling very proud that there was that much support and that we are speaking to all of the peoples in the town that we are looking to reach. Thank you so much for coming and sharing with us today. And if it's okay, I'm going to look to bring in the next group now. Bridget Hines and Anastasia Morton from Upward Bound. I think they may be in the audience. Hi there. Good afternoon. My name is Bridget Hines. I'm the director of the Upward Bound program and I'm here with the program's assistant director, Anastasia Morton. I can just say, as an Amherst resident, I'm just filled with gratitude for the work you're doing and really so happy to see the way the report came out, the diligence and materials that you presented there, the way that you broke down the 10 years of police experiences and all those different pieces, like just so, so impressive. I'm really, I'm really, really so happy that you folks are doing this work. I think that you probably invited us tonight because we don't serve youth in Amherst usually, although we have had a couple region-wise programs where 30, 40 youth from Amherst have shown up for one of our Saturday programs and really said, like, you need to have this program in Amherst as well. But we served 60 to 65 students a year, primarily, sorry about that, low income and first generation students from Springfield Mass in a year-round wraparound program. All of our participants are low income or first generation. 96% are both low income and first generation students and our program's mission really is to create a strengths-based, culturally proficient, college-going community for these young people. We want to provide the youth in our program who are all high school students with the resources they need to get into and then to succeed in college. And to do that, we're both in the schools during the school day and in the community after school. We provide advising, mentorship, afternoon, after school tutoring and the hardest subjects and AP and whatnot all the way down to ninth grade English. And we also offer Saturday sessions for academic and personal growth for students, exposure to enrichment activities. A couple of weeks ago, we had an online program with UMass Fine Arts Center where all the students were sent posters and then they did a close read analysis of the posters and the artwork and then created their own art. That's just one example of many of the weekend college-like experiences we provide to students. But we also really focus on personal development for our students, helping them find the pieces to be their authentic selves in the world and develop in the way that they want to develop and then try and connect them to whatever resources we can so that they can be their fullest selves. I think that we just do have that experience in the summer when we have a six-week residential program where our students from Springfield come up here and live on campus. We have the experience of them being Amherst residents for that six weeks. And that comes with all the highs and lows that being here and living in Amherst bring, especially for young people of color. So at this point, I think Stacey's going to talk a little bit about our experience with the police and with the community and some ideas we had about the program. But just again, I wanted to thank you all for all the work you're doing. So thank you so much for having us here today, everyone in the room. And I'm very, very happy to be here because it's like twofold of being a member of a community partner but then also being able to speak as a community member. So I think with the question of and what capacity do we work with the Amherst police department, it's kind of twofold because when the students come from Springfield, they have the experience of being an outsider to the Amherst community and especially because it's during that summertime. So I think that when the students are on campus, they kind of get that the profiling that comes in being in large groups on a campus that can come from campus police. And I think even as a community member, I've seen a lot of the young men in the community get profiled by campus police, but less from the Amherst police department because they are known for being in the community. But when we have the students come from Springfield and they're not known in the community, then a lot of times they can be profiled and this can happen at the pool when we're there in large groups or if we bring students to town to walk around because these are our down periods. So then really having to deal with that summertime profiling. So I think when it comes down to really in what capacity that we've had this opportunity to engage with them, it's really in this dynamic of campus police versus Amherst police. And I think that's very interesting because even as I was sitting and listening, I was just thinking more of like those times of like not really... Well, I wrote that in my paper on this line of the difference of policing, which is like college policing, which sees a lot of bad behavior and doesn't really get checked by Amherst police. But when you're on college campuses, young people of color are really camped heavily by campus police, if that makes sense. So I just like get to see the two of those things by being a community member and someone who works on the college campuses. So I think that's a lot of how when you work with them. So if I was to say what changes I would like to see provided by the town, I loved how in the mission you spoke about really having something as a mental health outreach. And I loved how Brianna said it previously, that it's like a crisis intervention that's non-violent in nature. So really what is something that's kind of not the police, not EMT, but also can come for when it's those times where somebody's been drinking too much. If it's something that's non-threatening, but really does need somebody just to intervene because it is a crisis. But also that really speaks to outside of this college partying atmosphere. Because I've noticed a lot of college partying atmospheres get police intervention, but it's not the intervention that other people would get when they necessarily need that intervention as well because it's more looked at as crisis intervention, less as policing. So I don't know if there was something that I was thinking as like on where all these colleges around here wasn't in a track that can kind of lead towards that. That's something that I would love to see like a line or funding to go to. Because even with us, we work a lot with internships. So we have professors that we can have students to work hours with them and be able to learn their field. Why wouldn't it be something that could have students do internships that's like, I mean, I feel like there's a middle between ROTC, which we really don't have in Amherst. But even if it's not ROTC, maybe it could be something that has that kind of disciplinary to say this is how you intervene into a situation that has crisis on different levels, but it still has that discipline that you might get from police academy. But you can also kind of have that within these different schools of the high school, Amherst College, UMass, I mean, this is a five college community. And then that can be another way to have an alternative to policing. And then I said, what issues in Amherst we believe are not addressed. So I really kind of feel like this divide of, so we looked at as a college town. And I think even just being up or down part of Amherst College, the students really get to use access of the campus during the summer. But during the summer, the college students are gone. And that's really when you get to see the community come out. But during the school year, when the college is here, I think what happens with policing for, let's say the community, and I'll say even a young man of color in the community, and even for those who have to be bystanders to it, is that we see a lot of our teenage young men interacting in the college crowd, and they stand out and they are policed heavily. And the young men of color are watching the college students kind of get away with murder. And they don't understand why they're not able to have the same rules and regulations. So I don't know if that's something that could be addressed, but just noticing that that like happens, I see that all the time with the students and really just having to have that conversation with them about yes, and it's different rules at play. But I don't know how else to say that. I feel like everybody gets it though. Okay. And with the population you serve benefit from. So I feel like yes, the population that we serve would benefit from it. But again, like I said, because they're on campus with us during the summertime, we do have access to crisis intervention. And we actually use it a lot. Like we wouldn't have a time where policing would really intervene if it does, we're able to squash that and say no, that's not really what we need. We're able to really access those resources. That's why I feel like with the college, it's available. And because we work on a college, we use it to the most of our ability. But once you like really are in the community of this college town, for some reason we act like it's not I mean, well, it isn't available. But we know the resource is like literally up the block at UMass, they got a whole health center that's about it. So we could have something like that too, because they disperse people for that. So that would be something I would bring up on the 24th, like the access is right there. Why can't we just kind of model something like that? And then I think that was really it. And oh, I agreed with what Deborah was saying before. I don't think that y'all should rush it. I think that yes, people want to know and they want to get it on paper. But once it's on paper, they will hold you to it. And that's like a contract. You should leave it open for being able to change it later on, because we're in pandemic mode now and we have no idea what post pandemic mode is going to give us. And it's going to have a lot more mental health things that are going to come out and play. So you really want to have a way to say, well, let's add this one or let's add this one or let's add this one or let's add that one. So really leaving that open. But then saying like Russ was saying, let's look at how they get the money and how they open up ours and stuff and give a structure, but I would go slow and not rush it. And I yield the floor. Thank you again for having us here. Thank you. I just say one more thing that as I was looking at the proposal that you have for the youth center, I think that's going to be really important. But there's some really specific things to Amherst that we don't think a lot about our graduation rate isn't great. And it's especially Amherst highest graduation rate really goes down when you take out the white young people who are graduating might get 93%. When you go to high needs, you're getting graduation rates that are, you know, around 79% for Latin action people, you're in the low 80s, that type of thing. And then after that, another thing that was really interesting to me is how many young people from the high school are going on to community college, like 25%. I just see that's another group of youth who could use supports because they're still remaining here in town. That's a really high number for Western Mass. Most other schools were seeing like around 13, 14% heading to community college. That might be a good thing. It might be that more of our youth who are graduating are going on to do something. But it also community college is just a time the community colleges have really low graduation rates. And it's a time where if our youth, so many of them are going there, they could use extra support. And the Trio programs are the upward bound programs. I think they provide a good model for that type of work that you could do at a youth center, hopefully with even more fun activities than we get in because we do have a little bit of a strong academic focus. Thank you all. I would like to move into questions, Ms. Ferreira and then Ms. Owen. So I just want to obviously thank Bridgette and Stasia. Hello. You're all doing fabulous work up above and has been doing some fabulous work for the last couple of years that, you know, since it's been reestablished, obviously, and that was one of the reasons we want to invite up above because we know it had been here years ago and had done fabulous work and now back to doing it.  How are they profile?  And then like you all talked about in terms of the youth center, you know, how could that be, you know, more of a partnership, right? We get that youth center in here. How could that be more of a partnership with the upper bound program to be able to kind of utilize some of those resources to be able to kind of really magnify a lot of what the young people bring to our community, right? All the wonderful things that the young people bring. But, you know, how, you know, for me, that's the thing, you know, how can we kind of be in connection in terms of what we propose and the upper bound program because, you know, obviously, there's a lot of things that need to be improved. But thank you all.  Thank you. And I love how you bring up the youth center because it's a great way for a mentorship and apprenticeship to go hand in hand. And a lot of the students that we work with in Springfield, they get a chance to come up here and work in like the Boys and Girls Club, even like go into like the schools. And that helps them think about wanting to go into teaching, doing more youth leadership work. And then it also helps the students really get to learn from their story and see that they can do the same things. And then it helps that first generation to keep going. Yeah, absolutely. And I would just say, Deb, we have experiences even where parents drive their students up to visit with us and on the way here for drop off, the parent realizes, oh, this is not a good idea because they're pulled over or have a police interaction and take their kids back home that they don't feel safe to put them way out here without their own protection at times. And we've lost a couple of really precious students that way, at least during the summer. When we get them back in the school year, obviously, we hold them close. But the other thing I was going to say is I think that there's a grand opportunity to write for a program like Upward Bound but Western Masswide. And if there's folks on this committee that are interested in doing that, it's a project I'm really interested in. Can I just say something before we get to the next question? I would feel bad if I didn't say this. I really want to restate again this division of campus police on our community. And I'm going to say young teens, boys of color, and this thing about Amherst police. I feel like a lot of the Amherst police are their basketball coaches. They post them in football. They're their track coaches. So they know the young men. But then you have some police that work on campuses and they don't know these young men. And when they see them step foot on campus, they are on them. And that's not fair for a lot of these young boys to have to have that type of police in because these are young boys who are like doing something positive on their free time. They're hanging out with their friends, not doing nothing.  That's a situation or like they're walking like three, why do three young people of color, if they're walking together, gotta have campus police roll up on them. That's a situation. But then it's like the cop is your basketball coach. So it was like you kind of like not knowing like what the situation is.  So I really don't want to like let that go underway. Like it's very difficult like when a college students leave like they leave, but we still in this community. So how come we can't work on the campuses without being police heavily? But sorry. I'm gonna stop. Thank you Anastasia. Miss Owen, did you still have a comment? Yeah, Bridget and Anastasia, I just wanted to thank you both for making the time to join us for the meeting tonight. And also to share the experience of the experiences of the students they're working with. One of the things that came up when we met with the APD was their community outreach to meet with fraternities and sororities. And for me one of the biggest gaps was like a lack of effort in them trying to work with programs where there were BIPOC students. So my question for you all is as we continue to the second part of our charge is on reforms for the oversight structure of the police. I'm wondering if you would find some sort of not partnership, but some sort of way to introduce students to the APD helpful or not. I just wanted to throw that out there because I do agree and I think that it the APD has a reputation for profiling people and I can only imagine what that feels like when you're in a new space and being on a college campus in general when your first gen is very intimidating. I would just say we've been part the UMass Police Department works together with Amherst Police Department in the summer to provide a summer ropes course. And we did that ropes course twice and had a great experience. And the third time that we went the group leader our students really felt not welcomed and really dealt with harshly. And so we haven't gone back to do that, but I think it was a you know a matter of personnel and also you know maybe it was it was looking like it was going to thunder the officer was rushing people through things that type of thing. But so we've had sort of mixed experiences like that. Our students have been in town having bubble tea and met you know the police dog and those types of things. There are some positive interactions, but I feel like it needs to go a lot deeper than that. I'd love to see some youth some youth on the advisory board and some youth connections and then the youth actually coming up with ideas for like deeper things, whether it's dialogue or co-created events or things like that. So that um so that it's a real connection not just you know once in a while like PR type of connection if you know what I mean. I would always love to engage the youth and officers in authentic dialogue. I think that's necessary for really breaking down positive and negative ideas on both ends because I think the police hold stereotypes about the youth and the youth hold stereotypes about the police.  So how do you really just dedicate time to that? I would always love to help with that. Please let me know if there's any way that I could help with that. But I also have to be honest with you. I feel like the police are very nervous to engage in their process. They feel that and I know me and Bridget was talking about this earlier that impact and intention they may not intend for things to like land in a certain way but their impact still has that effect on the student. But then also it's like for the students to know they may not intend to come off in a certain way but they may impact the officers in that way. So really again how do you have time just to set aside for really like going through that whole process and I think that's worth it. I feel like again I know I would say I'm definitely would love to give time and energy towards that but then also too I don't know if the police would be willing to do that because if they are you got a bunch of young people in the community that would love to help with that. I know that for a fact. I see you smiling like yeah my child be right. So I'm so I am an upward bound alum from Amherst and I just have to say that to this day I still remember the instructions how to take my notes because it was like drilled in from a teacher who we all thought was really cool and so of course we always did you know what he said at the time but I have to say at the same time it definitely in the summertime it's really hard because the kids don't have once you hit like 14 15 you're too young for summer camp and then you know maybe you can't quite get go to a job yet and so I found that upward bound really was able to a lot of the young black kids that I grew up with we all went to upward bound together and it just kept us out of a lot of trouble at the same time or just having bad interactions whichever you want to however you want to word it and so I just I hope that someday that we can bridge that gap that bridge again and so we can install the Amherst upward bound program again and I would love to help with that if there's something that needs to be done and so thank you both. Thank you Jennifer it's so great to have upward bound family in the room I know there's more than one here. Thank you for saying that it's always good to like really think about the benefits of good mentorship because I think that's another thing we talk to the students about is that we are upward bound it's like we try to really make sure we hold the space where we can make sure everybody receives good mentorship but we know when you leave not everybody's really trying to mentor you in the right way to go down the right path so it's like really can we find more spaces and opportunity where students can get access to that. Thank you Anastasia are there any other comments or questions from the group? Okay thank you Bridget and Anastasia thank you so much for taking the time out today to come meet with us your information was very helpful and I'm definitely going to keep it in the front of my mind when thinking about the multicultural center and the youth center. Thank you guys so much for your time and I think we have one other group in the audience looking to share with us today. Do we have a representative from the Human Rights Commission? If you are in the audience can you please raise your hand? You have the bulk of the Human Rights Commission here so if you can just give me one moment I will pull them in. Awesome thank you. Did we lose Ben? Okay and do we have all the members in? We have all the members that are here that are present at the meeting at this point in time. Okay I would like to welcome you all here today and thank you for your time and you can go ahead and take the floor. So yeah so the chair has left he must have had to leave and so I don't know if one of Matthew or Erica or Deb if you would and since not here either if one of you would like to speak or all three of you have you know a little bit to say or not. So I you know there's there's a lot for us to to share obviously over the course of the number of years we we back in 1999 were set up to deal with with complaints about discrimination and over the years have talked with and worked with the police department. I've got a couple of things that that I will mention have been ongoing problems for us that that perhaps you guys could think about. One is that we have not historically had the ability to to render a decision. We have mediated with anyone who has wanted to come in because our our meetings have been open under our open meeting law when people have come in with a complaint. We had a human rights director for a number of years who have received that complaint and could investigate it but would have to would have to determine whether investigation was necessary and in doing so would then determine whether they could mediate the problem or would bring it to the Human Rights Commission for mediation. That has not really been the role of the Human Rights Commission for two reasons. One is that the we have shifted the role of human rights director back in the 2000s late 2000 before 2010 there was a human rights director human rights director that I think lost the faith of the town and so funding was cut and we also reportedly there were not that many complaints and so with those two things the funding was cut so that there was a human resources director with human human rights director responsibilities as well. So one of the concerns I would have particularly with the the resources angle that you guys have done such a great job of pulling together what the needs would actually be for the press program and for some of the other programming it's not clear entirely how long if the CSWG does not stick together and if there isn't a process of figuring out who's going to stay in those roles over the years then there's a question of who's going to remember why you set things up the way you set things up who's going to have the pull in the town to be able to retain funding for the work that you want to do and who's going to have the respect of future town counselors when this becomes more of an issue that was big back remember 2020 and 2021 oh that's when everyone cared about this issue and now it's 2026 and you know there's a funding question so there's there's a lot of things to think about there's also some language in there about being able to issue subpoenas you know again usually that's going to have to be done through a court I I certainly yield and the understanding on that to Debra and but my understanding would be that usually you'd have to have to have a court say that someone is not cooperating and that because of that they're in violation of of an order from the court under penalty to to either appear or to to give documents and if they don't do that then they're going to be arrested and put in jail which is an interesting thing to do where the person who may not be cooperating with you is your local police department so just just some things to think about there um I had a bunch of other things but I want other people have a chance to speak as well thank you miss Hagan so um hello everybody um I just had a couple of concerns not necessarily from the human rights commission point of view but I was listening to the conversation earlier and I am quite concerned that you all have a charge that you have to meet by Monday and I think it's a very important charge and I don't want you to rush through it and miss something so I know that you know Debra and Russ were talking but Debra has to work and Russ had to go and so I'm just a little concerned about that aspect of you know getting the wording correct and not rushing so that you miss something so I just wanted to say that I appreciate all the work that you all are doing I feel a lot of pressure myself right now as um uh almost retiree of the school to um to continue to advocate for my black and brown sons and daughters and I call them sons and daughters because I truly believe they're family Alicia's always you know Jennifer I've had Jennifer Alicia I let me go down the list and see how many kids there are somebody how many adults right now I actually have taught or while I've been at that school and so um I just I'm concerned that whatever the charge is that the town council wants you to do by Monday gets done right in an order without so much pressure because I'm feeling the pressure right now from you all to get it right and I just want to make sure that that nothing gets missed um as far as the human rights commission I feel like we are pulled in all kinds of directions in order to try to support so many different entities and it's something that I cherish but it's also something that I'm like oh one more thing but um I joined the commission in order to be able to do that one more thing um so that's all I wanted to say I'm glad to see young people like Darius here I'm um a little so Petrua couldn't be here today and to have such a young person be the vice chair of our human rights commission I don't know if you know that but we have a high school senior who's our vice chair and um I think that that's important because we always have a young voice I heard somebody say that we need the young people's voice we need students here and nobody responded but I wanted Darius to say wait a minute that's me that I'm the voice of the young people so Darius speak up don't let anybody silence you let them know that you're here and you're listening and you're taking it all in and you're speaking for your peers that's all I wanted to say right now and I hope I didn't overstep any of my bounds but I really do have a concern um that we have a very important charge you all have a very important charge and I don't want you to rush and miss something so I also think that that was Ms. Ononi Baku's concern as well as I heard her speaking so that's it um I'm here if you need me for anything else thank you Mrs. Haykud um Ms. Neubauer um good evening everybody can you hear me okay yeah um I just want to say first of all thank you for having for inviting the Human Rights Commission to be with you guys tonight it is wonderful to sit in on your meeting um I also want to say um I just want to commend you for the incredible work that you have done this year the report was stunning I mean I was just completely blown away when I read it and um it was clearly the result of incredible hard work and dedication and a willingness to sit with pain and translate that pain into concrete action so um and requests for proposals so I just I just have so much respect for the work that you guys have done and I thank you you know on behalf of of our community um I am not speaking as a human rights commissioner tonight but I um although I sit on the Human Rights Commission I do have a couple of questions that I wanted to ask you and not necessarily to you know say any dialogue on these questions tonight but as I was listening in the beginning these questions were running through my head um let me just pull them up um so the first question I had was um if the Cress program will be an alternate an alternative responder model for um so police are not no longer responding to mental health substance use um or homelessness issues in the town um what is the sort of complementary vision for and maybe this is in the report and I just am not remembering it um what is the complementary vision for reducing community policing because once you take these three issues off off of the hands of police officers they will have more time and I'm concerned that they will use that time to increase patrols on communities on the neighborhoods that are primarily BIPOC neighborhoods um I'm also concerned um about racially biased traffic stops and um I also don't remember reading how you are proposing that gets dealt with where unquestionably BIPOC residents are more vulnerable than white residents and um if Cress is specifically sort of focusing in more on an alternative responder model for those three areas how will the traffic stops you know get addressed and then the other suggestion I had because I work in mental health um if Cress workers are employees of the town and not of a mental health agency I think you don't I would recommend not overlooking an extra item in the budget for supervision of those workers because a lot comes up when you work with these populations it's very emotionally taxing work and they need a place and someone who's more senior than them um with more experience to be able to process the experiences that they're having to stay safe in the job that they're doing so I just don't want that to get overlooked so that's all thank you thank you mr charity so I just wanted to add one more thing which is just um our work with uh the Amherst police department over the years in addition to talking with them having police chief come in and talk with us about um what kind of training we've also tried to um talk with him about things that would be both preventative and responsive to problems that we've seen um preventative uh so we had a commissioner who raised the concern about officers who are um perhaps funded by some other kind of of association might get funding to go do military style training and policing um and get flown out somewhere Arizona Las Vegas I don't know where it is but um and you know so I had a conversation with police chief about that and he said look I can't control what they do when they're not um when they're not on my dime when they're not um working for the town so if they take vacation days and they go do that I can't stop them from doing that but that's the kind of concern that we have with regard to um if you hire someone who thinks that that the response that they need to have um to a concern in the town is a military style response that's not good um but that's a limit on what what the police chief can do uh with regard to other people's free time um the other thing is that when we have uh talked with them usually the chair of the the commission has an opportunity to help mediate some of the problems that have come up but the police chief has been very responsive in saying I I'm going to talk to my officer about this I understand this issue now uh usually we have not had a direct relationship with the officer who has been complained about we hear from the the person who has made a complaint and we talk to the police chief who tries to present the perspective of the officer um um I there are sometimes concerns that the town has and I'm not sure if this is union contract based uh in having an officer show up um for these types of discussions um or for having any employee of the town show up in a situation where they might get sued uh one of the reasons that the human rights commission hasn't been the best body before dealing with something that could lead to the lawsuit uh is that uh in order to sue for some types of discrimination you have to filed a complaint with the massachusetts commission against discrimination um and so if we are a step in talking with people that slows them down from taking that step which would allow them to sue if that's what they eventually need to do um then we're actually a bit of an impediment to their getting the remedy that they might be looking for um that said um you know the the fact that most situations are dealt with with people being able to speak to someone and have their concern heard um you know it is something that obviously whatever kind of review commission is there would would be able to engage in as well and I think creating more of a sense of inclusion which is what I think um the other components not necessarily the press component although I think it is more inclusive to have someone come up who clearly cares about you as opposed to someone who might very much care about you but they have you know a gun or a night stick with them when they're coming up to express their caring um I don't know if anyone has ever come up to give you a hug while having like a weapon out that doesn't feel so good um and so I think having uh the whole program uh focusing more on inclusion and on caring for our community is is a very good approach and I'm glad that and and support the move in that direction so thank you very much for all the work you've done I will tell you that um you know as as someone who um was able to sit on the commission on the on the group that met with most of you to to help select you um I you know I uh I I could not have imagined that you would have done such work and pulled it together so quickly um I did think that the town council had posed an impossible ask of you and uh you've gone above and beyond and I just want to tell you I'm so impressed and so proud of the work that you're doing for our town so thank you very much thank you so much Mr Charity um at this time I want to open the floor to any questions from the group Mrs Pat well first of all I want to thank um three of you for um speaking with to us tonight and for your patience you know waiting for a long time I thank you for what you do at the Human Rights Commission is actually the used to be the only body that has a lot of uh BIPOC folks the only thing about um your commission that I would really like to see change is why does it have to be an open meeting because it will help people to come more forward uh to report um complaints about uh discrimination and injustices and um I think it's something that you know people should be talking about so that you guys can be more effective I think I would like to see Human Rights Commission to be able to actually implement accountability when they investigate um I would like you guys to have more power because you know the role you guys play in this town is very important but you guys need to be giving more power to do it and so that's my frustration in in a body that have a lot of people of color and I know you guys are doing a lot that I would like to see the town like give you guys more power or whatever the process it takes to do that and perhaps we can I can see how CSWG can like push an advocate for something like that in our final report um so Miss Hager thank you thank you for your service in the school system um I'm from Nigeria as most people know it takes a village and all my kids are your kids and we've been friends for a long time God bless you thank you um I know the school system will miss you um but um you deserve to to retire but you're sitting in the community thank you so much for everything you've done from you know school and after school and field trips and you know you really you really helped shape a lot of kids lives including mine um so I want to thank everybody for what you all are doing about Deborah I'm also in mental health field and I know that we don't take the press program very likely absolutely lots of supervision for online workers you know has to happen in order to sustain the program because I can see potential for high burnout so we thought this through very well when we plan the program to make sure that there is sufficient supervision so we'll see how you know the town officials will take this there is money to pay for this program from free cash to marijuana funding to reserve from APD money there is money to do all the programs that we suggested the issue is is their will is a priority that this shall happen in this town so but anyway thank you all for coming out thank you mrs pat are there any other questions miss ferrera um I might have missed this because as you all know ron zoom and you know my kids came in and you have to kind of you know um talk with them and and there was some home stuff right now with this whole zoom world but um the question that I was interested more so in and I don't know if that's something that could be provided at some point to us because I when I was talking to other community members they had to have also mentioned it is like you know since the police department is funded by you know the town um when the police are sued let's say you know because of discrimination because of other complaints and things like that isn't that drawing upon um town funding isn't that um kind of pulling away from you know other resources that that money could go towards so I'm not sure if like the human rights commission would have information in terms of that or how is it that maybe we could find that type of information isn't that insurance I think that's what you have insurance for for lawsuits I speak as an employer yeah but but remember that the more complaints you have the higher the insurance then you got pay so that's still resources right so that my thing is just because that could go also towards why it is that we need to kind of fund other programs like well we recommend it right that's going to avoid those types of lawsuits and complaints if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing yeah good point though yeah but insurance yeah well I I don't know that any of us can speak to the um any agreements that have been reached or or any suits that have actually gone forward I know that there have been there are conversations and obviously if you can remedy the concern and if you can fix it that that is better than having something that's an ongoing concern that you can settle this one and then you have to respond the next time the same officer is doing the same thing so but I can't speak at all to the financing of that type of thing and and Jennifer I guess if if you could speak to it you probably shouldn't um but you know again if if that's something that if you could get a request to the town council for are you frozen did he just freeze am I frozen for everybody now or oh no you're frozen now okay all right sorry sorry you know zoom but yeah I was saying that if you uh you could certainly say that if you are going to do an analysis that is all of the costs that if you're going to try to provide all oh he's frozen again maybe he can shut up the video he might help him oh good thinking all right can you hear me now yeah all right um so by the way this doesn't normally work for me to show off the video but uh I was just saying that you can ask for um if if there's a challenge to how much funding uh it now we can't see when he freezes well it can also be something that he can um send to us you can email yeah we we'll talk another time we'll talk yeah I'll just send it to us by email um Matthew but I wanted to also obviously thank all of you for all your dedication and our work too we always we all have to do all of this in collaboration I do have a question for you guys so can somebody walk me through says they put APD officer pull somebody over and they want to fight complaint would they come to you guys first or do they go to the to the chief usually they go to the chief um if they do not feel that the chief has responded appropriately um or if they're uncomfortable going to the chief historically they were able to go to the human rights director and then the human rights director would be able to take information and see what the next steps should be uh usually that would be a mediation if they felt that the police chief wasn't getting uh what the concern was and so what about you guys the human right commission what do you guys do all right so that that would be when the chair of the commission would be invited in by the human rights director uh to help help mediate the and and that's where our educational component and mediation component fits together uh because we're able to explain you know um when uh chief Livingstone wanted to have more officers um in housing complexes uh in order to have a better relationship he needed I think some education on what over policing feels like for those of us who you know I'm from Crown Heights Brooklyn originally um so I have an understanding of what over policing means and the likelihood of an arrest and the likelihood of a bad situation with police officers that he may not have and so it's helpful for him to get that that understanding and the chair of the human rights commission usually has a does a component of that I mean I I know the process I was just what I'm trying to get at it so the human right commission couldn't for example recommend you know discipline an officer like um okay so so that's what we need to fight you know advocate for fight for to have for my right commission have authority to actually do its work you know that's you know one of the things I'm hoping you know CSW and I can't speak for everybody because we we still have another report that is due next month so where hope you know I'm hoping I will be able to like you know bring that up but I can't speak for everybody tonight thank you I think um Ms. Pat if I can say I think your suggestion to advocate for and I don't even know if within mass general law if this is a possibility that the human rights commission would meet in a closed door it would not be an open meeting that is a fabulous suggestion because like having sat on the human rights commission for a couple years now I was really blown away by the amount of testimony that you were that CSWG was able to receive because we have received precious little and I think it's because people really just don't feel comfortable coming forward in a public manner because our meetings are open and um so I think that that would allow us to do the work of an actual human rights commission in a much more effective manner it's a great suggestion and it has nothing to do with you guys at all it's not the people on it it's how the system you know created the body and I just feel yeah I've thought many many times to apply to human rights commission say the fact that it doesn't have the power and authority for accountability you know kind of like the scourages needs to apply so but I think it's a great concept yeah and I'm wondering how this will fit into the resident oversight board and also I don't know how long CSWG is going to stay so I can see some you know all these um groups you know working together collaboratively to effect changes in this town okay yeah I just like you know my thoughts yeah I think that we've struggled before with the fact of um as as Audre Lord put it you know dismantling the master's house with the master's tools right um so if you are um trying to follow and you're set up to follow mass general law in a way that um would allow you to have a closer obsession only if in certain circumstances so if you see that there's litigation that is coming forward and you're speaking about that um you'd be able to have a closer session in the second session if you do not have a reasonable belief that that's occurring you can't so this is something that I brought up with our liaison at the time six years ago Alyssa Brewer um she was the Human Rights Commission liaison uh in back in 2015 16 17 and you know it's it's it's not set up uh in the way that it could be in order to have more of an effect and that's something that uh you know we've talked about over the years as as revising the bylaws and so on you know I think what you're suggesting would have the effect of of doing that and having an entity whether you call it Human Rights Commission or you call it the um a DEI body that is um or for the resident um you know review board that that you have uh in the plan all of these are ways of getting to the heart of what the problems are so um so thank you for again doing that for me so another thing is are you guys compensated for your time at all no not that's something we need to also talk about at CSWG I mean I'm not speaking for everybody but this is a a body that is you know has some people of color on it so yeah okay thank you thank you Mrs. Pat Ms. Ferrara yeah I just want to be quick because I know that obviously we've kind of um you know prolonged this for a while you're probably very tired and of course thank you for sticking around but I just know that Debra had kind of made um you know two other questions in terms of and and it's good that you brought those questions to us because it then it's not clear in our report so we want to make sure that when we do the presentation that we clarify because I know that in the report when you ask about traffic violations we did say that uh Crest would be responding to anything that was nonviolent non-criminal okay so that would include um anything you know in terms of traffic violations and some other things you know so but it might be that it has has to be in phases right because in terms of those details that need to be worked out um but it is it is something that they would be responding to nonviolent non-criminal types of issues and then the other one was around um if Crest is responding to these nonviolent non-criminal um types of of of calls right because it would be anywhere from like 25 to about 35 percent of calls deal with these types of of issues you are saying so what would happen to the police would they now have more police to be patrolling and that's not our intent either so it's good that you said that because it's not clear our intent is that obviously um there's a decrease right in in a police because obviously they wouldn't they wouldn't be a need for them to be out there uh doing that because now Crest would be dealing with responding to those uh issues right so I think you know it's good that you asked those questions because we need to be clear in in terms of our communication thank you miss Ferreira um does the group have any other questions at this time okay um I also want to personally thank you all for coming out tonight and for being very patient and waiting till the very end um to get to your questions all of your comments and feedback were very helpful um and just learning more about what you guys do because I personally didn't know that much before this conversation it seems like it may be um important for us to stay in communication with you guys especially for the second part of our charge um just to learn more about the history for what has worked in the past when the commission did have the ability to um take the complaints and we're doing that process and what the the real need is for the town of Amherst itself um and so I think that that those things would be good to be in communication with you guys moving forward um and we appreciate you and your time today thank you guys so much we appreciate you all and your work too and let us know what we can do the help thank you all thank you thank you have a good night everybody okay and we're coming towards the end of our meeting here we just have a couple of things left on the agenda uh so if it's all right with everybody I'm just going to pass to Brianna so she can finish out the meeting so the last two topics on our agenda is the um oh everyone I don't know if I accidentally did that or if they left or not um to Sheena left she apologizes it's up for her I moved over okay we have to be at least four people to form a quorum yeah you are okay four nobody should leave please otherwise the meeting will end please am I back am I back yes okay okay I'll try to be brief because I know we're running over time too what about I didn't know if you guys wanted to hear from Terry oh he's still yeah Terry's still here yeah they are still here yes oh my god oh should we because if if they're still on if they're still on it might not be a bad just here hi Terry you know I love a CSWG meeting I'll only say at least you at Terry you can get your laundry done while you're just listening you can kind of you can do everything while we're on we are patients that I do um so can someone remind me of exactly what you'd like me to comment on I don't want to take a I know that when you get when you one of your presentation you had mentioned you researched at Grand Hood and there was some shooting even with the program so if you can just talk about that very briefly yeah so it's kind of in line with kind of what you've been talking about just that at the end of the day adding more things doesn't change policing necessarily and unless you change policing so cahoots and Denver have both both experienced police violence there's still a lot of distrust of the police people won't won't call the police in Eugene they'll wait for crests that type of thing so that's kind of what I was getting at and so and I think part and part of that is why it's so important to fully fund press and I think that's a good argument to fully fund press because it's not you're not just using it as like oh we need more mental health resources it's that we don't need a strong massive police force and we don't need community policing um that any quality of life uh thing that the police have been reacting to and being I mean they've been asked like that's the other thing about policing is that they're not actually doing a bad job policing at all like they're great cops but what they're being asked to do isn't what people want or what we're realizing that we want is kind of like how I normally frame it um and that's because community policing is we'll always set up the cops to do the wrong thing because they're looking to be punitive like that's what that's the tools that they have um and that's their job they're law enforcement they enforce the law and so this the idea of crests is to not enforce the law it's to move money out of law enforcement out of the punitive system and into something that can help people um so that's what why I brought in kind of the examples that happen in Eugene and the continued examples that happened in Denver is that doing a small pilot or underfunding crests is you're not going to see any changes and possibly even just with crests alone there also needs to be a conversation and working with like the town and um like I think the most hopeful thing was when Paul Bachman said like is community policing the right thing for Amherst like that's kind of where you want to be hitting because that's from the research that we did it seems to be community policing where you're having cops trying to make sure there are no disturbances and like keeping quality uh maintaining quality of life is where you see a lot of issues um so like when they're maintaining quality of life for some people by policing other people um and so the idea with crests is that you'd stop asking the cops to do that under the guise of oh I'm helping this person with their mental health um and you'd get someone who can help them with their mental health and not worry about the other people who might be being disturbed um so that's kind of why I put that in there um and I think that's kind of how one way you could use it just that the idea of funding crest isn't just about funding crests it's about rethinking community policing uh rethinking policing specifically community policing um and trying to come up with something that does what the people and what is right by everyone and not just protecting a few thank you question terry will you be joining us um for the town council meeting I think it would be powerful um for the council members to hear seven gents recommendations I'm getting a little bit worried because Lynn greesmer did email our group a list of questions and one of the in the questions one of the questions was what grants can we look for and what I'm worried about is if we get grants um are they going to fund crests and then keep police officers because if we don't decrease the amount of officers the inequities in the town are still going to continue to happen so I'm just really concerned about that and I'm wondering if you'd be able to join us for that presentation and sort of explain the cahoots program and why are other recommendations are equally as important yeah yeah I will definitely I will definitely be there and I believe seven john as a whole will be there as well very good very good good miss walker um I just also wanted to add because in addition to that question there was actually an entire set of questions that the town council sent to us uh just shortly before this meeting there was one set for the cswg but another set specifically for seven gen um and so it would be very helpful probably to get those to you guys before our presentation um because they have very specific questions that then we might be able to just present the answers to or find ways to make sure that they're included in our presentation yeah and I think the other thing just while I'm on here I meant to come in for public comment I'm so sorry the meeting on the web your website is monday's meeting so it says 6 30 and I didn't read it closely enough um but it sounds like based on everything that we've heard tonight and just what you're all are saying I think one thing you might really need to highlight is the need for the cswg to continue and that's going to be tricky because you are the cswg so like I know that's kind of a hard ask um but I think it's really really important because everyone's like who's gonna oversee this um change and who's gonna like do all this stuff um and it's it should be you like you know this so much better than anyone else in the town at this point and you've heard from so many different constituents so um I think kind of what the human rights I mean what everyone has said is there's just this need for your voices to continue in some capacity and I think to me it almost seems like that is the most attainable um request and should be like I just feel like you have to make sure that pushing crests and pushing full funding and pushing um your all's oversight of of these activities as they go forward because I feel like you all know that it might not work out the way you want in the way we want it to but if you at least if you're in the room for the next year and in the next budget cycle that so much more can happen and you all know that I mean just how much you've all brought to the table for this budget cycle is huge imagine if you had one more year like at least it would be so powerful so I think and I hope the town council hears this and I hope they recognize the need of this guidance that you have all provided and really appreciate how much effort and I mean getting up at 6 a.m. to do this to rush this so that you're treated with respect is so upsetting and frustrating and I just I don't think everyone like I get why people are worried and want you to nail it down right now but I think another way to go about this is to be like this was ridiculous from the start we're going to nail it down we just need more time is also reasonable and valid and should be heard so that was going to be my public comment I'm sorry for taking your time but I just hope to see you all for much much longer in Amherst because you all are honestly the driving force of this change so thank you. Ms. Pat. So Thierry, your group Seven Gen, I just again I can't thank you guys enough you know for the incredible amount of work you guys did and for superb you know report that you guys put together and I'm looking forward for you guys you know helping with presenting on Monday I'm so so grateful I also want to thank the fund police what is that called how they came out you know in full force and on Monday well organized and just made powerful strong showing and testimony and I'm so so grateful so we have a lot of support with with with all the recommendations that you guys you know Seven Gen helped us to put together thank you I'm so grateful to you to Dr. Shabazz to Dr. Katie and to Dr. Sanjay as some team and now you know I would like you know the time to continue to do business with Seven Gen because you guys know your stuff. Ms. Walker. I apologize in advance just because I have already closed the agenda that was in front of me so I don't know what what we're supposed to be talking about right now and I do realize that we are over time but I am still looking at these questions that were sent to us from the town council and I'm just wondering if there's any way that even we can briefly go over of them just because we're going to have to answer all of these to the town council formally before we have another meeting with the entire group and I don't know if anyone has like particular ways that they would like for us to answer these questions um and then I'm also just looking at one very specific question that was posed with the SWG but it's about the Kahootz program and I'm just not even sure entirely how we would answer these questions or if these are things that we can pass to Seven Gen to see if that they can find a way to include those