2020. I'm sorry, I will now begin again. Good evening. It's May 24, 2021. And this is a meeting of the town council. I'm going to go through opening meeting and then we'll immediately be going to the hearing. Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law allows us to hold this virtual town council meeting. Given that there's a quorum of the council present, I'm calling the May 24, 2021 meeting together at to order at 631 p.m. I'll call upon each counselor. Please verify you can hear us and we can hear you and then re-mute your mic. Shalony Balmille. Present. Alissa Brewer. Present. Pat DeAngeles. Present. Garcy DeMond. Here. Lynn Griesmer is present. Mandy Jo Hanneke. Present. Dorothy Pam. Present. Evan Ross. Present. George Ryan. Present. Kathy Shane. Present. Steve Shriver. Present. Andy Steinberg. Present. Sarah Schwartz. Present. Thank you. We're going to immediately move to announcements, which will be shown on the board. And I want to particularly call attention to the May 27, 2021 530 special meeting of the town council and finance committee with the community safety working group for the purposes of looking at the social services line item for community responders. On June 7th at 630, we have the public forum on the capital improvement program. You can see the list of other committee meetings on there. And to just remind you, race amity day is June 13 at four o'clock. And that will be a virtual ceremony. And you can look at it on the web or you can see the connection on the website of the town. And Juneteenth is Saturday, June 19. And there'll be events throughout Amherst and throughout the day. Please note there are three opportunities for public comment tonight. The first is regarding the North Common. The second is a general public comment. And the third is after the presentation and the council question and dialogue with the community safety working group. We will go on then to the hearing. This public hearing is on parking regulations. GART changes related to the North Common. Let me just give you a little background. The plans for the North Common were brought forth to the select board prior to the seating of the town council. Feeling it was too close to the transition in government, the council, the select board did not act. These plans were then officially introduced to the town council on November 16th, 2020. They were referred to the town services and outreach committee. Joint meetings between committee and the council were held on December 17, 2020 and January 18, 2021. And discussed at other meetings. This was brought back to the council who voted on March 22, 2021 to approve plan 3B as shown with no modifications. However, right after that it was brought to the council based on our public way policy, we needed to hold a hearing. And that brings us to tonight. Notice of this hearing was on the town's bulletin board and in the Hampshire Gazette on May 10th and 17th on the bulletin board on May 6th. In addition, a section including, I'm sorry, notice was mailed to a butters on May 5th, 2021. In addition, a section including the two options and an opportunity to ask questions and make comments were included on the town's website, www.engageammer.org. We will start with a brief presentation by Dave Zomac and Giltford Mooring. And then we'll go to public questions and comments both in favor and in opposition. And finally, we will take this up as a vote later, which point counselors may have additional questions they want to ask as well. So David, please go ahead. Thank you, Lynn. You stole a little of my thunder there, but I think I've got some material to work with. So thank you very much. As Linda indicated, there's been an extensive planning process leading up to this evening's discussion. I would refer those listening at home to the town website and particularly the Engage. We do now have a page up specifically on the North Common Project. And there's more information, of course, on the town council website from previous meetings and the TSO site as well. As Lynn indicated, some months ago TSO and the town council discussed in some detail the plans for those new to this project or to refresh your memories at home. We landed the town council with various input from the community and from staff ended up on plan two, the revised plans. And if necessary later in the hearing, we can pull these up. Athena, I'm sure, can pull up plan two. We call this plan two revised or plan three B. And again, those are available on the website. Those discussions were lengthy and they were supported by drawings developed by the engineering department at DPW with input from the planning department. In addition, there were two memos, one from the superintendent of public works who's with us tonight. Go for morning to the town manager dated March 16th and then one from the manager to the town council dated March 17th. And those summarized a number of the features of both of those plans with specific emphasis, excuse me, on parking and the changes proposed in parking. If I could, I just wanted to quickly go through and I'm referencing the March 16th memo from Mr. Mooring to the town manager. And if I could quickly go through some of the major differences between the two plans and some of the similarities. And I'll really, I'll go quickly through this because I know the town council has spent a great deal of time on this. But in terms of the plans themselves on South Pleasant Street, the plans are quite similar. The main feature is that they close the entrance to Main Street from South Pleasant Street. On Main Street, the major difference is in plan three B and that had seven angled parking spaces on Main Street. And I'm sure we're going to be talking about those later. So that's the Main Street side. The Main Street parking lot, there is a significant difference between the two plans. In plan two, the lot is reduced to a total of 22 spaces. In plan three B, that plan removes the entire parking lot. And then on Bultwood Avenue, both plans strongly encourage and design for one-way traffic from north to south. And then both plans, both two modified and three B, both plans add eight parking spaces along the west side of the street. In total, the parking summary, well, I think I'll hold on the parking summary until later. But in total, we go from a total of 43 spaces to kind of that that's the do-nothing plan. Plan two modified, there's a reduction to 38 spaces in total. And then in plan three B modified, there's 27 spaces total. And by total, I mean those both on the North Common on Main Street or on Bultwood. So as Lynn mentioned, on March 22nd, the Council did vote to move forward to proceed with plan three B, which eliminated all of the parking on the Common itself, added the seven spaces on Main Street, added the eight spaces on Bultwood and added the seven spaces on Main Street, which were back-in parking. So I think I will stop there unless Mr. Moreing would like to add anything else. I believe he is with us here tonight. Wilford. No, I think Mr. Zoeman covered everything. Then I'm going to ask for public comment. Please raise your hand if you'd like to speak about either the plans in opposition or in favor of Sam McLeod. Please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Sam McLeod, Southeast Street, Amherst. I also have to disclose I'm on the Community Preservation Act Committee and we did authorized funding for North Common. My comment just relates in general to parking. I want to thank Gilford, Dave and the various folks who were involved in generating different planning for their efforts and looking at the parking carefully in response to comments from many folks. I think they did a great job of delineating what the choices were. The committee did vote in favor nine to zero for funding. There were some differences raised regarding the options for parking. I understand based on the recent vote from the council that it's pretty likely that the positions of the counselors have been determined, but going forward I want to reiterate my concerns about the importance of parking in downtown for Amherst in general. There's no question having lived in this town for quite a long time. Central parking is an issue. We're living in a dormant time right now with the university and everybody on COVID, but it will come back and I thought it was 19 spaces that are being removed. 34 minus plus seven plus eight, but it may be 16, but it's going to have an impact when we're in crunch times. That's 16 to 20 more vehicles circling the common all the time. So after this long preamble, my comment is this. I'd like for the council representatives in the future or even as they look at plans here to consider the need for parking options. We know the business community is very much concerned about this and so assuming we go forward with plan 3B, parking garage, parking garage, parking garage. I know it's on the agenda to look at different options. It's going to raise its head in the future. Keep it in the back of your mind and thank you to Guilford and others who have been looking at parking options very diligently. That's my comment. I'm in favor of a long-term parking garage. We need it. Thank you. Thank you, Sam. We appreciate your showing up tonight and providing comment. Are there other people who would like to provide public comment with regard to the North Common renovation and changes in parking? I'm going to give it a minute or so. Michael Childs, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Yes, can you hear me? We can. Yes, my name is Michael Childs. I live at 45 Oak Knoll. I think that's District 2. Yes, it is. I wrote a letter yesterday and it's too long to read, but I've tried to abbreviate my comments. I'm sorry if I sound, I don't know, on point. I've been in court half the day. I feel like I'm just giving testimony. I do not see how the council can proceed with plan 3B without first ensuring that this town has adequate parking after plan 3B takes effect. The only plan I have heard about additional parking is that one day the town may build a parking garage behind CVS. As yet, that's just talk. No one has committed money to that plan. If you intend to address a parking garage after there are acute parking problems in this town and then build a new garage to taxpayers, you will outrage the town. We need the parking spaces that are part of the current North Commons parking lot for the foreseeable future, especially post-pandemic. And in any event, you should first plan additional parking before you remove current spaces. Please consider the following. You have voted to build a new library and that project alone will tear up the center of town and definitely reduce parking. The North Commons 3B design will eliminate all parking for a period of time and then permanently decrease the number of spaces. The North Commons lot is the busiest lot in our town and is often full, especially on weekend evenings and days when the farmers market or other events are held on the common. The money to redesign the North Commons lot does not need to be spent this year. It can be applied in future years once alternative parking is in place. The 3B redesign is poorly conceived in several respects, especially the seven back in angled parking spots with two hour limits. Please explain how elderly citizens and others will be able to back into a spot on busy main street near the main intersection of this town. Neither the council nor the BID made any statement on March 22 regarding the impact of plan 3B on the Saturday farmers market that occurs nine months of the year. There are other events that take place on the Commons that attract a crowd as well. Where are they going to go? If you make the farmers market inconvenient to attend, you will kill one of the highlights of living in this town. All of the existing 34 spaces have four hour limits and only six of the new spaces will have a four hour limit. With the remainder limited to two hours, how does the council propose attracting citizens and visitors to a prolonged experience in the center of town, often involving a movie, dinner, and a coffee? Your vote on March 22 appeared to disregard your own consultant study, the Nelson Nygard study that noted near capacity parking in the North Commons at 7 p.m. on two nights per week when they surveyed the site. Major stakeholders in the area, the Grace Episcopal Church, the Amherst Cinema voiced their concerns about plan 3B, but the council did not appear to consider those concerns. The BID director stated clearly that the majority of businesses around the common were in favor of preserving some parking. There are many reasons to postpone a renovation of the North Commons, but the most important is that you do not yet have any funding for replacing lost parking or even for providing new parking for the many new buildings you see you are approving. It seems very obvious that the plans for new parking and the funding that will make it happen need to be in place before you start limiting parking further. Plan 3B appears you'll conceived at this time. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Trials for your comments. Are there other people who would like to comment on the North Commons at this time? So I'm going to ask one more time. There are other people who would like to speak regarding the North Commons parking at this time. Seeing none, then I'm actually going to close the hearing and rather than move on to the agenda. Since we have both Guilford and David here, I'm actually going to bring up item 7, it must be 8, which is the parking regulations related to the North Common. The hearing is closed, so the councillors, are there any further discussion points that you would like to make at this time? Yes, Mandy Johanna. Yeah, I was looking at the motion and I was looking at the shape of the schematics and the motion indicates that we would be trying to find it, that we would be adding six spots to the Bultwood Avenue, but the schematic says eight. The motion says add six parallel on-street parking spaces on both sides of Bultwood between Main and Spring, yet the schematics say eight. So I think we might have a disagreement there and need to change the motion. Okay. And do you want to go ahead at this point, Mandy Johanna, and make the motion? Sure, I can make a motion. I move in accordance with general bylaw section 3.14 and town council policy regarding the control and regulation of the public ways, having held a public hearing on May 24, 2021, notice of which was published on the town bulletin board for not less than 14 days on May 6, 2021, and published in a newspaper of general circulation in the town once in each of two weeks, the first publication not less than 14 days before the day of the hearing on May 10 and May 17, 2021, and notice mailed to a butters on May 5, 2021, and having referred the proposed regulations to the town services and outreach committee for review and recommendation to make the following parking regulation changes related to the North Common. Remove the Main Street parking lot with its existing 34 spaces at $1 per hour with a four-hour limit and enforced from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Add seven angled back-in on-street parking spaces on the south side of Main Street west of Bultwood Avenue intersection to be $1 per hour with a two-hour limit and enforced from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Add eight parallel on-street parking spaces on the west side of Bultwood Avenue between Main Street and Spring Street to be $1 per hour with a four-hour limit and enforced from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Add spaces if possible on the east side of South Pleasant Street between Main Street and Spring Street to be $1 per hour with a two-hour limit and enforced from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Is there a second to the motion? Second, Ross. Thank you.  Oh, I'm sorry, Mandy Jo, would you like to speak to the motion? I'd like to hear what Kathy says before I guess I would speak to it. Okay, Kathy. Okay. As you know, I voted against this earlier, but I would just like to make sure people in the public and everyone in the council pays attention to the information that we've received following that vote and really think again about what we're doing here. This lot brings in anywhere from $51 to $52,000 per year. It is by far the busiest, and we just got information that thanks to one counselor's request for information, it's another 7,000 in fines. Not that we want to count fines as a terrific source. This almost $60,000 is the type of money that we desperately need in the Transportation Fund. It is a source of revenue for funding our bus line. The Transportation Fund revenues are way down, and these meters really matter to the town. It's vital for the downtown businesses. There are lots of studies that talk about the need to have parking very close to where a downtown business is for easy access, because otherwise people just go to the mall and walk around. So it's a lifeline for the downtown businesses, and we had 66% saying, don't do this, and if you added Grace Church and Amherst Cinema, it would have been near to 70% of businesses saying, don't remove parking. We don't have an alternative right now. The lot is often full. And the other one other thing, since we met, I've tried to find out more information on back in angle parking. It's absolutely true that that is safer than front in angle parking. But the engineer studies, and I found one over the weekend, when talking about this say try to do it mainly on non busy roads. Don't do it on thoroughfares. Don't do it near an intersection, and do it with super wide roads, preferably one way roads, not two way roads, and one way roads that don't have parallel parking on the other side. There were dimensions, and Guilford can probably tell me what the exact dimensions are in what is being proposed, but on the depth of the angle parking, the overlap on the curb, the width of the bike lane, and the width of the road that you needed before it was even safe to put them on, and those were recommended again for non busy streets. So that's a way that 3B is trying to compensate by grabbing another seven spaces. But just look at where the bus will be parking. It will be parking right by the light when it has to turn in. That's where we've moved the bus stop up, then people have to back in. And this is a thoroughfare. The advice is just don't do it there. You may want back in angle parking somewhere else. So I think it's a safety concern. And I would ask if this plan gets voted again, despite all this information rather than waiting till we have an alternative. I would really ask that we get some outside traffic engineers that have built back in angle to really take a look at Kendes Road. I know Guilford, I'm not saying that you don't know what you're doing, but people have had experiences with these and you do's and don'ts on where to put them. I'm not questioning the back end. That is better than front angled in. So I have no question on that. I'm ending there, but we don't have a garage yet. If we get a garage, if and when we get a garage, we don't even know whether it will be available to replace the revenue from the lot we're talking about. So we shouldn't act before we have an alternative. Thank you. Guilford, I'm sorry.  Was there something else you'd like to add to the motion or anything you'd like to say? Yes, ma'am. The number and the motion is correct. There's only going to be six additional spaces on boltwood because even though it says eight on the west side of boltwood, we lose two spaces in front of town hall. So there's a total of six we're adding and we're losing two. It's a total of six. Okay. So I'm going to go back to the original motion and that is to add six parallel on the street parking spaces on the west side of boltwood Avenue. I would ask to instead of change the number eight because the west side is adding eight that we add a sentence that says and remove two parallel parking spaces on street parking space in the east side of boltwood Avenue between Main Street and Spring Street. Okay. I want to make sure the town, the clerk of the council has that motion change. Mandy, it was add eight on the west side and remove two to the east side. It's just clearer that way. I'm sorry. Go ahead again, Mandy. It would read add eight parallel on street parking spaces on the west side of boltwood Avenue between Main Street and Spring Street to be $1 per hour with a four-hour limit and enforced from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Remove two parallel on street parking spaces on the east side of boltwood Avenue between Main Street and Spring Street. I think that's all you need. Billford, is that consistent with the drawing? That is consistent with the drawing if you want to break it down like that. Okay. Great. Thank you. Mandy, Joe made that motion and Evan, you seconded it. Do you accept the changes? Yes. Okay. Dorothy, Pam? If revenue is our only guide, then we're very happy with what we have done down on East Pleasant Street because that is bringing in lots of revenue. Although we didn't seem to think we needed any revenue or any parking down there. So in order to get revenue, we said you don't have to park here. So I'm just saying in defense of what is left of historic Amherst, which is the area around the green, which everyone agrees on, is a beautiful area that we must defend and protect that area. And that means keeping the New England Green a green. So when you look at Town Hall, you don't see cars.  There will be temporary inconveniences. I have great confidence we will have a parking lot very soon. But I think that we cannot always, revenue has led us to what the changes further downtown, which many people are very unhappy with. So I don't think revenue should be our only guide for everything we do because we're behaving in a very inconsistent method on terms, on other terms. Shalini? I wanted to hear from Gilford about the concern about the back end angle parking that we heard in the email we got from that all of us got today. And I also wanted to make another comment, which is, you know, people sort of related to what Dorothy was saying, people ask for a vision for downtown. And right, if you were to look at the short term, yes, we're losing this parking. But given that we are going to build a parking garage, and it will not be with taxpayers' money. And given that we are moving towards a walkable bikeable, I'm not saying it's right now, but let's say five years down the road, we do have a garage, we do have a bikeable walkable town, will we regret the decision we're making today that we made all that into parking lot, whereas that could have been a green. So as a council, we are trying to create a vision for the kind of town we want that will bring community down. And it's a hard decision. But that's the reasoning that I'm leaning towards plan 3B. Lin, you're muted. Thank you. You started with a question. And Gilford, it was to address the back end parking. You need to unmute Gilford. Yeah, I keep forgetting. I know. The way the way we laid it out. Yes, it's not ideal. Ideally, we wouldn't have the bus stop there. But then again, we also need the unloading area for the businesses. So the bus stop and the unloading area kind of go together. We move the back end parking as far away from the intersection as we could, which is, yes, you shouldn't have it close to an intersection. This road is considered by some to be a main road is called Main Street. But we consider college to be a much more busier thoroughfare and a much more used thoroughfare than we do Main Street. So we took all that into consideration. And this is the best compromise we could come up with in this area. If you gave us more parameters, we would do it a little differently. If you gave us less parameters, we would probably, we would, this is what we would propose. This is the best compromise to keep some parking in there, keep the bus stop in there, keep the loading and unloading area in there and make everything work. And we're pretty confident it's probably the best. We're confident we're happy with it and we like it. So, Andy? Well, I guess there are two things in relation to what's been said by others. One is that about the revenue in the lot, if people are going to still park and pay to park, it's going to increase some revenue in other parking places. So we don't know exactly where the displacement will be. We do assume that there will be displacement. But I don't think that it's fair to assume that the entire amount that's been collected in the lot in the best of years is going to just disappear because a good part of it is going to be placed in just different meters and different pay parking options to the town. So I'm not confident in that figure that assumption that you should just lose that. The other thing is on the back end parking, I know that some people have reservations. We've talked about it. We've recognized it as a safe option. There have been, there are some good videos and others that have shown how it works in other communities. It has worked very effectively and it's safer because people can put their things in the back of their car from the curb as opposed to the street. And when they pull out, they can see who's coming. Whereas when you back out of a space, you don't have the same visibility. And that's actually for what I've read more dangerous for bicycles. And the last thing is that when you back in, it isn't any more difficult than parallel parking. But in parallel parking is something that exists all over town. And I guess the last thing that I'll say to conclude is that if you, if we're unhappy with the back end parking is other communities that have experimented with it and decided against it have found it's just a matter of reversing it so that you can always reverse the directions of the spaces. So I don't think that that's just positive of the question that we're making today on the choice of the two options because it's probably the most easily changeable piece. So.  Yes, thank you. And I know everyone watching us here knows that I voted against this proposal at this level, both at TSO and previous town council meeting. I just want to add a couple of points. One is that I do feel that we are clearly sending the message that we know better than businesses and Grace Church, what their customers want to do, then they know. And I find that unfortunate. I hope that we can find a way to express that differently if the vote goes, as I suspect it will, because that's the clear message we're sending now based on the percentages. And I know change is hard, but it's still the message we're sending. I'm also frustrated that history is being thrown around again as a rationale as for historic amourst when let's be real here. People on this council didn't live here when there weren't cars parked there. People in this town, mostly many of them didn't live here when there weren't cars parked on that. We're not reversing a bad decision of 10 years ago. We are changing something after several decades. I totally agree that we're moving to a different reality with cars, but this fake idea of it being that this tiny portion of the north common of our entire large common is we've somehow done this horrible disservice to history, I find is incredibly histrionic. When it comes to the back end angled parking here, we also got information as Kathy looked up information and we got information from Tracy Zafian has been a really incredibly helpful member of our tech and talk to TSO about this as well. And assuming I'm going to lose this vote to keep easily accessible parking to town hall and surrounding businesses again, I hope that given the timing of this project, we can figure out a way to simply pilot some back end angled parking somewhere else in town, final to the prior to the final installation. The first time people are practicing to do this should not be in those spaces for all the reasons that have been described, literally set it up in the high school parking lot if you have to set it up on a different part of town, set it up as a pilot we can use engage hammers, but to say that people will of course just figure it out they'll have newer cars it'll all be wonderful. I think we do a real disservice to the community just say of course we're going to pilot you'll see what it actually looks like somewhere else and that way people who are nervous about it can go ahead and take that opportunity to practice somewhere else before they're doing the larger stakes parking right there because we all know that approving this tonight doesn't mean like it's going to happen in July. So we have some time in parallel to provide people with that kind of parking experience as a pilot this is not the first place in town we should be using it. Thank you. Are there any other comments at this time Darcy? Yeah I just wanted to say that I was also one of the counselors who didn't vote for this the last time around. I am not going to go into all of my reasons again but I do want to say that I support what Kathy was saying and also what Alyssa just said and that I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of us would be willing to amend this to remove the one piece about the back end parking. So I am not going to put that forward because I'm planning on voting against but just putting it out there it seems like it's something that a lot of us agree is not that good an idea to have back end parking right in the middle of a high volume town center. Okay any other comments from counselors Kathy? Yeah I just want to um I might not have spoken clearly um I am not saying don't vote for this because of revenue I am saying don't vote for this because of the survival of the businesses downtown and we have green we actually are pretty amazing town the South Commons is huge we have Switzer Park we have Kendrick Park we have more than a lot of other towns and cities even in western Massachusetts Belcher town has a very nice parking lot right in front of their town hall and a big green. I am really worried about the downtown businesses I don't think we should be risking their health coming out of the COVID pandemic we already have removed nearby parking because the restaurants are out in the street which is great we want people to come downtown but just really think of what we're doing um this is a very fragile time for time for businesses so I've just brought up the revenue because it's also money but even if this lot was free and we got no money I think this is a bad decision for our downtown businesses um one drove up my driveway to say please be eloquent about this it will kill my business people don't stay very long downtown they come they get a sandwich and then they leave please don't do it so it was a plea it wasn't just a maybe yes maybe no it was a plea okay thank you are there any other comments at this time so the motion has been made and seconded it did clarify that there are eight parallel parking spaces on the west side of boltwood and six on the east side um given that I'm going to go ahead and proceed with the vote uh elissa broer no patti angeles no garcy demont no greece murray is a yes panicky yes ham george seven i george this pathy shane no steve schreiber all right andy steinberg all right sarah schwarz no palamy ball mill yes the vote remains eight in favor five in opposition no apps no abstaining and no absences it is now seven thirteen so i'm going to go back to the consent agenda and general public comment and um so general public comment is next let me remind people that there will be a period when people can comment after the community safety group working group has made their report and counselors have had a discussion and we have already had public comment on the north common so i'm looking for any other public comment at this time about other items than those two nadine please enter the room state your full name and where you live um my name is nadine mazad and i live in um amherst in east pleasant street so i'm giving you a call i'm not i didn't hear if um did you already talk about with regards to the um allocation of funds to the community safety program that is actually our next period of public comment not okay but i i've since i am here i do want to make sure that i am i just want to say that i am in agreement and i with that community safety program and the agenda items and that we should um as the town of amherst continue to put you know money behind action and actually try to make a difference and be one at the forefront of change so i'll just acknowledge that at this time thank you thank you is there other general public comment not about the community safety working group and not about the north common okay seeing none then we are going to go on to the consent agenda uh if we could have that placed on the board the following items were selected because they were considered to be routine if you'd like to remove an item after i make the initial statement please let me know i will be seeking a second to the statement as well so uh the motion is to move the following items and the printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit 6a lesbian gay by trans queer lgbtq pride month proclamation 6b citation and recognition of mira seddy charity upon receipt of the gold award girl scout 11 approval of minutes may 13th 2021 special town council meeting minutes um may 17th 2021 regular town council meeting minutes may 18th 2021 special town council meeting minutes is there are there any items that people would like removed is there a second second d angeles thank you pat any further questions okay then i'm going to begin with pat d angeles hi um darcy demont yes then greasmer's i mandy joe hannity hi Dorothy pam hi evin ross hi george ryan yes gathie shane gathie shane sorry i didn't unmute yes it's a it's a thing tonight don't worry c schreiber hi andy steinberg hi sarah schwarz hi chelony balmine yes elissa brewer hi it passes 13 00 and no absence so i am going to ask for the two sponsors of the lgbtq pride month proclamation if they would like to have a word with the council and the public and our read part of the proclamation evan and pat go ahead evan sure so um i'm proud to uh once again for the third year in a row with councilor d angeles sponsor um the lgbtq pride proclamation uh this year's proclamation is largely the same as past years um but with two additions um one is an addition that i referenced in my public comment last year but was not actually in a proclamation which is recognizing the fact that the reason that we celebrate pride and the reason we have pride is because of queer and trans people of color who were on the forefront of the fight for gay living gang queer liberation um and who are largely responsible for much of the achievements that we've seen in the second is specifically calling out the need to protect the trans community in the clause about remaining vigilant against continued oppression and discrimination and i think that's because within the past year we've seen attacks on the trans community increase i think 2020 was a record year for homicide of trans folks and especially trans folks of color um 2021 is looking to be another record year including the recent murder of a transgender activist from western massachusetts jahara dialto um in boston um and on a national stage we're seeing attack on uh the ability of trans children to play um in in youth sports and so i think it was important for us to specifically call out the need to stand up against oppression of the trans community um and especially trans folks of color so those are the additions um to this year's proclamation um and i look forward to seeing folks uh at the flag raising on june 1st at 10 a.m that we can now do in person after doing it virtually last year pat she's shaking her head like she doesn't really need to speak evan was quite eloquent and i'm grateful for its comments thank you pat um the other one is a citation hold on one second please um the second one is a citation in recognition of mirah seti charity upon receipt of the golden of the gold award girl scout uh as a sponsor of this citation and as a former girl scout with continuing ties to the girl scouts of central and western massachusetts on behalf of the town council i wish to congratulate mirah on her outstanding achievements and note that she will be honored with the presentation of the gold award girl scout on thursday june 17th 2021 at the hanover theater and conservatory for the performing arts in wister congratulations mirah so we are moving forward i want to be respectful of the fact that i told alissa i'm sorry you have your hand up the reason i have my hand up is because we have a slightly confusing situation not at all to take away from the two incredibly important proclamations we just did but last week we said we were in a hurry and we wouldn't talk about race amity day because ash heartwell would speak to us tonight but it appears that mr heartwell has not been able to join us and so that's kind of slipped through the cracks that we voted on that last week and didn't get a chance to mention it so i really appreciate so if you don't mind i'll take another minute to do that and i really appreciate you mentioning the event at the beginning of our meeting there are two things i always like to point out about our annual race amity day proclamation one is how important it is when a legislative body decides that there is to be a proclamation that it continue to follow through each year and that it decide to help everybody understand why it was important to have done that and i really appreciate for example that evan and pat have been bringing their newer resolution forward each year and making changes to it as necessary race amity day is a bit more of a static sort of announcement because it's the basic idea of the principle of oneness of humankind and the rich cultural ethnic and racial diversity of its inhabitants it's a very very broad and and about civility respect kindness and friendship and so having that follow through so for example town meeting could pass a resolution and then maybe we never did anything about it and so i think that's one of the things we should feel good about that we're trying to do on the council is we're trying to say okay and then there's a flag raising and then there's an event and we should all be participating we're putting it on the town website i think we're doing a better job of following through on the values we say we espouse through these things so it was kind of a speech about the generic overall concept as well as the fact that we as you indicated that there is an annual celebration which will be virtual this year because of course the planning was done before we knew what was going to be opening up and that'll be at four o'clock on june 13th and my apologies to mr. Hartwell for not doing it as well as he would have or certainly if ray elliott was still with us um and missing him very much thank you elissa thank you for that i really appreciate it dorothy you have your hand up uh yes uh as a former girl scout and daughter of a girl scout leader uh i don't know what the gold girl scout award is is it something like equivalent to the eagle scout for a boy scout or i just wish you would explain what it is it sounds very important okay in the actual uh resolution if you'll give me two seconds i will pull it up it defines that and we were asked by the girl scouts to uh do this resolution or to do something i mean it could have been a simple uh write a letter but in the process we came up with this instead and i am just getting to my thing um because it defines it the golden the gold award girl scout is the highest achievement that a girl can earn in girl scouting uh and in fact um barra is the first that i know of an amherst in recent years but she is certainly the only one this year um in order to earn it it requires many years of challenge and commitment to service leadership career exploration and a take action project and in mira's case it was the format formation of an international student club at her high school to raise awareness about um international communities and organized school she organized a school wide guided discussion about xenophobia and racism and formed a tutoring program for international students to learn english so it is the highest award that they give and it has many requirements and she met one of the most uh stringent requirements by the formation of the international student club said help thank you very much thank you any other questions at this time okay then i'm going to um ask that uh athena to begin to bring all of the people who are in the attendees who are part of the community safety working group and that may take a minute or two so people want to take a two minute break they can but that's it you're only allowed two minutes right now i i believe that the community safety working group has also asked that you bring in the people from the seven gen research group i think i have just about everyone i don't see tashina bowman in the audience unless she's not using her name as her screen name here so tashina if you are in the audience and you're named something differently than your name um please raise your hand rihanna do you see the attendees in the right side and alicia alisha um yes so tashina is unable to make it today okay thank you otherwise do the best of your ability to look through the screen rihanna and alicia do you see everybody that we're supposed to bring in yes i believe so great then i'm going to turn this over to paul bakerman since this is a committee that he is town manager appointed and has worked very closely thank you lin so since november the community safety working group has been hard at work to present the report you have before you tonight i hope that everyone takes the time to read it it's very well written and organized very efficiently uh the the working group has taken this work on with great energy and commitment and for many great personal costs to their families and their own health both physical and emotional this is hard work and i thank each member of the committee the working group for the work and i was honored to be able to participate as often as i was the report of the working group produced addresses the main areas of concern and sets the stage for change establishing a vision a direction that the town can follow to create maintain public safety for all members of our community and so with that i will turn it over to the co-chairs of the working group miss bianna owen and miss alicia walker thank you mr bakerman for introducing our group and also for acknowledging the amount of stress it has put on every member of the group and how personal this work is at this time i'm going to screen share with you all to share a power point for this evening before we get going on the power point i wanted to be frank in why the power point slides were not sent to you all beforehand we do have some content that is in the slides that really illustrates why our charge is so important however the person in this content is very adamant about remaining anonymous this person is okay with us using the content for the good of our presentation but not okay with us distributing it to the town council we will remove this content after the meeting and send you all the slides to look back on and i'm going to share screen now to get the presentation started there are some members who could not be here today but for those who are here with us i will call on one by one to introduce themselves briefly and answer the question why did you join the community safety working group um tashina bellman was unavailable to be here today dairies cage um can you guys hear me um so i'm dairies cage i'm a first-year student at emerson palomigino high school and the reason why i joined the community safety working group is because i feel like as a 15 year old with prior um experiences with the police um i felt like it would it would be a good a good job for me to um stand up for other people and help advocate for the people who cannot be on this community um working group and i felt like um by me being on this committee it would do the greater it would be a great um a great thing to do for the people who can do it thank you debora ferrera hello everyone can you hear me all right so um my name is debora ferrera uh thank you all for having us here today to present to you all uh i am a resident of amherst and i've been here for 23 years i'm doing this because when my son was 10 years old last year he saw jord foyd being murdered and when he saw jord foyd being murdered he saw himself in that he saw that that could happen to him as as a black boy i'm doing this because both of my sons i had to have the talk with them at eight years old right and the talk means that if you're a black parent or if you're a bipark parent you have to talk to your children about how to interact with police so that they can be safe because we're afraid that if they interacted with the police they might get harmed okay i'm doing this because i have a 17 year old son who just got his driver's license about two weeks ago and i again had to have the talk with him had to implore with him to do everything correctly to make sure he goes by the speed limit because i'm afraid every time he goes out that he might not come back right or he might be harmed when he's out and so i'm doing this because as a mom even though i know if he does everything correctly he might still be profiled he might still be stopped and he might still be harmed right so every time he goes out the door i'm afraid for him i'm doing this because i had to do something as an attorney as someone that can can contribute something i had to do something beyond protesting i had to do something to better our community to make sure that all residents feel safe and not just some residents that all children feel safe and not just some children okay and i think for our recommendations we have to go beyond just the normal recommendations because what we've been doing the same old same old it's not going to work right we have to do something different do the same things you're going to have the same results so our recommendations is to is a change of paradigm it's to do something different to make change the time is now we need to make change it's critical for all of us that's it pattern on a baku yes can people hear me okay so um my name is pattern on a baku i live at summer act drive i moved to armist modern 35 years ago and very little has changed to include biker people who look like me in the political and power structure of this town i'm a mother of five children i fear for their lives i i fear for my own life as well racism is real and is trauma traumatizing i joined cswg because i am tired of waiting and excuses for addressing racism in this town you the town councilors you have the power to do the right to invite fully funding all the recommendations made by cswg and seven gen thank you breast fernan jones hi uh when i saw that the charge adopted by the town council included making recommendations for alternative ways to provide public safety service alternatives to policing and also recommendations for oversight of the police i decided this was an opportunity for me to go beyond education about racism and actually help change the concrete conditions experienced by bipoc community members in amherst to help our town take a significant step in dismantling systemic racism in amherst you know white people sometimes wonder what we can do to dismantle systemic racism and i believe our working groups report provides an answer and if you as the town council will insist on more robust financial support for our recommendations that is in the current budget proposal you can make this an historic moment in our town a turning point in making racial justice a reality in amherst thank you rihanna owen i found out about the opportunity of the community safety working group through one of the kids on my caseload i work as a program director at a non-profit working with young people who have aged out of foster care i decided to look at the article that this young person sent me from mass live and fell out an application i joined this group because i'm a latinx woman a former foster alumni and a first generation college graduate the older i get the more i realized that people with similar shared experiences to my own don't get seats at decision-making tables and they don't have a voice at tables like this i want to be the change in the community i want to be the change that i want to see in my community and i thought this might be a good start my name is alisha walker this is the community that i grew up in and this is the community that i am now raising my children in this is the community that i care deeply about and i believe in its potential to be a community that is committed to the safety and well-being of all of its residents for me this is about showing up for my community and i am very grateful to be able to be a part of this process so we're going to start off our we are going to start off our presentation by reminding the town council of the community safety working groups charge and purpose then going over history that has influenced our recommendations and then get straight into our recommendations what the research says and what lived experience has taught our group the community safety working group was assigned the following purpose to a make recommendations on alternative ways of providing public safety services to the community and be to make recommendations on reforms to the current organizational and oversight structures of the amherst police department we were specifically charged with studying the complex issues of delivering community safety services to ensure racial equity collecting data from people's lived experiences and amherst engaging in communities most impacted by policing to develop alternatives and identify solutions to diagnose problems investigating existing alternative models and programming for providing community safety services examining existing town funding priorities regarding safety services and exploring models of resident oversight for police departments the second part of our charge is to recommend reforms to the current organizational and oversight structures of the amherst police department this presentation will be on the first part of our charge we want to point out that the community safety working group was very intentional about the recommendations in this powerpoint the recommendations that we put together have two goals to ensure any public safety any public safety response it's anti-racist equitable just and fair and that we also offer preventative services to get at the root of assisting our residents to avoid necessitating public safety involvement in the first place we want to point um sorry our next slide is to give reparations for amherst a shout out because the work that they they work that they have done has been very um essential to the work that the community safety working group is doing for outsiders amherst is a place where residents are health conscious we're a college town and we're a town where you drive down most roads and lawns are plastered with black lives matter signs members of our group know that although all of that looks great there are problems in this community that need to be addressed the community safety working group for that reason found the research done by reparations for amherst essential to our work community safety requires racial equity in order to envision what a more racially equitable amherst would look like we needed to as a group understand what got us to where we are and more importantly what the historical intent of law enforcement was how can we create a better future without context of what the past was really like and how it got us here the cswg finds the historical context of white supremacy and amherst extremely relevant to our work and to the town's commitment to dismantle white supremacy the founding of amherst is based on genocide amherst legacy is controversial due to his expressed desire to exterminate the race of indigenous people during Pontiac's war and his advocacy of biological warfare in the form of gifting blankets infected with smallpox as a weapon our group is well aware that amherst was once home to slave owners was once home to documented redlining and once home to primarily white schools this history has manifested into the community we are living in now so for our group when we hear the school system is under constant scrutiny for racial equity that the universities are year after year having problems with racially targeting vandalism and that rent has increased so much that predominantly families of color have been forced to move we believe it we also believe that our work is directly connected to these intersections community safety is going to school and feeling safe being in the community and being safe and trusting that our leaders will stand by that policing in the united states began with slave patrols in the south created to capture black people seeking freedom from the involuntary servitude of slavery with the great migration police police departments grew in northern cities charged with controlling black and brown people and protecting the property of well-to-do white people in this context the law was used as a tool to allow white landowners to remain in power the list of black people killed by police just in the last decade is long and horrifying in addition to george floyd some of the names of those who lost their lives at the hand of police are daunte right ray shard brooks daniel prude bryona taylor atatiana jefferson or a rosser staphon clark tamir rice tanisha anderson and the list goes on the question to ask is if there had been an alternative to armed police would the outcome have been different given the history it is logical to ask whether an armed predominantly white police force can ever provide a sense of safety and security to black indigenous and people of color and their communities historically these were restricted to not allow certain residents to reside in certain areas black and brown families were pushed to less desirable areas in amherst like the housing complexes and today the demographics are not much different modern day redlining and the rise in rent continues to keep black and brown and low income families in these same areas if they aren't forced out of amherst completely many social service organizations that we connected with let us know that their employees travel from outside of amherst to work here due to the unfeasible rental prices many town staff also do not reside in the city of amherst perhaps due to the housing prices as well this provides further insight on the disconnect in the services being offered in this town how does redlining and the rise in rental prices in amherst influence current policing methods and outcome the tendency of low income and working class families and students with families is to access housing through apartment rentals and as you can see from this chart a large portion of apd calls are officer initiated and with the highest concentration being on one street in particular and located in apartment complexes a further breakdown of the data shows the difference in police conduct between certain complexes and single resident areas and if you focus specifically on police initiated calls these disparities are very clear the apd uses a community policing model that includes practices of surveillance and patrols which differ by neighborhood in terms of frequency and types of calls with one of the methods being to identify specific problem oriented areas of town and direct patrols to those areas this has resulted in the profiling and over surveillance of certain communities and in turn certain individuals nationally our research has shown that community policing has contributed to deaths of by park persons and not to their safety a tale of two cities when the community safety working group came together we all brought lived experience as a group composed of mainly by park folks for the first couple of months of our work we received stories from the community via email via email videos clips and we listened in on hours of forums of people telling us stories I personally hope no one ever has to experience again I want to remind the town council that although a few positive police experiences have been mentioned in our forums that is not the that is not the majority you have brought us together today to come up with with a solution to make all members of the community feel safe and from what we've gathered white folks have always felt safe here in Amherst for the BIPOC community it has been lost after loss even the way the community safety working group has been treated illustrates this and just because a person has not died at the hands of the police does not mean that there is not work to be done Amherst for white folks has been a place to enjoy to feel community and for young people to make mistakes and recover but for BIPOC folks it has never been that during our forum many youth attended what we gathered from that was that BIPOC youth and Amherst feel over surveilled to them Amherst is a place where you're constantly looking over your shoulder when you're walking downtown after school to get a slice of pizza to see if to see if a police officer is watching you it's a place where you walk into CVS to get a soda and the store clerk thinks you're stealing it is a place where BIPOC youth who get their license create group chats to support each other in case they may be pulled over and profiled but for white folks it's never been that these different photos here illustrate the two different versions of Amherst this is the first version we'd like to illustrate and at this time we'd like to share this video before we get into the video this is an interaction that was sent to us by the community and it illustrates the importance of our work in our charge and why these recommendations need to turn into reality listen listen listen brother listen i'm listening to you like stop stop because if you do i'm trying not to resist but 134 my name is Setkowski we're going to go you're gonna replace me what does that mean what do you want to hey 111 main street i'm recording i'm recording my phone i got your phone i got it i got it you're good thank you every day this is crazy we're fine work inside job and talk to you i'm not it's okay i'm gonna get you up it's a noise complaint you're not gonna get o.d charges nothing like i know i understand i'm gonna get her in the hour she's gonna be out before the morning i'm gonna be done you're fucked up it's over where i want to go you're fine bro you're really fucked up we're gonna get around you couldn't have made them lose and you couldn't have been grabbing on me like that i'm gonna stop the video here but i wanted to share this with council members to illustrate what happens in amherst when a noise complaint happens as you can see from the video five different officers showed up to arrest one young woman seeing the two worlds in amherst is almost is almost explainable for people who choose is almost unexplainable for people who choose not to see i think the only way to paint this picture is to remind you all the overwhelming amount of new apartments that have come up in the last couple of years that are clearly geared towards students that can afford to live there i also urge you all to think about all of the riots that have happened at umass in the past two years even throughout the pandemic i live five minutes away from the university and it was breathtaking to me that white students can riot and set off fireworks after after umass wins a hockey game but when my foster family has a barbecue and broad daylight multiple cops need to show up to quote unquote calm us down similar to the prior video you saw next we want you to watch this video so you can see what the other world in amherst is like we found this video very symbolic we also found it symbolic that these college students were predominantly white and included police officers in their video as you could see in the prior slide a noise complaint happened and four officers arrived on scene to arrest one young woman this video shows what amherst was really like for other people on may 25th 2020 george floyd a 46 year old black man was murdered at the hands of the minneapolis police the repetition of these egregious incidences sparked national and local movements organizations and the advocacy of local groups like defund 413 the racial equity task force preparations for amherst and the youth of blm have been doing tremendous work to bring education and awareness to inequities and policing and in our town as a response to the national and local uprising on june 1st 2020 the town council adopted a resolution affirming the town of amherst's commitment to unstructural racism and achieve racial equity for black residents in order to commit to the affirmation the town manager was assigned goals that would help to specify what steps could be taken to help position amherst in the direction of change with this goal being assigned the town manager assembled the hiring team to help him create a majority bipoc working group to amongst other things explore what alternative community safety services could look like in the town of amherst before we get into our recommendations i now want to open the floor to seven gen movement collective to explain to council members what participate what participatory action research is what the benefits are and answer any unanswered questions about the research before we get started thank you brianna and alisha and the cswg again thank you for all the the work you've been doing i am demetria shabazz and i'm a member of seven generation movement collective we have several members here with us tonight terry mullen terry we are just say hi hi thank you and uh dr cady ladowski lesdowski and dr uh sanji uh johnson anderson and so they uh were responsible for designing uh and conducting the research having to do with participatory action and so i'm going to let them speak to their research thank you thank you dr shabazz um so here we have three central questions to just give a brief overview of what participatory action research is which is what we chose uh to use to conduct the uh research on the experiences of bi park and api folk in amherst uh with the police so participatory action research um was born in central and south america's a tool for action against social injustice and uh in par uh stakeholders are positioned as the experts so the knowledge of stakeholders is based on experiences related to the context and the location uh therefore they are vital to the steps um to each step in the process it's they they participate the the participants of the research participate uh in uh helping to shape the research and that is central to par the benefits of par serves to explore social injustice and acts as a means to address social wrongs it uncovers the reasons behind injustice uh all the while maintaining change as a fundamental outcome of the research it provides an opportunity for researchers and participants to work together to analyze a problem and generate the change the desire change uh why was par used for this work uh par was used because it empowers and actively engages participants and approach and promotes collaborative inquiry leading to action um uh participatory action research is the most appropriate method to implement to implement in order to develop recommendations for the cswg and this methodology is grounded in the mission to address the social injustices that it explores par insists that those persons who have been both structurally disenfranchised have a right to research the conditions of their oppression and their resistance and their i quote our own uh dr lesdowski i don't know if um katie you want to add anything to that i think you did a great job thank you dr mr anderson i the only thing i would add is the fact that with qualitative research we really need to focus in on our positionality which is where par plays such a critical role um my identity you know as a white woman is completely different from someone who's experiencing the policing firsthand and therefore as as dr johnson anderson described we leave it up to the the participants in our case the community ambassadors to identify which questions to ask to collect the data in their own communities with people you know who they have a rapport with um and to um analyze that data as well through their lived experiences and the lens that that offers them thank you both and this fit in well with the community safety working groups charge which was to reach out into the community and assess these most vulnerable community groups and their experiences with policing and therefore dr katie lesdowski and dr sanji anderson chose par as as they mentioned the appropriate model to do so that's i think it awesome so thank you seven gen for explaining why you all use participatory participatory action research for this we wanted to um introduce what this was to town council and whoever may be listening right now so that everybody has a background of the research because um their research was very helpful in creating our recommendations to serve the community so our first recommendation is to create the crest program crest stands for community responders for equity safety and service the mission of the crest program will include contributing to dismantling systemic racism through providing racially aware safety and social services to persons of all races with a conscious anti-racism focus i want to be clear that although the crest program is designed to incorporate professionals who have experience with mental health and so other social services this is an alternative to policing our charge at the community safety working groups charge was to come up with an alternative and this is what we have come up with the crest program that we have outlined includes two person teams of unarmed responders with expertise in mental health social work and medics in conflict escalators we'd like the crest program to be accessed either by calling the crest phone number directly or by calling 911 studies of the police department data across the country estimate that 20 to 35 percent of 911 calls could appropriately be handled by trained on-arm community responders our very rough analysis of data provided by the apd pertaining to calls from may of 2019 to may of 2020 suggest that similarly somewhere between 20 to 35 percent of calls to the apd could be alleviated to the crest program these estimates are based on crest teams being on duty 24 7 crest responders will be dispatched in response to two specific categories of calls for service that do not require police response first they will be dispatched to lower risk 911 calls related to mental health addiction and homelessness second community responders will handle unrelated to behavioral needs which may be classified as disturbances suspicious persons trespassing incidents noise complaints other quality of life concerns and lower risk neighborhood conflicts we'd also like to include that crest should do wellness checks interactions with youth and be the first the first point of contact to respond to school calls in regards to community safety the crest program is again a public safety program designed as an alternative to the police department again what it will do is relieve the apd of many calls that don't require the response of a police officer or an armed responder it will provide provide responders with skills and experience better match the needs of the residents and situations being addressed the crest program will also build greater trust with marginalized communities including the BIPOC community and functioned with a heightened awareness of the importance of dismantling systemic racism in Amherst we developed the crest program by investigating models such as the Eugene Oregon cahoots program and the Denver star program and the Albuquerque Mexico community safety alternative although we liked bits and pieces of what we read about from these different programs we developed crest by using these programs as an outline and finding out what's going to work for Amherst the crest program is an alternative safety model specific to the needs of Amherst we made it we made it specific after hearing hours of people come to forums having people fill out our surveys and an emphasis on mental health and cultural competency was a theme we couldn't ignore our second recommendation is to create an in Amherst resident oversight board we recommend that Amherst create a resident oversight board that will provide oversight for both the Amherst police department and the crest program we included it in part a of our charge because this recommendation does need money in short funds will be needed for training of people on this board for research the hiring of investigators as needed and stipends this board must be authorized to hear complaints access police and crest records initiate policy reviews and proposals subpoena documents in persons recommend discipline and initiate investigations as needed and be able to provide appropriate confidentiality to those submitting complaints I hope that you all got a chance to read seven gents report one thing that really stood out to the community safety working group and encouraged us to recommend a resident oversight board was this quote the philosophical justification for civilian oversight as a twofold one to compensate for governmental failures to combat police deviance and two to equalize the balance of power between public officials and citizens right now Amherst does not have a formal way that reduces fear for citizens to complain about their police interactions although the chief does make it a point to talk to people who do complain we find it a bit problematic that when we asked them what their formal complaint process was we were told that anybody can call it anytime to any officer and they will handle it we find this highly problematic this board must be authorized to again hear complaints access police and crest records initiate policy reviews and proposals subpoena documents and persons recommend discipline and initiate investigations as needed it is important that this oversight board consists of non-police community members and that it is representative of community demographics this board is also essential to oversee crests we will provide more details about this recommendation in our June 30 report but we wanted to include it here tonight because we recognize the great amount of work we'd like the resident oversight board to take part in and in order for that work to take part we'd like each member of this board to receive a $10,000 stipend we recommend that Amherst create a well-funded department of diversity equity and inclusion with a full-time director and assistant director in completing our charge the CSWG could not ignore the lack of representation in local government in town positions and the climate between BIPOC owned businesses and the town the department will ensure tight alignment between town activity and the push to end systemic white supremacy in Amherst this needs to be strategically addressed with a formal plan and staff to execute it diversity is not a check box it is an ongoing commitment to inclusive environments and this department will show how open the town of Amherst's to creating an equitable and welcoming environment for all of its residents a future Amherst as a place for all the office for diversity equity inclusion within the town structure will elevate the role of the diversity equity inclusion into the hierarchy of the town administration it prioritizes the consideration of inclusion and equity throughout hiring training housing policing policies planning leadership and the environment and the economy it improves decision making that better represents all communities and it is less likely to suffer from unintentional blind spots and biases it assures a more equitable allocation of public resources to all communities not just a few reduces staff turnover increasing employee engagement and awareness and builds community trust in town and offers more options for BIPOC and AAPI community members to be seen as well as heard we talked briefly at the beginning of this presentation about the historical context of white supremacy in Amherst and and it's important to understand that there are other implications that this holds intergenerational trauma is defined as a physical emotional and psychological abuse that has passed down generation to generation through the projection of fear historically Amherst has been home to slave owners and to people that have upheld the saddest quote to make BIPOC people feel unwelcome at the university at the high school in town government and which only perpetuates this generational trauma and fear what impact do you think all of this trauma has had on our BIPOC communities in Amherst a microaggression is defined as a statement action or incident regarded as an instance of indirect subtle or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority we'd like to include this video to illustrate what microaggressions look like in action for people who still don't think that microaggressions are a problem oh you're so well spoken oh just imagine instead of being a stupid comment a microaggression is a mosquito bite it's a compliment mosquito bites and are itch and one of nature's most annoying features if you're only bitten every once in a while no where are you really from uh Cleveland sure it's annoying but it's not that big a deal the problem is that some people get bitten by mosquitoes a lot more than other people i mean a lot more whether it's on a date oh here he was so good excuse me going grocery shopping you know everything happens for a reason just going out commuting to work so when you're gonna have a baby watching tv or just walking down the street with your partner i couldn't even tell you were gay mosquitoes seem to pop up everywhere you know john can be shopping it's like so i love sheer two and getting bit by mosquitoes every goddamn day touch your hair multiple times a day seems like a huge overreaction to people who only get it every once in a while of course beyond just being annoying some mosquitoes carry truly threatening diseases that can mess up your life for years astrophysics maybe you should try this challenging major oh another mosquitoes carry strains that can even kill you look like you was up for trouble okay i felt right so next time you think someone's overreacting just remember some people experience mosquito bites all the time you're also exotic wow and by mosquito bites we mean microaggression now that you've seen this video you may have a better understanding of what a microaggression is and i'd like to tie that into what it means to be a bipoc person in amperst just looking at the town council right now i would consider this to be a white space a white space is designated for white people and these spaces usually are designed intentionally to exclude bipoc folks the accessibility of our town government itself with things like access to an understanding of technology and internet connections flexible work schedules and availability to attend meetings and access to child care service barriers to inclusion historically bipoc folks has never have never dominated government positions political roles college campuses town halls all because these spaces have a historical intention to exclude bipoc folks a fully funded diversity equity and inclusion office would help to create and maintain more inclusive spaces in amperst the following statements are to educate you all on the health consequences racism has on bipoc communities our next slide will summarize how these health issues traumas and stressors translate generation to generation experiencing racism is associated with higher levels of stress which increased the risk for someone who identifies as bipoc for health conditions such as high blood pressure the cdc reports black people are more likely than any other group to have hypertension stress is a result of experiencing racism can also lead to behaviors that may cause further risks to health for example research has found that discrimination is linked to higher rates of smoking alcohol use drug use and unhealthful eating habits in 2015 a medical study found that compared with other racial groups black children with severe pain from appendicitis are less likely to receive pain medication this suggests that racial bias is causing medical professionals use different thresholds of pain for different racial groups either inadvertently or purposefully before administering care the american medical association and the massachusetts medical society have recognized that racism is a serious threat to the health of bipoc citizens internalized racial discrimination elevates stress that has a direct and damaging effect on bodily systems increasing vulnerability to asthma cancer cardiovascular complications obesity diabetes and early death as well as mental health outcomes such as depression substance abuse disorders and sleep disturbances locally for hampshire county the effect of racism has resulted in higher rates of carter cardiovascular disease asthma and diabetes in people of african descent our fourth recommendation is to create a bipoc led amherst youth empowerment center and a bipoc cultural center we recommend that amherst create a bipoc led youth center this is a long needed facility facility that will be open to all youth in town and serve youth of all racial backgrounds the massachusetts department of children children and families quarterly profile for the western massachusetts region fiscal year 2021 quarter two states that 55 percent of kids involved with the department identify as bipoc while just 35 percent identify as white given that bipoc folks in the hampshire county only make up about 17.9 percent of the population this is an alarming indicator that existing child advocacy and resource agencies are not enough the youth center will give bipoc youth a voice a place to excel in a place to participate in after school activities the youth center will provide a wide range of activities such as theater arts fitness classes job readiness and academic support we are recommending this center be fully staffed with at least three individuals to allow this program to run monday through saturday until six p.m the youth center will provide a stable place for youth to go after school and be connected to the bipoc cultural center for families who may need more support the community safety working group was lucky to work with seven gen and gather data specific to young people in amherst their report told us that this district is made up of over 50 percent sorry their report told us that the amherst school district consists of students 50 percent who identify as bipoc between 2007 and 2017 latinx students increase in the elementary schools by 30 percent and english language learners students increased by 35 percent this recommendation was motivated by our forum responses from youth who said there's not many places to go after school and guidance from our young person on the community safety working group dairies cage we can't ignore the overwhelming amount of data that we've also received from seven gen currently free programs in town our gear toward teens are hosted by are posted at the public library where bipoc youth do not see themselves reflected in the races and ethnicities of the employees of the youth center led by bipoc folks is a proactive approach to community safety if young people had a place to go after school where they felt safe and could receive academic help as needed exercise and participate in productive activities it would eliminate a need for heavy surveillance by the amherst police department in downtown and also be a reminder to bipoc youth in the amherst community that they are safe and we care about their growth in seven gen report research stated that youth benefit from culturally and linguistically competent support through purposeful and authentic engagement with community members as the seven gen participant interviews reveal bipoc youth and amherst are surveilled whether in their homes as young drivers and targeted especially downtown quality after school program designed with bipoc teens and minds have shown to support and increase academic achievement and play a role in reducing disparities in other communities youth programs to promote positive social behaviors and emotional develop may strengthen meaningful relationships between youth and community members for similar reasons we are recommending a bipoc cultural center dcf data in our report is relevant because it illustrates that bipoc families are in need of more support right now our consultants research highlights that cultural organizations have helped to raise the quality of life in cities by creating safer communities and that cultural organizations strengthen social connections making communities stronger and more attractive to live in and build revenue and social capital community centers have been used around the world to also bring people together and solve problems and build community research has found that community centers in the southern united states have been used to provide a space for exchanging resources learning about services and gathering information to access emotional support all of these aspects would be just another reason to support a bipoc cultural center bipoc families need the support and white folks in the amherst community need to do more learning to really create community safety and amherst we need to embrace different cultures that exist have a space to uplift and celebrate them and to teach and support families in need our fifth recommendation is to reduce the size of the amherst police department we recommend a reduction in the number of amherst police officers in the apd for three reasons one fewer officers fewer officers will be needed because a significant portion of the current work the apd does will be assumed by the press program funds currently allocated to the apd are now needed to fund cress as an alternative community safety program to fund other proposals in this report and for other services to meet the needs of amherst residents and lastly reducing the size of the apd will reduce the over-policing of bipoc communities we recommend that the number of sworn officers in the apd be reduced to 43 for the start of fiscal year 22 we recommend that no additional apd officers be hired until a robust cress program is implemented and the town is able to determine more precisely what percentage of 911 and other calls will be allocated to the cress program over time the number of sworn officer positions in the apd should be reduced to the minimum number needed to fulfill the remaining police duties after cress is fully resource staffed and implemented cress again is an alternative safety service to the amherst police department the cress program once fully fully funded resource and staffed will lessen the need for the amherst police department with a shift of nonviolent calls to the cress program apd officers will no longer need to operate at full capacity the funding of cress will reduce the apd and lessen profiling of eight of bipoc and api residents and persons visiting amherst our sixth recommendation is to continue the ongoing work of the community safety working group it is critical that the cswg stays together our recommendations need to be executed with input from all of our members we want to be a part of planning our recommendations the specifics and most importantly the hiring process these recommendations have been made very carefully so we would appreciate appreciate being part of the conversation as all of these recommendations are brought to reality this group also plays an important role in gathering input from all segments of the community especially from the bipoc community and other marginalized people maintaining a resident working group with the same stipulations for for this group will be important but until we have a resident oversight board we need to keep the cswg going in order to oversee and support the implementation of these recommendations we again need the community safety working group to stay in place the community safety working group serves as a necessary liaison between the town and the amherst police department and its presence is essential to ensure measures are taken to increase the accountability and transparency regarding policing the community safety working group will help advise the processing of scaling down the police a process that requires overseeing the reallocation of police funding ongoing research of its impact and be a part of the hiring process for crest employees and ensuring all details of recommendation are seen through as proposed and not seen as a vague idea the budget for these recommendations the community safety working group has been working diligently over the past six months as a group we are deeply insulted that since youth protest reparation for embers and defund 413 work alongside our own that the embers police department was fully funded for the next fiscal year this slide is to represent the money that we know that exists for our recommendations to become reality we are at a crossroads right now and forging a path towards our dream destination a movement of reimagining has begun by our youth organizations and the community at large the movement will continue and the only question is which side of history will we be on the cswg urges you to act in favor of the overwhelming majority and stand with revolutionary change towards anti-racism and in racial equity in the town of amherst this is going to feel uncomfortable because we are going to create something that has never existed before and that our community has never experienced before but we can assure you that it is worth it and we must do this we must show our elderly bipoc residents that their efforts will come to fruitation we must assure our bipoc youth that their futures are bold and bright and that we will live and that they will live in a community that supports their whole being and authentic selves unapologetically and without fear i am now going to pass it back to brianna to read the town council's affirmation be it further resolved that the amherst town council here by affirms its commitment to eradicating the effects of systemically racist practice of town government and town affiliated organizations and will review and revise its policies procedures bylaws values goals and missions through an anti-racism lens to foster an unbiased and inclusive environment that is free of discrimination harassment and negative stereotyping toward any person or group be it further that the amherst town council will engage an individual and collective work to understand bias and the historical role racism has played in amherst and the community at large in order to better lead a town which is safe welcoming and equitable place for all people be it further resolved that the town of amherst counts the town of amherst town council is committed to engaging in a path of remedy for black amherst residents who have been injured or harmed by discrimination and racial injustice be it further resolved that the amherst town council acknowledges this resolution as a first step in the reparative process and understands there are substantial work that needs to be done which will take considerable time and commitment to meet its goals of being an anti-racism town as a reminder to all of you integrity is when your intentions and actions meet on a consistent basis these are your words not ours we hope you act with integrity and reject the budget so a new budget can be written with the intentions to dismantle white supremacy and keep the entire community safe by by implementing our recommendations thank you that was very informative um presentation capturing your report and the research that has gone into creating that report we're going to open it up for counselors to ask questions and make comments at this time and so I am looking to see who has any comments at this point Alyssa there there's so much here and we appreciate so much that we were able to get your report both reports a week in advance of tonight's meeting because you've done so much work one of the things I've wondered about since most of us haven't actually seen your meetings is that when you've met week after week is the amount that ended up in the town manager's budget was the beginning planning amount of 130 the amount in your proposal is obviously much larger do you see any way to to phase this like if you had a chance to even have a conversation about that yet if 130 isn't enough which it clearly is not and if yet the town manager feels like he can't possibly find the funding for all of it right now have you thought about what might be a reasonable not ideal but a possible way of breaking it up more or have you even had a chance to have that conversation yet so my plan is to directly questions to the co-chairs and if they have anybody else they'd like to call and let them do that Brianna um miss walker is it okay if I answer this councilman councilwoman now brewer I really appreciate this question and you for listening to our presentation the community safety working group finds that the press program is not going to be effective unless it is fully funded I appreciate that you've got a chance to read the report beforehand and some of the questions that were sent to us beforehand from the council was how are we going to evaluate markers for success in the first year the second year for the press program these markers won't be able to be created unless we implement all of what we're asking for if we only implement half we're not going to get the same results and additionally our other recommendations are equally as important to the press program as um alternative safety models alone do not make communities more racially equitable so we have to take a preventative approach with our other recommendations as well okay Darcy please I'm sorry um okay um I just wanted to thank you very much for your presentation and I want to state that I very much endorse the idea of creating a director position for an office of diversity equity and inclusion because I see with my climate action work that the only way that initiatives put forward can really be fully implemented is by doing so uh funding the operations budget to fund those types of positions show the commitment of the town to fulfill the goals that we've set for racial equity and climate action and it's really impossible to implement broad-based plans for fundamental change without accompanying those plans with with staffing and um also I just wondered if it's possible to ask Paul the question Alyssa brought up about um the possibility of phasing and funding of the Crest program because that's another thing I heard I heard Paul say um that that it was the intention to fully fund it at some you know at some point so I'm just wondering if if he could address that the possibility of somehow now committing to a phased in plan to fund the whole program okay Paul so thank you for recognizing me I do think that was a very powerful presentation so I appreciated the work that went into that um yes that's the work that we're um working on now in terms of if the community safety working group say basically put a stake in the ground saying this is what community safety looks like how do we get there and that's the work that we're doing internally and I think that's why I hope to have some um some work on that prepared by Thursday night for you for the for the finance committee Lynn before the next comment can I just add something please I also just want to add um I just want to let council members know that phasing has been done in Denver, Colorado and in Eugene, Oregon both times there has been a need for more coverage so based off of the programs that we're trying to make fit for Amherst we are trying to learn lessons that their programs have already learned and phasing is not effective thank you uh Andy Andy yes I last term my uh partner was to get to the unmute uh so I appreciate very much the presentation also and um we will be coming at it as a I'm chair of the finance committee so I'll be meeting with you again in a few days um to look at it from the lens of the finance committee and what um and I don't want to uh sort of presume anything about that discussion whatsoever I can't speak for the committee I can only speak for myself and so in speaking for myself there are two pieces that um I thought about when you've talked about quite a bit and uh but I do have some thoughts about it too and I just want to share with you if you don't know me personally you had little introductions at the beginning my little introduction is that my background is I had a career in doing legal aid work and that was all that I did from the time I graduated from law school until I transitioned out of the legal career altogether and I was the both director of the western massachusetts legal aid program and active on the national level and doing consulting work with legal aid programs there's a couple one of the things that I um found in the work that I did there is the transition is not easy and that I appreciate what she just said about programs in communities that are totally unlike amherst because um and I said they're unlike amherst because uh Eugene Oregon and Denver Colorado and Albuquerque are all substantially substantially larger communities and operating in very different realities but any program requires a transition plan to go from where it is at one point to any significant change and uh the steps in transition um can be very complex I don't want to suggest that we can have a conversation about that tonight but I do think that it's not easy just based upon the experience of working in management in a legal aid setting the other thing that I thought about have thought about quite a bit and I want to just raise the question now but it's not one that has to be answered today because I don't think that we're prepared to spend that much time at it but I do think that it's very important if we're going to have two program two departments that are running in parallel um and each needs to be large enough to run effectively to figure out how large the police department has to be to be effective to do its work and how large the CES program has to be to do its work and that we that needs to be examined and then we need to consider what the consequence of that is in the context of a community the size that we have and the resources we have that size and I'm going to close by giving an example that has been very important to me in the work that I did in legal aid and that's domestic violence there's no question that without police department working with legal aid and working with domestic violence programs in Hampshire county being safe passage and ultimately working with the people who are victims of domestic violence but there has to be an adequate support in order to enforce restraining orders and enforce court orders otherwise the work of CES passage and getting restraining orders in the legal aid program and getting the legal orders through a court don't work they and you need to have immediately available police to respond when the victim of domestic violence calls for help and that there's no substitute to I'm worried that that is one example that I lived with in my career that we if we end up with an inadequately staffed police department it goes against all of the work that I had done on behalf of victims of domestic violence in a 35-year legal aid career so I do ask that some thought be given to the question of how big each department needs to be to be effective in order to have a really good conversation going forward about how we can get from where we've been to where you envision we should be going so thank you Brianna do you want to speak to that now but also know that that will be part of the question on the table on Thursday evening absolutely so council member Steinberg I want to one thank you for your comments similar to you I actually also share a background in law my degree is in legal studies from the department of the department the university of Massachusetts Amherst and it's interesting that you worked in legal aid I spent most of my summers at the law service center in greenfield doing somewhat similar work so I understand the angle you're coming from so first I want to answer the question in regards to the calls and the transition period and two I want to open up the second part of that question in regards to domestic violence open to the group because the community safety working group has met with safe passages to discuss topics like this and we also do have members of our community safety working groups who may be able to answer this a little bit better than I can so first I want to know that the town manager chief of police and communication center director are currently arranging for leap leap stands for law enforcement action partnership to do an analysis of calls and amherst to get a more exact and more expert estimate of number of the number or percentage of calls that crest could be expected to handle leaps current protocols use one year's data from 2019 from 2019 for this type of analysis in order to avoid the distortions in the data that could have been created by the pandemic this analysis will be shared with the community safety working group and again I just want to emphasize to you the working group does understand that this transition is going to be tough but for members of the BIPOC community and other marginalized groups this discomfort has existed for a while so a little bit of discomfort in defunding the police is going to have to happen to accommodate the needs and the safety of all amherst residents I now want to open it up to other community safety working group members to address the answer to address the question around domestic violence please raise your hand if you're a member of the community safety working group and want to add to these comments and alisha alisha alisha yes thank you um I just wanted to add slightly on to what Breonna to what Breonna said um and just state that the first half of our charge also specifically stated that we were to identify tasks that were currently being performed by the police department that can be outsourced to other social um to other public safety services um and so we have identified those things that can be outsourced and so I would say just as a basic example if we are um functioning at minimum capacity this year due to COVID and due to the frozen police positions but we didn't have any issues as to capacity now and what we are going to be doing is going to be reducing even further the number of calls and things that the police need to respond to then that can be used just as a basis for measurement just because we don't have any other real um numerical numbers to measure off of at this time and so those calls that are being outsourced and moved should not call for a larger police force because they're being moved away from the police department they no longer have to respond to those calls and that also speaks to the the necessity for more funding for the crest so that they have the resources to respond to the calls that the police were once responding to that do not require armed response and in terms for domestic violence I do also work in the legal field um I spent three years working at the courthouse and I do work for a law firm now so I also understand the lens that you're coming from and I've also dealt a deal with um domestic violence survivors and in what I have collected in my experience most domestic violence survivors say that the police were not particularly helpful but it is other agencies where they receive the resources that they needed in order to combat what they were going through and so I think that um not in terms of enforcing particularly the restraining orders but just in first responding to like we said earlier low risk conflicts so I know there's a there's a spectrum of domestic violent calls and that's why this work also needs to be fun there needs to be more funding going into the analyzing of which calls specifically can be moved to the crest program and so that just further emphasizes the real need for funding even just to get this off the ground because a lot of research will be required and if we want this to be successful and we want this to work out then we need to put the resources into figuring these things out and that will also cost us money are there other members from the community safety working group that have a comment on this I'm I'm looking over at the raised hand Brianna go ahead I also just want to reiterate these are really great questions and that's also why in our recommendations we recommended um a BIPOC cultural center with the intention to showcase BIPOC culture and support the community but also to provide case management for families as a preventative solution to things that things like this domestic violence um I think that a center such as this would be able to centralize resources such as safe passages and connect to community members that may have been discouraged to connect to those resources otherwise maybe Joe thank you and and I also want to add my thanks to the entire working group for all of the work they've done and the presentation today um so many thoughts and questions and all going through my head and I know I can't ask them all today um but I'm going to try and focus on a couple um and some are questions for the working group and some are probably questions for Paul the youth center and the cultural um center um a lot of the descriptions the working group provided in its presentation about these two items um seem to have some overlaps and you mentioned one with the library but that the BIPOC children are not and teens are not necessarily comfortable going to the library but I I think about the family center at the schools um our recreation department our our library um and especially an expanded library and so have was there any thinking about um the overlap that things are providing and how maybe some of the youth center or cultural center could be provided within some of these other ones with the hiring and I want to be clear with the hiring of of BIPOC staff to help run them but within other programs um in terms of the policing I absolutely support the creation of a Crest program I think it probably needs more money in the next year I would like to figure out how much more it needs to get it up and running in a good pilot um so I have a lot of questions for Paul on that one but I had two concerns in the report um the first one was mutual aid was mentioned about how we have a UMass PD department that if we lowered our police department UMass PD could potentially respond and I wanted to ask whether um you thought about whether that was appropriate um and I say that because when I attended some of the meetings I heard a lot of concerns about the UMass PD responses um and and some of the concerns that our BIPOC members had about how UMass PD respond to various things um and we would not control um their response or their training on racial bias and racial incidences and so I get concerned about relying on a mutual aid there versus our own police department and then I just encourage you to think about what the minimum for both a Crest program and a police department would be to actually provide 24 seven staffing when you get into vacations and all and I I assume this is something that was talked about with the APD chief um but there's got to be a minimum no matter how many calls you're answering and I just don't know what that number is and whether even what you've proposed for the Crest program is is sufficient for that 24 seven staffing when you get to vacations and such shallony I'm sorry it's uh Brianna did you want to respond to any of that at this point or again the opportunity is there for Friday I mean Thursday at 5 30 absolutely I'd definitely like to respond to some of those questions now Mandy Jo thank you for listening to your to the our presentation and for these thoughtful questions and concerns so I want to be clear that to ensure Crest is successful the program should be fully funded with 26 employees from day one there will be no phasing up this program so I wanted to answer that off the bat in regards to the overlap with youth programs I think similar to the police department as a whole the intention of institutions versus adding intentions are two different things the intention of law enforcement today the Amherst PD's mission is to serve everybody in the community they've done trainings to do that and it's not happening I think there's a parallel between that and existing social service programs that the town of Amherst has to offer and it would be nice for Amherst to stand behind something intentionally for BIPOC youth and families I also just wanted to add on to what Brianna said which I think was a wonderful well thought out answer just because versus you said do you think it would be possible to just use these already existing spaces within higher BIPOC staff and possible I don't think is like yes it's possible but will it be effective and will it accomplish what we're trying to accomplish is the real question and I think this goes back again to to white spaces in Amherst and that all of these spaces that exist in Amherst have been created to be white spaces and what we're trying to do is to create spaces for the BIPOC community. Deborah Ferrer from the committee has her hand up and so I'm going to call on her because she may want to respond to these questions Deborah. I just want to make sure can you all hear me because I'm having some internet issues so that's why I'm not on video thank you all for these questions and thank you Brianna and Alicia for obviously answering them at you know the way that you all have been very fully and thoroughly I mean I just want to add to the fact again to state what Brianna and Alicia has stated that we've done a lot of research we've really focused on you know getting a lot of the information especially through 7Gen from the marginalized from the most vulnerable communities that basically are saying that they are living in fear of the police interactions right so if that's the case right and if you all are committed to really dealing with making Amherst a space for everyone we have to be able to really look at these recommendations as ways especially in terms of crest right the fact that the police we need to have you know another a way to respond that's unarmed that will de-escalate and will fully resolve situations as opposed to a lot of times even Chief Livingstone said that it's it's been too much for them to handle that they haven't been able to handle all of these especially when it's when it's dealing with mental health when it's dealing with homelessness substance abuse that they're always having to go elsewhere to try to resolve some of these issues so we need to have a crest program as Alicia and Brianna has stated right off the bat that is fully funded fully resource fully staffed so that it can be it can have a chance to be successful now you're asking us for my new details right which is something that we'll have some time to really figure out in terms of how many people indeed obviously you saw in our report that we said three shifts at least four four four people so that there's two teams right we're saying two teams go out so at least that there's four people so there's two two teams of two people to go out to deal with with situations as they arrive now if the situation is dealing with something that's going to to create any type of violence yes then they can call for backup for the police right so we're not saying for these unarmed teams to deal with violent situations we we haven't made that statement that's very clear in our report our report is to make sure that they're dealing with with situations like noise complaints and other types of disturbances that are nonviolent and and I've seen and others have seen and I'm a BIPOC person where the police are called to those situations and instead of de-escalating they escalate those situations especially when BIPOC populations are involved and so what happens is that when they get to those certain situations as BIPOC people what happens is that either they're arresting people or they're making the situation worse so what we want to do is to as we stated fully fund and then what we've had with the other with the other recommendations is to really get at the root of creating spaces that are safe for BIPOC populations but also for other all all residents will benefit from a youth empowerment center from a BIPOC cultural center from a diversity equity inclusion department right because when we're whereas the versus possible as inclusive as possible everyone wins right and so you gave us the charge and you and you said that this was a priority so therefore how are we going to prioritize the funding for this right because if if you gave us a charge and now there's no funding then why were we doing all of this work since November right so I'm just asking these questions and these are questions that we need to think through because you really need to think about the commitment and how to to get this accomplished and so I mean I'll stop here but I hope I've given you a little bit more information to ponder. Brianna with your agreement I would like to call on Mrs. Pat because she has her hand up. Yes. Can people hear me? If I may call you that Mrs. Pat please. Oh okay can people hear me? Yes. Okay good okay so first of all I want to thank our co-chairs as you can see tonight it was done on purpose we wanted our young generation to take the lead at CSWG. I just want to add to what everybody else have said in terms of why not have the existing overlapping services for us to to use that so my answer to that is that if we look at that at the town government and the town officers all we have are white folks who are the administrators the APD is a white man we have the white town manager we have the DPW white man except for the fire department where we have an African American and so we are recommending strategically to have Crest Program to be a department of its own for alternative public service where you have a BIPOC director in the same level as the APD chief the DPW and so on and so forth and also for the we also want to create another department for for the diversity equity and inclusion that department will oversee by a person of color or BIPOC administrator and will also run the the youth empowerment program as well as as well as the BIPOC multicultural center so that's the you know we need to start creating positions where we have BIPOC folks on the table making decisions in this town that impact all the residents right now it's not happening the faces with the town council are white who are making decisions for for the town they are they are mostly white administrators we need to take the the balance we need to include more BIPOC administrators so to be part of the decision making that will benefit everyone so so that's part of the reason right now there are some programs for youth in the in this town but it's not our spaces it is white spaces it's run by white supervisors or whatever and that's not it's not encouraging our youth or our families to access those those services and so that's part of what CSWG is trying to accomplish to get more decision making to be more equalized in this town thank you thank you for your comments Brianna can I go on to some other questions and then come back or no I just like to add something very quick I'll be brief so I wanted to address Mandy Jo's concern about the mutual aid with the UMass police department I think that's only another reason for the for the town of Amherst to not feel uncomfortable defunding the APD we are a town operating with three other police departments the over not the overwhelming but the amount of young people and people in the community who came to our forums to complain about the UMass police department and ask for alternatives should be assembled to the town council that the Crest program is needed and that college students are probably going to want to use Crest as well I I I do need to just point out that Hampshire college no longer has a police department so there are only two others in town Hampshire college has a public safety office and we now provide police services for them thank you for sharing there's also a movement on Amherst college to try to get rid of their police too which creates another question Dorothy Pam I want to thank the group for all of your work and your insight and also for explaining the youth program better I do think it is a key element of the work that needs to be done and particularly when you stress it will be BIPOC run but open to all of the young people of the town I think it's really important then that all kids can get the kind of support that only some kids get when their parents have the money and the time to drive them around to put together all of the educational recreational programs that are important but I I just want to say that I support your committee I also support the Amherst police department I don't know how to do both at this moment but I think it sounds as if you are trying to do it change has to come but it just has to be equitable somehow but I do agree that change has to come and when it comes it will be big so that is why I will support your request for the full funding as they say I have no idea how we would do it and I don't want to do it at the cost of the careers of the people in the Amherst police department but I'm hoping that somehow it can be figured out how we can do this big change in a way that's fair and equitable thank you Shalini yeah I also want to thank the committee members I tried to attend quite a few meetings and I saw the sincerity the hard work and the really difficult work that each one of you did so I think all of us really from the bottom of our it's thank you for the work and I also want to thank Jen Moisten and Paul for supporting the committee in the way they did I think all of us in the council I can speak for myself at least want to ensure that the investment we're making that all of you are making is going to be successful in serving our goals of safety for all our residents and with that in mind I have a couple of questions one for the committee one for Paul and one for police chief which I don't know if he can get answered now or we can send it to him and I think what I'm trying to understand like I mean there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we need a radical change in policing and the Crest program is exactly what we need and I'm really proud and looking forward to implementing that and seeing it succeed my question where I'm still not clear and need some help is how did what is the basis for the number of people that you're proposing and the budget for the Crest program because I heard the number 20 percent of the calls being directed to Crest in which case that would be about one million dollars of the budget and and if you compare it with cahoots which is in Oregon with a population of 168 thousand and has a budget of two percent of the police budget of 66 million which so their budget for cahoots is 1.3 million and we're asking for something like 2.8 million I believe and so it would be really helpful to understand what what is the basis for that number I did hear someone mentioned leaps and if that is what is going to provide us the number of calls that will be directed to this program and so if that's the case then are we not clear what percentage of the calls are going to be directed at this point and if you're not clear about that can we for sure ask for 18 people in in the Crest program at this point and shift the budget and so that's one of that's for the committee the question for paul is what do you think is needed to launch this program so it's set up for success and what you know with the budget that you've proposed how do you plan to implement a what in this year to make sure that we succeed that this program succeeds and the question for the police chief is what kind and percentage of calls do you see and being moved to Crest and which calls might involve an overlap of the police and maybe with the fire chief as well so those are the questions for now thank you okay so I let me just take definitely go to the ones for the community safety working group unless paul indicates I would suggest that his plan is to bring something forward on Thursday and so rather than try to answer that tonight and although chief living stone has joined us in the audience unless he indicates to me that he's prepared to answer that question I would also defer that question until Thursday so Brianna or Alicia I just wanted to make a quick comment and then I'll pass it over to miss walker shalini I think these are really great questions one of the questions that we were forwarded before this meeting happened was what we have learned from other programs and I want to emphasize that although Amherst is Amherst in Eugene Oregon is Eugene Oregon the Kahoot's program has fallen short with the amount of people they're able to serve with that budget so when we came up with the budget for the Crest program we were learning from what they did wrong we wanted to come in at this program with something fully funded that could serve the community immediately not half of the community not a quarter of the community but serve everybody and that's why that budget was so large and I know it looks big and I know it's uncomfortable to move away from the status quo but we needed this program yesterday I also just wanted to add thank you again also Shalini for your comments and questions I just wanted to address that like yes you did say something about radical change in policing and that is actually the second half of our charge to address actual policing methods and protocols this is an alternative to policing so we want for the people that policing is not working for them what is their safety service what who can they call when there is nobody who is there to protect them and this is the alternative this is not a change in policing this is an alternative what people can use instead of the police when this does not work for them so I just really wanted to emphasize that and then I also wanted to share that the estimates that we got for the amount of calls that we expected for Crest to be handling we got directly from police data that was given to us from the APD and there was a breakdown of the calls received over the last five years and they were broken down into categories and so we got that number directly from the number of nonviolent calls received by the Amherst police the last two years it was actually a very similar number off by almost just five calls I believe within the last two years and so that would result in 30% of the calls being handled by the Crest program and so we don't expect this to be an exact number this was just an estimate that we came up with based off of the data that we have and we do understand that further research will be needed to determine the exact amount of calls that will be transferred but just given this we expect it to be a pretty large number and so that just also emphasizes the need for funding off the bat because they won't be able to combat anything with a portion of the funding and then I also just wanted to say that Kahootz it has a similar goal but it's an entirely different program it's inside of their police department we want this to be completely separate from the police department so that it can be a complete alternative and so that also leads to the reason why this would be a lot higher in terms of the budget I would defer to Russ who has his hand up he might want to go I'm sorry I didn't see that Russ yes and thank you for all your fine questions one of the differences between the Crest proposal and the Kahootz program and Eugene is that that program is contracted out to a mental health agency and they handle only the mental health and substance abuse type question type calls our program we're looking at also handling noise complaints and trespass and you know that other category that Breonna referred to I did speak with Amos Irwin at the law enforcement action partnership he's had only a very preliminary look at the Amherst data but he felt that we were likely to fall within the range that they find for other departments in the 20 to 35 range and possibly even on the high end of that range um so he wasn't he wasn't giving me a number but he said there's no shortage of opportunity in the calls that the APD is currently handling to have things picked up by a Crest program thank you Russ um are there any other comments from community safety working group people on this particular issue Breonna I want to thank everyone for their questions and I think there are going to be a lot of specific questions that come up so I want to emphasize what Ms. Ferrara said that the community safety working group is willing to iron out details but you have to give us time this we've done a great amount of work in such a short amount of time and we want to be part of the hiring process and the implementation of all these recommendations we don't want to hand you something vague and let you guys fill in the gaps and create it we want to be a part of a part of implementing all of this to make it into reality and in order to do that the community safety working group needs to be continued thank you Mindy Jo I just have a couple more questions um you in your report spoke about a dispatch service we had some dispatch supervisors and some dispatchers in the budget um but today in your presentation you said um people would access the Crest program by calling 911 or the program directly um and so it goes back to duplication of services our 911 dispatch service response is dispatched for not just police right now it's for police fire and EMS and um and so I guess my question with that one is are you looking at at creating a duplicate dispatch service um that does something different than our 911 dispatchers at this point um or or something else I didn't quite understand that because that's about 900 000 of the budget from what I could figure out um and so that's a significant amount of the budget um for something that I was looking at as potentially duplicative of something we're already providing um and then I want to thank um Alicia for talking about what part two of your charges because I had a lot of questions um about how to change policing um not the alternative um and so thank you for mentioning that that is coming later um because I won't ask those questions because I will expect answers to them later so thank you for mentioning that um and then to Paul um I assume you'll provide this on Thursday but our charter has a reorganization plan requirement um so just on Thursday I hope you address um whether you intend to file one and about the timing of filing a reorganization plan and whether that would include a diversity equity and inclusion office and whether that would include a separate department for the press program okay let's begin with the question regarding dispatch and I'm going to look to Brianna or another member of the committee Alicia yes Brianna this walker has her hand up so I'm going to let her okay please so um so this is another one of the details that we don't have a definite answer on but we did offer a suggestion because um a few of the members um one of myself being included had the chance to actually visit the dispatch center um and we were able to learn how it works there and so there is the ability to use the current dispatching services and um their system and there is a way to keep it separate from police records and to keep it confidential so that police data is not being accessed with crest data and there is a way for us to access their switchboards but have our own line so we have we've talked about some of these things and so it is a possibility but we want people to be able to call crests directly also um and so I'm not sure if that necessarily needs the entire switchboard and all of the equipment also again but just so that they have the option to to con to connect directly with crest but that also if you're in a pinch and you just call 911 and you're not familiar with crest but but what you're really needing is crest services that you can call 911 and they will know that this call should be dispatched to crest.  Okay I was going to say some of the stuff that Alicia just stated when we start the crest program not everybody will have the new crest number to call so we want to make sure that people are still able to access crest services if they call 911. We hope that in years to come people will get used to calling crest directly so we don't see this as a duplication of services but complimentary is the way we say it. Thank you.  Yes thank you and I think I'm going to kind of you know say some of the similar things thank you Alicia and Mrs. Pat for for already kind of highlighting some of those and and for me is just to kind of give you all the sense of when we were writing this it was more so because we also wanted as we said crest to be a separate program from the police for people to feel comfortable to contact crest directly because from all of the research from all of the information that we got from community members from the forums from surveys and from seven generation talking with community members right is that the fact that they distrust the police that they inferior them they they get dehumanized by the police that they get you know treated differently than other you know residents in in in in Amherst and so therefore we need to make sure that there's dispatchers also at crest right dispatchers that have the equipment there that are able to get the information and as Ms. Pat said obviously is going to have to ramp up because people are not going to know the crest number you know right away so the other part too is that we need to make sure that there's a full you know media campaign education campaign marketing campaign to to to let people know about crest right to let people know that you know Amherst trust crests and that we want them to to be able to handle these types of calls and so we need