folks for writing them and presenting them, it was really helpful. And I'm not convinced that my thought needs to be a motion necessarily. However, and if it's not, it could be something I do on my own and not as not on behalf of the council. But I think that one of the things that has emerged for me very prominently in this is that clarity of process is so important. And one of the other things that has emerged for me is that we have not addressed each point, point by point of the letter that we received from the CSSJC in our initial draft response, which we never approved, I know, however, we never went through every single point. And that's not to say that we, as a council, are promising that we will deliver on every single point, we would have to vote on that. But I believe that we need to address what process would look like for each of those items. So in considering how to move forward, I got a bit stuck on the original motion that was on the table because in my opinion, CSSJC had already given us a list of items that they believed would move us towards repair and reconciliation, as well as reduce and prevent future harm. I'm a process person. I'm a process nerd. I love thinking about this and figuring out how to work on these systems so that we can clarify how to make change and how to move forward. So I think it's critical that we, as a council, respond with a clear process and support our committees in clarifying what it would take to move forward each item that they've listed in their letters. So I looked back at a note I had sent to Lynn a while ago where I had tried to look at each item on the original list and identify what the path forward would be. And then Lynn provided a different draft response because we weren't working on it together because we weren't in subcommittee, but I had sent her my thoughts. She wrote her draft response to the council in early October. What my motion would do, it would allow, can I read it? Am I allowed to read it without making it? Okay, so it would task the town council vice president to identify the appropriate first steps in a process needed to move forward on each of the seven demands from the community safety and social justice committee letter dated July 29th, 2022, determining whether each item requires direct council action, directs the town manager, or directs the town manager and town staff with reporting back deadlines. So the motion means I would look at each item and determine whether it, not by basis of opinion, but by basis of whether it's legislative, executive, et cetera, whether it's the responsibility of the town council or the town manager. I originally thought of also drafting motions for each item on that list to say this would be the first step in each item. However, I believe that the motion crafting for each of those items should be the prerogative of a counselor who would choose to bring forward a motion on that item to the council, because that's how we get things done, right? We make motions on actions that we wanna see taken. We are a legislative body. We as individual counselors can make motions to enact policy. By a vote of the council, we can task the town manager with something that falls under the executive body, executive branch or something we want the town manager and staff to address and bring to the council for a recommendation. It's not all we do, but those are the options that I believe apply to this list. The idea here is that I'd take the original list from CSSJC and for each item. I know I'm getting repetitive, but I wanna make sure it's clear. The idea here is I'd take that original list from CSSJC and for each item, determine whether it would be action from the executive branch, Paul's area and require a vote of the council to task the town manager with action. Whether that's already been done, because if that has been done great, we can step to that. And or whether it would take action from the legislative branch and require a vote of the council on a specific action step that's policy-based. So in making this motion, I wanna be clear. In order to take action on each individual demand listed in the letter, future individual motions would have to be made by counselors who are seeking to carry forward said item from the list. I think it's important that we respond to each point of that letter and clarify what it would take to move it forward. I'm tasking this to myself solely because I started doing this work and I am happy to accept suggestions from other counselors. We cannot have two or more counselors doing this without it being an open meeting or a subcommittee. So what I then am seeing is that there are motions that are addressing many of the points and taking action on many of the points in the letter, which is amazing. And there are some things we have not talked about. And I think it's important that we identify for our committees and for ourselves, hey, if we want to take action on items two and three, I don't know what they are, I'm just referencing random numbers. It would mean a counselor would need to craft a motion to ask the town manager to prioritize it. Or it would mean a counselor would need to draft legislation for this. We don't have a lack of clarity. And I believe, Mandy, this might have been what you were referring to earlier when you said you weren't clear on what was being asked to the council. We have not clarified which is legislative action for ourselves, which is legislative action, which is executive action. And then we have not taken ownership of our responsibility as counselors to then say, I'm picking up the banner on this and I'm gonna carry it forward and write that motion and put it on the agenda. Cause that's the next step, right? Once we know where it needs to go eventually, one of us has to pick it up and say, I'm bringing this to the council, I'm putting it on the agenda. We're going to discuss the motion that I have written to move this along. So I'm not necessarily convinced this needs to be a motion. I'm happy to just do this. But I think we need to really consider that we have not addressed every single point in that letter and clarified what it would mean to move forward. Before we move to any questions, I'd like to pause for a moment and say, I have also just forwarded the motion that was sent to the council that was up on the screen that I made to the members of the CSSJC. And I'm asking Athena to post that as well so that it is available to the public. Now I'm going to ask Anna, would you like me to email to the town council and to the members of CSSJC the motion you just made and would you like it posted? I'd like to hear from Alicia first if that's okay. Okay, Alicia. Thank you. And I have a little bit to say. So if you all could just bear with me while I make the connection, it will take a couple of seconds because I again want to just bring forward some of my emotions and my frustration with this entire process. And like some of my frustration comes from like, I understand we're trying to find a path forward and I'm very happy about that. But we have been in this position before. And so some of the remarks that like, we don't know what specific policies can be changed and we need more information on these things is false because we had, we worked with LEAP. They investigated all of the police policies. We have an entire report with specific policies that can be changed. We have made these recommendations over a year ago with the help of professionals, not just random people on a body. Seasoned, knowledgeable community members who are also professionals. Like this was not just willingly thrown together. We have concrete recommendations to the council that were made well over a year ago in terms of the police policy, in terms of the resident oversight board, what the charge could be, what the composition of the members could be. All of these things are already concrete recommendations with consultation of professionals with a year work of research from this specific community to back it. We don't need more research. We just don't. And that is the frustration. And so the piece that is really stuck for me, why I like, I do like Michelle's motion because I do also agree that it's important to have consensus. It's important for all of these things to also happen. But what Anna said, I think is like so critically important because everything that can't happen, our reason is, well, the policy, the procedure, the this, it's written this way. And so when we're talking about what is in our purview as counselors and like what we have authority to do, it's strange to me that we are sitting here acting like we don't have as much power as we do because we can make a recommendation as to anything that we cannot do ourselves. We have done it before in terms of like requesting funding for the library. Like it is in our purview to actually obtain that funding from the state, but we are recommending people and we are putting our voices where we think our priorities are and what is important to us and we can do that again. We can do that for any situation. We can instruct the town manager to do anything that we think is important that is not in our purview but is in his. We can also write recommendations to the finance committee. We do all of these things all of the time for other issues. There are a lot of things we can do. And one of the things that I think we really should do and can do, which would be really important is identify specific policies and procedures, which is why I love what Anna is saying in terms of going through each specific point and laying out what the policy and procedure is. We can identify which policies and procedures are preventing us from moving forward and we can change them. That is in our purview as a council. We made all of these policies. There were people on committees that made all of these policies, all of these policies that are here that are preventing us from doing things can be changed and we can be a part of that process. And so I think that Anna's specific recommendation is like a perfect starting place for that to go through each thing that we want to see happen or that might be possible and to look at what policies would allow us to do these things and what policies are preventing us from doing these things and what does the actual process look like? What processes are working for us as a town in making change and what processes are preventing us from moving forward because we can change those things. And so while I really support actually like a combination of things that have been suggested tonight, the conversation is still slightly frustrating. I did send this on to council members and to the members of CSSJC because I... Yeah, that's fine. It makes sense. It puts it out there. Yep. Pam. Thanks to everybody that has put the work into this. I'm feeling like it's actually, we're really at the moment talking about two different things. And I appreciate the work that Anna's talking about, breaking it apart, moving it forward. I think that's excellent. I think I would like to vote on, sorry. I would like to vote on a motion that deals specifically with the July 5 incident and get that rolling. And I strongly support motion number one amendment in order to get that going. But I would also say, okay, so then step two for the council is to say, thank you very much, Anna. Would you come back with a report and a breakdown of your items in two weeks or whatever? Let's break it apart. Let's move on both these actions but not get bogged down in having to do all the analysis from the CSWG report now. Does that make sense? We're not making, we're not moving at this point. In fact, I'll take more comments and then we can decide whether we want to have motions and or go to public comment and then come back. Kathy Shane. I will make what is probably not gonna be a popular comment but I think one of the reasons we didn't deal with the whole matrix is there were some elements on it that I didn't necessarily think I would support that we need to have a longer discussion on them. So it wasn't just how would we do this but do we want to do this and would it make sense to do this? And Elisha, I do totally respect the amount of time and effort that was put on your committee but I also think there are experts and then there are experts. These are complicated issues that can't, most of them take time. So just as we brought on a Cress workforce, we know conceptually what we hope they're gonna be able to do. It's not day one and they're working out something that's gonna be creative, new, different and will be a model. I hope for a very positive model if we let it play out. So in my past life, I had to deal with competing experts regularly and just sit down and have the time on complicated issues to figure out, do we wanna do it or not? And I'll just end there because we do have finite resources in the town. People may not believe it but when we look at our budgets, they're finite. And right now I am in a panic about trying to refocus on getting an elementary school built for our kids. We're over half the kids are minority and we have a high number of low income kids. And so I think we need to say we're also dealing with competition for scarce resources and just acknowledge that. So I just wanna say, Lynn, it wasn't that we didn't focus on the whole matrix but there were elements of the matrix we never got to because it wasn't like a, this is number one. We never even talked about it. And that is why I think Shelley and I focused more narrowly on two things we wanna do. And I don't wanna spend a lot of committee time on just one incident. I wanna talk about it broadly. So maybe we're talking about merging some of these emotions because I don't think we just wanna go back over the July 5th, get all the facts right and talk just about that. We wanna talk about the protocols, ways of preventing it from happening again or if it happens again, knowing how to deal with it better than a four month process. So I'll stop there. Sean, we're gonna need to use the clock, okay? Thank you. Andy? Yeah, a lot of what Kathy said is what I was thinking too. I really appreciate what the community safety working group recommendations were. They were quite extensive. I understand that there's overlap and change in the current list that we have from CSSWJ because it's reacting to a specific incident and so that it's focusing a little bit in that direction. But in the end, the point that Kathy made was the point that I was gonna make is that we don't have infinite resources. We have very limited resources. We have accomplished a lot, but it is very costly and we are really needing to make sure that we're focused on continuing the efforts, the success of the efforts that we've already made for we jump into large, expensive new efforts. And I think that the last thing I would point out there is the word expensive is not just the operating costs of setting up whatever it is or the capital costs needed to set it up, but it's also the incredible amount of staff time and resources that it's gonna take just to explore each of these items and to find out what is necessary to move forward. So I have a lot of hesitation because I think it's important for us to spend some time as a council thinking about the question of priorities and not try and go into an episode where we're trying to do everything and therefore find we can do nothing. Alicia? Thank you, Lynn. I forgot to add at the end of my last statement if that does not become a motion that I would be happy to work on that with you, Anna because I think that is a critical next step and it would be important for my learning process because I really wanna know those things. So I'd be happy to work on that with you. It would be like a learning curve for me, but I will do that if it doesn't become a motion. Also, like I am proud of the steps that we are taking as a town because I also did put a lot of work into the Crest program and the DEI director and I'm happy, so, so happy to see those things being carried out. But the framing of the conversation is almost as if we think that the creation of these things is gonna eradicate all of the racism and discrimination in this town. It absolutely will not at all and it won't merely even start to begin to touch the harm that has already happened. And I think that is a big piece that is missing from this conversation. These are great big steps, like they are and we should be proud of these things as a town. It's not going to end what is happening here. It's not going to end the experiences of people. It's not going to end the injustice. It's not going to end the policies that allow racism to continue to occur in this town. It's not going to end the trauma that people have already experienced. It's not going to do any of those things. And so I think like, yes, we need to celebrate those things and be happy about those things, but we still need to do more things. And like, I'm sorry, but we don't wanna hear about how expensive it is. Priorities are also a matter of perspective. And again, we are missing perspective, the perspective of the people who this is happening to. Priorities are a matter of perspective. We all have different priorities because we all have different perspectives. And again, the council, that's why it needs to be more diverse because we're missing a lot of perspective. And so our priorities don't necessarily align with the priorities of the actual people in this town. And that's what makes this conversation so, so, so difficult. And so I think like, yeah, we do need to have more conversations about this clearly. I understand that there's not like one thing we can do tonight that's going to solve everything. I think establishing a committee that can focus on this more clearly because it deserves that level and detail of attention that as a council, we just cannot do because we have so many other things on our plate. But I don't like, I just always have trouble with the framing of the conversation as if it's not urgently critical to the daily lives and wellbeing of a lot of people. Mandy Jones. I support a lot of what Kathy and Andy said. And I just wanna recognize for Alicia that you're right. We all come here with different perspectives on what our priorities are. And that's what makes conversations around budgeting really difficult because it is a zero sum game in some sense. There's a limited pot of money and elevating one priority generally necessarily diselevates not the right word, but reduces another priority or the funding you can spend on another priority. And so that's what makes budgeting so hard. And I wanna go back to the first motion that was discussed because I think a couple of counselors have said they might support that one. I still struggle with that one partially because of the committee creation but also partially because if we as a council have an idea of what needs done, i.e. something like we need to get the resident oversight committee going or we need to review the policies and the protocols that are used in response procedures used by the police department. If we as a council know that that's some of the things we wanna do, I'm not sure we need a committee to come back and tell us that's what we should do. I feel like we should just tell the manager to do that. And that's why I struggle with sort of the creation of a committee too. It's described here as to quote, develop a proposal for repair and reconciliation with a focus on the incident. But if we've already sort of potentially reached a consensus on what at least some of that repair and reconciliation would be, why wouldn't we just direct the manager to execute that? As CEO. So I guess that's why I'm hesitant. That's why I favor the motions that just go directly towards asking the manager to do something which would be sort of the latter half motions instead of the first motions. Michelle. I'm just gonna respond to Mandy on that. I agree that if we have concrete steps that we're all willing to take, we could have a much more direct approach. My concern is that those committees need to be guiding the process and they need to be involved in the process. So for example, if we say that we're gonna establish a board or whatever these specific goals that we're talking about tonight, if we're ready to move forward on them and ask the town manager to do so, they need to be guided by these committees in my opinion, at least the CSSJC needs to be guiding that work. And I think that the concern is that the town manager would take it and this isn't default to you necessarily, Paul, but just that it wouldn't happen in consultation, in the public light of day, it would be happening and being developed outside of that and then be brought back to us. So I wanted to address that. I also wanted to address something that Kathy said, which just to clarify that my motion does take it further and does ask for a recommendation on how to handle future incidents that could occur like this. And then lastly, I wanna address my concerns with what Anna has proposed while I really appreciate what Anna is proposing. My concern is that letter was sent to us by the CSSJC in July and that metric was developed a year and a half ago and it hasn't really moved anywhere. And my concern is that we can go through and we can determine what process for each of these items, but if this council isn't ready to have a discussion about freezing police or whatever, all of the other items on there that coming back with a process for how to do these things and whether or not we can do them to me could create unnecessary stall and I feel that we need to be much more progressive than that. So that's what I have right now. Anna? Sure, so if there are no counselors who are willing to champion freezing police positions, it won't matter whether it comes from a new committee or it comes from the current committee. Counselors would need to propose that as a motion and bring it forward and champion it. That doesn't shift regardless of how we move forward with this, right? That's why I believe we need to pinpoint the specific actions we need to take because we are the ones who are responsible for moving things forward. And so, I'm struggling with the idea of doing work a third time that's been done. Like these answers have been provided to us twice now through the community safety working group and then again from the CSSJC. So it's on us to say, okay, this is the path forward and to address Kathy's comment to be again, very clear.  This is not saying that the slate of these can come forward. I'm not able to bring every single one of these to the table right now and get it passed, right? I think that what I am able to do is say, if a counselor on this council would like to move forward on the issue of a victim's compensation fund. The first step would be to think about what legislation would look like. That's a policy action. If you would like to increase the hours that Cress is working, that's a town manager decision. You're going to need to write a motion that prioritizes that. Those motions need to pass council. That doesn't change regardless of what committee is making recommendations. So I think for me, you're right. The letter was sent to us in July. The incident happened in July and we haven't moved yet. I don't want to push it out further and get new recommendations because it's not an if this happens again, it's a when. And so we can't just keep waiting for the next thing to happen to write new recommendations every time. We have to start acting on something. So that's where I'm feeling an echo of Alicia's frustration because I was an observer to that work and she was very much in it. But I think that this is where we've being handed the answers and saying we got to go back to study is frustrating. And so I think that there's still studying to be done and there's action to be taken. And so I'm trying to illuminate what those paths would be so that my fellow counselors and myself can pick up the ones that we are ready to walk down and say, here's the action, let's go. That's the intent behind my motion. I'm gonna move on to Anika. All right, thank you. So I wanna thank everyone who spoke and who's with us today. And I'm recognizing that we have 74 participants and I'm also looking at the screen and we have the CSSJC represented here, majority of people of color. We know the makeup of the AHA. I'm not sure of the makeup of the HRC. We see us in council. And so I do want to acknowledge something Alicia said is we need more diversity. None of us here, none of us here, all of the people of color that you see though doing our best, we do not. No matter what anyone has said, we are not speakers of the whole. We do not speak for the BIPOC community as a whole. Ms. Pat speaks for the youth as the issue has been appointed to, but in general, we do not speak for the whole town of Amherst, none of us, not one of us do. And I think that it puts a lot of weight and pressure and it just doesn't make sense to look at us that way. And I think also with some of the groups appointed, we can't always just be appointed because we are people of color. And I understand that right now there are so few of us. And I hope that we continue to do the work that brings people in because we do not represent all voices. I do appreciate Anna in your, what you're saying does allow, I think for more immediate change and understanding, a lot of the urgency that's been asked and has been asked, I mean, a lot of it is going to continue to go in circles because there are legislative issues and that's just what it will do. We already know the establishment of the police and the history in America and it's okay to say that. And it's okay to demand that that's looked at and implement what changes can be made. But we're sitting here often just really going around in circles. If we're not able to kind of move along the path that Anna is suggesting being able to look at things and say, well, what could we do now? And if we can't do this, what would need to be changed in order to do so? And my other concern is just something, anything that really just moves Pamela and the DEI department from the center. I think that we should all acknowledge that we do have a gem of resource. And Pamela, I'm not speaking for her, but I imagine took a position to bring what she brings, her expertise and her talent. And some of these motions seem like she would be put into a position where she would be taking directive and being assistant maybe so to some of these committees. And I think that, you know, we also need to find a way where we allow the DEI department to be able to spread their wings and do what they need to do. Or we did not need to bring in someone with Pamela's credentials. So, you know, this is just where I do appreciate the motions that are, you know, centered around doing that with the DEI department and also being able to move forward with attainable action. So we are not just having the same conversation, the same insults, we can see it coming. It is the same thing over and over again. And I know that we all mean well, but you can, you know, see it. It's really like we've heard even with the comments coming from the community, thank you so much. But we're hearing this is all overlapping and becoming very repetitive at this point. And I don't know that there's any, you know, win-win solution. I don't know if there's anything that's perfect, but at least something that moves us to attainable action or at least understanding what we can and cannot do. And if the results are not, if you don't like the results, let's head to the state house. If you don't like the results, then sue because how else do we move forward? Thank you. I want to just remind counselors to please stick to three minutes if possible, Dorothy. I would like to speak to what I see is continued obfuscation and the disease of the bureaucrat of process, process, process. Of course, it matters what we do and how we do it. But what underneath it all, what I see is a great reluctance to share the power. We spent a year setting up committees to try to get a more representative input. We have the committees, they have worked hard, they're interesting.  I think they bring tremendous wealth to this town. So I say, let them do the job. I support the motion one. These committees are not just window dressing to make us look virtuous. They're very busy people. They have jobs to do and they're taking their time to do this work. I think we should follow Michelle's amended motion one and let the committees do the work. And again, I said, I like the representation of the police department and it says very clearly that the town manager and DEI will be involved as they see appropriate. So I think it's a great way to go. And otherwise, if this town council wants to do anything or get accomplished some of the goals that we have set out which have to deal with other aspects of life in this town, we should let these committees which we have created do the job and come back to us and then we have it right then to vote or recommend or pass on or do whatever we wanna do. Thank you. I'm gonna check comments from two more counselors then I'm gonna open it up for public comment so that we can then go to motions. Alicia. Thank you, Lynn. I actually had two questions and one of them was going to be if we could have public comment before we vote on the motions. So that's great. The second question was, can a like committee representative or a person or persons who are on a committee serve as a community sponsor? For example, a counselor who wants to write a motion or propose something. A person or persons on a committee that is not the council have every right to approach a counselor and propose working on them on motions. Is that what your, did that answer your question? Yes, but it would have to be like a person and not a committee is what like I was trying to encompass like could a committee be that or would it have to be a person from a committee or? It's a slippery slope, okay? And we've seen it a couple of times, for example, a couple of counselors and residents started talking about rental registration. And finally, it was time to bring it into a council committee, okay? So there's a point at which we've often had people talk to counselors and say, I'd like to support this bylaw or a general bylaw or I'd like to support the zoning bylaw. And then those counselors have counselor or counselors have gone with that. So yes, it can be done. When it starts getting to be, you know, three people from this committee and two counselors, then we start getting into the slippery slope. Does that help? Lynn, if I may. Yes, please. Sight the rules. So our rule eight of procedure, Felicia talks about how you introduce bylaws and other measures. And in that rule, if you're proposing a general bylaw, we have said that they can be initiated and introduced by submission to the council in one of the following manners by a counselor sponsor. So any one of the 13 of us by the town manager or their designee, by the town committee, by a town committee or by a group petition or initiative, which is through the charter section 8.2 and 3 and 5. So if a town committee wanted to propose a bylaw to the council, they could do so. They would have to create that bylaw in open meeting though through their committee process. Zoning bylaws have a little bit more where they can come from through state law, but a general bylaw can come from a town committee. I hope that answers and explains it a little more. Yes, thank you. Great. And was there anything else, Alicia? No, that was it, thank you. Okay, Shalini, last comment and then we're going to public comment. Yeah, I just wanted to echo what Anna said that the CSSJC and the CSWG before has already proposed a path forward, which is to deal with complaints about policing and that is to create, and that is the DEI director doing that. So the first motion says they're gonna create a process for handling future similar actions. It feels like we're going backwards. We already know the path forward is the creation of the resident oversight board. So I think we should just get to that. And as Anika's mentioned, we have a fabulous black woman leading our department. We have to empower her, we have to support her, we have to believe in her and we have to give her all the resources she needs if it's a consultant or whatever to start working on the resident's oversight board. And let's start that right now. So I really support that motion. Thank you. All right, we're going to move to public comment. I'm going to start first with the members of the CSSJC who have sat here so patiently and ask if there are members of CSSJC who would like to make public comment at this time. Allegra. I have a few things. And I kind of see there being a need for a both and in this situation, I feel like we can both address directly the July 5th incident by approving motion one and perhaps through some combination of four through six, the majority of the CSSJC's other demands would get met. And I just want to say that we know that council can make a motion to freeze police positions because they've done so in the past and approved it at the beginning of this conversation in 2020. So if somebody would like to do that in this upcoming budget season, it's upon us. But I just wanted to speak, I guess I had a clarifying question because I'm looking at the motion six as Lynn amended it, which I do appreciate the inclusion of the ongoing work of HRC CSSJC and the reparations committee. I do think that that's important because we are doing this work, we've been doing this work and we would like to be active in these discussions in town. So I guess I'm wondering what, like if motion six is to refer all of these things to the town manager to kind of figure out how they might work, if I'm understanding that correctly versus Anna's motion to think about who each item would get referred to, I'm just confused because I feel like motion six kind of does what would need to be done maybe. And so I'm just wondering if I'm missing something. And I do think that I wanted to mention that there is a DEI director report from July 14th of this year that outlines the process that she's laid out for establishing the resident oversight board. So I don't think that the motion that specifically speaks to only establishing a resident oversight board is needed at this time because I think that's already underway. And I just think that four and five don't speak directly to any repair to the youth directly impacted by this incident. Again, some of the things might prevent impacts in future incidents, but that still leaves unfinished the business of July 5th. So I think as me, not as a representative of everything that committee might agree with, I think one in six could coexist, both specifically for the incident that occurred and again, at looking at the bigger picture of policing in Amherst. Anna, I really wanna leave this for public comment and then come back, okay? All right. I was hoping to clarify, I'd like to later. Thank you. Pat. So I appreciate all the talk that the counselors who had made motions, thank you. However, motion four and five, I feel it's inaction. It's almost like spinning the wheel. This should have happened a long time ago. I like Councilor Michel's motion. I worry that the timeframe is too far away, February. I think it's important that BIPOC people are on the same table with decision makers in this town. So I think for public perception, it's very critical that Amherst resident feel that the process will be transparent, that people know what is going on. And I also feel that involving town manager with a proposal from Councilor Michel makes a lot of sense. Let's face it, we understand that the town council is legislative branch and the town manager actually is administrator that actually make decisions. So I'm kind of leaning towards that. My only struggle with the one that Councilor Lane put in is no mention of compensation fund. And I think repair will not happen if we don't address that. I feel that we should try to divide the issues like the July 5th incident need to be addressed immediately. And I get the long-term also should also be addressed. But for the immediate where we're meeting should take priority in order for us to heal. But that's what I'm leaning towards. I just want to make sure that the voices of the youth are centered when whatever the town council innovate on that we have BIPOC folks trying to represent what the voices of the youth and their families be included in all the process. Thank you. Thanks, Pat. Dee? So I'm just going to agree with a combination of one and six. I think we need to attend to the short term as indicated by some of the counselors and then attend to the long-term issues having to do with police policies and practices. Resident oversight board, when we envisioned it we were looking at various models. It's important that our, as everyone has noted our very bright and capable DEI director. It's a process in many towns where there is an executive committee set up small to help make those decisions with the DEI director kind of as the executive director but a committee set up to then build a resident oversight board or in some communities a commission on police practices which does very similar work. So I just think there's nothing within here that takes up how the resident oversight board is to be built and created. So that would have been helpful further down the line. But for right now looking at these motions I think the revised number one with a combination of six, I could see that working. Thank you. Thanks, Dee. Deborah, are you home safely? Yep, I'm available, I'm home now. So, of course I was driving this whole time so I wasn't able to write down anything in terms of the motion. So I'm not sure which one is which and all those things. So what I'm gonna speak to is just what I feel would be most effective. I do like one. However, I still have some questions about one which is, okay, you're getting all of our committees together to come up with recommendations but what does that mean, right?   What does that mean, right? Cause if not, we're just spinning our wheel. And so then, and then I like what Anna had brought up and Alicia had talked about it too almost kind of combining that into one if that gap was addressed in terms of what these recommendations mean which is to say, yeah, we already had a list, right? So why couldn't we have this group, right? Working with, cause right? Other councils are gonna be part of this group and we'd be working with the town council I mean, yeah, with the town manager and the DEI folks so the smaller group kind of working with everyone. Why can't we have this group kind of look at the list of demands that we have and really kind of figure it out, right? Why can't we respond to each, right? So combining the two, because I think that it's just gonna waste more time and we don't have more time. The town has spoken like this happened in July. Why are we now going to be going into God knows what another six months to address these issues? We have the list that CSSBC brought up and we have committees and folks that could work on this together. So why can't we just, you know, get this done as opposed to kind of prolonging it. And then in terms of the oversight, that was already, I mean, the DEI director already has a timeline in terms of putting the oversight committee in place. I like maybe providing her with a consultant so it can happen quicker cause I know she said that it would be too much for her to do and it wouldn't be in place until next year. So what we're dealing with in terms of creating this group is the short term but obviously we need the longer term which is the resident oversight. So yes, providing her with a consultant. Yes, but we don't have to go and, you know, oh, should we have a resident? No, we've been there done that. You know, the train has left the station. So the only thing that we could do is add a consultant so that it can get done more quickly. Thanks, Debra. Phillip? Yeah, I'll echo what my fellow CSSJC members said. I like the idea of one and a combination of six and then to kind of piggyback off of what Debra was saying. The motions and counselors focus on the resident oversight. Pamela has said that there's a timeline for it but to Deb's point, it is a timeline with a small staff. And if this town council has given this budget to the DEI department to not expand the staff, to not expand other people, which we have talked about in our CSSJC meetings, then maybe an outside consultant does need to be brought in. So that focus to me, again, kind of goes back to what Andrew was saying or Andy was saying about money and figuring out money and counselor Hanakie as well kind of saying which one does the council kind of put and hold more valuable? Right now we have money going to the library. Right now we have money going to the school. We just got a grant to have money go to the sidewalks. When are we gonna focus on the racial issues of this town and where are we gonna find the money and the time to deal with that? And I'll leave with that. Thank you. I'm going to now go to the audience and I see two hands, Alexis and Ronnie Parker. Are there any other people who would like to make public comment at this time? Make, I see a third or four. All right, let's start. Alexis, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi, sorry, can people hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, great. Hi, I'm Alexis Reed and I live on West Street. I wanna thank counselor Walker for her comments because she spoke directly to my frustrations as a body that made a proclamation to create an anti-racist amorst which the success of that can only be determined by the victims of racism. It's very unsettling, especially as members elected into this position of power when there's confusion about what you can do to take action on your own proclamation. It sounds like headway has been made here tonight though, but like as a member of the AHRA that must rely on your action and votes for anything to actually manifest out of the fund. This sentiment of like what can we do or are we supposed to be a part of this restitution is troubling to say the least, especially from counselors who appear to be very knowledgeable about the charter and its powers. Anti-racism is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism, changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices in order to redistribute power. And we've been able to identify it in various committees and I'm thankful for the committees and that I've been given an opportunity to fight for my family in this assembly but who is actually doing the anti-racist work here? Only you have the power to implement changing the systems and redistributing power and putting them into actions like counselor Devlin Gauthier said. The conversation on priorities is telling us that we're not really ready to make this commitment. We want to, but we're not ready to do so with the powers that be in Amherst and that's fine but let's be honest about where we are right now with our community if we can't make the financial commitments. Please reflect deeply on what Ms. Ferrara said about who feels safe even calling the police for help. Ms. Sonani Baku spoke from her real and valuable experience. Respectability politics should not be weaponized against the real hurt and anger of our BIPOC community members. How comfortable should someone make you feel in defending their own humanity and experience, especially when being appointed to recommend actions that would affect their lives in Amherst. Various counselors have been able to come to the defense of the police in countless meetings regardless of who that alienates amongst the community and when members of the community speak against them suddenly we need to come together. So I'm really asking you we need to make the choice and to walk the walk together. So thank you for listening. Thank you. Ronnie Parker, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi. Oh my God. I am so sort of horrified really by this conversation. I just don't even know what to say. We're here to talk about some children. Our children who've been humiliated who are suffering trauma and will suffer trauma. You've heard data about it, but you can ask any dark person who has ever found herself in public looking like a poor person.  And I can tell you mine, but I'm not going to because I just have so much more to say. In terms of what you actually have to do, I think there's too much bureaucracy, too much budget discussion. It's very clear what you have to do. You have to whoever is in charge has to talk to the police officers through whatever channels to make an apology. We heard that they felt bad. They felt bad because they did something wrong. They would like to correct it. There's no budget required for that, but it seems like there's no personal authority or commitment. There's even question, oh, this happened. Let's let it go. Oh, nothing happened, which is the worst of all because that's what happened to me in my encounter with the police. Nothing happened because I shouldn't have been stopped to begin with, but I can tell you it took me 10 years to go to my local police department to talk about it. So don't deny their trauma, address it. And how do we address it? People say the town manager, this committee, that committee. Well, when you tell the town manager to do something, he doesn't personally do it. He looks at a whole slew of resources that he has and he assigns it to somebody who knows about that. So we have a town committee that knows about this that has expertise in it. It's your committee. It's our committee. It's a committee that the town manager believes consists of experts. So I don't know why it's a question since it hasn't worked out to give them a chance to do their job, to bring their expertise to bear on this issue. So I'm completely with number one, whatever number it was, Michelle Miller's proposal. The only question I would have about it is why are there three town counselors? I personally don't feel that the town counselors get it for the most part. It's not about you. It's not about your accomplishments and all the great things that you did. You're not the victims here. It's these kids. And they're hardly mentioned in this discussion which makes me very upset. And as far as the discussion of the consultant, I actually did recommend a consultant to the DEI director in a conversation with her. I believe, and she knew this person and had worked with her. I believe the consultant is needed for the town council and for the senior town management. You don't need a consultant to tell us about Amherst. You've got the SJCC. You've got people right there, right here. They're part of our system. Let's draw on them. You don't need a budget for them to work. You don't need a new budget line. Let's draw on them. So I think we should, but I believe very strongly from my heart and I hope you're not insulted that the town council and the town, just as well, the town leadership across the board really needs somebody from the outside to help increase awareness about racism in this town. And I don't mean that as a good and evil thing, but that we're all socialized in ways that make it impossible for us to see certain perspectives. And somebody mentioned perspectives. And I think that there's a lack of perspective as far as the other is concerned here. So I guess I've hit the zero mark on my timer. So thank you. Kathleen Trapegan, please enter the room. State your name and where you live. Hi, thanks. My name is Kathleen Trapegan. I live in district two. And thank you everybody for still being in this meeting. First of all. So I think a lot of the things that the two previous commenters said, I absolutely second as a white person, I am also like, what can I say? I will say, I just want to acknowledge the pain and disbelief and anger and incredulous reaction by the people of color tonight that are on the screen and I'm sure on the Zoom. I am so sorry that we have been hearing from people that you have told us and told us and told us that the police do not keep you safe. And you have told us and told us and told us what it is like to live in this town and experience the racism that you do. And I am really disappointed by some of the things that have been brought up by some counselors tonight where it is clear that you just still don't get it. And you are still not believing and you are still unable to put yourself, even try to put yourself in shoes that are not your own. And really white people, we have to do better. We have to do better here.  So how on earth do we decide what to do? I have heard some things about, oh, this police officer is very important to understand the context in which they said that a person has no rights. I've heard many things that have just taken the matter of race right out of any of the motions or even the discussion. We cannot do this. We need to move forward. And first of all, we need to have the police department apologize. How does that happen? That is actually a question. I know you're not gonna react to the comment because of the rules, but somebody has got to have the police department apologize. Can you guys talk about that and figure out how that's going to happen? Please. Any motion has to include accountability, repair, restoration, and it needs to focus on the systemic racism in this town. So let's stop getting caught up in all of these other things that you're bringing up. Counselor Hanakie had a question about why we don't just have the town manager do something and why we would involve the committees that we have, that you all have actually appointed that are mostly the black and brown people. Why Counselor Hanakie is because we need to center the voices of black and brown people in this and white people need to step down. That's why. I really believe you should hear that and understand that by now. That's all I've got. Gwynne Vera, please enter the room and state your name and where you live. Yes, hello. My name is Gwynne Abad. And when I saw that this was being heard in Amherst tonight, I was actually at a meeting and I came in late but I wanted to be here because, well, I wanted to listen to what's being said because I don't live in Amherst but I had a very bizarre encounter with misogyny with the Amherst police. And so when I saw that this was happening tonight I decided to come listen and I'm so glad that I did. And a lot of what I hear tonight is more delay, more, let's do more research. Let's do more of this. And maybe the people that did this were not qualified but I believe that the people that are most qualified are the people that have these experiences. And there's no point. The thing is like, I mean, first and foremost the first thing that just is coming to my mind is the concept of public trust and how critical it is at children's different points and development to have a nice relationship with the authority in the homes that they live in, let alone BIPOC youth. They are the most vulnerable and it's just, I guess it's really hard to understand why this is still lingering since July. I do remember reading about this but what I'm seeing a lot tonight is just the continuing cycle of systemic racism, the use of regulations to perpetuate the abuse of power that people experience and that's exactly why our nation is in the condition that it is right now because there's a serious imbalance of power and everyone who's serving tonight is in a position of public trust.  And I think that Amherst really needs to lead on this. It's just, it's a deeply embedded history. It's like sometimes not even conscious that these underlying biases in ways of knowing and being and the way that people are read or profiled, it's so embedded. It's so embedded through so many generations of trauma and erasure and the erasing happens with delays and then the changing of guards once again and somebody drops the ball. And so that's what I have to say about this. Thank you for letting me speak. Thank you. Lauren Mills, please enter the room, state your name, where you live. Yes, hi, good evening. You can hear me for a good night. Lauren Mills, Mr. Cai, I have a few points that I'd like to share. I appreciate all the public speakers that just spoke and I appreciate those counselors who do get it when seeing Dorothy Pam, I appreciate you. I had the question in my mind, who forces a forced apology? And like some of the other callers have mentioned and CSJC, one of the requests, and I'm sure from the families as well, is an apology from the police chief and I would also like to know what the process is for that and how that can be accomplished. Also at the listening session of the first AHRA public listening session a counselor mentioned counseling and if that is recommended, who would pay for that counseling? And I think that would be a good start. If that's something that is wanting to be provided, I think it should be pursued for the families. I would also just suggest to town council members to maybe set up a meeting with you starting with the middle school. I have two sons that go to the middle school and maybe your perspectives would be opened more if you talk to the youth of this community of this town and I would just really strongly suggest that you speak and hear what the youth have to say in this town. And just lastly, a council member mentioned who is accountable for a pair and I think for me, the answer is we are all accountable. We're all accountable for the repair. Thank you. Brianna Owen, please send to the room. Hi everyone. I hope everyone listening and those who will re-listen later open the packet from this evening and read Mr. William Stewart's email. It illustrates the corruption that happens within the town and this is just the first time it's in our face and we cannot ignore it. This meeting I've heard counselors say they've answered the trauma endured by the BIPOC community through programs like Cress, the DEI department and the creation of the CSSJC. You have all halfway funded every recommendation the CSWG has put forth. In fact, the CSSJC's mistreatment is a perfect example that nothing about the town council has grown to be more inclusive since the first time these discussions have started. I read Mr. Williams, I read Mr. Williams Stewart's letter over and over and over again before this meeting. Amherst is not equitable, not everyone feels safe here, not everybody feels represented, not everyone feels free to speak. People in this town have been brutalized physically, emotionally and mentally by the police department, by town staff, by community members and by each of the counselors that have tried and continue to try to minimize the trauma experience by underrepresented folks in this community. Denial is not the way to change. Denial is not the way to change. Denial is not the way to change. Thank you. Is Soledad Ortega Bustamante please enter the room? Good evening. Good evening, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Soledad Ortega district five, Amherst. And I just wanted to very briefly, much has been said and thank you to everyone who has made a statement and has been working on these issues nonstop. We've heard that an admission is needed, a reconciliation, repair, reform, accountability and amends. And these are all important concepts that have been mentioned and have been explained in writing and reports submitted already. The one area that may be in here that I haven't seen, you can point me to it if I missed in one of the motions. And what is that is the direct connection to the police contract. So the question is for any aspect of admission, reconciliation, repair, reform, accountability and amends, what is the connection there to changing aspects or clauses in the police contract? Because without a through line to the contract, the incident could be analyzed. It could even hopefully be repaired, amended. You may even see some reform, but to have a sustainable systemic change, there needs to be a connection to the police contract. I have heard members of CSSJC tonight support motion one from Councilwoman Miller. And I know that you are combining it with other motions tonight. And that sounds fantastic. You have already a working and established group of committees, already CSSJC, the HRA. And I understand the references to the progress that were made with the DEI and Cresc offices. But I think it's really important to put that on a timeline. These are very new positions. These are very new programs with extremely large and ambitious portfolios. And to put them in a position of suddenly having to analyze an incident of this nature didn't do them any favors. And as we have heard tonight, there was eyewitness accounts lacking, et cetera. So going forward, given the respect for their position and the charge that you've given them, they would be much better suited to work in collaboration with CSSJC, with the HRA, and with others in a more collaborative manner to get to the bottom of this. The other comment I wanted to make is that in addition to a tie-in to the police contract and clauses in the contract that there has to be a timeline outlined for this that is not waiting for more analysis. So for example, you could say that from July 5th, it shouldn't go beyond December 5th that there is at least a first step that's concrete and public in this that's more acceptable to all parties. Thank you very much. Thank you. Zoe, please enter the room. State your name and where you're from. Hey, everybody. This is Zoe Crafter from District 5. Again, I just wanted to reiterate and uplift something that I heard Councillor Walker say and that I was reflecting upon as well as folks were going through the motions, which is that we already have a review of police department rules and regulations and procedures. I don't know if any of those specifically addressed police department rules, regulations and procedures in relation to incidents with youth, but it is very frustrating again to hear the desire for more research and more review when the first batch of recommendations from extensive research that included outside professional consultants to create haven't been fully taken up. So I just wanted to second that for you, Alicia, that it sounds like other folks are also feeling that in addition to you and I. Meg Gage, please enter the room. State your name and where you live. Hi, everyone. I'm Meg Gage. I live in North Amherst. Can you hear me? We can. Your buds here. Thank you all for this hard work. I really appreciate it. And this is a huge struggle for all of us. I'm gonna not go back to how long in my life I've been dealing with all these things, but I appreciate Amherst, which has been bold. I'm concerned about our ability to focus longer forward in the programs that we've created. Amherst has been bold in creating new programs to tackle in our small way. Centuries of unimaginable cruelty, crimes and suffering. The Crest program and the DEI program are up and running and it's taken a lot of effort. And I just want to be sure that we're focusing on those as well as what we're dealing with right now. We've hired extraordinary leaders in these two programs, Pamela and Earl and Deborah. And we have a strong African American Reparations Assembly which has been supported by the council as well. We urgently need to pull together to assure that these programs advance. And I'm concerned that we're gonna be stuck here and not move forward with some of the things that we've been working on. We need to learn how to deal with harm, which is very real without creating more harm. I'm so late, I'm gonna just be very brief. I really urge all of us to bring our highest collaborative selves to work together to find the best path forward. There's a Smith faculty woman, Loretta Ross, a recent MacArthur Fellowship winner, advises when engaging in disagreements, it's better than calling people out, is to instead call people in. And I'm worried that we're so antagonistic right now that we're not working together to find forward paths. It's so late at night, I'm not gonna say more, but this is really hard work that everybody needs to pay attention to. And I really appreciate everything everyone's doing. And we need to work together. How can we work together rather than antagonistically? It's very hard. Sorry, too late at night to be very articulate. It's almost 11 o'clock. Ah, good night, everybody. I'm not good night, but thank you. Thanks, Meg. Vera Cage, please enter the room. Hi, Vera Cage, Amherst. Hold on, I'm sorry Vera, we have to bring you back in. Or we have to unmute you. What did you do? Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. We had a little technical snafu there, Vera, sorry. So in 2010, I, along with my husband and his family and his nephews, friends, we and community members, we launched Justice for Charles. Harold Woolhite was wrongfully convicted of murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. That was in 2010. I quit my job to help my nephew get out of serving in maximum security prison. He was not even 30 years old. I visited Ludlow Jail to visit him for the first time I stepped into the jail cell. I will made a commitment to his grandmother, my late mother-in-law that we would get him out. She was able to see him freed during the second trial. I quit my graduate assistantship job at UMass to work on his case full-time as a volunteer. I will go to the depths of the earth to make sure these nine young people get the justice they are due. Let's talk about due process. Some of these comments irritate me because there is a presumption of guilt already. These kids have not even been tried. These kids are not guilty, but there is a presumption of guilt. But the police, they get a pass. Fairly anyone questions what they assert to be thorough, complete or true. The onus is on these nine youths to present their story. And Mr. Paul Bachman, our town manager has the power to facilitate the most humane path for justice for these nine youth that will be listening, recording and documenting how you all have behaved your comments as will the rest of us. Let's ask Attorney Howard Friedman how he was able to in my own knowledge obtain settlement agreements for his two clients separate cases against the Amherst PD. Let's talk about the police insurance, the deductible that the town of Amherst pays. Let's ask Mr. Town Manager Paul Bachman about those avenues. He holds a lot of answers. He holds a lot of information. And he is eerily quiet, too quiet for my own satisfaction. Please get away from this addiction to want to watch and witness suffering, especially black and brown suffering.  That's what you're doing with every minute of this meeting, with every day and every week and every month that these children have not had a resolution to what they are presenting to you to this town. Everyone should be treated with courtesy and respect and with the presumption of innocence. Police didn't do that July 5th. They sat those kids down on a sidewalk and lined them up like they were suspects. And do you know why some of these kids don't want to speak because they know the trajectory, because they are part of a long line of our history, a legacy of this history. Because in a couple of years, in a year, some of these kids will turn adults. And you know what police do to these children when they become adults? They really go after them. That's the reality that these kids experience and know all too well. And that many of you are so disconnected from. I can't believe that some of you will be able to expound on something that you have very little knowledge of and be very comfortable about speaking to things and making advice and suggestions about the things that you know very little about. And you do not respect the people that hold the knowledge like Mrs. Pat Ononabaku. If you want to create all these committees, create all this diversion to avoid the point that you are the town is guilty of farm. And they need you all need to address it. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes public comment. And we are going to go back to the council and I am ready to entertain a motion. I'm sorry. Michelle. Can I clarify something? Yeah. Do we have a motion on the table now? Was Michelle formal withdrawal? Like was that. Thank you. Withdrawal and actual withdrawal so that emotion would be a new one versus a substitute. No, let's do this formally. Michelle, there's a motion on the table. It's been made and seconded. I'm calling on you because it was your motion. Yes. I'd like to withdraw my motion and offer. A new motion, please. And is it. To be read. Again, or I. Let me see if I can. Are you sharing screen Sean or shall I. I need to be given permission. I need to be made co-host to do this. You have the sheet. If you don't, I can, I can't hear you. You need to make me co-host to do that. We, I'm sorry. Athena, who is on Tuesday night says class in Boston. Needed to leave her location so she could make the last train home. And so we're working with a slightly different. Crew. Okay. I, I am, I can now share the motions. Okay. The motion that is on the screen is the motion that was made and seconded on October 17th. And my understanding from Michelle is that has been officially withdrawn. A point of clarification. I believe the seconder has to also agree to that withdrawal. Since the theme is not here to. Thank you. I appreciate all of that. And I believe. Lisa, you were the seconder. Are you willing to withdraw? Yes. Thank you. Okay. We can allow that. Okay. Now, Michelle. Do you want to go to the next motion? Yes, please. Okay. All right. And this is the substitute motion that Michelle spoke to earlier. Michelle, what would you like to say about this? I think that. I've already spoken to it. And I think that the members of the CSS JC. And the public that have spoken. Support this motion. And I hope my fellow. Counselors will also support it. And perhaps in combination with other motions that have been. Recommended tonight. So unless there's some reason that I have to read it line by line, I'm officially making the motion. And I'm looking for a second. Second Walker. Okay. Thank you. Is there any questions that people would like to raise or so forth? Andy. I just need clarification. They asked the second paragraph of the motion. Which is an italics. Isn't that the withdrawn motion? Yes. Andy, originally when I had submitted this with our drafts yesterday by noon. I had submitted it as a draft. To reconsider as opposed to withdrawing the original. So. Lynn and I talked about using that language move to substitute the following motion. But. What I've done here tonight is asked for that original motion to be completely withdrawn. And then to have a new motion, which I've spoken to already. So let me just make sure that I understand that that. The tele-sized paragraph is not part of the substitute motion one. No, not at all. I just needed to bring, take that down for a moment because I needed to. Put the review up so I can track changes. Now I can go back. And I can put it up on the screen. You might have a helpful hand. Hand from Athena who showed up. I'm going to. So you're going to call on people. Anna. Oh, I. What? No. Athena has. Is here. I'm saying. She's back. Like it's magic. Can you see people's hands? I can. I was just going to suggest that we change that, you know, That's agreeable to change rather than to substitute that we just cut that. So it would say to create the ad hoc committee to develop a proposal for repair as presented below and then. Cut up a paragraph in italics. Yeah. I'm happy to call on hands. If that's, that's not what I was suggesting. Athena is here to do. I just noticed she had her hand up. So the motion's been made and seconded. Who's next to speak. Can we just clarify that that's an agreeable amendment. A friendly amendment. I've already drawn a line through it. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. And. And Alicia agrees as well. Oh, yes. Sorry. Thank you, Athena. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's what I was asking for. Michelle has your hand. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I do not have my hand up. I apologize. I'm going to. I'm sorry. Pat. Yeah. Keep it moving. I'm old. I'm slow. I'll keep it moving as fast as I can. I'm looking at your. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The opposition of the committee of the ad hoc committee. And you have one non-voting community liaison member of the APD. I'm very. Interested in why. There would not also be a member of crests. And or DEI as part of the actual committee, even if they're non-voting. And it says later, the APD DEI and crests will participate in relevant discussions as needed. But I think that those are ongoing voices that. Become critical to the kind of exploration this is. Thank you, Pat. Yeah, I really appreciate that. Originally I did have a non-voting member from crests as well as a non-voting member from crests. And then I did have a non-voting member from the Amherst. High school staff. And then I realized that. It may be. Considered potentially too clunky in that way. But I fully support that. And if the staff is available to participate in that manner. I think that would be great. Thank you. May I speak to that? I would just specifically like to see crests. Representative of crests to be added. All right. Kathy, your hand is still up. Would you like to make a comment? Kathy. If you can scroll down to. A set of bullets. Michelle, you said earlier. You are talking about changing, examining protocols, looking to the future. I don't see it in the wording here. So for example. It says harms. And then the next one says research and explored models. For repair. So there's the word repair. Pay.   In this that I can see that talks about look at protocols. Follow up. Apology. So we would talk about preventing. Such things in the future. So that's why I called it narrow. I think this is all focused on July 5th. And it assumes reparations. Which might be changing of protocols, but I don't read the repair. I think the answer to that question. And I think that's something that I have been hearing throughout that. There had been a real apology earlier, and we should have a different way of working with youth on noise complaints. So I just don't see it here. And if that is the way you want it to read. I. I still think this is quite narrow. And focusing on one incident. Michelle, would you like to respond? I would. Thank you, Anna. Yeah. So I think. I think that's a good point. So I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think we need to think about the policy and compensatory options. So in my mind, that means procedural. How have we, how do we manage when these incidents arise? And we've all acknowledged that they will arise again. Policy. What sort of policy changes need to take place. To repair. This incident and future incidents in my mind. I think that includes concrete process for handling future similar incidents. So I do not think this is narrow only to the July 5th incident. I think it uses the incident. As a focal point to then also recommend to the council concrete process for handling future similar incidents. I'm going to call on Paul and then come back Paul. So I want to delve a little bit more into what expectations you have for staff. As you know, we have very talented leaders at the. Crest department, a DEI department. I do want to say that Scott Livingstone is one of the strongest and best police chiefs that I have ever seen in the state of Massachusetts. He has also been very progressive in how he has approached things. The, I can tell you the DEI director has three other committees that she is managing. She has a lot of other things on her plate. We are working together to figure out her workload and to ensure that she is can be successful in her job with what she's supposed to do for the town. Crest is in the middle of developing a really robust program. You know, Earl, as you know, is here six days, seven days a week. We're forcing these people to not come to work some days so they can maintain their ability to complete the tasks with which they've been assigned. My time is the last six. I'm happy for you to put me anywhere. But in terms of my staff, in terms of the DEI director, I can tell you she believes that she has concluded her reports on the July 5th incident. Doesn't think that she can contribute much more to that particular incident. She's happy to support, but I just want to make sure it clear that we can provide administrative support for sure to another major committee, which has a very large charge. I mean, these are looking at really big things over a very tight timeline. So just to, I want to be very clear with the council that in terms of staff support will give you as much administrative support as you need. But in terms of the professional staff, I would caution how much time they will be able to devote to this. That's what I'm trying to be realistic because we are having these conversations on a daily basis about job sustainability and people being able to continue in their jobs with the workload that we're putting on them. Mandy.  Her comments. Paul, thank you for that. Has. Reviews come out next week from counselors. I am, you know, as what Paul stated, I'm very concerned about what we ask of our staff and how much we ask. We ask a lot. And we don't ever add much stuff. And, you know, that goes to this motion in terms of the town manager, APD, DEI crest director to participate in relevant discussions as needed. Anika indicated that the thought might be that they're needed for all of the discussions. But do they have the time? I don't know. I can't answer that. I can't answer that. I can't answer that. I can't answer that. I can't listen to our town manager to say they're already stretched really thin. By a lot of what we've asked them to do already. I worry that this charge. Asks the committee to reinvestigate. It doesn't use those words. It says established consensus on the factual record. Of what transpired and established consensus on the factual record. And it doesn't talk about. What the committee will use to establish that consensus. I, you know. Are they going to use the DEI report and addendum, the police report and addendum. We've heard many. People specifically from the CSS JC. We've heard the town manager say the DEI director believes. Her reporting on this incident is done. But if there's belief that those aren't sufficient. And belief that they are sufficient. I. Hesitate to say we can establish consensus without further investigating. I don't know the answer to that. I worry that. We'd be creating an investigatory body without. Much say in how they investigate. And without frankly, any authority and how to investigate. Committees don't have authority to go into and read. Private. And. You know, non-public documents. So that's one of my concerns with. Some specific language in here. The other concern is not really a concern, but more of a question. And I think this was asked by. Another CSS JC member. What are we going to do with the proposed plan? Is the assumption. That we will adopt. The proposed plan because if that's the assumption, I've got more concerns. Or is the assumption that proposed plan will come here. And then it might go off to another committee of the council to review. To see whether we want to. Adopt some all none change stuff and all of that. What, what's the action afterward? And I guess that goes back to. If we know as a council, what we want. Why not just ask the town manager to do it with. Consulting. I think the motion six says. Using and consulting. Some of these, these committees too. But why not just say, do that. Why create a committee? So I'm. I'm not sure I can support this yet, but I'm still thinking hard on it. But those are some of my questions and concerns. Thank you. Shalini. Again, again, I want to reiterate that. Yes, there is racism in our town. There is profiling. That has been shared by some of the people in our. Amongst us today. That's been shared. And in the, from the public and. And that needs to stop. It's not going to stop over night. But we need to take the actions. And hopefully tonight. To make that stop. The other issue that I want to really highlight is that. Creating a committee, a working group. To do the job that we have hired a director to do. To create a process forward to set up the residence oversight board. We're setting a bad precedent where we hire black leaders, but we don't give them the power to lead. We need to let her. Not only do her job, we need to. Clear the road for her to do, to do the job, not add more things for her to even look at this and to even look at that. We need to give her the consultant if she needs so that she can do it in a faster manner. And. I don't know. I just feel that. The motion that the alternatives that are out there are going to get us to start acting. And on what is needed. And secondly, there was one other point I had in my mind. Which was it'll come to me in a minute. Deep breaths. Okay. Okay, maybe I'm going to come back to you with the second point I was going to make, but. Yeah, come back. Okay. I'm going to call on myself briefly. And, you know, I think if, if I'm not able to support this motion and I'm still trying to. Trying to process through it in my head. The reason is that. And I apologize if I sound repetitive. I think, you know, my, my concern is that. If we do this, are we negating the things that CSS JC has already written to us as the list of things they'd like to see happen because we're now going to say, forget that we're going to, we're going to form this new group. And, and I see you shaking your head, Michelle. Hang on. Let me, let me finish my sentence. Please. And we're going to wait to see what comes out of this committee instead. And so my concern is how are we, how are we doing both if this committee is answering a question that CSS JC has written an answer to in their letter to us before. So I still, and that's not every single bullet point on this list. There's just a few on here that I think that's where I'm seeing that overlap that I'm concerned about. Because I, I think that. What I'm hearing is that action is the priority right now and action is one of the priorities right now. And I don't want to do things that are. Slowing that down. So that's, that's where my, my challenge with this is right now is, is I am concerned that we have a lot of the answers to this already. And they've been given to us by the, the, the, the, the, the, the committee that we've put together to work on community safety and social justice. So that's where I'm, that's where my heads at. I wanted to share that Dorothy. Okay. So in teaching logic to community college students, sometimes we talk about creating a straw man. And I do feel that that is one of the things that's happening here is creating a straw man that somehow we can divert our attention to what we're doing. I think the motion is good. I think that some people are uncomfortable with it because you want to know ahead of time how it's going to turn out and you want to control it. And the idea is. We will not totally control it. We have these committees. And who will be drawn upon presenting some members to a new committee. That will control it. I really think we should go ahead and let that happen. But I have a question for the town manager. When we said we wanted to add crests and DEI, it was because we wanted to make sure that their input was given where they wanted to give it and where they felt it was necessary. You are the one who knows what they can do and can't do. And we have spoken to you a couple of times saying that. That we felt that you did over burden some of the staff. So I see that you're really trying to respond to that. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that you did over burden some of the staff. So I see that you're really trying to respond to that. So. I just think that you could give your opinion a little bit more strongly. Mr. Backelman. What do you think in terms of. Should we leave this staff, this committee as it is. Or should we. With just the. The rep non voting representative of the APD. And only bring in crest when needed. I just want your opinion on that. So I guess I don't really know what the non voting representative from APD means really. What their role would be. And I would be important to understand that. Right. I can tell you that we are building two brand new departments. And that Pamela and Earl are working eons. And we're in a. I want them to continue their work that they were hired to do. And I think it's really important. This is an important committee. If the, if the council feels this is an important committee, you can certainly create it. That's totally within your purview. I'm just what I'm saying is, as terms of staffing, I cannot commit that.  Yeah, but. And I'm not stadium, right? So, I'm just saying, you know, Earl doesn't have the, you know, the developed staff that he needs, he's building that program. And Pamela is tapped out. Yeah. Quite honestly. And so it's been pretty clear in terms of where. My job as a manager of people isn't make sure that they're able And that they are able to do it within the time frame of the hours that for which we pay them. I'm making a big emphasis of this right now because we put a lot of burdens on our staff. And it is we had a meeting this morning bar department heads and it was palpable. What department heads are saying or their, their staffs are feeling. And it's, and it's not just, I'll be honest with you, it's not just the work that they're doing. What's happening with individual staff and how staff are being treated in public meetings is felt felt by everybody. And I think that that's really disturbing to everybody. Sean was in the meeting. He can attest to it. Because when the staff here criticisms of the of their fellow leaders, I mean, other department heads. And they feel that, you know, that could be me and they start to know and one staff number said, I've got a kid going to college. What does this mean for me? You know, they're worried about things like that. So it might have today and this is totally like the issues that people brought up today. I mean, Councilor Walker and Phillip were just so powerful. And so this seems, you know, miniscule compared to the feelings that they had and that was just really meaningful to me but my hat I am wearing today is in terms of managing staff for the town of Amherst. So I just wanted to convey that and it's really not to compare that at all to what other.


Yes, that's how I look after a sleepless night. Don't ask, and I will not tell. My name is Sam Aknien and I am the Blue Professor of Psychology, the most handsome one on this channel. This, you cannot dispute, and today we are going to discuss one else, sexuality.  What pushes the narcissist to change his entire psychosexuality, his entire personality in effect? Is this a form of identity disturbance or is something much more pernicious at play for those of you who are conspiracy minded? Tomorrow, by the way, there's a bonus for all of you, the Toxic Family Holidays Reunion Guide.  Okay Shoshaneem, my name is still Sam Aknien last time I checked and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, the book that keeps giving and sometimes taking. Onward Christian soldiers, and in my case Jewish soldiers, to discuss cerebral narcissism. Cerebral narcissism is a relatively stable construct across the lifespan. In other words, the cerebral remains cerebral, remains cerebral until he dies. There are periods in the cerebrals life when he becomes briefly somatic, these periods never last more than a few years and usually they last a few months. Why is cerebral narcissism so stable? Why doesn't it fluctuate? Narcissists, to some extent, have identity disorders, borderlines have much more than narcissists. But narcissists also morph and shape shift, why don't they change the sexual preferences? And so the reason that cerebral narcissism is a fixture, a piece of unmovable immutable furniture in the narcissist mind, is because it starts very early on in life. It can start even at age two, sometimes earlier. It involves what we call sublimation.  Freud gave the example of writing a book.  So there's mental energy, there's a law of conservation of mental energy, there's just a limited quantity and this limited quantity transmutes and shifts from one activity to another. If you invested in writing a book or making a political speech or appearing on television or have you, usually you have no energy left to do other unspeakable things to your girlfriend. And so this is called sublimation. Sublimation means converting drives, urges, instincts into socially acceptable activities that consume the energy that should have gone to these drives, urges and instincts. So cerebral narcissism involves very early life sublimation. The child, sometimes age two, learns to convert libido, libido, convert eros, the sex drive, the component of libido that has to do with sex. The child learns to convert this into activities that gratify the adults around the child. The child learns to manipulate adults, the child learns to extract narcissistic supply from adults by emphasizing his intelligence, by displaying her intellect, by solving problems in mathematics, by reading aloud the daily paper when you're four years old. Yeah, that's me. So the child learns that displays or pyrotechnics of the mind are even more efficacious, more efficient at manipulating adults than sexuality. Normal healthy children, especially girls, as they grow up, they learn that sex is a form of energy. Sex is power.   Sex is a manipulative force and watch my previous video about reverse engineering. But cerebral narcissists from a very early age have learned the power of something a lot more potent and a lot more mighty than sex, the mind, words, intellect, intelligence. Cerebral narcissists find out the secret of manipulating people via speech, via writing and via reading. And they have learned that this kind of manipulation is much longer lasting, much more ubiquitous, much more profound than anything sex can accomplish.  They don't develop asexuality. They redirect their entire libido and eros into intellectual pursuits. They leverage their brain as an instrument and a tool to obtain supply and as a venue or conduit or vector of self-efficacy and agency. In other words, they use their mind, they use their intellect, they use their intelligence to secure favorable outcomes from the environment. Having learned this trick at age 2 or 4 or 6, the child is no incentive to develop sexually. The sublimation is so massive, the sublimation is so all-pervasive that it renders the cerebral narcissists asexual. It destroys, it eradicates his sex drive.  And so when the cerebral starts to interact with peers, he is already abnormal, he is already misshaped, while all his peers engage in the twin or dual tracks of intellectual development and psychosexual development, he is one track minded, he is focused only on the intellect and while all his peers grow up to be adults, mature, sexually ripe and intellectually capable to a large extent, he is lopsided. He grows up only in one direction, he is like a hunchback or a stalactite or a stalagmite or like a laser beam rather than a diffuse light, he is totally focused, he is point-like. And so the peers of the cerebral narcissists sense his abnormality and potential sex partners shun the cerebral narcissists because they regard him as creepy and robotic. In return, the cerebral narcissists injured, hurt, wounded and damaged by this rejection conjures up a defensive ideology. He says I don't really need sex, I don't really want sex, it is I who choose, I who chooses to not have sex. This is known as cognitive dissonance, he is trying to resolve the cognitive dissonance by discarding one part, one horn of the dilemma.  And celibacy says the cerebral narcissists is evidence of superior strength and self-control. Women are contemptible if he is heterosexual, women are contemptible and should be avoided. This is the ideology of the cerebral, it acts as an exoskeleton, as a shell, it ossifies and rigidifies and fossilizes until the cerebral narcissists resembles a very ancient Egyptian mummy, still entombed. So how can someone like that suddenly love sex, seek sex, adore sex, and spend most of his time pursuing sex? What brings on this amazing transformation? Cerebels become somatic usually in the vast majority of cases, following something known as narcissistic collapse. A collapsed narcissist is not a failed narcissist, it's a common mistake among YouTube's self-styled experts and their dogs. Failed narcissism is a phase in the development of borderline. A collapsed narcissist is a narcissist who cannot secure narcissistic supply for whatever reason. When the cerebral narcissist collapses, he can no longer garner supply by placing his intellect on public display. And so this is one reason why cerebels transition and become somatic, because they can no longer obtain supply in the classical traditional habituated ways, the ways they are used to. So they switch to another strategy, it's a narcissistic supply strategy, being somatic. This is one reason. The second reason, or second possibility, is when the cerebral is offered the opportunity to obtain a quick fix of narcissistic supply via sex. Now this happens extremely rarely. Remember what I said before, the cerebral is highly abnormal. He lacks a critical dimension of humanity. Not only he lacks empathy, which renders him half human, he also lacks sexuality.  So he is not perceived as human by others. This is what we call an uncanny valley reaction.  People feel uncomfortable with the cerebral narcissists. They feel under scrutiny, as if they were in a laboratory in their mice. They feel very threatened, they become hyper-vigilant. And so people shun the cerebral narcissists. They avoid him, as I said, they regard him as creepy. So it's extremely rare for the cerebral narcissists to come across a sexual opportunity.  But when this rarity happens, when this singularity, singular event happens, the cerebral narcissist becomes somatic, just in order to take advantage of this opportunity. When the cerebral narcissist becomes a somatic narcissist, when he metamorphosizes and transitions, he resembles very much a sex addict. He's incapable of empathy, or attachment, or bonding, or even perceiving external objects, he's a narcissist, remember? So instead he uses bodies, he increases his body count. He uses body count as kind of a meter of success. Body count becomes the narcissistic supply. And this applies to men especially, but also to women who are cerebral narcissists and have turned somatic, from zero to hero. Finally, there's another reason for such a startling transformation, age, looming death. The cerebral attempts to deny his age. He attempts to fend off his ineluctable demise. He regards himself as immortal because the mind and thoughts and philosophy and physics, they're all immortal. And so he must be immortal because he's producing them. But when age encroaches upon the narcissist, when he starts to see to his great horror, his body crumbling and falling apart, disintegrating in front of his terrified eyes, when he realizes the proximity of death, when he gets sick, chronically ill, or otherwise, he tries to deny. He tries to deny, he tries to reframe, and he tries to substitute life for death by having sex. Sex is the force of life. Remember, eros is an integral part of libido, which is the force of life. And so by leveraging his libido and his eros, by finally unleashing what is left of his sex drive, by regaining access to those parts of him which have been suppressed or repressed for decades, the narcissist feels alive again. And this is a way of pretending that he will never die. Usually he chooses much younger sex partners because their youth kind of rubs off on him, reflects on him. It's like King David or Mahatma Gandhi who used to sleep with very, very young girls. But the cerebral is a narcissist. Don't forget this. He is now having transition to the somatic type, he is now a sex addict. But his sex is still compulsive, a little coercive, and always auto-erotic, masturbatory. Narcissist uses other people's bodies as animated dildos or sex dolls. The partners are fungible and forgettable to a large extent. There is one exception to this. And it is when the partner is actually mentally ill, when the partner is unhealthy. When the partner is, for example, borderline. It caters to the narcissist's grandiosity as a healer or a fixer. And so this is the only case where the partner would not be considered dispensable or replaceable or interchangeable. More or less healthy partners would be forgotten soon enough immediately after the sex. But when the narcissist comes across someone who needs help, someone who is damaged and broken, it provokes in him the guru instinct, the messiah complex, the savior fixer healing complex. And so it caters to his grandiosity and he is likely to bond or attach to this kind of partners. The younger they are, the better, because, as I said, it imbues him with a new sense of life. Narcissists, cerebral and somatic, offer their partners, including sex partners, shared fantasy. A shared fantasy of some kind. The shared fantasy could be, I'm safe, you're secure, I'm stable, I'm a calming influence on you. I'll always be there for you. It will help you, care about you. That's a shared fantasy in some way. Another type of shared fantasy is, you're going to have a family, you're going to get married, you're going to have children. So there's always a shared fantasy. And these shared fantasies usually incorporate a fresh start. Because remember, in this third possibility, in this third case, the cerebral transitions to somatic because he wants to forget about aging and about death. The only way to do this is to team up with a young partner and have sex with her, which is a force of life, and then offer her a fresh start, which is typical of a much younger age. Relocation, marriage, children, incessant travel, or long-term relationships, these are hallmarks of people in their 20s and 30s, rarely, rarely older. So the narcissist actually regresses. The transition from cerebral narcissism to somatic narcissism is a form of infantile regression. The cerebral narcissists turn somatic, frantically thrashes about, trying to make up for lost time and missed sexual and romantic opportunities. His eyes are open. He suddenly sees what he had sacrificed over the years, what he has given up on, what could have been his. And so he's very mournful, he's grieving, he's furious, sometimes he's even suicidal. The transition from cerebral narcissism to somatic narcissism is very destabilizing for the narcissist because he gets to see the other part of him that had always been denied and neglected and atrophied. He gets to realize the bad decisions that he has made about himself how he had killed a crucial part of himself. This is both infuriating and very sad.  He self-medicates with sex. He reduces his anxiety and his fear of death and his terror of age and aging.  The cerebral finally has to confront his mortality. The day of judgment is upon him and he ends up, often alone, in a degenerative schizoid state, self-sufficient but also dead, both internally and finally externally. Thank you for listening to this cheerful video for a change.