So, welcome back colleagues for this important debate on the long-term vision for rural areas. I want to particularly welcome Commissioner Suitsa, I'm going to add former Mayor of Dubrovnik, Vice President of the Commission for Democracy and Demography. In addition, Commissioner Wojciechowski, Commissioner for Agriculture on the on behalf and on behalf of the entire COR membership and team to thank you both for accepting this invitation and indeed for the ongoing close cooperation between us. I also want to particularly welcome Madam Isabel Carvalhice, member of the Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and Rapporteur on the long-term vision to thank you all for taking time from what I'm sure are very, very busy schedules to be with us for this important debate. I'd now like to commence the debate with a video, so colleagues can I ask you to please start launch the video. I think it should be a unique window that manages all the papers carried by the employer in rural media, because we were practically three years developing the idea through bureaucratic methods. It is necessary to promote the professionals not only working at the large hospitals. I would like to emphasize that rural people who want to live in our areas, opportunities. Dear Vice President, dear Commissioner, I'd very much like to start this debate with two key words, rural pact, from Brussels legislators to policy practitioners on the ground from the European Commission to the tiniest municipal council. We all agree we need to bring EU national, regional and local actors together with a real pact that sets objectives and tools to help rural areas out of this crisis and to open a new phase of prosperity for the European countryside. This is not a bureaucratic request, but an evidenced based demand. In our latest regional and local barometer published last October, we raised awareness about the impact of the current crisis on rural areas. We stressed that the increasing gaps that penalize rural communities demand a coordinated action. In this context, the EU long-term vision for rural areas and the relevant action plan proposed by the European Commission include important provisions and offer a valuable strategic framework to plan a sustainable future for our rural communities. We have increased clarity on rules, adequate funding coming from both the EU regular budget and next generation EU, and a stronger public awareness about the many challenges for rural areas more visible during the pandemic. But what we really miss, which might endanger our success, is a real political willingness to work in partnership. Indeed, both the reformed common agricultural policy and the recovery and resilience facility risk being overly centralized. Neglecting the partnership principle will make them ineffective. The pact we need is therefore a political one in order to avoid taking a territorial blind approach to rural revival and miss a once in a lifetime opportunity offered by an unprecedented European investment plan. Our rural areas are dealing with dramatic demographic challenges, digital gaps, low income levels, limited economic diversification, limited access to services, weaker connectivity and specific climate change implications. Our cooperation will be crucial to address these challenges. Our committee stands ready to promote rural parks on a ground in and for our communities. Dear Vice President Suitsa, as I said, it's a pleasure that you're joining with us today. The floor is now yours. Thank you. Good afternoon to everybody, dear members of the Committee of the Region. I'm glad to have this exchange with you today on the Commission's long-term vision for rural areas and to be here with my colleague, Commissioner Wojcichowski, ahead of your vote on this report. I have read your opinion with great interest and yesterday I had the pleasure to meet with your reporter to discuss in detail various elements of the report that you are adopting today. I am delighted to see that you largely share the Commission's analysis of the challenges that rural areas currently face. I think about the population, lack of access to services, lack of skills and infrastructure, which you mentioned. And as European Commissioner Vice President for Democracy and Demography, I think about the need for rural stakeholders to feel included in policymaking process. This is part of making our democracy fit for the future and making sure we leave no one and nowhere behind. I welcome your call to make rural areas part of the Conference on the Future of Europe. This communication has been drafted on the basis of a wide public consultation that has very much guided our work on this vision. But the conference itself is mindful of rural concerns. Many recommendations that have already been adopted point in the direction of rural areas, while some build directly on this long-term vision. Indeed, we have ensured that an appropriate proportion of the randomly selected citizens participating in the European panels actually come from rural areas. Last weekend, we had the third plenary session of the conference during which we discussed these specific recommendations. I appreciate the commitment of your representatives and of local and regional authorities in this process. You are the backbone shaping the European Union of the future. And let me be clear, any change in order to be sustainable must be embraced at the local level, because that is the one that is the closest to our citizens. And our ambition with the long-term vision is to generate a new momentum for rural areas with a set of tools that should help rural regions become more prosperous, connected, sustainable and attractive. The Committee of the Regions is the first institution to adopt its formal opinion on this long-term vision. Your recommendations will provide us with guidance for the implementation phase of this vision. The publication of the communication was indeed just the starting point. A roadmap for the next 40 years to be successful on this road, we need to work together. My impression after reading your report is that we are very much aligned when it comes to identifying opportunities such as the vital role rural areas play in the green transition you mentioned, the potential of digitalization and yes, there are some positive prospects of changes brought about by the pandemic. I very much welcome your recommendations on urban rural linkages, the need for a fair rural urban balance and recognizing mutual benefits and the beneficial character of rural investment for urban residents. But we must also bear in mind that apart from the green and digital transitions, there is another almost silent transition that is transforming our continent, the demographic transition. And if you do not factor this in, our policies cannot be as effective as we wish them to be. I would like to touch upon four key points from the vision on which cooperation with you, the European Committee of the Regions, will be of vital importance. These are the action plan that is underpinning this vision. Secondly, the rural pact. The third is the rural proofing. And finally, the handbook for the better use of European funds. The rationale behind the action plan is that this is not a vision for some far away future, but that we have a roadmap to start building this future together as of right now. We share your sense of urgency to act for rural areas. And when we started this rural vision process 18 months ago, Commissioner Wojcichowski, Commissioner Ferrera and I invited member states, we invited member states to take into account this rural vision process in the programming of European funds. We have just renewed this request in a letter to all member states. Commission services are currently deeply engaged in assessing the operational programs and strategic plans submitted by member states and regions. Our services will do their best to ensure the needs of rural areas are addressed through adequate interventions. I know that my colleague, Commissioner Wojcichowski will tell you more about that. We have already started implementing a number of points from the action plan. Our intention is by mid 2023 next year to take stock of what actions have been carried out and programmed in support schemes for rural areas in the programming period between 2021 and 2027. In parallel, we have taken concrete steps to launch the creation of EU rural observatory to operationalize rural proofing and to structure ideas for the rural revitalization platform. Most of the flagships are underway bringing all different commission departments and policies on board. And dear members, I want to conclude with a few words on the rural pack because I know it is very much in your focus. It is clear that we cannot achieve this vision alone. That is why we have proposed the rural pack. All authorities and stakeholders who support the shared goals of the vision and want to work towards its achievement should co-shape it together with us. This should help realize the rural vision in synergy with different policies and local action in rural communities. Just a few weeks ago on the 20th of December last year, we launched the rural pack by inviting all relevant institutions, authorities and stakeholders to join the rural pack community and to develop this pack working towards the high level rural pack conference that we want to hold this year in June. I would like to thank you for your commitment to work with us on this pack. Together we can successfully organize the commitments at all levels of governance and in order to achieve the shared goals of this vision. To conclude, I want to use this opportunity to go beyond rural vision and to sincerely thank you for your broad engagement in the conference on the future of Europe and the interesting proposals made in your interim report published on 14th of December. I look forward to the final results of your work that I understand will be presented in Marseille in a few weeks where I am planning to join you again. Thank you and I understand that now my colleague and co-author of this vision, Commissioner Wojcichowski will take the floor. Thank you and all the best. Thank you so much Commissioner for those positive and inspiring words and as you said we're also joined and I'm delighted to welcome Commissioner Wojcichowski and I hope I've got your pronunciation right. Commissioner, it's now my pleasure to give you the floor. Commissioner Wojcichowski, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me to join you today. I would like to begin by congratulating you on your excellent work, in particular Mr Moreno Bonilla and the co-reporters. I look forward to today's adoption of the opinion on the long-term vision for rural areas, which represents the fruit of your work and marks another milestone in our progress. I am also looking forward to today's discussion. We launched the vision precisely to open a discussion on the future of rural areas and what steps we can take to make that future happen. The vision and the actions included within it provides a tangible way of engaging with rural communities, of showing to rural people that we recognize their importance and that we see a future for them. I am always keen on reminding that this support has basis in the treaty itself. Article 174 of the Treaty of the European Union clearly states that among the region's concerned particular attention shall be paid to inter-alia-alia rural areas. That is why it is so important to remember that in all interventions that are supposed to support these areas, it is crucial that they are implemented for them, not just in them. I am glad that you agree with us on the opportunities that await rural areas. We share your objective to make the most of the EU policies over the 2021-2027 period to progress towards this vision. Let me highlight the new common agricultural policy, which we are working hard to prepare for 2023. As you say in your assessment, agriculture and food have a key role to play in building a bright future for rural areas. While the CAP has a focus on farmers, it is a key policy for the rural economy as a whole. A number of measures under rural development, the so-called second pillar of the common agricultural policy, are designed to strengthen the socio-economic fabric in rural areas by promoting jobs and growth, social inclusion and local development. Rural development remains as an essential part of the reform CAP, with over 60 billion euro in funding for the 2023-2027 period. This funding can contribute to all of the policies objectives, in particular the specific objectives on vibrant rural areas and can be challenged through key initiatives for rural communities, such as leader and smart villages. When assessing the CAP plans submitted by member states, we are checking very carefully to ensure that the needs of rural areas as assessed in each country as identified in the long-term vision are well-addressed through adequate interventions. We are also paying attention to how the plans support a coherent approach to the development of rural areas through coordination and complementarity between policies. For example, as Vice President Sweetsha mentioned earlier, the cohesion policy provides an adaptable framework for member states and regions to support all territories. It is clear that the common agricultural policy and the cohesion policy can combine to provide a real, enabling environment for member states and the regions to support rural areas. However, it is important to stress that other EU and national policies also have a significant role to play. We need to keep the rural dimension of policymaking high on the agenda. This is essential if we are to have a truly balanced development of the European Union. Looking at rural areas only as a part of territorial contexts or only from the point of view of some sectors of policies gives an incomplete picture of their role in our society and economy. That is why we have introduced the mechanism of rural proofing. This means we will look at various policies through a rural lens and question how they will affect rural areas. Effective rural proofing will require improving the data we have to access, the situation of rural areas, the rural observatory that we are developing and which should deliver its first results by the end of 2022 will help us to progressively upgrade the evidence we have on rural areas. As you know, we launched in December the discussion on how to establish the rural pact as vice presidents which are recalled. Our rural pact will bring together all of our rural stakeholders from both the public and private spheres and across European, national, regional and local levels. Participants in the pact will be invited to commit to the 10 shared goals of the vision which reflects the needs and aspirations of rural residents and determined from extensive consultations. Participants will then be invited to set out voluntary actions that can contribute to the realization of these goals. To enable participants to share progress and stock of their actions, the commission will maintain a dedicated website in addition to organizing a number of events and engagements. In this way, the pact will provide rural stakeholders from across Europe with a platform to share their ideas, challenges and successes and to discuss opportunities for cooperation. The high level rural pact conference in June 2022 will be a key moment where all those who support the shared goals of the vision and who want to work towards their achievement will be able to make to make concrete commitments. The committee of regions has a key role to play in facilitating this engagement. I'm happy to note that the rural pact community is already strong and growing every day with nearly 500 subscribers and counting. I would like to thank you for your will to work with us and with all the levels of governance and stakeholders to develop this pact and to prepare the rural pact conference. We have a lot of discuss on how to best organize a rural pact process to deliver real progress on the ground. On this note, I will finish my opening remarks and open the floor to our discussion. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, commissioner. And finally and by no means least in terms of the opening statements, it's now my pleasure to give the floor to Madam Isabel Carvalhys, member of the European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture Rural Development and indeed Rapporteur on the long-term vision. Isabel, it's my pleasure now to give you the floor. Thank you. Thank you very much, Michael. And since we have translation services available, I will use my mother tongue to make this presentation. Hope it's okay. So I'll speak slowly just in case some of the words may be missing. So I will start by saudar, todos e todas, é muito especial os meus colegas de painel. A senhora vice-presidente da Comissar Europeia, do Bravka Svivka, e aqui tenho também o problema da pronúncia correta do seu nome. E o mesmo desafio para dizer o nome do senhor Comissar da Agricultura, Giannos Wojcikowski. E portanto, se disserem mal no meu apelido, estão perfeitamente desculpados, porque tenho estas limitações como podem ver. E também uma saudação especial ao relator da opinião do Comitê das Regiões, o Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, e aos senhores representantes regionais e locais que estão presentes nesta reunião de hoje. Eu gostaria também de agradecer ao Comitê das Regiões, na pessoa do seu presidente, o senhor Adzizi Kostas, pela oportunidade, que no fundo me dá de estar aqui e de poder debatir com vosco um tema que nos é muito caro, que é o futuro das nossas donas corais na Europa. Começarem na hora perito. Eu estou como relatora, portanto, o Parlamento Europeu encontra-se em fase de construção do relatório sobre a visão do longo prazo da Comissão para o Mundural e, nesse sentido, o vosso contributo é muito importante e é muito útil para o nosso trabalho. Pessoalmente, enquanto relatora do Parlamento Europeu para este relatório, dou a máxima importância ao contributo e à colaboração com o Comitê das Regiões nesta matéria, na medida em que, enfim, não digo nada demais, o vosso conhecimento, a vossa experiência no terreno é por todos reconhecida e, portanto, são imputos essenciais para a concretização efetiva desta visão. A Comunicação da Comissão, certamente que todos o reconhecemos, vem dinamizar e vem dar centralidade e vem dar visibilidade política a um debate que é urgente e que não se limita, obviamente, às donas burais, que têm implicações sobre o que deve ser a Coesão Territorial no futuro e um debate a que somos todos chamados. Unimos um grande objetivo, que é o de alcançar um desenvolvimento territorial mais harmonioso ou de reduzir as muitas desigualdades que ainda subsistem e com muita força em algumas áreas na Europa. E todos nós conhecemos os grandes desafios que são enfrentados pelas áreas corais, aliás, todos os trabalhos da Comissão e esta comunicação em particular, faldo de uma forma muito clara, estão bem identificados todos esses desafios, que não são iguais, não são sentidos da mesma forma, com a mesma intensidade, por todo o mundo oral. E, obviamente, que fazem-se sentir muito mais em zonas remotas, que têm constrangimentos específicos, com as regiões montanhosas, as regiões outras periféricas, etc. E, portanto, neste contexto, e aqui também quero deixar isso, que podem contar com todo meu empenho, e tenho certeza com o empenho de todo o parlamentar, o que eu, para a concretização desta visão sobre o mundo oral. Eu sou doindo a opinião elaborada pelo relator e pelos colegas do Comitê das Regiões, que será adotada, e com a qual encontro desde já vários pontos de convergência. É de facto, eu diria, de facto uma pena, que a comunicação sobre a visão do longo prazo tenha chegado numa fase já tão avançada da programação deste novo quadro financeiro, sendo que alguns dos instrumentos mais relevantes, nomeadamente os ligados à política de coesão e à política agrícola, se encontram também eles já numa fase muito avançada da sua programação. Em todo caso, este é o momento de início da execução do novo período de programação, e, por isso, eu juro que será muito importante que não se percam estes anos, que se procure ao máximo encontrar propostas concretas para a ação imediata em vez de nos focarmos apenas no longo prazo. Obviamente que temos de pensar no longo prazo, mas temos de compreender, e todos aqui nós compreendemos que as nossas zonas rurais não podem ficar num limbo temporal e, portanto, há que uma urgência política nas respostas que temos de encontrar. E eu acredito que, neste contexto, neste cenário, há ainda muito que pode ser feito agora, até porque os acordos de parceria e os planos estratégicos da PAC, da política agrícola comum, estão na sua grande maioria ainda na fase da avaliação, e isso significa, na minha perspectiva, que ainda temos aqui uma janela de tempo que permitirá enquadrar pelo menos algumas das medidas preconizadas nesta visão. E eu espero, sinceramente, que a dimensão territorial rural seja de facto incluída no planimento das medidas por parte de todos os Estados Membros, mas, sobretudo, por parte dos Estados que enfrentam mais desafios ao seu mundo rural e, eu espero, aqui, também uma ação forte da comissão a este nível. Em paralelo, e mesmo dentro do quadro dos quadros legislativos existentes, é possível trabalhar muito melhor tanto na implementação de ações como na sua articulação. Eu estou certa de que já ouviram inúmeras vezes, tal como eu já ouvi inúmeras vezes falar dos desafios que os atos locais enfrentam para combinar os diversos fundos. E, como tudo isso, dificulta imenso a implementação de abordagens holísticas nas zonas rurales. E, portanto, nesse sentido, algo absolutamente urgente é conseguir melhorar as sinergias entre os diversos fundos. E, importa igualmente não esquecer o papel que outros programas e fundos podem ter no apoio, podem e devem ter no apoio as zonas rurales, para além daquilo que são as políticas tradicionais que nós inúmeramos sempre, como a política agrícola e a política de colesão. E será por isso também importante que outras políticas europeias no futuro, mas no futuro a curto prazo, saibam incorporar esta visão territorial e a dimensão rural no desenho das suas medidas. A articulação, que o ordenação é fundamental. É muito em particular o papel da agricultura, que é e que deverá continuar a ser um pilar das nossas comunidades rurales. Eu costumo dizer um bocadinho a brincar que nós até podemos conceber alguns modelos da agricultura fora do mundo rural. Podemos imaginar a agricultura sem ser no mundo rural. Dá-se de pensar, por exemplo, na agricultura vertical urbana ou nos processos da produção alimentar em laboratório, que é discutível se estaremos a falar da agricultura. O que eu não consigo imaginar é mundo rural sem agricultura. E, portanto, é fundamental nós trazermos sempre para esta equação da sustentabilidade do mundo rural à agricultura. Não qualquer tipo de agricultura, obviamente, mas uma agricultura sustentável em todas as suas dimensões. Uma agricultura que proteja o património natural e ambiental dos nossos territórios e que é um bem maior das donas rurales, como sabemos e uma agricultura que providencia um rendimento justo aos nossos agricultores que traga valor para as populações locais, que contribua para a fixação dos jovens para a criação de oportunidades de trabalho. Uma agricultura que, naturalmente, se articule com outras atividades purcas, a diversificação econômica é uma estratégia essencial para a criação de riqueza e a fixação de populações. E, portanto, nos cinco minutos que foram dados, e que eu agradeço imenso e eu gostaria de dizer em conclusão de que precisamos de facto, e estamos de acordo de uma elevada ambição para o futuro das áreas rurales, precisamos de pensar desde já como é que a dimensão rural deve ser incluída no próximo quadro de programação de uma forma horizontal de uma forma coordenada nas diferentes políticas europeias não apenas nas tradicionais. Precisamos de descomplicar já o acesso e articulação entre os diversos fundos para permitir as abordagens mais holísticas e integradas. Precisamos com urgência que tanto os acordes de parceria como os planos estratégicos nacionais como os planos de recuperação e de resiliência fundamentais tenham todos em conjunto uma visão coordenada e integrada sobre as prioridades para a coisão e para o desenvolvimento territorial dos respectivos estados e que nessas prioridades esteja muito claramente a presença do mundo rural. Isto obviamente que também tem que ser o Estado, cada Estado mesmo, a pensar e a inteligir essa mesma urgência esta prioridade que deve ser dada para o mundo rural. Precisamos de responder com urgência política máxima ao percento de descontentamento das lonas burais que leva muitas vezes as pessoas nessas zonas a sentir-se fora do contrato social. Isto explica muitos dos fenómenos de desarticulação de afastamento de interesse pela vida política e até mesmo de interesse do contrato social. E não podemos deixar que isso aconteça é nossa obrigação de facto mostrar de modo concreto a quem vive nos territórios rurais sobretudo os mais desfavorcidos porque nem todos os territórios rurais estão no mesmo patamar de desigualdade deve dizer. Mas temos que dizer a essas populações que todos efectivamente contam que não os abandonamos e portanto é certamente o objetivo que todos nós temos no Parlamento, na Comissão enfim, os Estados todos os envolvidos quando falamos numa estratégia numa visão de longo prazo para o mundo rural. E ficava agora por aqui e depois terei a oportunidade novamente de falar mais à frente neste debate. Muito obrigada.


The Ukrainian armed forces hit a Russian division near Kramina, killing about 100 Russian soldiers as a result of the strike. Russian sources claim that the division sat motionless for two hours listening to the speech of the commander General Zorav Akhmetov. Russian military bloggers said a Russian unit suffered heavy casualties from Ukrainian artillery while waiting information for a commander to give a motivational speech. The incident occurred in Kramina, Luhansk just before a Russian division was about to begin an assault. In addition to the hundreds of dead, there are about the same number of injured. Major General Zorav Akhmetov previously commanded Russia's 155th Marine Brigade of the Pacific Fleet. The brigade suffered heavy casualties in Donetsk under Akhmetov. This incident caused a serious wave of anger in Russia and a serious conversation between the country's leadership and the army command.


Oh, perfect. Thank you. Good point. Thank you very much for that. That's definitely important. Don't want to make the same. Same mistake. Okay, so, and then is there a second on that. You have to second it. I do have to second that I would second that. And then I would move to item number 2.01, which is the approval of the public safety committee minutes of the fourth. Can I get a motion on that please. To approve. Second. Second. And then I would move to the third item, which is our public forum tonight. So if we just want to kind of. Get into the group for that. And then did we, we wanted to move. What did we want to move again. Like, is there any technological. I think maybe just to, Just a point of information just to put the meeting in recess for maybe five minutes just to give us a chance to run upstairs and make sure that there is a public place. For folks to come if they do want to come to the remainder of the meeting. Okay. And then I would move to the third item, which is the public here and I was upstairs a couple minutes ago and didn't see anyone up there milling around either. Okay. Okay. That sounds good. So did we want to make space for that right now then, like, did we want to make take that recess now or later. Or are we kind of good to go. Because we don't have any attendees either in here. So I would just say there's no members of the public. And so, I mean, from my perspective, the point of being down here for the first part of the meeting was to allow for public comment with the big TV. So if there's, I don't see any reason for us to stay down here so a recess seems appropriate. Okay, perfect then I'm going to go ahead and make that call since I don't see any attendees waiting in the waiting room online and there are no folks for public comment at this time. I would go ahead and take that recess five minute recess and then get, I guess get going again at 542. Thanks everyone. We are going to move into item 4.01 which is the discussion of the CNA report recommendations. Obviously the, the task at hand that resolution where there's a report do back an initial report to the full council of in January 2022 on progress made toward evaluating and offering recommendations to the findings in the report. So that's why we're obviously here tonight is to kind of go through that. It would be helpful to me personally and a little bit selfishly as I missed the last meeting and maybe just to kind of recap Zariah and not to put you on the spot just a little overview of where we left off and where we most likely where it would be helpful to pick up tonight. Just because I was, I was out not doing too well. Yeah, and Jane I realized that I pushed the chairing on you but I'm happy to take that back now that I'm a little bit worse. I think it's very discussion oriented anyway I don't I don't really mind either way, whatever works for the group, but yeah, I think we're just going to have this kind of open discussion style anyway if that's if I'm all right and assuming that. Great. And actually it's so just to so recap last time we really just had an organizational meeting. I did send just Jane and Karen. Kind of summer with what we had talked about in terms of process. Also some of the things we wanted to prioritize such as things that would be in the PPO a contract. Karen and I did not communicate between this meeting and between the last meeting in this meeting so I didn't completely realize although I should have anticipated that she wouldn't be here. So I don't know that we're more prepared to go over. If we have a structure to go over these things today then we were last week but I think hopefully just since we've talked through process in terms of how we're going to do things. And I assume that we've all read at least section one of the report that maybe we can just go ahead and dive into a discussion without Karen. One of the things that I proposed is that we in the future for the next meetings we are a little bit more structured in terms of having a list of all of the different recommendations that we're going to talk about that day especially if we're going to be potentially going across different sections for certain themes such as the union contract. And that we then can kind of have like a record that the public can see and we can edit in terms of like what we're thinking and what the discussion is on that. We do not have that today, presumably because Karen probably did not see my email and also isn't here. So I wonder how folks feel about just diving into stuff that we go ahead and start with section one as we planned on doing last week, and dive in. And one of the things that I'm asking for in that specific case is also a lot of this is about internal BPD. And I'm not sure that anyone other than officer, or am I saying your name correctly and Milo would have information on that and because Karen's not here. We didn't have we were planning on having other folks in the administration kind of as the weeks went on come by and talk us through some of the things and or give their input. So if you two are comfortable with kind of being the points of contact on talking through some of this and if anything has happened, then I think the I still feel comfortable with us as a stakeholder group, talking about like prioritizing or not prioritizing at things like that. And or just saying like this is just something that the police commission needs to work with the department on implementing an X amount of time. There's a lot of me talking and suggesting so I'll pause for a second and let folks I may just hop in that that sounded perfect to me I'm totally fine and comfortable moving forward in that way but again that's kind of up to the folks that are in the room officer or and and director green and yeah I just want to make sure that everyone like can can feel that that is productive in a way that's helpful tonight. I want to make sure that we are looking at the same document so there's two documents. There's one that has the track changes on it for all the changes that were requested. There's a process and then there's a final copy so we're all looking at the final copy correct. Yes. I'm looking at the final copy and I think that's the one on the website. So I assume that's one that folks most easily have access to. I think both should be on the website. One that's posted. Oh, I thought both. I thought I posted requested to have them both posted just so to be fully transparent as to what was changed and what we made the same. Yeah, there's the final report. There's one link under there and then there's the. I'm not really seeing the original. Unless. Okay. Yeah, that's what I'm seeing. Okay, thank you. Is it the September 20, 2021 report? Is this what we're talking about September 30, 2021 says final report. But there were two versions is essentially there was one version and then there were two rounds of comments from the mayor and. The police department. And so there were some changes, but the final version is the final version. How do we know both said final, right? Taisha, I think there was two versions that say final report unfortunately. There was two that said final that's why make sure that everybody is looking at the same thing. But there was one that was done before and it was the final report. Then there were changes from the mayor's office in the police department. And then there was another final report that came after that. But so there's actually three because then we had a track changes report as well. So we can see what was changed in the report itself. So let me scroll up because I do have the final final. And it should. It just says September 2021. Yeah, that's what mine says. Okay. So if we have September 2021. We have the final. I would, I would assume so 172 pages. 172. Let's see. It won't say that let me go to 161 pages. It's 112 here. Oh, so you're missing a lot. I got 161. That's though that's the final. Is it possible to have it emailed the final final. Yeah, yeah, I can just email. Whoever has it definitely or I can know that out to Jeff. That'd be great. Great. I'm working on it. Thank you. I think it's a little bit shorter than the first one. This one. Jay neck at Burlington BT. Gov is okay. That'll work. Yep. Great. Okay, thanks for checking on that. Asia. Um, could I ask a couple of points of clarification? Of course. So I know there were some corrections and clarifications. That needed to be done. I just want to have. An understanding regarding. Um, What I'm hearing about the, the tract changes. So these items that were additional items outside of corrections and clarifications. Or they removed by CNA. They were removed by CNA at the request of the mayor's office and the BPD. So the round of clarifications and corrections that happened, that is that round. So I just want to make sure that the integrity of the report is intact. There was nothing removed outside of, because that's a big chunk of the original draft that's missing. So there's more. It's a longer version. Right. Um, So the final version is the longer version of the short version. Oh, the final version is the shorter version. Then I don't know. So the final, but. Milo. Um, sorry, commissioner of grants. Um, There were some changes that were made. By the request. You know, the mayor's office and. BPD. And some of them they did. And so, um, in making those changes, it made the report shorter. There are, um, There is a track changes copy. So that you can see what the original report said. And then you can see the changes that were made. Um, those changes were not prompted or made by CNA because CNA wanted to make the changes. Um, So that's what the changes came, um, from requests. I'm sorry. Those changes came from. They came from the request, uh, um, from the administration and from the, um, BPD. And I believe that the letter from. Um, The mayor. And from chief Morad acting chief Morad or should be on that website. That outlines the changes that they asked, they asked for. Um, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I'm still up there. Both of those. So there's, and. So I'm going to start by saying again, I let's assume. I hope that we can assume. Because this is why we're here is to breeze through the assessment, but the, that we're going to take the assessment as it is. And again, that doesn't mean that we're going to agree on moving forward or prioritizing all of the conclusions, but. Um, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if you have questions and she was the one who managed that process. They just reach out to her. Maybe Taisha. Sorry, I'm going to go on a first name basis. Like I did with the joint committee and less folks tell me otherwise. Um, You can send out the track change version so that any of the stakeholder groups that are interested can see it. But I think for now, let's just assume that the final version that we have. Is the best version that we have. And there's two memos. And this is the BPD assessment. There's two memos, one from Mayor Weinberger and one from acting chief Murad, and their CNA is responses to those memo saying. This is yes, we will change this as you asked because of this or like, no, we won't change this as you asked because of this. So I think we had a fairly transparent process to get from version one. To final version. Final version, final version, version two. So. Okay, thank you for that. I just want to be very clear once again, because I just want to make sure, and I would believe that the Greater Burlington Community would want to be sure that the integrity of the report is whole. So just to clarify, we have, changes that were requested, some of which CNA agreed with, and that others, they stood by their original recommendations, yet those others were still removed. I just want to be clear that that's what we're saying. And the track document will show what was removed. The only people who removed things from CNA, from the CNA report was CNA. So if they said we're not changing this, it wasn't changed. Is that correct, Taisha? So that's not what I'm hearing. It's my apologies. It's kind of correct. I would say it's about 99% correct. There are some things that CNA didn't want to change, but changed because of the arguments from the memos that said we have to change this because this is how we do things here in Burlington. So it's not because, so it wasn't like they agreed with the change, some of the changes, but they allowed those changes because of the environment that's here in Burlington. So mostly, yes, I don't want to misspeak and say, oh no, all of the changes they agreed with, I don't believe that to be true. Do we know if any of those changes based on how we quote unquote do things in Burlington when against best practice, because we know we have a lot of things that aren't currently being done. It's been a long time. Having kept up with best practice. It's been a long time. I don't think that CNA compromised best practice for some of the things that were asked to be changed. I think that they made themselves really clear about, well, this is best practice and this is why this is not going to be changed. So a lot of the things that were asked to be changed were not changed because it would go against best practices. Some of the things that they wanted to be changed is like how something was presented. Like in particular, the major thing that was changed was the number of police officers needed. And some of those things got changed. Some of them didn't, some of them got altered. But for the most part, I will say that they're just going off of best practice. And so they didn't waver on that whatsoever. All right, thank you very much. I appreciate the clarifications. You're right. I have a question. Go ahead. And I don't know if I'm looking at the correct report now because there are a couple of final versions. I'm just looking at page two that I have. It talks about assessment areas of focus. Talks about training and operations, racial and socially economic bias analysis, staffing and workload analysis. That's... Yes. But what I'm fearful of, and the folks I represent on downtown is when they took a look at workload analysis, I'm not so sure they really delved into the issues we have, our community has with graffiti and retail theft and a boatload of ordinance violations that go on every day downtown. And that's what, you know... So... I want to make sure that that was really analyzed closely. But I don't think it was. I mean, they spent the majority of the time. So before we get too far into... We're not even discussing that section this week. We can go down so many rabbit holes if we keep going off track. So let's really, like we're looking at recommendations. We're looking at them one at a time. For now, I think we assume that this is the best analysis that we have and we move forward with it. When we get to that section, I think we can ask those questions on the recommendations. But I think we're going to get very, very distracted a lot of the times if we keep... I think we have to be ready as a group to decide this is the best analysis that we have. And let's talk about it. It's not perfect. It's the best analysis that we have. So section one that I have, section one, 1.1.1. We're talking about policies, training and operations. And it says the BPD should consider adding cultural competency training to those listed in section eight of the directive DD03. Is that what we're all looking at? And then it says priority. Priority one, and then I see priority two. I don't see anything other than priority one or two throughout the document, for the most part. Sorry, say that again. There's a column for priority, one or two. Where are... At least that's... It says priority. That's at the end of the document. So I see others... At the very end of the document, they have everything and they have a priority column. All right. Right. Yeah. Yes. There is a priority column and that is to help the BPD prioritize which ones are really important and which ones can be done at a later date or be phased in. As far as I understand. Yeah. So then to address maybe the question that you were indirectly asking is I feel like they talked to a wide group of people. I think that they were made aware of most of the uniqueness of Burlington. I don't think Burlington is the only city that deals with graffiti or theft. And I assume that they talked to... I don't know everybody that they talked to because that wasn't released as far as I know, but I think that they talked to a wide enough sector of Burlington that a wide enough issues of folks' concerns would have been heard. Yes. I don't know who was all on that list either. And that's by design. To protect the people who were interviewed. Protect them from, you know, just when you're doing collecting data like that, you want to be really careful with talking about who was interviewed and someone could figure out who said what. And all of that. So I don't really, I don't know. I know a few people just because, but I don't know the masses. I know that they had a list of like 75 people and entities and organizations. And they chose maybe a half or a quarter of those. So that's pretty much what I know. Yeah. And just one final question, because I saw that Karen hopped on for just a second. Is she joining us or was that a fluke? Yeah, Karen Derfie. I saw that she jumped on momentarily. I gave her the ability to speak. And she is not here anymore. So I'm presuming she just popped in and as popped. But if that changes, I'll. Promote her again. Okay. Great. Okay. So then are we going to just hop into the section itself though? Like, do we want to go through the. The recommendations or. Like what, what do we want to do for that first section? And again, if I can just like to officer, or are we saying that correctly? Tommy or that's my first name. It's fine. I appreciate them. Oh, I can quite hear you. It's his first name. So that's fine. You don't have to say officer. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. Orin and me. I feel like in terms of. Even like giving us a pulse on if any of this has been addressed. I feel like you all, Andrew Karen would have been the only folks in the room who would know I could be wrong on that. But I think it's like, if we could just have a quick check on, like, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the best solution for that? Is this something that still needs to be done? And then if yes, then we can keep discussing it. I would have to defer. To Orin. My understanding from what. Acting chief Murat said at our last. We will be talking about the recommendations. However. That was prompted by the fact that we were talking about who would be representing the commission here. He had not been previously advised that he had started working on the recommendations. Or which specific recommendations he had started working on. what has already been worked on and if not we are probably going to have to ask the chief for some kind of communication around what he's actually worked on. I have to kind of defer to the administration. I'm here on behalf of the union. I don't mind answering questions but I really only have a general knowledge of how the PD works from my desk. I wouldn't have a clue about all the stuff the chief mirror adding chief of brick doing a day to day basis like just this first one. I mean I have no idea if he's been working on adding cultural competency training those listed in section. I don't want to accidentally mislead anybody here by trying to speak behalf of the administration. I'm very happy to answer that but I can really just give you general answers that could be wrong. Okay thank you for that. So I would I guess I would make a request that the public safety committee should request some kind of document from the chief where he summarizes any recommendations that he's completed or that are in progress and then we can make the recommendations based on what we believe the priorities should be and then I would guess check things off if there's things that he's already done. I would have loved to have him communicate so that we had more of a balance between the community and the department priorities because I'm sure there are probably some compromises that would need to be made but so I guess that would be my recommendation is that we get something from the department administration as to exactly what are they working on since they have not previously offered that information. Thank you. Great I think that's a great recommendation and I I do know I know Karen was planning on having this be a little bit more curated and again just with the death in her family she's been out of pockets I think great suggestion and we'll pass that on and if Karen doesn't make it to the next meeting either then I'll I'll be the liaison for that. Go ahead Jeff. I was just going to agree with Milo it makes a lot of sense because we could waste a lot of time talking about things that are already in process. Right. So that should definitely be done before our next meeting I would imagine it's almost hard to move forward tonight in any way really without that. So I'm going to propose that we try to move forward because I think it would actually be really useful to try and then see what got like I think even for planning the next meeting and thinking about like oh how do we want to do this. Even if we do this we've already here we've already spent an hour I would say let's at least spend 30 minutes just talking through and see how it goes and that'll give Karen or if Karen's not here me a little bit more information on what would be useful for next time. That sounds totally fine. Does that feel okay to you Jeff Nick Taysha. Absolutely yeah great. Okay, I mean just to start off cultural competency training sounds good. I mean that can take on many facets many different directions you could talk about a whole host of things. It's got to be something that's I guess tailored to tailored to Burlington. Every community is different so. Sounds good. Sounds like it would be smart to have that training. And Taysha can ask you a follow question on that is. I haven't taken the trainings yet that the reib department is doing but I guess I'm curious, like, is this something that is supposed to be covered by kind of all of the employees going for taking this is that part of that or is that just a small subsection.  And yeah, I mean it's not. I would say that it is what I'm calling basic training so everyone has a basic understanding of what race racism racialization is. So we move forward with all of these different policies and systems changes. People can't say well I didn't know, because they've taken this basic training so that they can know. It's not going to make, you know, people not be racist. It's going to give them the information about their actions on on raising racism. Right. And as someone who maybe is less familiar with terms like the difference between, you know, the training that you're doing what do you and sorry if I'm putting you on the spot. Feel free to ignore my questions but it like because cultural competency sounds, I guess, broader and less like specific maybe than the training that you're doing would you say that that is if you had to give a recommendation if the directive of cultural competence training should be added one degree that it should be cultural competency that should be added and if so do you feel like this covers it or do you feel like there's something missing from what you know. I think cultural competency training is a weak water down version of anti racism training. I don't think that it does anything to move the needle. I don't think I think it's in the same lane as implicit bias training, as in, there will be no changes made people just sit there and listen, and nothing change about their actions or their systems or their if I may add to that because that's certainly a big concern that I've had. We recently had a speaker at the police commission. As part of our series who raised some very interesting points about the type of particular bias and implicit bias training that has occurred in the past and the deficiencies of those particular trainings and how these trainings need to be looked at differently because previous trainings just weren't effective for a number of reasons. So, I would be looking for additional training, but not what they've had before. Now part of it is, is trying to get the information of what has been happening at the department, because as a commit when I was initially on the committee to review policing policies and asked for the information. I never got it. I've asked for the information several times as a police commissioner, never got it. When I was told, okay, well right now everything's going toward providing CNA with the information they need and that's going to be part of it, but then apparently we still didn't get information so I think that that's a big part of it is to get a frank and honest information about what has been done in the past that frankly has not been adequate and how we need to change it for the future, including having a better understanding of the diversity in our community because we have a lot of problems that are due to the increased diversity in our community and people not knowing each other. Thank you. Thanks and I'm just going to take notes on my end and then find a way to share them more broadly. This finding number one. 1.1 1.2 We didn't receive any cultural competency or any kind of suppliers or anti racism training from from the police department. And so after the CNA report came out, I was informed that they had gone to Alabama to look at the lynching museum down there and deemed that as one of the trainings for the officers. I don't think all of the officers when I think it was a small group but I have yet to receive any type of information about cultural competency or anti anti racism training so I will say that hopefully they're working on that this is one of the things that they're working on changing. But I have no evidence of anything that has happened in the past. And I think one of the things at least that I've heard about from some of the officers is, I mean, I think training can be really hard because training can be hard in terms of finding the time for it and then training can be hard in terms of like what do people walk away with and I think to Milo's point is if if training is just a check box in terms of everybody needs to go to this. And I mean I think the, you know, I, at least to me like hearing something like the lynching museum like that makes sense to me in terms of if you don't have trainings available that kind of scratch beyond the surface then that's you look for kind of more cultural outlets or other learning experiences so I guess just want to say that in terms of I think sometimes we just very quickly jump to like oh we need to do more training but we don't necessarily know what that means or who's going to give it or what the outcome is going to be. So I think that part of this recommendation is, is having an extended conversation about it and quite frankly one that's taken seriously. I just said, this is something that I've taken really to heart, and I have been continually frustrated by the fact that there's been this lip service given, but no proof nothing to back it up. And we still have these the numbers show increasing disparity, despite incidents going down, and that has to be addressed in some way you know we have multiple, you know two lawsuits that are still not resolved. We as a police commission continue to view footage that's disturbing for a variety of reasons, including racial bias, so it is something that, you know, I almost feel I could put something together, I could put something together that would be better than whatever it is that our officers have supposedly had. I, especially when we talk about doing like a five minute review of the history policing in our country and how it impacted people of color. So I, I really feel that a lot of that is missing, like, why would an officer not understand why a person from a BIPOC background might distress them. Right. Why would that be occurring like there's a real lack of understanding of why that is. And a lot of other things that I won't go into but I suffice it to say I think this should be a very high priority because we continue to have issues with it the numbers are very, very clear. We're what 56% of the population for black Americans in Burlington yet when guns are drawn at 54%. And then we were told the commission was told it was related to warrants. Well then the city statisticians go back and they look at that and they come back and they say no it's actually not related to warrants. So what is it, you know we've asked for a strategic plan we have not gotten it we've asked numerous times it's just like the issue isn't being recognized. We continue to have things going on in our community that aren't acceptable so I'll leave it there I just think it's a it's a really big priority and we need to be honest and we need to be real about it. Thank you. I know there's issues out there that need to be addressed racially for sure. And we can talk about the data all day long, but to move this forward I'm just curious that all of the police departments across the country. There has to be somebody that has kind of a best practices in terms of this type of, you know, education for police officers. I mean isn't it something you can find out there that's that's generally accepted that should be part of an officer's training that we should implement. I mean we don't have to create something new here right I mean, I'm sure is out there at this point. Well, I think if we can actually get information from the department. Telling us what they've actually done that would be very, very helpful. But we do to your earlier point need to really. There's a couple of things that need to be customized for Burlington right Burlington and when new ski are very different from the rest of Vermont, very different. The minority school system is now what they refer to as a majority minority school system in Burlington BIPOC students and direct agreeing please let me know if I am wrong but it's it's 35% 3035% students. Yeah, the last count accurate was getting really close to 40% point is so thank you thank you for that so we Burlington is changing. Burlington is changing and we have most of our police officers don't live in Burlington. They live in other areas that don't have this diversity. And also the, the diversity that occurs, you know, BIPOC is not monolithic that are so many different different peoples under that and we have people that have low relocated from other parts I mean I've been here for 30 years but I came from a major metropolitan city. There are others like me we have new Americans who've come from all over the world, you know what education are we doing for our officers so that they are more aware and so that the term quote unquote cultural competency really means something. So yes, there is, you know, trainings that we can use, but as the speaker alluded to that we had the police commission is that these are being looked at because they've been shown not to be effective. It's not like you sit you sit in kind of a classroom environment, or, or, you know, a roll call environment, and everybody's just kind of looking at their cell phones waiting for the time to pass and information's not not seeking in and it's not being done in a way that really makes people to prompt people to change is what I guess I would say thank you. Great and also want to flag that we do have Karen on board. So, welcome Karen if you have anything to say on any of these actions would obviously love your thoughts. Not to speak right now. Go ahead. I apologize I have short staff so I had to be on a call but I'm here and I am listening and certainly what willing to participate. Thanks Karen, and then to wrap, I mean I guess to try to move us to some conclusion on this item. It sounds like what we feel like next steps is is to get information from the department and when I say get information. I am assigning this to the police commission and Milo feel free to veto that, but that we asked the department to give information either to public safety or to the police commission on what has been done historically. And then we see if there is a gap between our IBS one time anti races and training, and what we understand to be whatever the best practice recommendation envisioned by CNA on cultural competency. If so, then we try to do something to fill it and if not then we just have, we just added to the list as CNA recommended or maybe even change the name to anti racism training. We would, I believe that I think we would have to go to the mayor and ask the mayor to ask the department to provide the information. We have tried to get the information. And then we were told that all hands on deck were to provide CNA with all the requested information and then that would be included. And then it wasn't. I feel, I'm certainly happy to bring that back to our chairman and say we want to make another formal request. But because our other requests have been ignored, I don't know how effective it would be. I think it would be better to having had a conversation with the mayor before the mayor seems convinced that this information doesn't fact exist. So I think it would be better to make a formal request of him to get this information from the police department. Thank you. Great. So I've changed the next steps to police commission and public safety request from the mayor and acting chief to get a summary of what has been done in the way of trainings generally and cultural competency specifically. I always need to act actors, it's like REIB director and public safety determine if there is a gap between REIBs one time anti-racism training.  I was going to volunteer and I was going to ask what the question was and what information we're looking for, but Taisha will tell me. So I hear what Commissioner Grant is saying and I'm certainly happy to assist with this. So these include me. So REIB director and HR director determine what is the gap between REIBs one time anti-racism training and CNA's cultural competency suggestion, if any, and then based on that, we potentially identify some, if there are any gaps ways to fill them. And by we again mean HR director. That sounds good. Any other thoughts? And I can read that again and or share my screen would potentially be an option. And then one change on the recommendation that I'm at least putting a note on is that there's at least been a suggestion to replace cultural competency with anti-racism in the directive. Any other thoughts? No, that's what it needs to be because this is what we're dealing with. We're trying to make things sound too soft. And because of that, I don't want to say things. Well, I will say it. Things haven't been taken as seriously as they should, which is why some of our officers has found themselves in difficult situations. We also, the community, one of the things that I have been concerned about for some time now is when we look at this trust factor. If we have police officers who need to stop a BIPOC person in the Old North End, social media lights up saying, what are they doing?  They stop this person. What do they do? What do they do? We can't have that. The community needs to know that officers are out there with a job to do. And they can't question every stop that they do. So we can't have the community assuming every single time that because a BIPOC person is stopped, that that's not appropriate. Right? We can't have people just make that assumption. But at the same time, because we have these other things happening, especially in regard to, you know, the two outstanding lawsuits that the city can't seem to settle. That still breeds distrust. So that's what my concern is. In order for our officers to be out there to effectively do their job, they need the community trust. The community is going to trust them more if they feel that the steps in training are occurring and being taken seriously. It is so important. I can't stress it enough. Thank you. Great. And Jester, if we can keep focused to the, thank you, that was important, Milo, but if we can stay focused to each one of the specific recommendations, which I know is going to be really hard because they're all tied together. Jeff, go ahead. I think you wanted to say something as well. I'm just going to say, I mean, this, we seem to be at an impasse with this one issue. Racism and cultural training. And it takes a lot of different forms that we don't have all the information from the police about what's taking place today and what best practices should be followed moving forward. We know this is an issue, but there's a boatload of recommendations that we've got to get through that are not related to this. How do we move forward. Doing that. Can you tell me more about why you think we're at an impasse. No, we've talked quite a lot about it, but we don't have any answers from the police. So we're kind of at an impasse with how do we move forward with this. Well, I think we've got some next steps. And I think that I, at least from what I've heard the acting chief say is I feel like he's done something to pull something together. So maybe at this point it's just a communication breakdown, hopefully. And I think getting that and figuring out having some HR and training people look at what has been done and making some recommendations on what to do next. I don't think we're at an impasse I think we've gotten to at least some next steps in terms of what to do and how to do it. I would say maybe we can move on to the next one if folks are feeling good enough about this. I'm good with that. Great. Something similar here is the next recommendation is supervisors will be alert for and respond to indicators of potential bias policing. And I think that this is touching on a theme that I at least found in this action is that in some cases, it just puts a lot of the onus on folks to know and understand and or have definitions and or decide what is to a level that needs to be reported. And so the suggestion here was to include examples for their officers and what these indicators may be thoughts on how to tackle this. Do we have recommendations to them on what the indicator should be do we have recommendations on who should decide what the indicator should be. As a racial justice professional that the language bothers me. I'm not sure who wrote it in that policy but it bothers me. Supervisors will be alert for and respond to indications of potential bias policing. I don't even know like, so what's the process here so let's say so a couple of officers go out. They pull someone over. They write their report and whatever they write in their report is what the supervisors are going to see right. They'll be alert to any of the potential bias, if the officers can say whatever they want to say, regardless if it's accurate or not. And they can say that it wasn't biased that they pulled the person over because you know, the tail light was blown, or they were speeding or whatever the case may be. But let's say it escalates and you know you support was hand handed out at that point. I just don't know how supervisors are, unless they're driving in the car with the officer and unless they're trained on, you know, racism and anti racism and the historic contests, contacts of policing. I'm not sure they're going to know how to do that. So, even if you give an example, it still can be twisted and morphed into something totally different that says that it's not bias. I mean that is the history of police. Mm hmm. And I wonder. So you're talking about like narrative indicators so like right and I think one of the things that I talked about with. Acting Chief, John was that we that was it with him. But there's a potential to doing indicator so if you have, and I mean I guess this this is also about collecting more information I don't know what the police department's capacity is for doing this but if you have things like, you know, you take all of the reports and if we know at an aggregate that more people are getting pulled over, can we disaggregate that to each officer so that if it starts to be like, oh, you seem to in particularly be maybe pulling over more so that it's not just like a narrative form but it's also like a data form being like, hey you as an officer seem to be maybe pulling over more people of color, whatever. I don't know how many of those indicators we actually have, and then if that is the case having that via conversation of like, hey, have you noticed this that maybe you're doing this more than the average BPD officer, why do you think that is. I think that that's the conversation that he and I had. I don't know. Over which people. I mean the data is already there so are they saying. Supervisor should be monitoring this. Yeah, that is not happening, or if they're looking at it they're not acting on it. This has been discussed. This has been discussed during quite a few meetings, and in particular, it was discussed when we were viewing the yearly report. It was asked point blank. If data, and this was to the city statisticians who put together the yearly report is data exists. And we were told that yes that data exists. I point blank asked for the data. And was told that it was a very nervous. Like kind of looking over to the acting chief. Well, the acting chief would have to authorize that and he refused to do so. I've also interestingly as a quick side note. Had a reporter give me information. From one of the depositions. I guess as depositions go public, they can be accessed. And they were like here, here's some use of force officer. The acting chief would have to authorize that and he refused to do so. I've also interestingly as a quick side note. Had a reporter give me information. From one of the depositions. I'm using some use of force officer use of force numbers by officer with racial disparity information. What do you think. And I'm like, well, I, this is certainly interesting, but can I see the whole deposition as opposed to these, these two pages because I believe it looking at things in context. They didn't want to give me the whole thing so it's like if you're not giving me a whole thing I've got no comment. It's appropriate to comment on specific officers publicly. Anyway, but there does need to be some serious private conversations going on and I fear that they're not so using the data there is data available. And the department needs to use that data, but they don't seem to be willing to. I mean there's this lead data that says that certain officers and put in certain shifts certain times a day. Are going to be in certain situations that dramatically increase the racial disparities so we need to look at why that is actually happening. So the data is there. And, and how do we say the department that it's important for you to follow that data and put something in place when you see these disparities by officer see these disparities by shift etc. Thank you. I mean one one thought would be to increase the number of minority officers on the police force is I don't see too many offices of color on the police forces. Is there been a recruiting effort to do that. I don't know the answer to that question although I think there has been at least from what I've heard the acting chief say about some of the newer officers, but I wonder how you think that would help supervisors. I'm just I'm just thinking human nature is that you're not going to, you're not going to show any if you had racist tendencies you're not going to show them in the presence of a minority co worker. Just, you know, it would certainly I think help. I don't know if that's, I, I don't know if I agree with that, but is that simple. Yeah, thank you. We, there will be recruitment efforts I aside from what was just shared which I don't necessarily agree with but there are recruitment efforts. We are looking to be more of a partner in terms of you know HR working together with the police department. The police department has traditionally recruited its own and you know with with their own officers and we hope to be a part of that we hope to be part of interviews, but I don't think that solves the question in terms of, you know, supervisors, sort of. I'm not sure that I would agree with that bullet point in terms of, you know, the current culture.  But I'd have to really think about that question that's a interesting bullet point. It sounds like you know the work needs to be done internally some way but there's a lot of variables there so I'm not, I'm not really sure about that. Okay, so all I've got I didn't mean to just shoot you down but I do think that yeah, I think that there's a little it's it's, I don't, I don't think it's that simple and I don't think that people often know when they are being biased I think as part of what makes it so difficult to train out or anything else is I don't think that is just. Oh, I should just stop doing this when this person is around I don't. So what I'm hearing say and maybe this is I don't know if this is a priority or not and I think it's going to be hard for us to talk about prioritizing until we've done some of the things but I think that there could be maybe not just an example of indicators, but maybe a suggestion of like two or three indicators that you know the city statisticians work with back to police chief supervisors to provide folks for like annual reviews and things like that, which aren't necessarily. I don't, I don't know how when the BPD but that supervisors can use at least in casual conversation with their, or in formal conversations wide, I don't know they need to be casual with their officers in terms of like hey, we're just collecting data on this no and I want you to know that this is where you're at on these kinds of things is that does that sound close to where we're landing. I would say yes. And did you want to go into the indicators now or what was the. Um, no, I think that this is sorry just because I don't. Again, I don't know that we on the call have the understanding of what data we have but I wonder if the police commission and the acting chief and the city statisticians could say which ones we could easily like if Milo says we already have the data that it's like what could we easily pull out without too much additional data keeping anything else that we could use. Yeah, I mean that sounds fine to me to kind of take that route that just seems the most like efficient way honestly so. I can take that as a takeaway. For general information like I know they're not going to give me anything specific. I can ask the similar questions that I did before that we and under the members of the commission asked before, and just say, hey, we want to know if we can get ABCD and F. So that the leadership team at the department has this information to review. Okay. So I will one more and call it a day. I do think so only because yeah that each one does take a little bit. Yeah, and so I wonder. And I wonder, sorry, so even in doing this I wonder, because this does take a while. I feel like we're going to need a more efficient process than us talking individually through all of these and I don't 100% know what that looks like but I think it was good to do this just to know that we are going to spend a significant amount of time on each recommendation so I don't know we had talked about initially when we're do when we were doing our initial planning meeting before we invited any of you. So if we would do this in small groups or maybe like public safety really should take the first crack at it and have some ideas and then you all yay nay some of them, although I'm not sure I would have come up with all of this without all of this come up even with these two without you all so I don't I don't know but I think this will be good for Karen to see and we can. Kind of a might be a crazy pie in the sky idea but I'm just kind of curious is like, so we want to go through all of these findings and recommendations obviously like that's the whole point. If we could like make one document or there's like, you know, we could do 1.21 and like have everything kind of like in a row and then you have like each of our names kind of in there and just putting in that input so it's all in one place that we can all like talk through it where we don't have to necessarily, like if they're really obvious ones that are a little bit shorter that are like, we agree with the language check, we agree with kind of like where this is going check in terms of like that recommendation. Then that's a quick conversation of like okay that one's good. Okay, let's move on to this more in depth one where everyone had a lot of comments and their boxes are pretty full like maybe this does take a little bit more of like out of maybe time but I do think, you know for not all in the document at the same time it's not really an issue but again, it could be so I don't know I just think that there is a better way but it also is very valuable to like talk through all of it so you do want that piece as well and just kind of curious or maybe keep it even like anonymous in a document or something I'm not really sure what a way around the quorum thing would be but like, I do think we should maybe timeline it a little bit but I mean, you know, I don't know definitely open to any suggestions. Yeah, and that was one of the things I was going to ask Jared is if we have a Google Doc that is open to the public but only as we have the accessing power if that's something we can do I don't know if you know the answer to that. Um, so, if you're wanting to do a Google Doc that's open to the public in that you're like editing in real time is or just like over the course of sort of as an ongoing thing outside of meetings is that what you're. Yeah. So, so just a couple of things the first thing being that any time that you have a quorum number of committee members and your meeting even if it's electronically over email, or in a working Google Doc you technically are having a meeting. And so, you just want to be really careful about two things first of all, obviously, anything that goes in that document would be non binding right it would just be like a free flow of ideas or taking any official action. And then the second thing being that is, if this is something that's to be discussed at a final meeting, you just want to be really careful about, you know, having all of the discussion happened in this unborn way and then just sort of in a very cursory way, voting on it because all the substantive discussion has taken place offline so I think it's fine to use that kind of document to form initial ideas. But in terms of the real substantive stuff, the point of the open meeting law is to warn it and so, for example, if a member of the public wanted to come in and weigh in during public comments that they'd have the opportunity to do so. So I think there's a way to balance it. If you just sort of are like okay here's going to be our, our talking points for the next meeting and just hear some things to kind of be considering ahead of time so that everyone's really on the same page and when you do come together it's an efficient process, while also steering clear of any open meeting law violations in terms of walking right up to the line of taking substantive action and because the public has sort of has a right to know you know how to use that information or has a right to know the sort of back and forth as to how you actually end up at a particular course of action so I think the way to do it is just to use it as really maybe more of a planning tool, like, here's what's to be discussed. And then you actually use the meeting to have the like nitty gritty decisions but certainly can be used as an efficiency tool and a planning tool for sure. And if you have more questions about what that would look like logistically I'm happy to connect offline with a non quorum number of you. Thanks. And then, so to swing us to one second Jeff, I do want to go to the last 1.3 just because I'm very curious about where this is at which is logging all complaints and I feel like Milo might have the best answer that but I want to go to Jeff first because they raise their hand. I want to bow out for another meeting. So I apologize but so what I've heard so far as we need the police to tell us which recommendations are already working on. Correct. Right. And I also heard that we're thinking that amongst ourselves. We need to prioritize which ones we think are more important than others is that what I heard. Not more like more straightforward or straightforward or urgent, like, easy to do or urgent, probably. Okay, I do feel that. Yeah, more urgent or I think that's kind of the same as is more important because I do think that there are certain things that you know when we take a look at how the community felt in terms of the protests that occurred, what led to people calling for the alternative positions and changing the amount of officers like those root causes have to take a priority. I actually think a lot of items on these recommendations are going to be a lot easier we just ended up with the issues around race and racial disparities and training ended up being listed first probably because it's so important and and is the source of a lot of causes of trust and and other things in the community. And I think that's why it took so much time because that is just really something that that means a lot to many people in our community that has not had the attention to warrants and so I think that's why it's been so difficult and taken so long to kind of talk about. Thank you. But I can also give if you want me to to talk about that next recommendation. I can tell you that the way Milo I don't know if Jess was done. So I just want to know I'm just trying to move this forward so. If we need the police to weigh in then we need to give our own assessment of what's needs to be dealt into more deeply or what's important to move forward on. And I know the race issue is real and important. And it permeates the document in many different areas too. So we can get off on a lot of tangents. What I'm fearful of is from from from what we're the way I'm looking at this is that we're we're we've do focus on the race issue which we have to I'm not making any light of that. But we don't want to lose sight of the other things in our community that are going, you know, that are not being addressed in a timely manner. So we need to be. And I wouldn't want to, you know, go another year or two and not really delve into those other things I mentioned earlier, that really need to be addressed. So, anyway, I'll leave it at that I do have to run. Sorry about that folks. I look forward to the next meeting. Thanks. Thank you for joining us, Jeff. I appreciate what Mr. Nick just said. And for those of you don't know I've actually been on church street with Mr. Nick walking up and down and talking about his concerns and the concerns of the downtown businesses.  It's important that things are looked at holistically for the whole Burlington, right, not, not that what's happening downtown isn't important, but that you can, you know, shoe some people away and get them away from church because they're still in Burlington, right. So it's having to do have this holistic view and also the issues around race. It's, we've put them off that if it's constantly been pushed back pushed back pushed back pushed back. And I think we're really at a crossroads where we have to get an honest handle on this we have to take honest steps. We are qualified and quantified in a manner at which they have not been it's literally trying to write out each controversy. So that's my concern I don't want to see it put to the back burner because we're going to do something else because it's constantly been put back to in the back burner, which is caused the community concern you know going back to those root causes and I think that we really need need to be aware of this if we don't fix it it's only getting worse but the numbers number incidents go down but the racial disparities continue to go up and we have no honest evaluation or explanation of why that's occurring and that and that's a big problem. It's a real big problem. I can talk about the 1.3 I can say that the police commission has been doing some really extensive work on this. We had NACL trainings over the summer that were so valuable I just can't express that enough, and they really showed us what was going on nationally what was being developed as best practice. There are a lot of examples across different cities across the country of different sizes and the different forms of oversight that have been happening and we've really changed the way that complaints are being handled so there is a lot of work being done on that. If this body would like a summary I can definitely put some bullet points together to reflect the change. We do have some quite frankly heated discussions in executive sessions about some of the complaints especially the levels that the department wants to categorize the complaints versus what the commission thinks they should be categorized as so we're trying to work through this through those issues but we are requesting that they be documented in a way that they've not been documented doing basic things like contacting someone to say hey we got your complaint you know that was something that wasn't done before and making sure that people receive confirmation that complaints were received that were complaints were received that they are getting some type of response regarding their complaints etc. Thank you Milo and does that include just to make sure that I understand it from this one in particular and I know the commission's been doing a lot of work on this but does that mean that all complaints are now logged or is that just for like some of the ones that had been logged you've changed the process for what that looks like. We are trying to move forward with logging all of the complaints. We now get, if a complaint is submitted electronically, the commission now gets a copy of that automatically which did not happen before. There are issues around complaints that are submitted in other ways where we are still trying to work on to make sure that we get copies of those in order to include them in that process. Great. I feel like my thoughts. Thank you so much Milo. I feel like that's helpful. I feel like for next steps is just give police commission any support that they need to make sure that that continues to happen please commission in the police department. I guess I would. I would love the I would love some. I would love to have the commission have some support when we're asking for information and it's it's refused to us. I think that remains a big problem. I don't know if that is something that the we need to involve the city council in or the city attorneys. It was Nicole suggested that we have a MOU around that that's some cities and towns have this with their departments with regards to documentation information that's requested that it does have to be turned over. I don't know if anything is written that say we should get this information but we but we don't. So that is still a problem. Okay. Thanks for that. I won again just want to go back to thanking everyone for being patient with us as we started the meeting today I know there was a lot of back and forth and delays. I don't know if anyone being flexible and sticking with us. This, if we do it this way this will be a long process. I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing. But certainly will send this recording and these notes to Karen and get her thoughts before we close out I wonder if anybody else has any other thoughts or unhappy to hear anything from you or Karen or Jane of course before we close. I am. I think commissioners drama that it was pretty good that we can get some sort of work and document. We've been here for what close to two hours we've gone through three points so yeah this is going to be a pretty extensive process, or if we had like some sort of work and document and we can see which ones generate the most we can probably concentrate on them first. The ones that we, or that's all agree on is really any need to debate a lot outside of that that kind of agreement so I think that would be a very good way to move this along a bit more efficient manner. And curious to hear your thoughts because, yes, I think that there's both agreeing and disagreeing but I wonder if there's also. I want like I feel like I think some of the things I guess that have come out in this is the how of some of these so I wonder. I'm not sure how to capture I think there's the like, yes we need to do this know we don't and I wonder how we get to some of the like how we need to do that and have that be more of a dialogue between the department and some other folks. Without without this, and I don't have an answer to that. So maybe it's that we just don't do that because it takes too long but. Yeah, I think that's pretty important bit like just on, I don't mean to jump back but just in 1.2, I would definitely be saying we need to figure out how we do that. Yeah, but again, I'm a Jew and I don't know how we would do that. So, let's generate more debate on them, but yeah. I would like to highlight some of these ones that we need to have with and we need more discussion with how we do this. Okay, that makes sense. Thanks, or in Karen I saw you unmute. I'm just wondering if some of these aren't. And I know this is a public, you know, report and everything we do or is going to be public but some of the theme. Is that they're going to have internal resolution like the how is going to be up to the administration. And or taisha or myself or something like that so, you know, perhaps, you know, and we'll talk to Karen but you know coming coming prepared if there's just anything at all that we could share or any way that we could chunk the you know, a couple of folks or just talked about, you know, like some sort of working document where, and maybe it is overseen by the city attorney's office it's like, no, don't touch. You can't, but it really does seem like there are the how is actually going to be less of a, you know, folks can weigh in but I mean I think there's a lot of what I see is signing the work out to the right departments and or to my department and you know, so is it helpful for me to be part of the conversation. Maybe and listen but I think that you know some of these assignments will be directives that come from this committee. Yep. Okay. That's great. Next, so. Sorry is my turn to cook so making dinner. So I gotta be as good. I'm so. Yeah, I think that some of these things like Karen said are going to have to go through the administration and possibly eating acting teeth. going to take a long time. Like Orrin was saying, we only got through what three. So I would hope that the process will be a little bit more smoother. But you know, a lot of people have a lot to say on each one of these recommendations. And I think that it's only fair that everyone gets hurt, even if it's going to take a while. So I'm kind of on the fence, but I'm really leaning on the people on this on this board to come up with a process that will work for everybody. That's all. And thanks for having me. Yeah. Yeah. And I hope maybe I think to some extent, maybe, yeah, picking which ones we have this much conversation about. Because to some extent, I hope this is maybe me being too optimistic. But I hope that like some of these are conversations that just need to be had, like across various groups. And I think I don't know if this is the right place for the forum, but it's certainly like one. And so I think if we can at least, I don't think it's sustainable for us to do this for every point. But yeah, maybe if we can have some kind of initial system where we go through all of them with some kind of ranking voting consensus, and then we do this for some of the bigger ones, I think that could be could be powerful and good. So yeah, you like surveys and didn't we do something like this when I was on the public safety committee where we had to like sort of, you know, aggregate, put everything together and we had an efficient way of doing it. I think maybe it might have been serene, but certainly some of these are a checkbox and then some of them are larger discussions. So we're going to have to decide how we're going to get at that. Yeah, I think that's great. I do like my surveys. And yeah, and I also apologize because I think part of the part of the stop and go has also been that we've not had an official chair with me always surprised chairing the meetings. So yeah, so I'll talk to Karen about and it might be that maybe next week it'll just be public safety again and we'll give you all the week off while we regroup in a way that is not not meeting open meeting laws. But I'll make sure that either she or I send out an email about that if that's the case. And again, I appreciate folks patients and we'll try to find a way to make this a bit more streamlined. I could I just want to throw in one other thing with regards to the recommendations on the use of force policy with the new use of force policy that the state of Vermont put into place. I believe it overrode what was there previously. So we would definitely want to look at at that document. Is that that correct or not? Am I remembering that correctly? Yeah, I don't even know why CNA went over force policies there. That was new state policy as well. Well, we have to adhere to so. Yes, so that's like that there. So those are several points where we don't look at. We don't have to look at because of that change. I just wanted to bring that up. Thank you, Mila. One point six, probably true. Oran, we can't hear you. I'm sorry. Yeah, the use of force base, I'd say all of those points under the use of force. One, we don't have to go through. I'm not sure why CNA recommended all these things. The use of force part, the statewide use of force policy supersedes all that now, so we don't have to discuss them. Yes, I think at the time they started doing their evaluation, it was not yet in effect, and I'm not sure that they were notified that that was happening, which is why they proceeded with those recommendations. But now that we know that it's in effect, we can bypass those. Great. Thanks for bringing that up, Milo. So I think definitely let's put a meeting on the 25th, maybe on the 18th, but maybe not while we get Karen back up to speed. If she's back next week. And so, yeah, if folks can plan on still setting aside the 25th, I think we should be ready by then and hopefully send some information out to you before then, in terms of potentially some kind of consensus based document. And if nobody has anything else, pause for. Go ahead, Taisha. I don't know. I was just going to say bye. Then I have to adjourn. Great. Thank you all so much. Appreciate folks showing up. Yeah, thank you. Have a good one, everyone. Bye, everyone.