All right, it is 6.04 p.m. April 20th, 2020. And I am calling this special meeting the police commission to order. Um, You meant 2022 right 2022. Yes, my apologies. Sorry about that. Um, and it looks like we have a quorum here at present minus you all. In addition to the clinic and Anthony. Eropino. I hope I got that correctly. My apologies. Close enough. Close enough. All right, I'll take it. Uh, and also Shannon present. Um, Let's see any additions or modifications to the agenda. No. Not seeing or hearing any, um, with that I, I motion to adopt the agenda as is to have a second. Second. Seconded by Susie. All in favor, raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Passes unanimously. Um, moves us on to agenda item 2.01, which is the public forum. Um, if Shannon, I'm not sure if you received any emails from anybody looking to speak. No, sir. All right. In that case, if there's anybody in the attendees that would like to speak, please raise your hand and you open up to a panelist so you can speak. Not seeing any hands raised. Um, any questions arise, put them into the little chat box and I hope I see them and I'll get to them. Um, with that, we move on to agenda item at 3.01, which is drafting response to the ordinance on police accountability and oversight. And, uh, with that, uh, good for this afternoon. Thank you. So I'd just like to lay out the process of what we're doing tonight. Uh, we've been asked to provide comments on a draft ordinance. Relating to the authority of the police commission. That is in response to city council. Resolution passed. Uh, this past fall and approved by the city council and mayor. Uh, and so that ordinance is meant to codify. What was in the resolution. And, uh, so the city attorney shared with us that draft ordinance, uh, a week or two ago, we, I believe, are the first to be reviewing it. And so the purpose of this meeting is to, uh, ensure that we have all the feedback from all commissioners, uh, with regard to our feedback on the ordinance and from this, we will draft a memo to the city council and the city attorney. And we will vote on that as a motion at our meeting on Tuesday night. So the purpose of this is to hear people's input. And the way, um, we'd like to proceed is to, given that I have been, uh, given comments from several commissioners, what I'd like to do is to go through the ordinance step by step and share with you the, the feedback I've gotten. And then there will be an opportunity for commissioners to provide any other feedback and any other discussion we want to have. Uh, I think that the most efficient way of doing this is probably going to be a point by point in the ordinance. And so that means that when I talk about the first section, I'll share the comments. And at that moment, I will ask if anybody has any additional comments or disagreement with the comments. Uh, so with that, I will begin. Uh, I think it may be useful to highlight for the public, what was in the city council resolution. And, uh, there are approximately 12. Points that are made in that resolution. And I'll try to very quickly go through those, uh, Shireen. Yeah. Thanks, Stephanie. I like this approach. I'm wondering if we want someone to share the screen of the resolution or of the ordinance. So that when you are speaking, we can follow along. Sure. Yeah. Great idea. Um, would I have authority to. Share Shannon. Yes, you should. Um, down at the bottom of the screen. I just, uh, Let me get there. I am looking at share screen. And then I'm trying to find the right document. There we go. How's that? Perfect. Thank you so much. Great. So before that, this is the ordinance that everyone sees. And I don't have up the city council resolution, but it is on board docs. And I'm just going to quickly summarize the major points of this. Uh, it codify the ordinance. I'm sorry. The resolution codifies that the commission will review all complaints. Submitted. The commission, secondly, the commission will determine what level the complaint is low, medium, or high. Uh, which then would influence. Which complaints are investigated. The commission is given full and unfettered access to the department's documentation of the incident, including officer affidavits, witness statements, investigative documents, and all videos. The commission also has the authority to retain outside legal counsel to support independent review of complaints. The commission has given authority to investigate the chief. Or another appropriate authority and requires that any report of findings be returned to the commission. Commission has the authority to review incidents to determine if we will investigate a complaint, irrespective of the chief of the department. Uh, we are also authorized to give input and make recommendations on investigation results. In addition to that, the commission also has the authority to recommend that the committee is including proposed discipline of officers. The commission has the authority to recommend remedy for the complaints, including discipline that may be a repetitive on my part. My apologies. The mayor city council public safety committee and independent third body would lead resolution of disagreement on this disposition of complaints. Uh, the commission is tasked with, uh, providing an annual report on complaints, but the commission, uh, the, the, uh, city council allocates $25,000 budget for the commission for legal services and investigation. And the commission is authorized to initiate audits, reviews, and evaluations of policies, directives, or data in regard to discipline, racial disparities, and other commission priorities. So very quick fashion, uh, that was the ordinance. Um, so to begin, uh, I'm going to start with section XX one, uh, section a, uh, I recognize the audience may not have read this, but I'm going to proceed because the commissioners have. Um, and so the comment that I've received on part a here is that civilian oversight agencies complaint jurisdiction should cover internal complaints, not simply citizen complaints. And that is it should cover complaints filed by officers or deputies within the overseen law enforcement agency to provide officers with a neutral and independent outlet for reporting officer misconduct and alleged retaliation for reporting misconduct. Pause for a moment and ask if anybody has anything to add. Differs. Good as is. Okay. Uh, part B, uh, this, this, uh, designates the number of commissioners and the commissioners. And the consent to two concerns have been raised. One is that this should indicate that terms are staggered so that we have institutional memory. And a concern has also been raised about the number of commissioners and whether in fact, seven is adequate. Um, that may depend on, uh, the staff that has been allocated to the commission. Uh, And, uh, I'm not sure that we can resolve this now, but I think we can at least flag this as an issue. Um, I think that's, um, I think that's, um, I think that's, um, I think that's Commissioner Hart, who was one of the people who commented on this. If, if I captured correctly what your concern was, and if there's anything else I should add. I think that's it. It was, it was expanded from five to seven in 2016, which I appreciate.  It might be that we revisit this that has to be revisited in a year or two. Once we better understand what our rule is going to look like. We have flagged that and, uh, we'll leave that in there that way then. Okay. Uh, onto XX to, uh, part a, the only change suggested was in the third line of part a, which says that the, um, the policy we can review and evaluate and audit policies and directives for their impact on police community relations. And, and the request was to insert and public safety. Uh, I'm going to ask, because I have this on my screen and I can't see everybody.  That was just my concern. Go ahead, Anthony. Oh, sorry. I meant to lower it. Um, but I just did want to point out. Again, flat, but, um, Section one B. Um, I think it's important to distinguish between. Recommendations for the ordinance and recommendations. For the future going forward and under, uh, the charter. We're stuck with seven until the charter changes, but the charter doesn't say anything about staggered terms. So, um, that I think could be done by ordinance and the number. Just in terms of our recommendation, I think it's valid to make recommendations that speak to both. The ordinance as drafted as well as. Charter changes the commission thinks are needed. I just want to make sure we're clear about distinguishing between the two when we. Communicate our feedback. Right. Thank you. That's really helpful. Going on to. Um, X X two. No comments on part B. Comments on part C or as follows. And that is, uh, the, uh, is a request to strike. Uh, The last section of this phrase, everything from except onwards. In other words, the chief of police shall incorporate recommended changes to policies. And the remainder of that should be recommended to be deleted. Um, for several reasons that were offered. First of all, the chief should own or take responsibility for the response to the commission's recommendations. And then, um, I'm going to go back to the first, if you will, to other authorities. Uh, and in particular, um, A couple of things here, let me just say that. The recommendation that the city attorney review. The, um, and, and clear our recommendations is perceived to be a conflict of interest because the, the city, the city attorney represents. Uh, there may be a conflict of interest in reviewing those recommend those proposed, um, revisions of policy. Uh, second of all, referring us to what is best practice followed by a majority Vermont municipalities is, um, problematic in that many municipalities are in fact further behind Burlington in terms of police reform. Uh, and, um, so therefore if there were a best practices clause, it should recommend, it should reference Nicole's best practices. You know, there for a moment. Go ahead. You can't see it on the screen. Could you move me? Uh, oh, so sorry. I'm looking at the wrong document. Here we go. Uh, let's see. X6 too. So it's a section C here that I'm referring to. I will say the following that if you do think of something that we can come back to it at the end of this, just make a note to yourself and we can come back and revisit any of these at the end. Uh, okay. In section D, the recommendation for change is that it's to replace in a timely manner with 15 days. So in other words to delineate carefully. Uh, what is timely, if you will. Uh, there should also be a process to request for an extension for the chief to request an extension. And this request should be made public and should be accompanied by an explanation for the need of an extension. I want to go slow enough that everybody can absorb this. Uh, so I'm just taking my time, but, uh, if you need me to go slower, please just let me know. I'm happy to do that. Um, so I'm going to go to section D. I'm going to go to section D. And then I'm going to go to section E. Again, referencing the issue of the commission's input and revision of policies, directives and so on and so forth. Um, I have two documents open to some little struct, just working hard to keep track of them all here. So in this particular case, one of the comments was that any letter by the chief in which he or she rejects or substantially modifies the commission's recommendations. That letter should be delivered at least one in one week in advance of the next regularly scheduled meeting to give the commission opportunity to thoroughly review it. The comment was made and also the comment was made that the mechanism described in part e to reconcile differences on policy recommendations is beyond what most other oversight bodies have. And so the recommendation is that this section be revised and the revision should be based on a review of what other ordinances across the country do, especially review bodies such as ours in terms of how such complex conflicts are resolved. Part F refers to the draft ordinance suggesting that any difference in opinion on the revision of ordinances should be appealed to the mayor. The comment on this is that the section this section should be removed or revised based on a review of other ordinances on how this type of issue is handled. And in any case a simple majority of the commission would be sufficient to recommend a to to request an appeal. Since this is merely in a request to appeal it's not a final decision of any particular policy. And so parts G, H, G and H are recommended to be removed in light of this as well. And I would say not removed and revised, depending upon a review of what other ordinances across the country do in terms of resolving this kind of conflict. I mean, can I just ask for a clarification. Yep. So are the comment the commission is contemplating. Section two subsection C is that everything after the accept clause be stricken so just to clarify a lot of these following sections wouldn't come into play at all if the recommendation by the commission is that the accept clause is stricken. So, in making recommendations you're saying the commission's preferences to strike the accept clause and all that falls from it but if that's not followed and you stick with these other provisions about how to implement and resolve disputes between the commission and the chief then we're also offering recommendations to improve these that process. Does that make sense. Yeah. Yes, I think we're trying to do I think we're trying to do two things I think we're making recommendations and sometimes our recommendation, I mean, our comments here might not be accepted. And therefore we would want to offer some alternative language if in fact this this we stick to this. Does that make sense. Yeah, I just that's what I thought was the case but I'm not sure that everyone was following that so I just wanted to. Okay, thanks. Call that actually, and on reflection. It's it makes sense that actually all of C is stricken because absent the rest of the phrase it doesn't make sense that the chief automatically has to incorporate our comments. So essentially strip C could be struck in its entirety, and then we would move on to D in which the chief of police. If the chief of police disagrees with our recommendations we develop a process for resolving that difference. I think everybody as well that we aren't really fine tuning this in terms of wordsmithing it. We are just giving recommendations, and there's a lot of complexity in reaching a final ordinance so I'm not too concerned that we are not dismissing every single change that we're suggesting here but just giving the broad strokes of where we think that there needs to be further work and it needs to go back to the drawing board versus where we don't have any comments. Okay, moving on to xx three. This regards the Commission, writing an annual report. I have no comments on this. One is that the Commission already writes an annual report each year, and it has been published in July of each year as do other commissions, and therefore November stipulating November seems out of sync. Further, there was a comment that this type of detail in the ordinance doesn't permit the necessary flexibility in carrying out the Commission's work. There may be issues with regard to getting data that influence when we can issue our annual report that may be delays, but it seems that it would be, it would be useful in terms of adding needed flexibility to not stipulate the month that the annual report is due. A second comment I had is that the policy, the complaint policy should guide the preparation of such reports as regards confidentiality, and that the city attorney's role in this is not necessary in the preparation of this report. There is no extent that the Commission needs advice. It should be supported by conflict council, rather than the city attorney. And it wasn't clear. It's a little bit ambiguous in this ordinance, but I think it, one of the comments was that it should clearly state that the report has been and should continue to be a public document. So far so good. Yes. Right. Okay, another comment here was that the, the commission in its annual report will denote the nature of complaints, the, the chief's disposition of the complaints and whether the commission was an agreement or not an agreement with the disposition of the commission. And it was requested that the chief provide a written response as to why or why not he or she disagrees with commission findings on complaints and those responses should become public in annual reports. I think that this is key to transparency and accountability, and also designates the independent role of the commission. Going on to X, X for part a. It says a complaint by the public here after referred to as a citizen complaint. And then some language about the filing of the complaint. There's a recommendation that we delete the term citizen, because commission has had and should continue to have a role on complaints that are filed internally by officers as I mentioned, we mentioned earlier. And that furthermore that I think there's a general sense that the commission really should designate the complaint process itself that this is too much detail and that the commission is still learning with regard to the process and how to make it more effective. So the recommendations that we maintain the current practice of policy in which all commissioners receive complaints at the same time as the police department. And we should add language to provide a process by which the commission receives transcripts of verbal complaints to the police department within three days. And it should also accommodate the possibility that there are co chairs of commission. So in other words, this is an entirely consistent with the structure of the commission, where we now have two co chairs and a vice chair. I have, I have a question on this session. Section C, and for section C, the chair and vice chair of the police commission shall screen each citizen complaint and if appropriate present them to the commission for review. But right now, Kevin, do you mind. So I want to just do be first. And then we'll come. Right. All right, I just didn't want to skip over it. No, I'm not going to skip my process. Okay. So B, it says that here it changes the purpose of the commission's review of citizen complaints from the city council resolution and from the current complaint policy. And so the comment is that this section part B deviates from the current complaint policy, which was authorized and sanctioned by the police chief, and then city attorney, and that the role of a review oversight body such as ours is to review the criminal complaints on both in terms of both policy, but also in terms of discipline. And therefore the ordinance should reflect this role with the commission's purpose being to weigh in on disciplinary issues and in particular to identify cases in which policies were not followed. Yes. Okay. Part C, go ahead, Kevin. Okay, so as I'm reading this, I think right now we're kind of like set up where all commissioners receive complaints. And we can also ask for body cam footage if we need to. But here it's just saying like undersea that the chair and vice chair of the city. Each citizen complaint. Right now, I think we all kind of have a player role. And what complaints we want to, you know, talk about. So I think we need to restructure that somehow to kind of like have it work as it does now. The way we're doing things now I think. That's good. And it's consistent with some other language I had gotten. So here's what I've written down that I think incorporates what you're saying Kevin, let me know if it doesn't. The commission should determine its own process for triage of complaints. The full commission receives all complaints now and that should continue. So I think it's a very effective decision of commissioners on which complaints to review or not to exclude the commissioners from complaints that may have disciplinary implications would essentially undermine and negate the role of a civilian oversight body. That covers it. Is that okay. Great. Yeah, it's great. And so let me just see if I've got C here covered. I'm not sure I'm not sure about myself. I'm not that this paragraph, if the chair and vice chair refer a citizen complaint to the chief of police. And also seek to refer the complaint to the commission. And so forth. I have in my notes that as per above this should be struck. I am not convinced of that I'm not sure of that but it is something I can at least note. And talk to Anthony about. There's some details here. I may not be capturing if you don't mind. I'll just move on from that. I think we don't have to. You know, they said dot every I and cross every T on this. I think we're doing this in broad strokes. So if you're okay, I'll move on from that. Just one quick point. Yes. That may be contract related to just FYI. And there is some language that we have in our current complaint policy about this. And I just one of the broad comments from several commissioners is that these an ordinance like this just like the city charter should be in broad strokes, and the details of how we conduct our business should be at our policies. And so this, this may fall into that category. Okay. Section D. This is a long one. And it actually is similar to what I just said. So here's the comment that I've written on this again because this is delineating how we conduct our business. And there is, well, it is useful to have the complaint process outlined in detail. The commission is in the process of result of revising the complaint policy based on our experience in the last two years. Defining the process is the role of the commission and should not appear in the ordinance since by so doing reduces the flexibility of the commission to revise processes as deemed necessary. So far so good. Okay. And it leaves us toothless. Right. And then the next comment that I have on this is that the current complaint policy should be followed in regard to assessing the level of the complaint, low, medium or high, high level complaints required investigation. And the city council resolution and best practice identifies the role of the commission in determining in determining the level of the complaint rather than the chief. Again, as an independent civilian oversight body whose goal it is to promote transparency accountability and trust, the commission's role should be able to request an investigation of any complaint. And in particular, those that deems high level, most oversight agencies do investigations of all complaints. Yes. Moving on to section E. Okay, moving on to section E. This is one the this section refers to our ability to acquire information. With regard to complaints and investigations and so forth that it said this section should be revised to reflect the city council resolution, which gives the commission unfettered access to any information. The police department avails itself of in conducting investigations of complaints, the commission should have the opportunity to require an independent investigation if it sees fault with an investigation that that the police department conducted. And as Anthony noted, I'm not going to speak for Anthony actually but in so far, let me I will speak for you Anthony if you don't mind if you can correct me if I'm wrong but Anthony pointed out that, given that the city council resolution authorizes legal services for us and a budget that that by virtue of that we do have the authority to conduct investigations. I'm not sure how that would affect how this ordinance is written, but that point is important. Anthony do you have any, any thoughts on that on the spot. You're muted sorry. Yeah I know that I just wanted to point out and clarify. Thank you Stephanie for the opportunity from your initial introduction of the topic that the resolution has sort of a two, two tiered structure. Part of the resolution says things that should be in the ordinance. And so it's still left for an ordinance to be drafted and adopted for for those authorities to the commission to come into effect. And then part of the resolution is immediately resolved. So things that don't require the ordinance for those powers granted to the commission to come to effect. And among those is that the commission can use the $25,000 unassigned fund balance for legal costs and to conduct an independent investigation so that that's right Stephanie it's just important that we keep an eye on the ordinance. Some of the things are what the commission said should be in the ordinance, and some of the things are already resolved by the, the resolution and no further action or implementation by ordinance is necessary. Although that's not to say it might not be beneficial because the ordinance with regard to the independent investigations and legal services is is a FY to power. So it's granted for this year and it might be beneficial for it to be further extended into other years by the ordinance. Okay. Okay, moving on to part f. So this does refer to our access to information. The comment that I received is that timely manner should be replaced with 10 days. Let me just see what else I have written here. I agree what I have written, and we could certainly obviously change this so it says the commissioners have expressed an interest in moving towards best practices defined by Nicole, in which hearings on complaints are held in public session with appropriate steps steps taken to protect, protect confidentiality as required by policies of the BPO a contract as written this section is at odds with the goal of transparency and should be revised to reflect best practices. I just had lived here for a moment and I think that this is one of those areas in which we probably need to do a little bit more background work. As I said, Nicole has said that a number of civilian oversight bodies do hold their complaint hearings in public, even though the identities of people are confidential. And it seems to me that that's something we'd want to further investigate just to to learn about how they do that, and whether that's feasible here, but at least we could signal here the need for further research and on what best practices are and how this might be conducted in a way that does provide greater accountability and transparency. I think that's important Stephanie. I would say that you know the, just add to the state police as the as pack the state police advisory committee. They sort of are like us, except all of their work is confidential. We never know what they do. And we don't know what the outcome of investigations is. And it seems to me that that's an example of this, this, the nature of this ordinance is moving us in that direction. The request of the community has been around transparency, and to know that the commission is actually doing its job of providing oversight. And so I think it is useful for us to at least signal that we would like to move in this direction and to do the background research to see if in fact state law and all of the constraints on our work, allow us to do this. Complete agreement. Yeah, Stephanie I would just observe for our comments that there is a reference in this section to the Vermont Public Records Act section 317. But also in the public records acts is section 318 E, which is an instruction to any public agency, not to withhold any record in its entirety on the basis that it contains some exempt contact. If the record is otherwise subject to disclosure, and instead the agency shall redact the information it considers to be exempt. So there's also a policy in state law with regard to trying to strike a balance between sharing, you know withholding information that is truly subject to some rights of confidentiality or or other statutory or contractual provision, but giving the public access to as much of the document as is otherwise feasible and striking that balance so I think our, our comment back should reflect that policy which is also part of the state law that is cited in the draft ordinance. Okay, that sounds great I just made a note of that will include that. Okay, moving on to G. So as the commission votes by a majority to challenge any denial of access to the requested departmental information. The, this, this is an issue. This has been an issue that it would appear that the city council resolution resolved, which is that it delineates that the commission shall have unfettered access to all information. The BPD, BPD had when it made their disposition of the case. And therefore, a request on our part that that be included in this ordinance. And it's mentioned again once again that the city attorney being involved in this is a conflict of interest and therefore should not be an arbiter in any dispute about access to information. At a minimum, we could develop an MOU between the BPD and commission based on examples from other oversight bodies about information sharing. Going on there were no comments that I got on each, which is up on the screen now. I believe also this may be in our complaint policy already, maybe worth looking again at our complaint policy and making sure that this level of detail may or may not be needed here but in any case, there are no comments on that. So I'll just leave that as is. So under I, it says commissioner shall not communicate with any complaint witnesses, and so on and so forth all communication needs to go through the commission staff the city attorney or conflict council. There was a number of comments I got from all of you on this and that is that the commission's practice is to communicate directly with complaints for three purposes to acknowledge the complaint to provide a copy of the complaint policy, and to provide updates on status of the complaint. And we would like to see the ordinance reflect that the furthermore the role of the city attorney in this again represents a conflicted interest and should be eliminated. And finally, in a, according to Nicole, in part that this is practice that we developed is based on Nicole's advice. Nicole has said that the complaint process is more likely to be perceived as fair and transparent and transparent. If complainants receive regular updates regarding their complaint and can obtain status updates at any time, communicating with complaints by providing these updates is one way of civilian oversight agencies assuring members of the public that they are in fact handling their complaints seriously and actively. I would further advise, and I think this is something we might want to include that once a complaint has been adjudicated, or after a disciplinary decision has been made. The civilian oversight agency should invite complainants to an in-person closeout meeting. And I'm going to read something from Nicole, when they did review our complaint policy that they said about this. The closeout meetings allow the oversight agency to describe the investigative process, explain how and why decisions were made, and demonstrate that the complaint was resolved neutrally and impartially. In turn, this promotes legitimacy and public confidence in the oversight process. Closeout meetings furthermore provide the oversight agency with an opportunity to collect information regarding how complainants feel about the complaint process as a whole. Once a complaint has been adjudicated, or a disciplinary decision has been made, the civilian oversight agency, well, then I'm repeating myself that there should be a closeout meeting. I want to just check with everybody that the closeout piece is something from Nicole. It, I therefore included that because they did suggest that and I want to just make sure that commissioners, this is consistent with commissioners views as well. I'm going to assume if I don't hear anything, you're okay with it. I think, yes, I really strongly agree with that because what we're doing now we can spend a lot of time on something and then we're not really able to give additional information which is very problematic and lacks transparency to a certain point. Thank you. I also add that it supports healing on the part of the complainant, which I think is critical in this. Okay. Moving on to J. J. I will now move on to the essential draft findings conclusions and recommendations. The city attorney shall assist the commission the creation of this report and the report shall be transmitted to the mayor and chief of police should be considered an attorney client document. This is a redacted version of any such report to become public without waiving the confidentiality at the underlying report. So the comments I received on this was that the city attorney should be deleted from this section again due to a conflict of interest. The reports should continue as they have been to be developed with the input of conflict council only who shall provide guidance on redaction for purposes of making making findings public. Okay, the commission shall not make any disciplinary recommendations for individual officers in the report, but the commission may make recommendations regarding the development or revision of policy and directives. My concern with this was articulated at our last meeting and that is that in reviewing some complaints. The issues are not not only that there may be flaws in the policies and directives, but that policies and directives may not have been followed. And so recognizing that there are complexities here that we can't resolve with regard to state law the city charter and so on and so forth. This is what I have. The commission should be able to recommend coaching for offices or the subject of complaints and should be able to provide feedback on proposed discipline. The commission should also have the explicit authority to audit policies and directives, including the ability to audit discipline. That last comment is a little bit out of place it probably should go to the place where we talk about reports and audits, but it. The recommendation was that we be able to audit discipline and by that Anthony I'm going to ask for your help on this but by that my understanding is it that we should be able to review discipline in disciplinary just disposition of cases the discipline allocated to make sure that they're being treated fairly. In other words that one officer doesn't get greater discipline than another officer for the same infraction, and so on and so forth. So that the idea here is that to make explicit that our, our role is also to audit discipline more general. This is another area where I would distinguish in the resolution between instructions that the resolution gives to the city attorney's office to draft an ordinance and authority that the resolution has already given to the commission and one of the resolved responses in the resolution without any reference to fiscal year 2022 is the authorization of the police commission to initiate audits reviews and evaluations of policies directives or data in regard to discipline racial disparities or other commission priorities. So yeah, I, I agree with what you said and would point out that this is one of the ones where we have to struggle a little bit with the tension between what authority you've already been granted by the resolution and what whether the ordinances appropriately altering that authority or not. Thanks that's helpful. And so one, I think one final comment on this is that the following sentence should be deleted. The commission may recommend that the police chief of police conducted internal affairs investigation based on the report. The reason for suggesting that this be deleted is that as this is currently written, it would require the commission to make decisions before an investigation is actually done. So it seems that the cart is before the horse here right that it's saying that we can provide a report on a complaint. And then we can recommend that an internal affairs investigation be conducted. And it should be the other way around. The commission needs as many facts as possible. When determining next steps in a case and therefore access to that information based on an investigation should be available to the commission prior to issuing a report on any complaint hearing hearing no comments I'll move on to L. There seems to be an odd word here in the this the second sentence. So suggest that we delete short, where it says that if the chief does not the chief should note the recommendations not being adopted and on a short basis for why they are not being implemented I'm not sure what the short is just suggested it be deleted. But also requiring a majority vote for the commission to respond to the chief's decision goes beyond what should be an ordinance. This should be part of the commission's complaint policy and procedures. And it should include a phrase that indicates the mayor will inform the commission of the reasons for his or her decision with regard to the adoption of the commission's findings so as you all recall earlier this year. We presented findings to the mayor on two different complaints, but we have not received any feedback on what the the mayor's just actions were in response to our findings and so this would request that the mayor inform the commission of how he or she responds to our findings. Does it need to have some kind of a time associated with it. Yes, that's good point. I think about it with Anthony when we draft this memo and taboo and will draft a number of days or whatever seems reasonable there. Thanks Susie. So I had. Let's see. So going on to X, X five. There should be some comments here but there's somehow missing from my file right now. So I'm just going to sit here with a minute with all of you to just skim through this and see if I can come up with what we had thought on this. Well little itty bitty thing is selected by the co chairs. Where are you in this ABC or D sorry. I was in B that we could just go section by section here so are you referring to. I'm in B so we'll go to a first. Okay, I think my feeling about this way. In some ways we've dealt with some of this in our other comments. And this section would likely if our comments were accepted this section would likely be revised. The one piece here that is that there was a comment on is regards the issue of the commission hearing grievances. In particular, the comment is and this is from some commission or so it'll be important to make sure that we all are agreement here. The commission's role in the grievance grievance process should be eliminated. There's only been one hearing on a grievance held in the last six years, as a rare event that should be conducted by another body, so that the commission does not have a conflict of interest in hearing disciplinary cases. What body would that be. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know for the city to determine. I'm not sure that we need to sort that out ourselves. Agreed. Can I just make a couple of comments here. Stephanie. So this is one of these places. And I think city attorney did identify this. And I think that was a question that was asked to the city council before the resolution was adopted. And I also think is called out in the mayor's signing statement on the resolution. We do have some tension here. And I, again, it's a question of what can be changed by ordinance and what needs to be changed in the charter. And unfortunately. And so I would just ask the commissioners to think about what. I think what's the balance that's trying to be struck in this draft. These draft sections here that we're talking about is actually expanding the commissions. In the disciplinary process in a way that doesn't compromise the appellate role that you're stuck with currently under the charter. So I think it's important to call out that the commission doesn't feel like, you know, it's appellate role is as important as this. It's an involvement in the disciplinary process. And that's where we want to go in the future. But I'd ask you to think about it under the present reality that you're stuck with under the charter, whether this might actually not be a way of allowing the commission, greater role, not the full commission but some members of the commission so that there are other members left to be involved in the grievance process without violating, you know, due process. But the other issue I wanted to bring up is I and I'm new to this so I could be wrong and I could be missing something. But the, the question of the appellate jurisdiction. You know, the to hear, you know, if the if if the someone appeals the chief's disciplinary decision. I think the assumption has always been that it's just the officer that can appeal that, but I'm having a hard time finding that in the charter. The charter at section 180 or 190 just says the board of police commissioners shall hear any appeal filed in a timely manner with respect to such actions of the police chief. Doesn't necessarily say that that appeal right is exclusive to officers who are being disciplined. I don't, I don't know if you've ever gotten an opinion on that for the city attorney but in some ways, if that were true, if the complainant could also appeal to the commission. Then this authority could be actually more valuable than it is here to for been recognized by both the commission itself and members of the community who are concerned about their interactions with police. Just to clarify, you're saying that the city charter doesn't is not clear on who can grieve. And that we should ask for an opinion on that. Well, I'm wondering if you've ever been given an opinion on that. Sharon is the longest serving member. I don't know if she had to step away. Jabu do you. Yeah, I'm not aware of that. But again, it's only six years out of many, many years, but I am not aware of that issue ever having been raised. It's an interesting one. And I'll just jump in Stephanie my historical perspective as you folks know is pretty limited but to my knowledge based on the documents that Dan has prepared on this issue I don't think he's explicitly address that possibility that I'm aware of. So that would be something that we should ask for clarification on. Okay. I think it may because I think it may. I think it may affect the extent to which you view these, what the what the city attorney's office is trying to do in this ordinance and expanding your role, but also maintaining due process and if the assumption is that that due process is just for an individual who's been disciplined, but that also might be due process for a citizen complainant who who might access your poet jurisdiction. So question that we should at least get the answer to before you or or call out for to be answered. Any comments on this section can be appreciated in that, that broader context of, you know, I know, I think what you've said is historically it's always just been an officer grieving. But maybe that's an assumption that everyone in the community has made that's not actually consistent with what the charter means. That's, that's really helpful and so maybe the best thing to do that is just to leave this section as is to raise those questions. And to, you know, request revision based on the answer to those questions. What I like about it a lot is that it, you know, speaks to the equity issue and complete in process. Uh huh, right. Okay. I need to move on to confidentiality of. Oops, sorry. I saw I just am scrolling through this because I'm not sure that we have any specific comments on a through D here other than what we just discussed. And if not, I'll move on to confidentiality of records section xx six. I want to ask, Shereen, because you articulated it so well if you'd like to restate your concern about this section. Looking for it. Yes, so in section B in particular, is that correct. Well, it's the very final sentence of violation shall constitute negligence or bad conduct regardless of the nature of the breach the intent of the breaching commissioner or the impact of such a breach. My concern there is if one of us hits reply all as opposed to reply I mean it can be so innocently done that I wouldn't want to sign something like this, you know, I do think intent matters. So, this definitely merits more of a look. There may be those who don't have an issue but I think this would be a hard thing for folks to sign on to and taking on a voluntary role. I have no problem with us. I think we would all agree that an intentional breach or disclosure in violation of confidentiality rules or understandings we have is one thing but when you've done something innocently with no intense. I think that matters. Okay, thanks. And so I have some language here to that effect. I just remind everybody that we did get, we are going to develop a code of ethics that would incorporate some of this. I think there's also a question as to whether, so here's the point we, we may recommend that we retain the first sentence of Part D and strike the rest. We may recommend that we keep all of it except the last sentence. The next interesting question is to whether suspending a commissioner and holding a hearing hearing is the appropriate response and whether that should be left to the commission in its own code in its code of ethics rather than in the ordinance. And I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on that. So I have a question. Does do city employees, are they under the same standard. No mistakes allowed. It depends on the employee. So, for police officers, it's a lot different the standards for removal are outlined in the charter for department heads. Same kind of a thing they're entitled to process before city council. But just for everyday run of the mill employees that's generally governed by our employee handbook. And, you know, there is a provision in there for, you know, there's sort of a sliding scale of discipline and, and almost across the board, you know, for really bad conduct, a one off incident, even if the employees had a really good track record before can be grounds for for termination in some instances. But I, I'm not aware of this sort of. I'm not aware of anything in the city charter, or in the employee handbook that has this sort of her say, you know, language in it that it doesn't matter what your intent was kind of a thing. But if it was possible in certain circumstances, it could be applied that way if it was a really, really, you know, grievous error, but I'm not aware of any language that exists in, in other parts of at least employment with the city, which is a little bit different right and Anthony, I'm sure would have a little bit more insight on that but, you know, employment versus serving on the board is a little bit different but, but for, you know, for employment anyway I am not aware of anything that has language that's so strict. If it's this feels punitive to me, which I don't appreciate. It seems dr Coney and doesn't I mean, yes, to have a volunteer to the police commission have to appear for a hearing without any regard for intent. That's a little hard to make sure in. Haley, do you know, for example, let's just say that there is a department head or that has. There's a hearing based on a violation of code of ethics. Are they temporarily suspended until that hearing. Again it really depends on on it's really fact dependent Stephanie, I can say you know, generally what the city's practices for higher level. Concerns are that the employee would be paid would be placed on administrative leave or temper, you know, temporary leave the and invest in internal investigation would be conducted. And then at the conclusion of that the employee would have the opportunity for hearing. Okay, so what I have here is. Actually, use the same word that sharing did that the Dracoli draconian language on holding a hearing if a person even inadvertently violates the code is problematic. And that this portion of the ordinance should be struck retaining only the first sentence of Part D. I think we probably should come to some agreement on that I think we're all in agreement that the last sentence should be struck. The only possibility is that we request a review of what other commissions do in terms of codes of ethics in Burlington in other words to have consistency across commissions about how this is handled, how the any violation of the code is is responded to. Does that seem reasonable to folks. Well, I have a question. I'm sorry. Has any other commission have a code of ethics. So I think that would be it is to, to again send this back to the drawing board for some further research on that and to, in so far as there are, they should be consistent across commissions. Okay, so now mind if I just I'm sorry it's sharing. We as a group did two months ago. Come to the table saying we wanted to institute. Yes, so we might not be looking for one that is the same. You know we are. And that cuts both ways we just need to be careful about that. Okay, we'll see if we can craft this to take account of that. Thanks. Okay, so I have some, I basically now have a list of general comments that I got that didn't fit specifically into anything here. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to stop sharing. And I'm going to share the document with those comments. Let's see, there we go. So the general comment that most folks shared with me is that the ordinances do detailed that it should offer broad store strokes with details and individual policies to allow flexibility. The second is that the city attorney, because of the conflict of interest, this is the reason we have conflict council, and where council is needed that in appropriate places the ordinance should reflect our reliance on the conflict council for guidance. In general, the general point that the ordinance should support transparency to the extent permitted by law. And then to just once I'm going to skip this one because it's redundant. I have a typo. The final ordinance or existing policies should be clear that the commission has the authority to review and provide input on the police department's discipline matrix. This may be something Anthony that, you know, as you indicated is already accounted for by the authority given us, and it may not be necessary. So I've added that there and if it's not necessarily we can remove it. And in general, the point that this contradicts existing legislation and the resolution that the city council set. And so these are some points here, these last four five or six things are aspects of the city council resolution that were not integrated into this ordinance and it would just be a signal for us to recommend that those components of the city council resolution be incorporated in the ordinance. That's it. That's a lot. So I think that if I might, I, I, I'm going to suggest the following that we go around to each commissioner and just share your thoughts on this if you have anything to add. There's anything that you disagreed with that's fine. Just let us know. And if we could do this one by one. Would that be okay with everybody. I'm going to leave these at the top of my list here so and I'm great. So I'm going to call on Susie first. If I might just say one thing I'm so sorry before you start Susie and I want to think say that I think also one thing that we would want to do in this memo is to, you know, appreciate the fact that there is this expanded guide this that delineates our mandate in a more detailed way than has been in the past and so that there are portions of this that are very helpful and that we appreciate the work that has been done on this. So I want to just in terms of framing our comments on this. Go ahead. In relation to frame in comments. We might want to have a short piece that affirms what we got from city council. I gave you some of that language this afternoon. Outside of that, I think you know that this is a living document, and it's going to be an ongoing negotiation. And I think we have it's solid. Well, I have to say I agree with everything we talked about. We actually did that as we went through. I'm done. Okay, Jebu you're next. Yeah, well, first off, thank you for compiling, hurting us cats in this direction and getting this document together. Really quite impressive. I don't have, I really don't have anything else to to offer that has been stated here already. I mean, I'm going to give you another look over in the next day or two, but I, as right now I don't have anything else I could really add on to this I think you captured everyone's comments pretty well and it seems like people agree with that so as of right now I'm quite happy with this. And again, thank you for putting this together. Okay, Stephanie, you were very solicitous and letting me speak during the meeting and you and I spent a fair amount of time on the phone today going through this so I feel like the things that I was wanting to discuss came out and thank you for that and I agree with you that I am very grateful for this document. It really is getting us started at what on what I think will be a good outcome it might just take a while to get there but this is a good step forward so thanks and thanks for the work and what you're putting together I appreciate it. Kevin. I actually like all the changes that people suggested. Overall, I think it's a solid piece of work here and you know I don't have any additional things to add to it. I'd like to like I'm going to do the same as Jabu and go over it again. As I already have a couple times on this document so it's nice to hear everybody's opinions and suggestions so it's good work, good work from everybody. Milo. Thank you. I can see some of the good that was mentioned but I have to admit that initially I was blinded by some of the bad. I'm concerned that I have and I would ask, you know, of the mayor and the city attorney's office to be very careful of supporting any type of language that maintains the status quo that we know is, is not acceptable. In terms of that language around doing what's common in other municipalities, that to me was, I was just kind of stunned but well I guess I shouldn't be surprised by anything at this point but I was pretty surprised. I took that to be a way to stop progress and there were a couple other things that I felt were were put to stop or set back progress that we were making especially responding to things that the community has asked for in terms of really truly increasing transparency and really truly trying to make a difference to people, especially people people that submit complaints. So, overall, I'm glad we have this discussion I'm glad this discussions public. And I'd also like to thank Stephanie for summarizing all of our feedback. Thank you. Suzy. One other addition I think to the preamble is exactly what Milo was saying, you know, the, the, the continuous loud voice of the community for justice, and that that is our primary responsibility is to be responsive and to be in a situation of advocacy for the community to give that community voice and that community is is widespread this many different groups that comprises. So thank you for that Milo. Okay. Wow. Anthony, do you have any thoughts and Haley both happy to hear any thoughts or comments you might want to make at this point. Thank you Stephanie well, I just have to express how impressed I am by the commission. Thank you for the thoughtfulness with which you've engaged the process. Looking at ordinance language is something that we lawyers do all the time and I know some of you are lawyers or law adjacent. But I think that the, the insights that have been shared show that this group is really engaged with the task. I think to help you channel these comments in a way that's most constructive to advance the dialogue. The only thing I, I think we it's important for us to keep in mind is in the resolution itself when it talks about what should and shouldn't be in the ordinance. There is an important qualifier, and that in that qualifier is what was given in the charge to the city attorney's office to the extent possible consistent within legal constraints. I do have to appreciate that we're stuck with the charter that I think the commission as a group and many in the community feel and certainly many in the city council feel is not representative of the end state we're driving toward, but it is where we are. I also don't think that means the commission needs to necessarily accept conventional interpretations of what those legal constraints are. So I think it is important to look with fresh eyes at the charter to look with fresh eyes at state statutes that the charter is has to be consistent with. I've done a little of that research, particularly with regard to this section of state law section 24 BSA 1931, and sort of what authority that gives the police chief, and what authority that gives the municipality the legislative body and and it's very clear in the Supreme Court's case law, it's shared authority. So I think we really need to both appreciate the task that the city attorney's office has, and sort of identifying constraints and working within them, but not be afraid to ask more probing questions about is that truly a legal constraint. And that just conventional wisdom of what the legal constraint has been over time. Thanks that's really helpful I appreciate that. Haley do you want to have any thoughts for us comments. I echo Anthony, you know you as a group have had to do with the ordinance committee effectively does all the time and if you've ever had the pleasure of sitting in on an ordinance committee meeting you know that it's, it is. It's, it's making law and it's getting to the to the end point and it's a lot of moving parts so I think as a, as a first sort of bite at the apple for this group, I think the feedback is is really well taken. And a lot of notes here tonight I'll, I'll look forward to seeing the more formalized memo but it definitely has given me some things to think about as, as well as take back to the office when we continue to to work and tweak and perfect this draft. So I think to you know, Anthony raised some great points for you to think about in terms of, you know what this ordinance is is really trying to do is walk right up to the edge of what the charter allows knowing that, you know, ultimately for the commission it's it's not really, you know, it's not the ideal but just recognizing the reality that we're within and how we can kind of work with what we have so to speak to make it the most in line with the commission's current priorities while still respecting those boundaries. So I think, you know, just having that sort of framework to think about and understanding, you know, okay why some of the, some of at least the meat and bones of the proposals in here are the way they are I think will really help to orient the thinking. Not only of this group but also of of the city council as this continues to move towards finalization so I'm looking forward to the memo if there's anything I can do to assist you always know where to find me and it's it's great that you've got Anthony on board as well to help with some of these niche issues. Great. Thank you. That's it on this agenda item jibu. You mean. Sorry, I see Milo's hand raised. Milo. Thank you. I just wanted to say something about the almighty charter. I think part of the pieces to this process is to not look at that charter as as a hindrance. There are things in that charter that are quite frankly or cake. And need to be changed. So I'm not fully aware of exactly how that would work I'm sure has to go through the city council, but somewhere along the line there's going to need to be a process to address the archaic and outdated things in that charter. And not simply say well we can only go as far as is as this charter will allow us to. Yeah we can do that right now, but that shouldn't just be it we have to we have to address the things in that charter. That's not only interfering with what Burlington's trying to do that's interfering with what other municipalities in the state of Vermont are trying to do. And that's how we have to be real about that there's just shockingly arcade things in that charter. Thank you. Thanks. I second that motion. What I'm trying to say is that the charter change committee is will be working on a revision of the charter. That was part of this it's a complex I mean there's a complex process going on here. We're revising the ordinance, the BPO a contract is being negotiated, and there will be an effort to change the city city charter. So there are a lot of different moving parts and sequencing those as one of the challenges here. It would have been better to have the BPO a contract renegotiated and the chart of change before changing this ordinance. But we've been asked to do this and so I think we just respond to it in this way. Well it looks to me like it's going to take a while anyway so it may end up being synchronous. Right. Okay. Anthony, I see your hand raised. I just wanted to respond to Milo's excellent comment with a little bit of additional information. Any charter change also has to be approved by the state legislature. So to the extent that commissioners and other folks in the community that they're working with are in touch with what Milo referred to as other municipalities wanting to do like very important to build those connections to their advocacy because the legislature and the governor unfortunately because the governor has to approve of charter changes has really been frustrating a lot of things that progressive things, small p progressive. You know, you sensitive in Burlington about those labels with small p progressive changes that different municipalities wanted to make so looking ahead to the kind of charter changes that Milo is talking about. So you know, build your networks across the state because it's not unfortunately just up to Burlington voters it's up to the representatives from every municipality as well as the governor as to what can go through, even if the city, and all its voters decide on a charter for change so that activism for change starts now and it goes broader than just the borders of the city of Burlington. Great. I have a process question for Jabu. Yep. So, we're going to try to finalize the memo, based on the discussion tonight. What is the latest that we can post it to board ducks. I actually don't know that answer. I might have to redirect. Sorry. Just for your regular meeting on Tuesday, correct. So for the regular meetings we generally try to have those posted 48 hours in advance. That's under the open meeting loss so ideally we would get that to Shannon for posting on Friday. So it's definitely a tight turnaround. I what she could do is just put that agenda item placeholder items saying, you know, memo forthcoming. And I think it would be okay to sort of fill in the placeholder item with the finalized memo on Monday. But certainly, as far as the agenda is concerned, that's, that's definitely something to be posted by close the business on Friday. Great. I think we're all set to do that just in case there's any slippage. It's good to know that we have until Monday. Great. Mila, I'm sorry, I, I think you were about to jump in there for a second. Yeah, I just the whole like small p progressive. Some of this isn't progressive. It's, it's literally correcting something that is just outdated. It's just outdated and that we, and also addressing some things that assumptions that were made when you look at some of the powers that are given specifically to a position of police chief. There was an assumption made at the time that police chiefs were always going to do the right thing when in fact all over the state, there's been a number of issues. So, it's, it's, it's literally looking at a document that things in it the age of the things in it and, and, and what our current contemporary realities are. So some of it isn't really progressive. It's just, it's just fixing things that are that are no longer accurate for for what we're dealing with today. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm sorry if I misspoke I meant the term progressive in making progress. And I think correcting past wrongs is how I intended it, and I view correction of past wrongs as progress. Okay. Thank you and I wasn't criticizing you in any way. I was just saying that there's that there's things that I guess I don't have the the correct way to to really say it but it's it's with everything that they have to do, looking at a document that is been kind of a settled document for such a long time. It's a priority so we all have to work together to say hey this needs to be a priority, so that we can, we can move forward and correct systematic issues that we're facing. Thank you. Just as a friendly amendment, and I don't want to continue this conversation too much longer because I'm falling asleep over here but embedded in every settled thing is power. What we're really facing in this whole situation is power, you know at every level. The document that we received in my humble opinion was incredibly encroaching on the things that this commission has been trying to do for the last, you know, at least as long as I've been on it which is almost a year now so that's all. And I still feel like I hardly know anything. I think that concludes that agenda item. Any further comments or questions anybody has. You guys are amazing. Thank you. Right back at you. Before I motion to adjourn the meeting. I'm quickly going to say Stephanie Stephanie are about ready are just about done finalizing the agenda. If you have any agenda items you want to add on there please get it to us by the end of the day tomorrow. So we can get Shannon the agenda Monday morning so it can be posted and warned properly. So sorry. Chair co chair commotion I just to the extent I wasn't clear before the agenda itself needs to be posted by close of business on Friday. And as long as there is an agenda item saying memo to be discussed if the commission needs to supplement the agenda on Monday by adding the memo. That's, I think that's totally fine but the agenda needs to be posted and warned 48 business hours in advance. Thank you. Okay, not quite right. I appreciate the clarification. So, all right, yeah. Yeah, please. Any agenda items you want to add is the agenda please get us get that to Stephanie myself by the end of the day tomorrow. Yes, we posted for Monday. Sorry, posted for Friday morning polities. And with that I motion to adjourn the meeting to have a second seconded by Susie sorry Harry I just asked Stephanie. And everybody in favor of a during the meeting, raise your hand to say hi. Hi. Pass unanimously is 734pm. Thank you everybody for being here with us think remembers the public for joining us. Our next scheduled meeting is Tuesday. It will be on Tuesday, which is the 26th. It'll be a remote meeting so join us by a zoom and that will be posted on Friday. Everybody have good rest of the work week. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everybody. All right, we'll be in touch. Thank you.


In the meantime, so how many I think besides one everyone's first word camp am I right everyone's first word camp how are you finding the word camp interesting boring have you all interacted with the community do you find any inspiration of joining the community because community when people join that is the time when people the community grows because one person cannot stay along for X number of years just solely doing it because I feel community grows only when a person contributes and purchase a person reaches out to people and tells you know take over do organize events so to organize word camp first we start with building the local community so there is a local community in Nagpur we conduct they conduct regular meetups so I am a co-organizer in Mumbai I'm from the Mumbai community so we organize meetups meetups can be on any topic related either the word press design development or we even have casual meetups we even have so there are days called translation days and contributed days so we even organize a meetup for translation day so the global community has a team called polygots so in September the full month of September is called translation month so around the entire globe wherever the word press communities are they organize either the full month or one of the days in the month they organize a meetup meetup can be one hour meetup can be ten hours we sit together in a room like that we have breakfast together we have lunch together and we sit and translate translate is nothing but taking the English and putting it into your language you don't need to be a coder you don't need to be a developer neither you need to be an expert in wordpress as long as you know he translates into what in your language it and the sentence makes sense you can submit it because once your once you submit it will go to a GT they will either approve or reject because at the day it needs to make it needs to make sense with whether it is getting displayed so when the wordpress backend is getting displayed in French the mismatch of the wordings is not exactly the translation offense the person will not understand using it so either the GT rejects it or approves it I'll just few minutes so I have been in the wordpress Mumbai community from 2016 I just missed what can Mumbai 2016 by a day or two initially I registered with the community I was excited to know my peer people because I had a problem in my code Google doesn't have answers to everything you need no no this this wires yes but it's okay one my phone I can put it here so a lot of us have experience in indifferent we do a lot of development so I will be doing only focus one or like who commerce someone will be doing donation plug-in so when if I get a donation request from a customer and I don't have full knowledge Google doesn't have all at least you know you have someone to talk to you know you know that even if the person doesn't know you they can give you a brief or they can give you a output outline this is the way it is supposed to go so at least then you your mind starts working that is the reason I joined this community and this community has given me a lot of things it's given me friendship it's given me the opportunity to travel it's actually helped me set up a business with a colleague it is help me girl we are part of global interviews I was asked to be a part of 5.6 the all women's quadrilities I'm not a co-developer but I know where to get the things done I was in documentation I I said let's give it a try like everyone feels contribution is only development I think tomorrow you'll have contributed right participate it's not development this thing that WordPress contribution is only development that's wrong there are a lot of other thing there's marketing there's polygots there is photo there is a ton lot of there is just answering support queries TV if you like video editing if you like if you know the quality of videos there's WordPress TV you can help and upload the videos because post pre-pandemic we had word camps all around the globe and we used to have multiple word camps so the number of videos were very the volume was very high so if word cam say today word cam Naapur is there but there's also word cam in Italy so their videos are videos and these are either self-sponsored contributors who dedicate their time towards the project or paid contributors a lot of people ask me why do you dedicate your time to the project the project has given me so much the product is helping me live a life why not help something to give back and make the software better that's why I contribute okay let me get back to my topic benefits of being a part of a community as most of you all don't know me my name is Mehrabala I'm a WordPress consultant specialized in front-end development I'm a part of a freelance WordPress marketplace named codable I'm a partner at hearty host this is because of the community the partner hearty host would have not been there if I didn't know the community expert at codable would have not been there if I didn't know the community active in open source co-organizer of word cam Mumbai word cam India WordPress translation this is also because I took the initiative of being a part of the community this is my favorite this started in a pandemic and this is no people's story behind like what do you do in your daily life how you got started with WordPress why you still onto WordPress and what is the reason this is my podcast with your podcast so this I will in this talk I will be sharing your learnings and insights of being a part of a tech community during the last seven years of mine so what do you all feel what is a community anyone it's okay if you'll have the wrong answers no problem right so a group of people who interact with one another and check a common goal and vision it can be in a physical place like right now or a virtual place the last two and two and a half years we have been online being a part of an engaging community gives all of us a sense of belonging at times we forget when we interact with someone the the human in us wants to interact with people if you're left by yourself there is no growth there is no growth in your skill set there's no growth in your mindset when you talk to people you understand their culture you understand their background you understand their mindset your mindset changes you understand how the world around you is as a part of a meaning community is important for well-being and mental health because if you're in that one room of usually developers of freelancers I'm the one room code from morning nine nine o'clock to nine o'clock night sometimes we eat drink everything in that one place we don't get up from the table for hours and hours I have done that myself and I'm guilty as well I will not say that when you get up when you see the world you know okay something is happening around you when you talk to people in your own community oh this event is there I did not know like a lot of time my colleague virtual he keeps on pinging me this event is there I'm like really okay I will check I will register a lot of events like cloud fair cloud bazaar I have been introduced to because of my colleagues around me you don't know everything and everyone and everything on the internet internet is vast why join a tech community this was my first word camp so we as teenagers and kids I'm sure all of us were part of any community be it religion be it sports be it academics we were a part of a community we used to interact but somehow I feel when we come into adult and work a nine to five job we don't want to join our community because after five we just want chill we don't have time and a lot of people have told me community is boring tech community is boring there is no fun you only talk about code code code code but no it is a lot of things if you stop talking about code everyone will stop talking about code but if you only talk about code it is difficult for the other person to talk anything else beyond besides code so the first time when I joined the Mumbai community I did not know what to expect I joined because I needed new friendship I needed new opportunities this is your first word camp and you feel this is this can be my community if I put a little attention to it stick with it but if you are uncomfortable and if it this doesn't feel your home don't push yourself find a community which makes you feel safe which increases your skill set growing a community takes ample of time and energy if you become a part of word camp now put community after this before starting to think that the community is this way community is that way first understand the community around you understand the people around you understand what they do how they work how they organize events because it's easy to say events is nothing you can organize it's it's very easy but it goes a lot of time effort taking out your time from your work busy schedule your life and organizing things for a community so first try and understand the community around you once you're part of the community and if you're confident get yourself involved try and grow the community when I entered I was the only woman I was hesitant I'll be honest I was like there is no one I could have backed out it would have been my loss it would have been no one else's loss I gave the community a chance when I started speaking to the organizers they were nice they made me feel like home they didn't make me feel like an outsider they approached me they spoke to me my colleague Alexander grounder he approached me via meetup and said that you know you are part of this meetup you know why are you not coming to next meetups he made me feel comfortable everyone around me made me feel comfortable though at times there were I got lost with addresses which I'm bad at but eventually everything comes in place when you're part of something you're greater than yourself I always feel that we have a lot of choices around ourselves we can be a part of multiple communities I'm a part of multiple communities be it WordPress, Mumbai community, WooCommerce community, international communities you can either be a part of everything or one but choose which makes you feel safe and comfortable there is no sense in pushing yourself just because you want your name to be out there because if you do that you will never attract the right signals you will always attract the signals which you don't want so try to be comfortable it takes time to mingle around with people I understand give it time take that first steps be open if someone is saying something against what you're saying be open mind don't shut it everyone has its own opinions why am I an advocate of a community I believe community can help each other in many aspects community can help us reach our goals and even build our confidence when I first started and now my confidence level has increased gradually because when I talk to people when I meet people when I interact people and they tell me you're good you're good you're good that time you start believing in yourself and then you say okay I can do this I wanted to speak on wordcams I know a lot of my colleagues have been pushing me since last four or five years I didn't want to because I didn't know what to speak but when you start talking to people when you know what to talk to then you gain confidence in yourself and I applied one of the main reasons for me to be advocate is this community has given me the opportunity to travel it has let me travel on my own two places like Naapur, Nasek, Kolkata, Kochi maybe Asia next year I don't know but when I started traveling I understood I can do it a lot of us a lot of us women feel that we cannot travel around because a lot of people around us women cannot travel around they cannot make the decision but today's generation is different today's generation we do things ourselves we take the first step so travel was my biggest plus point though my family doesn't approve of travel but eventually they've learned to approve it so often I get questions why are you joining the local community is community a waste of time and energy there there seems to be a few women how will I survive what are the benefits of the WordPress community joining my local community one gave me an opportunity to learn that besides plugins and themes there are a lot of other things you can do with WordPress you can set up a multi-site you can put the backend as WordPress the front as front end as react you can do a lot of things not only blogging company sites corporate sites you can create a donation plugin you can create a membership plugin just a second you can create a membership plugin you can let people pay on what they download is community a waste of time no but if that's your thinking then you will never get out of it you will never give your attention to the community you'll be like this is this is not my this is not where I want to be so even if the community is giving you it'll be a brick wall against your face where you don't want to do anything there are a few women how will you survive yes I agree there are few women I'm not denying it but if you don't put your first step seeing you a lot of others will follow but you someone needs to be the first step someone needs to take that bold decision of fine if I am one woman around 25 men I will fight it and today's woman a lot of today's women fight it and the next generation don't feel scared to put yourself in that position because seeing you a lot of us will join woman encourages women and this is sorry this is the woman wapu symbol fits of joining community friendship network who comes to this community everyone comes to you will get projects you will get work work relationship or work collaboration is friendship if you don't develop the friendship with a person how will the person trust you and give you a project how will the person trust you this is my person he's going to do with me he's going to do the work and I fully trust him first build the friendship build the network the work opportunity follows if you have knowledge and if you expect the opposite person also has knowledge and everyone in the community has knowledge and you're only to gain knowledge but no you also need to give knowledge you also need to share your knowledge you don't need to be right on everything but you need to share your knowledge if someone is asking and you keep quiet and you know the answer you keep quiet that's wrong on your part because you're hiding information which you don't want to but then you expect others which have the information to share it with you that's not right be a mentor to someone travel my best part of being a community inspiration in this community I have a lot of people who are inspiration there are people from the global wordpress communities who selflessly do a lot of things for everyone look up to them do what they are doing maybe someone someday will look up to you someday they will tell you you are an inspiration for me support people if you know someone is going alone to a word camp support them a lot of times when I am traveling alone or when I'm speaking or whether I'm alone in a meetup my friend Vajran he whether he has work he's drowning in work he will always be there even if he's on a phone he'll be there he's not well he's still traveled with me from Bombay to Nagpur today if he's the support for me I am the support for him whenever he needs me he knows that it's always a two-way street what you've got your knowledge with people and this is the most important one I believe community is a two-way street if you only believe people will give you give you give you and you're not going to give back it is never going to work it has to be reciprocal and it needs to be reciprocal because at some point the person who keeps giving will get frustrated that relationship will get bitter so learn to give and take an equal amount whether you're a male or female the amazing community is I am part of the WordPress Mumbai community the WooCommerce Mumbai community the big orange heart community so this is a community which helps this is the community which helps people who are freelancers and who don't have anyone to talk to they've created a slack channel you can come and share what you're going through if your day is as worst as minus two you can just put minus two in the slack you don't need any explanation you don't know any explanation it's just a place where you can be safe and pour your heart it is a place where you feel safe and you can say anything there are difference of opinion there are people who've had bad days even I've had bad days I've just gone and put a number some people explain it hello some people express what they're going through because when you express and write down in words your heart feels a little lighter you know you feel you feel okay you've taken it out and then your mind starts thinking the hero press or slack community the last two are the slack communities the ladies are WordPress this is an international slack community remote India this is a community for all people in India who are freelancers or who want to work this community has increased dramatically in the last two and a half years it started with five people today there are two thousand plus people on that slack though if you're on linkedin if you're a linkedin fan there's a group called WordPress product community if you're a facebook crazy person web creators community or wp bills community these two communities on a daily basis they put out you know how's your monday going and people take out two seconds or two minutes of the time and write my monday is going bad i have a lot of workload oh my monday is fantastic i'm on a holiday and they put pictures they put their desk pictures the owner of these communities taking effort from their time to do this but a lot of people have gained trust in him and is sharing personal information as well and for me last but not the least is my codable slack i have never seen these people it's 800 people i have never seen but the slack is amazing i have realized what food good foods and italy italy the best places to eat ice cream in italy the food in china town what to eat where to go the movie ratings the serial ratings share they share everything we share memes on a daily basis we pull people's leg for the past six months we've been continuously wishing someone happy birthday happy birthday just to irritate him and sometimes all 800 people go in that one channel and all irritate him this is if you are an agency or community create a place where your employers can't talk to themselves without any filtration without thinking oh my boss will look at this oh my colleague will feel bad create that place for them to chit chat to talk whatever to share their memes even if people don't like the movies we put an honest opinion but don't go into gender distinguish because when gender distinguish happens the seniors in my codable pull them up because we all are equal we don't need to treat women down or we don't need to treat women high because when that happens then it blows up because everyone's opinion is different and that is the time the owner should stop it personal achievement I think I've said most of them I started with meetups I went to do action word camps I did do action I did word press event 2019 leading word word camp word camp Mumbai my first I never thought I would go so fast from 2016 to 2019 I still remember 2017 I was continuously tweeting about word camp because 2016 I didn't know what is this craze why is people tweeting why are people taking pictures why is this craze like every two second people are putting on Twitter 2017 I was amongst them because I understood social media someone came and approached me on Twitter officially and said we want to interview you because you are the other part of the world three days I didn't answer for the answer one of the question was what is your bucket list this was my bucket list being a lead organizer of word camp Mumbai 2019 interview by international podcast like do the Wu or WP water coolers so a lot of you all must be not knowing what is hero press so hero press is a website where the owner of the website tofu he contacts people in the word press community and ask them to write a write-up about their story long back he contacted me I wrote about my story yes I'm a dyslexic I'm a graphic love I wrote my story my family didn't like it I never knew it'll come in people in wordpress people in wordpress is a campaign run by the global marketing team in which we show the globe that there are these people who are supporting who have done a lot in the community last month there was a wordpress accessibility event there's a guy from Bangalore no no he was from Bangalore now he's relocated he has a lot of issues he's blind he has a lot of other physical issues he became a speaker in what came in Mumbai he went on to learn accessibility because when you have a lot of challenges in life especially with the eyesight you need to know how to learn the laptop you need to know how to read the laptop he studied code he studied html he got into developing websites for his friends and his families he started learning theme coding today he owns a company which is dedicated to accessibility last year he went he underwent through a major surgery as a part of the marketing global marketing team I made sure that before the accessibility event his article comes up because he is a true inspiration today he is learning react he is learning things which we developers have 10 things to think about he needs to learn because if his developer screws up something he needs to figure out a way and give it to another developer so he needs to learn the logics but whatever his circumstances is he's not focusing on his circumstances he's focusing on what is priority and for him wordpress accessibility is the main priority my second best wordpress 5.6 release squad for me before this I never thought I would be a part of the release squad for me it was like okay it's core based I will never be a release squad team Josepha the cco of wordpress she had put a tweet years back she was thinking about a release squad dedicated to women I said I don't mind I can be a part of it these all people said yes and that is why 5.6 is dedicated to the woman like marketing somehow being a developer marketing is not a plus point for everyone but somehow marketing fascinates me I joined the global community I got into the marketing team I contributed and eventually my name up my name came as a came for the nominations for a team rep I was not ready because I did not know how much effort and time a team rep takes because when you are just contributing you contributed your own time but being a team rep you need to do a lot of you you need to invest a lot of time I was not sure whether I would I did it and for two years I did it being a part of the marketing team helped me realize and get an opportunity to know the people around the globe a lot of people from go daddy I came to I came to know through the marketing team they put my name in front of page builder summit to talk with their three employees just about how to handle your WooCommerce site from for holiday season they didn't have to she just knew me and there was a spot available she knew I could do it she knows I work with WooCommerce she recommended it I was a part of the summit and the best part of the summit was we were live it was 10.30 in the night I finished entire summit last two minutes my internet crashed and none of them came to know because I was frozen on screen so thankfully that slight error went off bluehost contacted me to be a jury in the wordpress creators award wordfest since y'all are new I'll tell you what is wordfest wordfest is an event like wordcam but it is run by big orange heart the money they get if anyone sponsors or big big company sponsor them it goes into a fund where if anyone needs help with contacting if anyone needs help with mental health and they don't have the finance they contact big orange heart and big orange heart gives them the numbers of people to get in touch when they had the first word cam when they had the first wordfest I was the media partner second wordfest I was interviewed as a community interview third wordfest I was the speaker sadly for wordfest I will not be able to attend but fifth is on my list as I said partnered with community friends opened up businesses I have worked with people in the UK I have got to know the UK clients I got to know how they speak how to deal with stuff I've created a website for pets best example Hathi host community business part of the wordpress translation day one I have not added which is my recent thing I got Yoast sponsorship for my contribution towards the wordpress community what is Yoast sponsorship Yoast is a plugin we all know which is dedicated into SEO they are a company which looks at a lot of people who are self sponsored self sponsored is my time contributing is not paid by any company is my time I am cutting from my own payments and contributing to the company that self sponsored company contributors they give they encourage these kind of people and give them motivation and interview them and give them an X amount as a small token of appreciation I never thought anyone would nominate me after this talk you're inspired and you continue with Naapur community and you want to share your journey with me after X amount of months or years get in touch with me on Twitter I would love to host your online plug tech I would love to share your story your journey with the rest of the world because when your journey is shared other people realize that other people are also doing the same thing you can contact me on Twitter at Mehrabala.com or you can contact me by my website Mehrabala.com that's all thank you for being very patient audience any questions okay I'll definitely encourage everyone to join the community because Naapur community gave me mail so please be forward and join any community that you wish to join now it's time for high tea high tea will be served here and later on we'll be having panel discussions thank you and if you're scared now talk to people call Abhishek Abhishek I also met my husband through community so please do a lot of stories I've heard you can gain your partner through the community as well but don't make that as primary please because then that's very creepy Abhishek hello I thought you were Abhishek what yeah okay if you all want to talk the organizer Abhishek is there he's nice he's sweet he'll listen to you talk to him if you're confused talk to Nikita she's a new member of the community she's my she's a representative woman in the Naapur community