the right there we I start the recording all right um so this is the February 12th meeting of the community safety and social justice committee it is 6:31 and I am calling this meeting to order uh
pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 this meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting May do so via Zoom or by telephone no inperson attendance of members of the public will be permitted
but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means um okay so let's see if every if we could just go around so we can make sure
everybody can hear and be heard LTE can you hear us yes can you hear me yes perfect Erica yes perfect and Pat yes great thank you um and philli and Camille already have
made their lovely voices known yes thank you all right I don't see everald or Deborah in the audience as of right now so I will just walk through the agenda um we will be we'll have announcements
we'll review the minutes from December meeting any member reports public comment we will have our Crest and Dei updates we'll discuss the progress on the resident oversight board and Youth
Empowerment um Deborah has asked that number 12 which was the executive order and immigration updates be moved up after our regular update and them retreat planning goal setting public comments items not
anticipated um so that will be the agenda um does anybody have any announcements hi everyone hello I I I I
don't know if this um how this impact her community but I learned that um it acres has closed all their locations um they went bankrupt so I don't know how that
impacts our community um I I know that um I was playing an office space today and it was one of the office spaces that they were releasing and they left all their stuff in there um I recommend
ended to the person that was showing me that if in the end they decide they're going to throw everything away I volunteer to pick them up so we can donate them somewhere as oppos but I've seen three offices now 8 Acres where
they have all their stuff in there still computers phones pictures artwork kids supplies yes I I think I'd that they had closed down but I guess I didn't realize there was maybe such an abruptness to it yeah
but I yeah I think hopefully that would be a wonderful idea at least if if that stuff can be salvaged and reutilized well I'm I hope that people know to contact Adrien
Wallace um former executive director of the program um some tragic loss to our community that the program could not uh did not at this time succeed um but uh they made a valiant
effort so Adrian would be the one to let know about the materials that are still there thank you Pat um any other announcements I don't feel like I had anything
that popped out in my brain to announce so um I just I know Deborah will be here in a few so I why don't we put can we did people have a chance to look at the minutes um
and let's say so I know Angel and I had been in touch today just about a few um like spelling things that she did end up fixing um so I guess we can vote to approve the
minutes for Erica do I make comments after we vote or you can make comments yeah regarding minutes there I I have some corrections regarding the minutes okay um so under
uh public comment the first section public comment it says at the last Town council meeting the town manager and the Town Council uh spoke well no actually wrote The Town Council manager that should be the Town Council president not manager U so there's there's some minor
um Corrections and then there's some content Corrections um did they speak in the context of the tal manager's evaluation because I thought that's what they were speaking about I don't know and um
because it was public comment it wasn't necessarily the information that the public officials were being put forward um because I did have like a Content correction in that too but it was um I was informed that it was what the
speaker said versus necessarily the the um actual information okay that that actually makes sense that totally makes sense all right so um under uh under one of the uh speakers it was bullettin
number three it said ready but I think it meant read so that should be change from ready to read uh and then just some minor things um so Town manager sometimes as capital and sometimes as small uh letters and the same thing with the town and the
Town Council and the Town Council president just out of consistency just to either be all capitals Town manager and the titles are all cap capitals or leave them small letters it's just it's one of those things that I trip over so
I'm sorry um under number seven bullet number one um I believe there should be an of I'll put in there um or of removed actually removed the of
and then in the youth response it's into one word as opposed to two and then under my comments I I believe what I said is if you can capture the data that shows calls to the police that really
isn't in their sphere because they're not trained and I would change that to handle versus to do uh remove them the period and add and and is really important impact data because that's what was one statement otherwise it's it
doesn't make sense and then under sorry under Dei Phillips uh comment regarding our operating budget is only there was a number versus the dollar symbol and the amount was 13 thou well was 13 comma Z
so that doesn't make any sense so that has to change as probably 13,000 there's probably a zero missing so I'm sorry I'm being a little picky here um and that's it that's it um no I I appreciate it I
think that there are some so some of the like the grammar er uh corrections I can just send um but I do think having like the content conversation is
certainly yeah and I would caution about using some acronyms um you know some acronyms we know Crest we know you know we know um you know town maner TM but there's some a Dei we know um but there were acronyms toas that the town office
administration I think it's the town of Amherst I'm assuming the town of Amherst thank you the um yes so I would just be careful about acronyms um you know because it's not just for us but it's also you know uh people who may not be able to meet uh come to the meetings and
they want to read the minutes and so just to make sure um you know that we think about the acronyms and who our audience is so they understand what it is that we're saying one other typo you may have caught it earlier uh
but M uh Mrs onani Baku is spelled o n as I understand it o n a n i b a KU U that's under public comment um so yes were some certainly some eror
name spelling errors I think there was um our liaison is holla Lord not Lloyd but I yeah um yeah let that you know it's understandable just as long as we get it correct for respect purposes and accuracy absolutely and and I do Wonder
Too how much of this is captured by like AI type software because it's even at one point it's IMS instead of ammer and I'm imagining that seems like it could be a a computer mistake as opposed to a human
mistake um so but yes I um does anybody have any other like glaring content concerns with the minutes or think that yeah okay so do I
just want oh sorry I was just G to say I just wanted to add I should have started with the Positive whoever's doing the minutes thank you because I know it takes a lot to do minutes and capture everything so I should have started with the Positive first no I think Angel has
been doing a nice job um so and very responsive to some of the feedback I had already given today so thank you to Angel for that um do we want to table voting on the minutes so that we
can have those Corrections in front of us or do we want to make an addendum that you know we have some error you know Corrections that we'd like to see made but otherwise once those are made these are
good option two yeah option two let's go with option two okay um do we have to vote officially I think so okay all right um so do I have a motion to approve the December 11 2024 minutes I make a motion
to approve the uh December 2024 minutes uh with the included Corrections that we discussed at uh this meeting and I second it okay perfect um so I will take a roll call vote Erica
yes uh Deborah yes Pat yes LTE yes everald yes and I'm a yes so they pass with the Amendments um Deborah prior to your
arrival we had gone through announcements um everald had told us that 80 acres had closed and there is still um a lot of stuff in the office spaces that he's been through so that that was a question of whether
stuff might be donated and Pat reminded us that Adrien Wallace was the director and could be reached out to about some of the belongings that were there um so I don't know if you have any announcements that you wanted to make um so is this like uh and have we done
member reports or not yet we have not done member reports okay then I'll wait for member reports okay so no announcements just member reports possibly from you okay then we can move along to member reports well yeah for me it's just to to
kind of say that obviously we have it on the agenda um you know the executive order immigration updates um so so just want to kind of put it out there to the community because for those that possibly haven't um had a chance to look at our agenda that we will be talking
about that um and then I'm on this um advisory stakeholder group for the resident oversight board so I'll be doing quite an extensive um report on the resident oversight board um you know during this meeting so obviously want to make sure that whoever is listening in
that I know that these are are important parts of why people tune in so I want to make sure that you all understand that we will be discussing that in more detail um as well as our usual updates Crest and uh um Youth Empowerment Center
and things like that so um just want to make that you know clear because that's been something that we've been meeting and discussing and talking about for these last few months um so please stay on and we'll have a public comment in
the beginning as you all know and then we have one at the end too thank you Deborah are there any other member reports um I guess I have one um I've been in communication with a group of
people that has been following the May 7th police incident at um UMass with the large arrest um to the student protest and and there there's a group that has been in communication with um
some Town officials and is hoping to open some dialogues around the mutual Aid agreements with the UMass police and APD and I think it
does kind of go a little bit with some of the the questions around the resident oversight board and what would the policy implications be in terms of any oversight that there might be over there so that was something that a group of residents had floated as like possibly
trying to host a public forum around um what residents of Amis would hope to see or expect to see in relation to First Amendment rights in town um with this group I think coming out and saying we
would not want a heavy police response at a peaceful demonstration um so that is happening um it's in the works I believe and I think it could complement some of the work that the resident oversight board is doing or might be
doing should it come to fruition which we'll hear more about from Deborah later um all right so we can move on to our first public comment period um as of right now we
have six attendees in the audience so if you would like to make a public comment please raise your hand during public comment you can um we will recognize you and you can identify Yourself by stating your name if you would like to share
your pronouns and your connection to ammer you can share your views and we will not engage in a dialogue with you so I see one person with their hand
up am I a host right now can I just I do I have the power okay all right I apologize hi Russ hi can can you hear me yes we can hear
you okay well as many of you aware are aware well let's Russ Fon Jones is my name I live at 17 Gaylord Street in ammer uh I have lived in town for 45 years and I was part of the group
The working group that the town manager and the Town Council set up um after the murder of George Floyd to see what could be done in ammer um to have greater equity and revised police procedures
uh and I just want to note that you know nationally we're in a horrible time right now and racism is being used um to undermine democracy and to advance authoritarianism and I think now more than ever it's important that a town like ammer uh redouble our efforts
for True diversity equity and inclusion uh and keep Faith with the um conversation we've had with the bipo community in town and that things that have been recommended I think it's particularly true in three areas the Youth
Empowerment and cultural centers Crest and the resident oversight board uh I think all three of these are really important uh I'll leave it there are others who are more qualified to make comments about the Youth Empowerment and cultural centers but I have some comments about both Crest and the
resident oversight board um you know Crest we began with uh looking across the country at programs as well as looking deeply in our own community and there were two sort of key
findings one is that a uniformed officer with a gun is not the most appropriate responder uh for quite a number of situations uh and the other is that there's a very troubling lack of uh
trust uh among many bipac people in ammer and the police department uh and we cre created designed in Crest and you know Town Council you know got behind it and uh I
think it was a very important thing to create but you know a year ago or so Town Council was very dismayed to find out how few calls like zero at the time um from either 911 or the police business line uh were going to Crest and
this I I don't know how much this has changed I think but uh this is what this is what can destroy this program uh and at this point in my opinion we
should be getting monthly reports how many calls are being referred to Crest and how many calls are being referred to the APD what types of calls are going to Crest and what are the reasons for the calls that are not going to Crest
because basically any call that doesn't involve a significant crime weapons or violence is probably one that should be going to CR uh as long as they aren't as long as they're on duty during those
hours um and if we get down the road and there are budget concerns about Crest and we can't show that uh Crest is doing its share of the the work to me that's a
failure of town hall dispatch and the APD if they're not getting um calls uh to Crest but I think it's critical that we get this information and have it available on a monthly basis so we can actually see what's going
on uh is there time for me to comment also on the resident oversite board yes please yes please do um well you know know the the resident oversight board is not an anti- police
action and it's not a you know it's not some gotcha game that we're um playing with the um you know the police department this really is about building trust uh and building
um relationships between the police and the community um and I would like whoever's working on this to go back to what was written in the original um Community safety working group report and I'll tell you
why this was the one piece of our work where we talked to a stakeholders before we ever put out a recommendation you know we did a lot of Investigation we listened to a lot of things but this was the one pie we took the written version of our resident
oversight board and met with the town manager manager and the chief of police we made some changes in it at the request of uh Chief Livingstone and when we were done the chief Livingstone and Paul balaman both said we can support
this as it is with one exception we were not sure about whether a subpoena uh subpoena power for the resident oversight board was appropriate and the town manager agreed to talk to the town attorney about that but with that one exception there was a commitment
agreement that this was something that Community safety working group The Town manager and chief Livingstone all said they would back so any Retreat from this uh is is really a betrayal of trust as far as I'm
concerned I think it's key that any Resident oversight board have certain Authority it must be able to hear complaints it must be able to investigate complaints and hire paid impartial investigators if
necessary it must have the opportunity to recommend what is the response what's the discipline the supervision the further training whatever that should come about as a result of U whatever it was that was complained about and seek
agreement with the police chief and finally if the police chief and the resident oversight board cannot reach agreement then the resident over the our proposal is that the uh Chief uh
then puts in writing why he's not accepting the recommendation of the r oversight board and the that there's an opportunity for that to be seen by the public but note in this proposal while there's real responsibility in the
Resident oversight board the actual discipline of police officers remains with the chief and nothing can can override that uh so this is not we're not trying to take everything away from the chief or
to get officers in trouble this is about building trust in the community and this is what the these boards do across the country they make for better policing because they build trust um and um policing that's
ineffective or inequitable is not in anyone's interest it's not good for police officers to have a situation where the community is not trusting them and it's not good for the community to not feel they can count on problems being addressed when they arise I think
if we are to adopt a weak advisory committee uh I think that will be worth worse than worthless I think it will be an insult to the bipo community uh it will increase mistrust um and will not be worth
anybody participating in so I urge everyone uh involved in this meeting to do everything possible to make this a meaningful process that can really build Community Trust and improve relationships between the police
department and the community and I'll leave it there for now thank you thank you Russ thank you Russ um I am not see oh hold on
[Music] right um I see two other hands I'm gonna bring birdie in first and then Pat hello um first I just wanted to say thank you so much to this committee for
still being here doing the work um I'm especially grateful for this work under the trip Administration and I had one it's a question which I know you guys can't answer but I think it's topics that might come up again during the crest Dei update um which is something
I've heard is that one of the barriers to Crest is that it's often hard to know upfront whether calls are violent or nonviolent um and I was curious if that was true if that was a barrier or um if so what kinds of approaches can be taken
to that so that's one thing that's been on my mind thank you so much thank [Music] you ah oops I don't know what I've done what have I done good evening Miss Pat hello can people hear
me yes okay Pat um AR first I want to thank you all for your time on this committee I know it's not easy I just want to Echo what uh Ros
venon Jones just said um I was one of the uh cswg member members and it pains me that more than three years we still don't have you Center um we don't have robs set up and
Crest is just not functioning the way it was envisioned to be and for me I just feel that we have a dictator in our Town Paul
Bachman who just don't care about marginalized population in our town I recently noticed that um the Town Council approved funding for Road Road
approved funding uh to upgrade Banks Community Center for Senior I am a senior and I'm not opposed to that but bank community center is not always a welcoming
place um for some people of color I don't want to say everyone and yet uh we don't know what is happening with you Center um we don't know when Rob will you know get going one thing I want to say before I
listen to Rob uh conversation tonight is that whatever the structure that the town is planning to be if it's just going to be an Advisory Board just forget it that's really really insulting
for the work that cswg did it cannot be Advisory Board there are some uh boards in our town that work independently from the town counil and the town manager Rob should not be
reporting to the Town Council another and it should not report to the town manager Town Council can appoint Rob members but they should work independently otherwise they cannot get
the trust of the community especially um marginalized community and one last thing I wanted to mention is that we do too much talking in this town
about social justice Dei whatever you want to call it I'm really upset and very concerned that a black superintendent in our town um Dr Z is
being uh disrespected in the media and there is active effort to push this woman out what an irony that in the same town we have a lot of
white men in the position of power in our town behaving badly and nobody says anything this woman came she's an agent of change and people don't want it people don't want change and then they
want to smell her character out there that's unacceptable this is a call to action I'm calling people who truly truly are passionate about social justice should come and the you know
support Dr Z I do not like what what I read in the in in in in the media that's not okay thank you thank you Miss Pat thank you Miss Pat um I am not seeing any other hands
right now and there will be a second opportunity for public comment um so I think we can move on to the update portion of our agenda
um starting with Chris hello okay um I'm actually going to show a PowerPoint hold on one moment if I get this right okay can you all see this yes yes okay
so uh this is a department annual review for 2024 so I want to note that our reporting models are improving with your support and the following slides represent critical functions that are
expected of us from the community oh this is our um oh my God just drew a blank as Community responders we aim to fill the everpresent gaps in the town to serve as Community Builders connecting people to
services and resources we are an unarmed Public Safety department that supports the ammer community rooted in trauma-informed and anti-racist Frameworks so the key points that I want to bring out are as the reporting techniques are a trained skill and that
to capture our work the older reports had multiple types of calls that were considered and that's corrupted data so the data may have been put in by responders um inaccurately during the inaugural director's term and as such
the interactions would also have been skewed so for the purpose of efficacy only calls with singular identifiers have been included in this debrief we strive to report objectively comprehensively and timely we're using
we're still working on qualtrix P platform and continuing training so this is a recap of the crest service definitions Crisis Intervention deescalation mental health support
referral and social assistance followup Transportation assistance resource distribution youth support and neighborhood support uh also this uh PowerPoint will be avail available to anyone I can email
it to them so to recap this is crest's triage process how to reach us a call is relayed from dispatch a walk into Crest Office direct call to the crest office then the service needs are identified by
Crest and then a response is conducted these are our call types Crest assis APD Crest assis afd cresis neighbor Crest Outreach Crest assist business Crest well-being check Crest
transport Crest mental health Crest followup and Crest community engagement so during the inaugural and interm uh teams this is the metrics from 1123 to 324 and when it's saying that with there was 125 pure calls that's
because uh many of them were put forth as has um multiple um calls so for example one would be an assist neighbor but at the same time because it was a mental health report it would have been reported twice instead of once so if you
notice um we had one assist APD no assist to afd eight assist Neighbors at this time they were called assist citizen we changed that to neighbor assist business Outreach wellbe being transport mental
health follow-ups and engagements here are the metrics in a wheel graph so um to show a better for people who are more visual Learners um and the same information is put on this as you see by the
colors this is from November of 2023 until March of 2024 just a recap of the call types so these are the metrics from 4:24 until 12:24 this is when I came on I
came on April 8th so we had 696 pure calls five calls to assist APD three calls to assist afd 164 to assist neighbors
133 to assist businesses 164 Outreach 30 well-being checks 13 transports five mental health 77 follow-ups and 56
engagements again this is a diagram so Crest has been increased his activity significantly particularly on a case-by casee basis and this is because that I feel that in order for the amoris community to know who we are we need to be out in the
community doing the work so the question what is it that Crest does we get this all the time so let's explore our largest metrics it's a lot of information on
this so for example assist citizen so this is a call that came through in November 2024 where responders um received a call from um a gentleman about his mother-in-law they responders went to
the call and also notified the CSO clinician who corresponded with the crest unit when they got there um the Mother-in-law was not answering the door and we waited for the son and to come
and unlock the apartment the Mother-in-law was not in the apartment and the CSO clinician and Son discussed the situation as the responders searched the building for um the mother-in-law's
whereabouts um and this this emphasized the amount of time that we're able to take to do the work so when we found um the Mother-in-law Sally Shu she was in a corner by the emergency exit appearing
withdrawn and Afraid respondents then notified LH as they de escalated the situation they spoke with her and returned her to her unit and she said she was feeling harassed by a neighbor they accompanied her as an escort
reassuring her safety and they spoke to the son-in-law and her emphasizing her safety so the mission related intention here was we provided emotional support thirdparty confidence and Equitable service we also connected her to
resource while promoting paths to self-reliance this was also establish in resolutions to the immediate needs as they relate to emergency materials care or assistance and we acknowledge racial gender psychological or other
identifiers to provide the best support for Neighbors as permitted within the SC Crest scope also reduce the necessity for hospitalizations or unnecessary police allocation the outcome of the response substantiates the capacity of
the civilian unit to provide emotional support to the son-in-law while establishing a bridge to a clinician without pressurization to hospital eyes hospitalize this neighbor was de-escalated to the point of receiving care due to the team's awareness of
cognitive and mental health complications and crisis another thing that will be noted about this is that while we had 164 um calls that were considered s citizen this would also be
um considered a mental health um call but because it is categorized by what we went there for which was to assist citizen another call we have this is an example is assist bus business in this
case um the senior center uh called Crest there was an altercation happening during the grocery Wednesday distribution and they explained that it was likely racially Rel related and people were feeling uncomfortable but
what happened was in the line there was a uh gentleman there who was making racist statements and um that his friend was explaining that he did not understand social cues well so
um that she belied that he was conversing with others and you know did not want to participate so then we were asked to have a conversation with him in the Pres presence of um officer Farber so one of the things I want to note
about this was is that while um police were there the officer did not need to engage and did not speak to uh the gentleman W um and that Crest was able to intervene and there was no need to
have this individual trespassed and that um with Crest we walk a fine line with being with assisting people on how they are to be appropriate in public spaces so again there was no need to have this
gentleman trespassed APD did not need to intervene um and that they trusted us to take care of the situation and again the officer did not need to speak to the neighbor at all so the mission related
intention is we provided detention mitigation mediation uh deescalate and address policy violations in a respectful manner we establish resolutions to immediate needs to prevent further escalation or
understand perspective consensus we acknowledge racial gender and other identifiers and reduce the need for hospitalization or unnecessary police allocation so um the outcome of the response substantiates the capacity of
press to respond to those situations that are disruptive but not illegal the interruptions to the Civic activity were alarming to the public but did not necessarily require an arrest citation or trespass meeting individuals where
they are at ensures reliability and trust between the community department and neighbors alike community outreach 164 of these um this was on the Town Market and and
um we go to speak to vendors and to have a presence there um spoke to a marketing manager to assist in checking in on their operations and the respond is followed up with an individual who they had met he shared that his mother was
very ill and that he needs to move her from home and his siblings were coming down to help sort out her belongings and plan the next step uh the individual further explained that he would be moving out of state because she's not receiv receiving the support and that she's generally responders reminded the
individual of press office location and what department can do encourage him to reach out again across responders will follow up with the individual they met at a subsequent Farmers Market to see things how things are going with he and his mother again the mission related
intention is to improve Department visibility and frequent locations events or venues that amplify the town's awareness of Department we generate leads with neighbors organically and generate Partnerships with stakeholders Community Partners and
business and agencies we utilize the town lines to explore any opportunities through Upstream prevention without the cause of an emergency or other incident Crest Outreach calls are proactive visits into the community wearing responders frequent public spaces or
Collective events to demonstrate an ability availability to the public true to the crest Mission by attending specific events or visiting popular places responders can learn of situations or meet individuals who can discuss concerns in person organically
the described call demonstrates the interpersonal nature of Crest work but also the accessibility it strives to embody while promoting Outreach activities so what major projects are the teams working
on right now we're doing working on neighbor feedback Sur for surveys SC Crest strives to provide efficient and proactive service the neighbor feedback survey is being designed in conduction with direct neighbor participation we
want to get the um input from Neighbors and figure out what it is that are needed so we're going to do this through an informed lens gauged by the varied perspectives of the town's population the service the survey design is in process it will be administered
consensually following a response so we are going to give these to people that we respond to um and the acrude information will identify potential gaps in service quantify demographics and offer actionable feedback regarding
responders so some of these these are the things that have been happening um a responder independently manage a translation project with ammer college to improve public accessibility uh 10 based docu doents responder also contributes to the
analytical Pro analytics produced by Crest and transition to qual Trex um these included signage records release intake our transportation agreement and all operational um
documents were translated into Spanish two responders are producing youth-based programming in ammer through the Department of Public Health the dph Equitable approaches to public saf grants for children in the community that encompasses both educational and
social justice themes um the key component is this youth program is reading with the kids and conducting fun engaging activities tied to the books we share and one of the things about this is is that is going to be done the
Encompass educational and social justice themes and then three responders are collaborating with the town of ammer marketing and communication manager to produce a Crest newsletter for public awareness as well as creation creating social media president
presence pres so I'd like to let you know that we have introduced the newsletter it is on the town website um this is the first page of it we um we'll be doing this monthly and
this is to give an idea of what's going on in our community and what we're up to so you know the news we have in this is about our community responders to new sworn in in December and working with
Dei in the national day of healing the veterans breakfast is the first and third Friday of the month this is the second page so um my um welcome talking about um neighbors
and about why we changed from citizens to neighbors because um when I say neighbors we mean you and me a valued member of community and that you don't have to be a resident of amor or even a citizen you can be a temporary visitor
to us at Crest regardless of where you lay your head you're are still our neighbor and that we look forward to serving you all there's a picture of Taylor and Eric on the day they were sworn in and then um here's the same breakdown from
April 2024 to December 2024 um of the calls that Crest has been to we also are still working on Crest cares for donations there are people
that come to Crest that are in need the unhoused population and while we can send them to Craigs doors or the am survival center um it's really nice that we have some items for when they come in
if they're having difficulty um or mental health and they just need some additional support these are things that we can give them while we're also providing pre and post service um Crest participated in the
national day of racial healing and more information and pictures our community breakfast the veterans that are uh senior volunteer genan runs community events page and if you're
interested in becoming a speaker at the veterans breakfast so I want to thank you here's my information and um that's it thank you thanks samil for the um
presentation um you know definitely appreciative that you were able to you know gather that information all in one place um you know I'm assuming you know our members will have some questions um I guess I'll I'll start it
off and then others can can chime in um so for me I guess the first thing that I would say you know would be if you know would have been a lot more helpful if you had kind of sent that to us previously so that we had had time to kind of like you know digest it read
through things like that and then um then we' be better able to kind of formulate some questions and things you know for for for today at least you know for me it would have been much more helpful um and then say I'm gonna just
interrupt you excuse me but just to let you know um this took a long time to prepare and it literally um was finished just this evening so getting all the information yes okay okay I thought
something that you had already been presenting and stuff no this this was actually finished today um and the newslet was um completed yesterday this is something that has been an ongoing process okay and that um this will you
know um I will put a link of it I think I can add a link of it um to our Crest homepage and also to let you know that the crest newsletter is available on um The Crest website the town of Amber
website um there's police fire and then there's Crest at the top and you can just click on that and also there are hard copies that are available in town hall they are available at the fire stations um we left some at the bid um
so so and they'll be available here so um in this way that people who want to read it um online can do so whereas myself I'm much more of a tactile person and like it on
paper okay well thank for the clarification that you know the PowerPoint was um just kind of completed and and all of that um yeah if there would be any way to even like you know send us a c of the newsletter um because
I know that sometimes you know not everyone has you know the forethought to kind of go on the website um but obviously it's good that we know that it's there at the crest website for us to get um because I think like Dei they sent us their newsletter and things like that so it' be great if we could get a
copy of the crest one um sure I was gon to say that would be great and anybody that um we haven't set it up yet but um to also get if folks want wanted to go on um uh email list and that we could
email it to them when it becomes available okay um and then my I'll I'll I'll end with this question so that I can give other people opportunity to ask questions um so for me in terms of the statistics right and I think I've asked
this question in the past um is I know that you you put there that you know I guess during the inaugural um or you know during the time when you weren't there when it was the other director um there was one one kind of communication
with the AP one assist to the APD and then there was five assists under your kind of um oversight but I guess for me it's more so you know out of those calls which ones were dispatched you know what I'm saying um you know which ones were
the ones you know did any of those include you know noise complaints that any of those include um you know um anything that and I know like how you broke it down but it's kind of like um you know how many of those would like
the APD normally respond to but now you all are responding to I I you know want to have more of that that breakdown um so I don't know if you have the the answer we don't have that information because again um we are not privy to the
apd's logs in that way um so um again as we're still working with our towards our relationship with APD those are the type of things that we're working towards and I will say that um APD has all the calls
that come that are APD have been dispatched from at APD and the same even with like fire it comes through APD so any of the calls most of our calls that we get are from referrals or from
people who call us directly um because they don't want to deal with the police and there are our neighbors that have um called us directly and said that they have had um negative interactions with
APD and or have asked us you know when we said um if they needed some help with something or if we felt that it was something that would probably be better dealt with through APD that they didn't want to deal with APD so those are the
type of calls that we go to and again the same thing like I said about the low number of mental health calls it's not that um we're not going to mental health calls it's that the calls that are coming through are coming through as
like um assist business or assistant neighbor and that is how we are um putting them in the system but the nuances of them are is that there's a lot of mental health and also the same thing like with
the gentleman that was at the uh Market here that was a cyst business but that actually could have been uh construed as a trespassing so it's how it's coded it's
not NE necessarily that we're not going to the calls it's how they are coming to us is how we are coding them so it's the nuances of them that we're bringing out okay um I your hand is up thank you
come here so I guess just to clarify uh that I heard this right in the past there had been some calls that might have been duplicated because multiple things were true at once about the call like it was assisting a citizen
at a business with mental health so it could have been all of those things but now you are streamlining to one to one category even though it might hit multiple categories yes and then anything that has come in through
dispatch is a is automatically assist APD is that am I hearing that correctly or it's it depends on what comes through dispatch is what happens with assist APD is APD calls us for example um I I spoke
about this before where uh a neighbor had gone over because their neighbor um they were performing CPR and a family member came and due to the fact the number of cars that were out um APD
called us to come um and assist and transport the family member to the hospital hospital so that would be assist APD even though technically it was a transport like it's still it's still but
it's the way it comes through so that's where the difference is and the nuances of it um and that's why there are the main categories but um as we're going in them that's the thing to distinguish what it
is because we need to have like a baseline of where is it we're going so if we're going to assist someone that's where it comes in and not necessarily do we get all the information to say okay somebody's having a mental health crisis
so um for example after hours one night myself and um the implementation manager answered the phone and it was for Clark house here in the back um one
of their residents had locked themselves out of their apartment so it would have been the nurse there called so that would be an assist citizen or assist neighbor excuse me but at the same time the nuances of it was that the woman was
having a mental health issue and we were able to be there to provide support um she was extremely anxious and nervous and did not want the police there and they had called their maintenance and
maintenance was was half hour away and every 5 minutes she was asking um you know what time is it what time is it how much longer how much longer and I was sitting next to her and I just put my hand you know asked her permission if I could just put my hand on hers and I did
and she just held my hand and just immediately that touch um just brought down the anxiety level so that's why I say a lot of what we do is much more nuance than just going to calls and the
reports that we're putting in um the dispatch reports just show basically like the new maral the who what where when and why and the reports that we're
building now with qual Trex and with um another um part of the grant is to build build in those nuances that people can see here's what we're doing so much more than just going taking care of business
and leaving and Camille I do just want to say I did appreciate the different scenarios that you presented I I do think it helps like paint the picture of the gray area that you work in like it's not just like assist Citizen and that's it you know there are there are multiple
things because we're human and we have lots of things happening at once and I you know I know that the data has been a contentious struggle to get everything running and and figure out what's happening but I think I just want
to reiterate that while I understand like the categories that you are responding to are kind of coded in a certain way I do think if there is a way to capture call types via where they are originating from so whether that's
somebody calling you directly a neighbor bringing in another neighbor or the dispatch I think it's overall big picture really helpful for us in the community to see like oh there is this there is this Buy in from dispatch that
now you know you're working on these stand Sops you've been working on them for so long like but what is the result of that are we seeing that now that there's an sop in place we're actually getting those calls diverted from you know apd2 Crest via dispatch because we
now know how to do that so I you know hopefully in the future there can be you know that sort of data breakdown although again it's black and white you know I think it's a helpful numeric for us to have
and and to say look this is effective in in the sense that we're T stepping into the role that a lot of community members even are calling and saying you know we don't want the police here we want to work with you and I think it would be helpful to see on the other end like oh
these are you know at one point the police had said there are all these calls we don't want to be responding to and we would love to hand off to Crest like are they actually following through with that which was said during all the you know buildup to Crest so I will end there thank you I
was gonna say just and so and that's the whole idea I mean um and that's one of the things like I love um qualitative research so those are the type of things that we're trying to fix in qual Trex is
so that it is not just um quantitative you know the the nuances of it um is that we are dealing with people so there are so many complexities and so many nuances that are going on that it really
is difficult to capture um what it is we are all doing and I think that's the reason why you know I wanted to make sure to do a year-end report is so that people could see these are the things
that we're doing and not just um just by the numbers because it's not the numbers only show one portion of it um Pat and then everal thank you um lower my hand here
uh so I really appreciate the report Camille and um and it really helps to understand uh the services that you are providing and it's great to see that the numbers of people making use of services is increasing over time uh I also very
much appreciate that community members seem to be reaching out to Crest directly uh from your report it seems that they're doing that at times when they are trying not to uh call police or have police involved but preferring to
have Crest members in that role so that's very encouraging I'm noting the low number of referrals that seem to come from the APD um and I'm wondering about that um
you know do you understand as director of Crest what are the criteria that APD uses to make decisions about referrals to Crest because you know we understand that that programs like Crest are
created in order to really help to decrease you know um race racially motivated or you know problematic interactions with between the police and the community to decrease violence Etc and it seems that with such a low number
of um uh you know calls coming to you not that you have control over that it seems to be important to understand for you and for us and the community to understand what the criteria are that
Police use when making referrals to Crest and to be able to compare that to what is understood to be um good practice in terms of referrals so one of the things is is
that the um the Sops are they're well underway and will be done they done by the into this quarter um one of the things I wanted to make note of is that we had visited um
another we had V visited Cambridge and that between July and October so they are only dispatched and they only went to 80 calls that were dispatched um during those months so when you compare
that um and they they don't have walk-ins um they do do some Outreach but that is their call volume so considering that is a city and not a town I think that we are well on our way and when you
speak about um what is the criteria for the calls those are the things that are still being worked out because of the dispatchers so one of the things that is happening now is that um the responders
our two new responders recently just did Shadow shifts in dispatch so that we are better able to understand what are the calls that are coming through and a lot of the calls now I I don't think it's that the calls are not being diverted to
us I think it is is because we did not start on dispatch and that we have very much gone out in the community um and put our number out there that people are calling us
directly so and that this is what we're hearing from the people that we're servicing um now how much of that will change with dispatch I'm not sure but again until we can get access um which
is a process it's a Corey certification a higher level um and I you know that's something that right now we're trying to work out um and it's not exactly
easy thank you everal hi so hi Camille how are you I'm good thank you so um I thank you for the presentation um putting that together I know took a lot
of work and and while I am a fan of years and of numbers I'm not 100% sure that it gave us any new information um it's and you you answered some of my
questions when you're addressing um Dr ry's questions just now specifically around where you are with um SLP I think you said should be done by the end of first quarter but one of the questions um that I think a lot of people have
asked is about you know dispatch calls from Amherst PD and I appreciate that um you prior leadership interim leadership the pace the cons the the
position has always been that's you know there's all these things that have to go in place but I I I think it needs to be set out loud that while your Crest is doing all these
wonderful things um it amounts to Social Services and from the data that you just showed us there's a lot of social service calls and from the whole alternative to policing part of it I
think that until the community starts seeing where Crest is handling some things that the police would typically handle it's going to look as if Crest is not doing their initial mandate and that
is concerning to me because while I very much support all the things you articulated I mean you had some great examples of how chis responded I think a big part of this and that
we've asked not not you but prior leadership um the inter leadership specifically is when is Chris going to be in a position where we can say to the community that the police doesn't respond to
everything and Crest you know they have a place to go other than the police um for for things other than social service calls and one of the reasons I am asking that is because
um we we're in a situation now where you know there's a lot of anxiety with our immigrant Community about you know hey if I have a problem and if I call the police I'm going to end up in a
system where my name is on something or um how do I know that there's no communication SL relationship with um immigration custom enforcement with the police and where do I go and so I I I
think that um you know there's a bit of there's a bit more urgency than there was always urgency but I think there's a bit more urgency than there was before and I know um there isn't a question in here yet yeah I
apologize um but and I I I ran into Paul um a few weeks ago there was um I think there were rumors going around that ice had raided um Amhurst and there were some restaurants that
were closed and I I I ran into Paul and it wasn't formal meeting or anything we were we just happened to be in the same place at the same time and so we had a quick conversation and one of the things that he said that was very good was that you know
Chris went to these businesses and I thought it was amazing that Chris did that because again in a in a in an environment where there's a lot of anxiety and quite frankly a heightened mistrust of the place I'm glad that you guys were
there um but I want to but now here's the question is what is the progress with the police and I know you mentioned just now that you know heightened security clearance Corey what is the progress we've been
talking about this for quite some time now where Crest isn't a position to take calls from the police that does not revolve around Social Services um I had in in the last few
months I have seen um in I've been in court and a scene where you know they were they were undocumented were arrested and for certain things and I imagine you
know I I hear the spouse and the partner saying hey this is not what really happened but when the police get there you know they try to assess and evaluate and 90% of the time somebody's going to jail and I
think this is what happened here and whether or not they were wrong they're going to go there and they're going to do their jobs that is and that is their job they're going to go there they're going to make an assessment and they're not going to ignore what they said
but if there was an alternative I imagine this person now wouldn't be for lack of better term freaking out about are they going to be deported so again where are we with Crest taken
um some calls from Amer PD so here's the difficulty that you were talking about uh so one of the things is is that I cannot dictate to another department what calls come to us okay
the only thing that can be worked out is working out what types of calls we can take now the other portion what you were saying about was if there there's any sort of violent a hint of violence or anything else that is not a Crest call
so if it is um like a neighbor dispute um or you know that is just you know neighbor doesn't like another neighbor we have gone to one where a neighbor was
um worried because the neighbors kids were on a ramp um a disabled ramp that kind of call is a Crest call um now if neighbors are um if it's going to be violent those are
the type of things that it's right off the bat those automatically when those calls come in they have um a call tree that goes down is there the propensity for violence if this is a domestic violence uh domestic uh situation it's
automatically that uh there could be a propensity for violence that is not a Crest call um the other thing is is that when there is a domestic like that they automatically send two officers after the call that would be where Crest could
come in and help the parties we would be more of a pre and a post and not during an incident like that so one of the reasons I REM I I remember this is because I thought this would be a good
example to bring up inter Medan and so I remember the the the facts very carefully cuz I read the police report um no one in the house called the police there was an argument it was loud and
one person was on the phone with another person and yes there was yelling and screaming I give them that and the person on the phone called the police and and so you know this is they they
ended up they were there and um and and they asked questions and they assess and quite frankly Too part of the issue was as well is that and I'm not saying that MPD did anything improper
but English was not their first language um as well and so you know and I'm not saying that they didn't show there was somebody that speaks English but I don't imagine they knew that before they responded or went there because you know it doesn't really mention that level of
detail in the report um but you know and I hear you about domestic violence situations and yes I your safety the safety of your team that's Paramount and you don't know what's going to happen in the situation
but when I read everything about what transpired and I felt like you know this was one that potentially Crest could have handled and yes I I'm completely understanding you when you say you don't tell another department what to do and
so that brings me to my next question um what is the involvement with um the town manager's office and the town council's office to say you know what how involved are they with
Crest and the progress of Crest because from one of her um speakers earlier or public comments you know I believe one of the comment was made was either the Town Council was a little bit surprised about certain things with Crest so and I
think I asked you that um before maybe a month or two ago but does Crest have the full support that they need from Town Council and the town manager's office well I believe that we can always
get more support um I think there are folks on the Town Council that are questioning um how things are going um I've had some conversations with some of them and I think the big thing that you
you touched on was that um there's a lack of understanding of what it is that we do and can do versus what is the perception um that we can just go to all
of these types of calls and it's not again if you when I went through the call types there are a lot of nuances that go into these call types and there are a lot of like mental health also um questions of
trespassing um so those things are being taken care of um and as far as it's training um as far as the uh dispatch on what calls so again they
would assess the situation and if a dispatcher feels that a call has the propensity that it could be violent then it would go to APD and again that is not something that I can
change it is something that I am working on with dispatch and APD to clarify you know what calls we can go on then ask one more question and it's a question that I
think I've asked maybe not you but prior Christ leadership has there been any conversations with APD to say you know here are some best practices here are some things we've responded to um that we wouldn't necessarily let think
you guys should respond to but here are some things that we responded to that potentially you could have done and here's how we handle it you know like has there been that kind of conversation collaboration where you you know you
meet with APD and you just have those Frank conversations about you know train your you know give your staff some knowledge so to speak about things that APD responds to because like you said you guys cannot responds to everything but at the same
time I don't think APD wants to resp everything either right but that's I think that's what's happening now is is that we are going to more of the calls that people would have called APD 4 um and therein is the difference and
as far as getting together with dispatch and APD yes um we've had a lot of conversations and that is where um the changes are being made so it may not be that it's direct APD calling us but again because our number is out there
we're getting the calls direct from the community and many of the people are saying they do not want to call APD for it um that goes for here in this building it goes for Town Hall um it goes for the local
businesses um it goes for Jones Library um which we go to daily um they previously were calling APD quite often for uh folks in the community that were there and disruptive and instead you
know because they don't want to call APD they're calling us thank you Pat do you want to go ahead oh thank you yes couple of things um I'm very happy to hear that you're doing some
shadowing of uh of dispatch and um that you're in conversation can you still hear me yes thank you uh that you're in conversation with the police department about these issues um I want I totally support the
direction that ever was going into and the concerns he expressed I just want to make a a little um comment about um that I think the alternative to policing you know um policing versus Social Service
uh provision is is difficult um it's not quite a binary right it's not quite uh opposite it's pretty um you know so many situations that could have been um you know police handled by police and
handled poorly by police might successfully end as social service if you understand my meaning so I think that just it's not such a a pure distinction in that way the other thing I wanted to ask you um Camille was if you are taking um note
of race gender glbt age other um Cate categories of identity uh particularly where discrimination may be involved because I think that would be helpful for us on the ccsjc committee to have a sense of who's being
served uh those are the types so one of the things is that that is part of our um survey that we're going to be working on is that to ask these questions and it's not going to be hi you know my name is Camille um you're having difficulty
or whatnot um are you part of the lgbtq or what is your race the idea that we are doing it again is because we are consent-based is that after um a call has completed then we would talk with
the folks where um and get as much information as we can uh so that we can show all these so on our forms now we have um race and gender but uh we know
that you know looking by looks people's phenotypes you know people can think you are one thing and you're not so it really is important for us to get the information directly from the people um
as we serve them our neighbors and I really want to thank you for you know really bringing up that it's not what we do is not black and white it truly is in the gray area and that the work that we're doing with the
community um there there is an aspect of Social Service perspective but we are not a Social Service Agency we provide people with um links to social service
agencies you know but the main thing about us is is that we are there to provide support to the community members um so that they feel so that they understand they can get help whereas previously if they were dealing with a
police officer it is come in take care of the situation and get out we're there to come in you know assess the situation and see if maybe more support is needed uh we also have been going with Town
departments like um inspections so instead of having a police officer there it's a Crest employee and our Crest responders are there and building a rapport with folks
who are having a hoarding issue and it's a lot better to have a Crest responder there than somebody that looks like them than an armed police officer who is there as enforcement we are there as support I have you hear that about
inspections very concrete very helpful to know so um I'm going to ch um jump in and then Erica you'll go and then I think we should wrap this portion up um so that we can get to Di and and Resident oversight board and give
Camille a break too um I guess for me just some quick comments to just say that you know to refer back Camille to to the report that we had sent to back in September right September of 24 which a lot of these questions and a lot of
these things that we brought up in terms of gender race you know like the different you know um you know parameters that we want the data we had included in that right so if you go back to that and again I think why we're we're being so kind of asking you these
questions it's not again to be adversarial not again it's because we really want Crest to be as successful as possible as we've stated this is critical times as we've been seeing right with this new Administration in place Nationwide people are anxious people are scared there's a lot
happening Crest is going to be pivotal all of these recommendations that we that cswg made is going to be pivotal and we want it to be as strong as possible we want you to be as suc successful as possible right and so we
want that you know like how we we had envisioned Crest to truly work because as you've stated and I've heard it too right there are rumors of the Town Council Members and things like that really gunning for Crest let's be real let's be honest right gunning for Crest
so we cannot afford for Crest to be gone I'm just putting it out there I we cannot afford for Crest to be gone Crest needs to be there it needs to be success uccessful because it is offering a service right and right now obviously you know I I know that this is great
area but it it's it's like it does provide a social service but we want it to be this alternative to policing and we need to Showcase that right but it it does it's it's it's a place where people can go when and and people are feeling and I'm glad to hear they're feeling
more comfortable and they're contacting Crest cuz that was what we envisioned too right contact CR directly or dispatch from the police but as we know a lot is still going to go through the police right just in terms of those examples that that were discussed it it's just that's a fact
it's going to go through the police right so the police should have that you know the the kind of directions there to say well this call came in it's going to Crest right because this is one it doesn't deal with criminal doesn't deal with violence doesn't deal with this needs to go to Crest and they need to
have those incidents right that go directly to Crest and so those are the things that we're talking about because for me like I said it's not going to be negotiable for Crest to go away right and so we need to make sure that the Town Council uh members who are out
there already saying things and I'm putting it out publicly and everything Town Council Members anyone in the town government needs to understand that Crest is a department that needs to succeed and is here to stay right and to do more and more and more to be able to
assist the community and to assist uh you know the the people who live in in amers all people right so that's why we're we're asking this but again if you go back to that report from September 24 it it really you know 2024 it really
kind of captures a lot of what what we're discussing but I'll give it to to Erica and then we can move on to Dei thank you Deborah um first of all I want to say um I think Camille you have demonstrated the worth of Crest in ter
terms of the data that you provided and I think the comments that you know the members are making uh regarding um the wonderful work you're doing and the original Mission um that was in um you know the the working group's report why
Crest was developed why I think we're all saying why that's also important um one of the things uh that you said you have actually started capturing from the people who are calling you directly is having them State um why they called Crest and if they can State well we you
know I thought about calling the police but I knew Chris would be better that's data so um we really I mean we're all agreeing with you that this you know Crest is really valuable you're doing excellent work I mean the numbers are just Rising um and you're actually um
mitigating um the need for the police to step in uh you're actually doing prevention because if some if you're dealing with mental health issues then and you're mitigating that that person is not going to be a future you know um uh police a situation but I think it is important um that we demonstrate that
the calls are being diverted from APD that are appropriate for Crest to deal with and APD not to deal with I do have a question about um what seems like and again this is my impression what seems like the town or the dispatch or a or
APD thinking it's a barrier that you are not Corey certified the way I understand Corey is Corey means that once well first first of all people who are Corey to have query certification it means that they have the ability to look at a
criminal record now the log and the dispatcher is not a criminal record it is a call that says there's a assistance that's needed there's a situation that's happening and no one is a criminal until they go through a court and then are
proven to be guilty so I'm a little confused by why I know this probably not a question for you but it is a question for APD and the dispatchers because I agree with what's been said here is that they need to understand that this is an
alternative program that assists them and what you may have to write up is a HIPPA statement stating that any information that comes through them you will maintain confidentiality and you have to go through Hippa training and you can be Corey certified meaning that
you yourself has demonstrated that you know if you have a felony that you're still appropriate to be in a position that you're in now I mean I'm I was Corey certified working for the state I did inspections where I actually looked at Personnel records and I also had to look at query records um but query
recorders are criminal records they are not a dispatcher sending the police to a noise complaint or to situations so I'm a little little confused and I don't need for you to address that I'm just yeah so this is what I was told okay
this is what I was told by APD via and also dispatch is dispatch um like they're all willing to work with us you know it's just having the conversations but to actually look at the logs um that the way the logs go and this is what we
were told so and I don't know if it's just here in town how it goes so but those are the things that we're working on so that we can see the logs and go through them the other thing is having um conversation with Jason who is the
dispatch supervisor he has been phenomenal working with us um and when he is working he is working with his dispatchers to um divert calls to us so the ones that come in and also I don't
think people realize that even things that come through the business line still go up to dispatch so 911 is like a type of call but it still goes up to dispatch so all the calls that are
rooted that don't go to a direct line in APD go through dispatch I just raise that so you can ask them to clarify to you why and that is something that thank you the explanation and it doesn't quite make
sense to me but it's what we were told is that we had to be Corey certified and not just the Corey checks that we uh Reed to get on the job but it's a whole process well thank you very much thank you Camille thank you Camille appreciate
it and we'll see you next month right okay so on to Phillip right thank you and uh I'll try and be quick so I don't take out too much of your all's meeting time and you can get to other items uh as you all
know and imagine in our state of the US uh Dei is very busy uh since about January 20th to be exact uh we've had an event um January 21st the national day of racial healing it was a event um
while attended about 30 people in the room having conversation um from kind of an event that happens after Martin Luther King day that is from his becoming beloved um Community type of sentiment and so we strive to
you know just have those dialogue conversations with our fellow community members and neighbors uh from there we have our monthly staff training that happens um Pamela and I switch off on topics last month it was race this month it's going
to be class and social economics and then next month it will be gender and next month we'll tell you what the other ones are coming up and we also started our um Department training so these are Department trainings um geared towards each individual department so we started
with the Jones library at the ending of the month we have fire and then we are um expecting to have DPW as well as um the banks Center and then APD and so on and so on um kind of geared towards um
topics that make sense for each department so for the Jones um equity and access was the topic for them um coming up and then also for fire they are looking to get um a more kind of cultural competency type of training um
on their end for when they go out to calls and different things so we're talking to kind of the people that set up the trainings in their department and then giving them kind of tailored um to what their needs are in terms of EI um
Pamela and um a few responders as well as our Amore member I was out but then I came on the tail end of the presentation um gave a presentation to department heads at the direction of Paul for kind of the executive orders that are coming
into effect and how department heads can be thinking ahead rather than um reactive to whatever the executive order says in terms of you know funding in terms of of what it means for day-to-day operations and um all that
matter uh we have secured the contract with Dr Barbara love to continue the Enis or liberatory invis liberatory visioning process that she does um those are coming at one is at the ending of
this month so um the 27th which is a Thursday at 6:00 p.m. at the bangs Community Center and then the other ones are March 5th and March 12th we are hoping to get a flyer out ASAP um
we are waiting on just some information from Dr love to add onto the flyer and it will it hopefully go out by tomorrow and so you all will be receiving an email for me I am going to be um sending it um through our list serve putting it on Town's website we've made our
Communications manager aware of it um it will be on social media as well as on um different Avenues in which we communicate that um list to and in an effort to try and um reach as many members of the community that we can Dr
love and the Dei office has come up with the list of organizations and community members that that flyer will be circulating to we kind of created a contact list for individuals and the last time I looked at it it was over 50 individuals and organizations so we're
going to try our best to get everybody in the room as much as possible the events will be in person as well as Zoom at the same time with the efforts of trying to get as many community members to respond to um the liberatory vision
process uh the global village Festival that will be happening on April 5th um I just want you all to know that that is happening it's a day in which um the Dei office is celebrating um diversity of different cultures we're going to have
performance performances we're going to have vendors we're going to have um food there we it's in works with um various organizations um the public schools um bbaa as a part of it as well as a bid as well as chamber I'm sure I'm forgetting
some people I will be circulating out um information on social media with our communication manager hopefully by the end of this week if not by the beginning of next week to kind of start advertising more for that but I did just want to open up and um you all don't
need to answer question right now if um you need to take some time and think about it but I will send you a link if you all would like a table at the event just to highlight um whatever it is um whatever work you all want to highlight at that event I think it would be great um we're offering that to the Human
Rights Commission as well as this um group as well um and then I will also in that email be sharing the link for um you all for performance and vendors it would be super helpful if you all know someone that is interested in performing
or setting up um their vending booth um at that event please um share with anybody at that time and then lastly um our youth survey closed in January and I do apologize um I did finish the um kind
of results and everything and put it into a PowerPoint I finished it on my way out of the office today so I did not have a Time chance to send it beforehand but I can certainly share my screen and share show you um some of the results from
that that'd be great let's see is that showing yes perfect so our youth survey I just want to give um one shout out to the americore intern that is at thei and press um they do an amazing job they
really helped out with the survey I I don't think I could have done this work without them to be honest so I just want to shout them out so Outreach that we did um we did a flyer Outreach we did online Outreach um we did it to Town the town's website the
de's newsletter we did announcements here at the CSS JC meeting we did it here um at the Human Rights Commission meeting I sent um the list out to the public schools which their Communications manager sent a um kind of
email Bloss out to to all family members and their Communications and ways of getting it um I individually reached out to every Club every sports team at the school um that I could gain a contact for and it was um a lot of work there
but we um did that and got a lot of um positive feedback and a lot of um you know yes we share it with their students type of um energy so that was great and then we also did um individually reach out to um bipot community members um that were highlighted thank you Deborah
as well as um other people on the Human Rights Commission and then people that I um know in town as well uh participants we had 105 survey responders and then 87 youth um answered
our survey as well as 18 um parents guardians or Educators our grade breakdown of kind of the people that answered this survey was um heighten on the eighth grade aspect of things um that was kind of our main
survey responders that were um kind of responding and then as well as a high school because they have four grade levels is I think the outcome of that you know 9th 10th 11th um in that terms of um people answering the question we did have um responders um in sixth grade
one at least from each elementary school and then we did have one homeschooler respond as well our survey results so blue is indicating bipo youth orange is indicating non bipy
so that is um people that identified as white people that live left it blank or people that just did not um answer at all gray is all students combined um and then yellow is going to be all survey Representatives um so that will include
the parents Guardians and Educators in that um aspect of the surveys um ones that I'd like to just highlight is kind of financial literacy is um seems to be you know a very strong interest um that
the groups kind of um got into and would like to see more of as well as entrepreneurship and then some kind of key differences that I think that are worth highlighting as well is under financial literacy and cultural
awareness there is a higher interest within the bipo youth student then there is um their counterparts of n non bipo youth so that is um kind of an interesting um points there in the data
as well as um drop in space which um you know can include homework that gets done a space in which youth call their own um a center if you will and that would be um
on the higher end um that bipot you youth have a more kind of they want to see than um non bipo students although there are bip non byx students that also would like to see that as well but the
um difference in kind of the wanting to see and not wanting to see so the way in which the survey was conducted was uh don't want to see neutral about a situation maybe somewhat interested and
then very interested um was a breakdown in our survey we asked questions are there there any other topics that we may have missed you know we tried to geared some thinking in the process um obviously we didn't cover every single
aspect of Youth Empowerment and so we opened up that question just to see what it is that you know other students may want to see that we had not listed out so out of the 87 students that answered the survey 59 of them answered 11 of
them wanted to see something social justice activism 10 of them wanted to see something STEM related nine of them wanted to see something related to performing art such as woodworking painting and six of them wanted to see something related to mental health or physical
health uh on the survey there was also kind of a what would you like um the adults running the program to like know about our what would you like to see in the program would would you what would you like the adults to know about you type of question and some of the highlights that came up
um a big one was food and snacks uh so definitely uh we'll be providing some food and snacks during our Youth Empowerment type of um engagement as well as um accessible locations you know somewhere downtown somewhere near the schools uh the middle school and high
school in particular was kind of the highlights of the school aspect of um those sentiments Visual and Hands-On learning Qui environment and another one that um a lot of individuals actually indicated was understanding adults and that was
just kind of you know um adults in the room that are understanding Our Youth and not making it more of a headache for them so the question that uh I think we were asked while we were doing the survey and what I would imagine what would happen tonight and asked is kind
of the what now you know we surveyed kids we've done a lot of talking and I think um to one of our public commenters it's kind of the what now what action can we take so the Dei office is doing youth programming that is our um
capabilities of what we can do right now um is only our programming and so with that we have an entrepreneurship Workshop happening every Saturday in beginning March 1st it will be from 10
a.m. to 12: pm at the banks Community Center we have speakers coming from um the black business area or Association of ammer area and we also have a partnership through Crest thank you Camille if you're still on the call um in which um we were able to use some
funding to gather some supplies I will say um we have five um students signed up right now we're hoping obviously to get more so any advertisement on this on your all's end would be greatly appreciated and then in April and in may
we are doing a workshop series with citizens for juven Justice they're an organization based in Boston and they kind of have done a um Workshop here in town so we're going to be doing those workshops um one of them will be on
bullying the other one will be on a scho to present pipeline conversation and so um once those details get out I will obviously share more um information as I know that information with you all again um this is in partnership with Crest thank you again cres and
Camille and lastly so with um kind of those two programs I wanted it to be you know we run out this survey we have this um momentum going the spring aspect of things is we're already here basically in Spring and all these things have
taken time to set up so I set these things up starting in November with kind of the thought process and a small sample size of students in which they showed interest was the entrepreneurship and the knowing you're right so that's why those two programs are Happ happening in the spring but the survey
results indicated that you know financial literacy was a clear High indicator that that needs to be some of our programming coming the fall as well as post High School prep as well as SCE skills so our survey is going to be kind
of directed by this program by youth Le voices and empowering you know the youth that have really taking the time and I appreciate every single youth um if you ever watch this video that takes that took this survey because it really helped out in terms of you know the
direction in which we need to head to as um we think about youth programming so with that I will stop sharing my screen and thank you thank you
pH um I I that was awesome to see those results I think it was helpful to see how many people responded what the Outreach process was like and you know what the kind of points of interest are and I just I
guess thinking about how to publicize the upcoming um entrepreneurship Workshop since that seemed to be one of H one of the I just swiped and it's gone um hello am I you're here okay I I'm
here we sorry I got a new computer and I don't know how to work it um so seeing that the entrepreneurship was a hot item and thinking about this upcoming series of workshops have you then gone back to
send and I don't know if you collected information about who was responding to the surveys but if like the if there was an email address you know affiliated with the survey response is that something you can blast the poster back out to or send it back to all those
people who you chase down to you know at the schools and and get it back in the newsletter because I do think those are important um Avenues to reaching Youth and I think
um that was that was a thought um roundabout as it may have been and I guess I just you know in obviously we're in crazy times since January 20th and there have been a lot of executive orders some of which we'll
be speaking about later but I just was wondering if there were any Rumblings in town about Dei and its future in town given the strong language that has been used against it under the current
Administration yeah so I'll take your uh first question um we didn't collect any um email addresses from youth but we will certainly be reaching out through all those Outreach efforts to let um people know of our program in that we have developed in are continuing um with
this programming answer your second question um Paul during the um executive order presentation that we were giving to department heads um made it very clear that um ammer is going to keep going with our Dei efforts and that um you
know it's it's not going to be a decision that is made soon that will um be made by him was his words and that um di as a department for the town of amers is moving forward um Full Steam and that
um well I'm glad to hear that thank you um everal and then Deborah I I think you asked my question Agra I know we're in Massachusetts so there's a bit of a firewall so to speak with the attacks in Dei but I wanted to
ask if um what was the town doing in terms of di but I think Philip answer that question so thank [Music] you yeah thank you um Phil for the presentation um you know and I the same
thing right I I wanted to ask you you know where where the town stood but also like you know for you and Pamela and the department itself right because there's a lot of um anxiety a lot lot of people a lot of unknowns right a lot of pressure and um you know there's a lot
of businesses and towns and everything that are Cav an end to the pressure right now um because when they're hearing about investigations and um defunding and so on so forth and we know virtually every area um gets Federal
funding right so we obviously are concerned about the department and then of itself right and you all because you all have jobs and a and so on so forth so please make sure that you reach out to us because we're here to support you
all right that's what we're here to do and to make sure that you know the two of you and then the department is is going to be supported right first and foremost so um hopefully that is the case you're you're confirming that yeah
um I I think yes I think that um it's very clear that um from town manager to as well as town councilors that we've spoken to um they see the value in our department and that they would like it to see it continue good I'm glad to hear that um
the other one is in terms of the presentation obviously I was excited to hear that you all got 87 um young people to uh respond to the survey um you know and the survey further just reconfirmed right a lot of what cswg had had already
gathered in terms of of of the young people that they want especially um bip youth they want a place right they want a safe space that's why we've been talking about the Youth Empowerment Center and I guess I guess I know when when not talking about the Youth Empowerment Center yet but you know the
question I have to POS a question to you because there's Rumblings out there that possibly again you all are dealing with with Youth Empowerment Center or is it just the programming that it's just the programming that we are dealing with at the Dei office we
have not been tasked with anything um Youth Empowerment Center related so is Youth Empowerment Center as far as you know still with um so Reay with with wreck and then the the finance department as far as I know I I that was
the last I heard of it I would um pose that question to the town manager I I don't know yeah because you know we've invited um the finance director a variety of times to come you know join us for meetings up until now you know hav't
heard from her and you know besides I guess me continuing to invite her to to uh meetings um which obviously you know that can't be my my full-time job sending her emails to invit her to to meetings um so we we are going to need
to get some answers in regards to that because your survey further reconfirm that young people need a safe space right and especially bipar people and that's why we've been saying for you know four years four plus years at this point that we need you know a center for
for this to happen of course the youth and programming is is is good right it's it's something that obviously the showcasing that they need uh but we need a space um you know as your survey stated either downtown or near the
schools and everything where they'll be able to to have a safe space cuz there's no safe space in our town right now for our B youth um in regards to that right so um just want to point that out but thank you though for for doing the
survey and continuing to do this work um do yeah do send it to us so that we can share it with our Network in terms of these U workshops and things like that definitely we do I I saw a few grammar errors there that I will fix up like I
said I finished it at 5 o' right before this meeting but I will C certainly send it tomorrow so ever we see that your hand is up oh I'm sorry um no it's down
um does anybody have any further Dei comments no um I'm wondering I know so I'm looking at our agenda I know Rob is probably a big topic and the executive orders are a big topic um it sounds like
there's not much more to report on the Youth Empowerment Center at this point um well I guess though there is a very important thing to to report on the Youth Empowerment Center very alarming that I've heard um and again we need some answers from the town manager um as
well as the finance uh Department director there because I've heard that the $500,000 that was earmarked even though we know that some of that money had been used I guess to hire the Don who Center to do some type of assessment which we we never heard the outcome of
that but I've heard that that $500,000 is not year mark for the Youth Empowerment Center any longer that that money has gone back into town money or something along those along those lines so I'm I'm I am very concerned of what
is happening here because I'm I'm getting you know communication from the community um in terms of what you know where's that money where has that money gone um we had Ray come and say that oh you need a lot more money to establish a center but at least we had $500,000 now
we have zero according to what I've been hearing so what is happening I don't know if sounds like it sounds like maybe we should direct that question to the town manager for clarification and um I can
write an email to him um especially given that I read our statement asking that that money remain allocated for us at a town meeting in December um so I can email
Paul about that money but I think what you should do algra is also CC Ray and CC the finance person there because I I I I want all these people and of course copy me on it and everything when you send it out to the town manager because
I I want to hear from from the people that supposedly are in charge of the Youth Empowerment Center yes okay I will email that group and CCU and we can share that information
um Erica did you have anything to add to that yeah we had talked about it that this was arpa funding and arpa funding had to be allocated to a project or to specific Services by the end of 2024 and
so uh where did it get go I think is a good question and it needs to be transparent how was it allocated if it's not allocated to the Youth Empowerment Center where was it allocated for because that's a public document that's public information it had to be done by
2024 it should have been stated uh it should have been kept as an earmark yeah but as far as I know Erica it wasn't and now it's part of like Town funds in general or something like that and it's not year mark for the Youth Empowerment Center anymore so I I'm just wondering if we
can briefly touch on retreat planning quickly if that's because I don't know that we have much of an update I know Deborah had reached out to Paul I don't I wasn't receiving any answers from him so hear anything back from him so just
so so the group knows um you know Erica had had put together that um proposal for for the retreat and we were shooting for maybe March to do a retreat with our group as well as does invite um you know anyone from Crest and Dei right um so
that we can also build kind of um you know team cohesion and I was really even thinking like HRC because you know some of our kind of other partner organizations um so that we can kind of build more this team cohesion um and so
I had reached out to the town manager just to see in terms of funding right to hire Barbara love as we had discussed as the facilitator as well as funding for food cuz we would do kind of like a you know like a full day uh event like maybe
10 to 5 or something like that right whatever you know we ended up deciding upon um but I did not hear anything and I did put in the email to the town manager that we had the meeting coming up and that I wanted to to report back to you all but I didn't hear anything from him no response at all was there
was there budget proposed for their Retreat well that's what I was asking him I didn't I didn't I didn't say this is how much we need for it or anything like that I was just saying whether we could put together a budget at all um for it you know um just really asking
kind of more open-ended question um but I didn't even receive any response from it Miss Pat because the thing with with this everal is sorry sorry um uh uh Pat the thing with this um everal is that
you know with with doc Dr barbar Love I don't even know how much she costs I mean I don't know any of those things so and and what would be the process and stuff like that and then the food I mean that's not a a big ask they they know how much it is because they always they're always doing events and
everything so but go ahead Pat I'm just um given that we didn't get that information can we identify what the desired outcomes of a retreat would be and can we identify
dates uh so that we can try to move forward yeah I think Erica in terms of the desired outcome I think you had put that proposal in terms of what the outcome would be I'm sorry Erica I didn't didn't see it or didn't remember that could you remind me okay yeah no certainly um so since there were a
couple of new members um on uh this committee um what I thought would be important is for all of us to sort of the desired outcome is that we're on the same page at least in understanding how we got to hear so um the reports that
were written um the mission and and the uh goals that we have uh the expectations that we have of each other and we talk about uh members reports but I don't think we have subcommittees so you know do we do we create subcommittees so um I think when we
leave the retreat we're clear about how we got started why are we here what is it that want to do together what can we expect from each other and what are the next action steps you know what are the goals that we have and some action steps that we can start moving forward on um so I think you know um Deborah had
mentioned that we should take a full day I agree um one of the reasons why I had proposed um Dr Love is because Dr Love Actually I believe uh worked with uh Dei department and the Human Rights Commission around their while their
human rights commission's Retreat um and I think it's great to have an outside facilitator who can bring all of us together uh regardless of where we stand and why we we are on this committee is to you know bring some consensus to where uh we want to go with this committee and to make sure that we're
also upholding the goals of why this committee was established and how we can get there um but if um there is no money for a facilitator um I don't think it should stop us from coming together and doing
this yeah I agree um I think we should continue to pursue it um we know that she's busy uh facilitating the Liber liberatory visioning work that's happening now but you know she that's you know we should pursue it um I think
we could establish a couple of us to begin to do some retreat planning while we explore facilitation um that's something that I think we could do on our own and if we try to identify a date then we could move forward with it
and then we could each you know in terms of food we could each kind of potluck it as we say right everyone brings something and and then you know we do it and then we could just um space I'm sure we could get for free I would think in
the town you know um but yeah if there could be that's a great idea Pat if there could be like a little subcommittee um to kind of work on that um that would be great I don't know if anyone be willing up a couple of few people for Erica
Pat I mean that would be great and I think maybe we can look at dates via a doodle poll or something like that as long as that doesn't violate open meeting law I think it's fine we get to we just vote on something um just so
that um but I think and I think Erica had put together a pretty nice proposal and I think it might have been the meeting before the new members were on board it so yeah because because the other thing too that I want to bring up and everal maybe
you can share it too because I think maybe even before you all came on board the new members everal was already introducing some things too in terms of like setting goals annually and stuff like that so that could also formulate some of the you know what we'd be talking about and things like that
because we were talking about whether we needed to meet more than just once a month to kind of talk about other topics because obviously we have our set kind of topics on a monthly basis and whether there's other topics we should be talking about outside of the you know the updates and things like that because
as you can see right it's 8:40 we haven't even finished the updates so um so those were some of the things too so I think everal you know if if he could if one of you all could reach out to him and get some of that that could formulate our agenda too help formulate
I mean our agenda for the day and then I guess the other thing would be well do we want this to be internal to us with the new member so that we can kind of you know talk about what it was what it is and what it could be right past present and future or do
we want to like I was saying too because initially also we had talked about right team cohesion with the at Crest and and like I even said maybe HRC or whatever or do we want to start with us and maybe do another one so I mean those are things that you all subcommittee you can
think about and then kind of bring back to us I think that's a great place to start um and given that it is 8:40 I suppose perhaps we can move on to Rob for now knowing that there will be some work in
between meetings done to address a better outline for the retreat so yes we have Rob and executive orders as our last two topics which I assume will both take some time yeah and
I mean of course you know I don't want to take too much of you all's time in terms of the resident oversight board um because I know obviously the executive orders we also need to talk about and it is 8:40 um so being mindful I'm going to try to kind of give some highlights and
then of course um I am going to share um uh screen just to kind of go through as quickly as possible some of the edits but as you all know I mean one of the things that's really important is that the resident oversight board and Russ kind of broke broke it down right when he was talking you know about what cswg
did and what we presented in terms of the the resident oversight board it's just a critical um you know board to have in place especially during this time of so high anxiety and uncertainty and fear right um especially when we
have you know the police involved and and and things like that and it's really though a a a part to build you know trust to make sure that you know everyone feels secure right as community and as the police cuz if you have a a an
oversight board that is independent that can look at some of these issues right because right now the community doesn't feel um comfortable going and filing complaints at the police but having a place where their complaints could be looked at in the in the penalty with you
know fairness impartiality objectivity and due process right for the police we want something that is actually a fair process for all parties concerned right so that then it can showcase right whether you know did okay the complaint is filed did something actually
transpire here or not right and so those are the things that will actually build and cement more of this kind of relationship with the community and so that's you know the things that we are talking about and this resident oversight um board stakeholder um you
know group was put in place a few months ago um by Paul and there's all these members and as you all know I've been sharing everything and that was one of the things I was the one that brought it up to that group and I said listen I'm going to be sharing you know I Saidi want to share everything with the
community and I got you know everyone's agreement that yes we need to share everything with the community and that's why you know I've been putting it including it in our packets as well as I have you know a network of community members that I've been sharing the
information with the network of of community members obviously I can't include you all on those because of the you know what is it the the whole public meeting R rules and all of that but I always see algra on the ones that I sent out to the community and stuff um but
it's just you know critical in terms of what we're discussing and those and so for the first few meetings it was really kind of like hey we need to you know get to a point where we're all you know building consensus and we need to get to point to uh create something that you
know it it's to create a bylaw a charge and a bylaw that to bring to Paul so that Paul can bring to the Town Council so the Town Council is the one that ultimately will decide whether they'll put this bylaw in place that creates this resident oversight board um and
Paul made this said this charge but early on or within a few meetings um you know even chief chief um Ting so Gabe um was kind of like well is it of a certain thing that this resident oversight board is going to happen and we like uh yeah
that's why we're meeting right we're meeting because that's our charge our charge is to create this bylaw so it's not a if it's a when right is it going to be created and of course for me as someone that has been on cswg before I'm
like we already have the the the blueprint right because in the CSG we pointed out all the different aspects for the resident oversight board but of course I think all parties concerned there did not want to even entertain the
cswg um you know what we had created there they basically were like no we need to you know start a fresh and start a new and just create something based on the discussions because in this group there's four members of the police
there's Chief Ting there's um two members who present the police Union and then there's one member that represents the supervisory Union on on the police right and so you know to have the police Buy in and so on and so forth um which
is fine that's not a problem so as we continued to to discuss the more we talk about it and the more honest we have become it has become become apparent to me that it's less and less uh having
this independent group and more going towards an Advisory Group right so an in so for me it's like an independent group that would be able to look at complaints and investigate complaints as Russ had stated and make some recommendations for resolution even though discipline could
remain within you know things um perview but to recommend the the the resolution and and investigate these complaints and it's more this this conversation around a review board or an Advisory Group that will look at the information and then
really you know what would be what would be the steps after that right and so the Consultants this Deb and then there's another consultant named Brian core who I guess is more on the national scene that looks at kind of advisory boards I think it's called make cole or something like that I don't know what all the
letters stand for but it's like these National oversight boards and these two Consultants are the ones that have been kind of working with us to to to look at all of this and um and they came up with and I'm sharing can you all see that
the and can you see the draft AMS resident oversight board bylaws yes okay so so they came up with this bylaw a draft bylaw that that they created and then um you know so now you
know all of all of us members were to send in kind of either revisions or edits in terms of it right um and so I started just doing a lot of edits in in regards to it so who who would
this this Advisory Group you know respond to and I think you you heard one of the callers basically being like very concerned about this uh oversight group um reporting to the Town Council or the the town manager right but in terms of
if they was to pick one or the other I would rather go to the Town Council than the town manager so you know I'm I'm I'm making kind of recommendations here in regards to it right making sure to add besides just having building transparency and accountability you know
Equitable processes to end systemic racism so adding that language that really is kind of like listen this is the focus this is what we're trying to do right over here in B you know I added you know the raw will advise review conduct and oversee investigations none
of that was in there right in terms of of those things so these are all the things that we're going to discuss and it's been a very tedious process because you know a lot of the members especially you know the police members of course
are very much resistant to having a um an um oversight board that's actually going to be able to have oversight right um you know so we're we you know talking about like the composition and
appointment of you know these folks um you know making sure to have you know people with lived experiences from a variety uh various social cultural socio economic backgrounds and so on and we're going to obviously add age add this and this but this was me just trying to add
as much things as I could but of course you know adding you know more aspects to it and then who would be appointing these right they have the town manager and I'm like well there needs to be a screening committee and the screening committee needs to be a majority bip screening committee and even the
resident resident oversight board should be a majority um bipar board so I put over here at least you know well at this point it was nine now we've changed it seven but I said at least four of the members should be bip so we're we're talking through all of that and trying
to to make sure that those things are in place but um but the the biggest problem was really over here where basically I added and deleted a whole bunch of of things where it's it's like Rob will make a determination as to how to move
forward with the complaint interview the parties involved provide an option for mediation of the parties arily want to engage in mediation interview Witnesses or send the complaint to be investigated by trained impartial investigators I included all that cuz it's not even in
here it's basically um public well they want to also broaden it to not just the police they want to broaden it to Crest and fire and so on so forth so actually there's a there's a call out now to to get fire involved even though for me I was just like let's just focus on the
police because you know they're the ones that obviously you know the Community you know feels intimidated and and has a lot of fear around and everything but again got overruled and you know they want to bring in everyone at this point I said that could be added because even
in our cswg report we had said to include Crest too it was the police and Crest but I was like but right now let's focus on one because the capacity and everything else but again overruled um so so over here is basically um they had
written down yeah like address Rob and concerns when Rob does I mean they it it's basically they don't have anything in terms of uh yeah over here when Rob does not agree with the findings of the so it's
basically Rob would just be looking at the investigation that the police did and when and when Rob does not agree with the findings of the Public Safety Office the chief of that department shall provide a written response addressing the Rob's concerns and discuss the response with Rob
okay and then what so what so what happens at that this point there's nothing that happens at that point right so that's why I deleted all of this and I added all of this other stuff which was no we need to oversee complaints right so anyway just a a lot I mean I'm
not I can't go through all of this with you all like I provided all of this information um what did I did I maybe this one came I don't think it was in your packet actually it might not have been because this came after you know um
we we met yesterday or something like that um but I'll share I'll share this with you all um but basically it's just like it's it's just a lot like no stipend for um for for the um members no
subpoena power no nothing and I know subpoena power was one of the contentious one as Russ stated you know you know when when he called in that could be one of the contentious part I I get that but everything else that we had talked about in cswg basically has been
stripped from this draft bylaws so it's very concerning and and you know I wanted to make sure to to bring it up and then the other one sorry let me share again one more the other one too
that um I wanted to bring to your attention was let me see if it's here yeah right here got a um a memo from the police Union so the two police units and I do have to say
and and you know to kind of Honor uh Chief Ting obviously chip Ting didn't it's not anything that represents him because he's the chief this is the police unions who wrote this and in response to even that draft which like I said that I feel is a weak draft because
I've had to make a lot of edits on it they don't even want that draft and they had a lot of concerns with that draft and they um wrote a response to it but basically on the second paragraph and I'll share this with you all too it
basically says um what is it over here there oh so including so one of the concerns is including but not limited to whether there is actual need to strengthen the already strong bonds and trust between the ammer police
department and the community and the potential impact or interference of the Rob on the terms and conditions of the police department Department's bargaining units so basically and this was um this is in included in in the the
throughout this letter that there's already this strong bond with the police and that why is there a need for any of this to happen it was just like um yeah on number two over here the unions
believe that transparen and accountability already exists between the MS police department and the community including black indigenous and people of color residents um you know accordingly Rob stated purpose of building transparency and accountability is
unnecessary right and then number four in the middle they say again um the union believe that the vocal minority negative comments about the police Department mostly appeared to be an issue of perception where community
members do not understand the reasoning for an officer's actions thus creating the perception versus reality Gap okay and this one and and I also did hear you know in one of the meetings um
where Chief Ting though did say like even though obviously he's he didn't he's not part of this letter but he did say cuz I heard it in one of the meetings where he was just like oh um the the reason why the community wanted to put the resident oversight board was
in response to George Floyd which was a national uproar but you know there isn't that same need here in the ammer police department and so for me during the meeting I even said well I think that is the problem if the chief of police thinks there is no problem that is the
problem okay because you know throughout the meetings I've said it and others have said it the the you know community members in MERS especially uh bipa Community me members and other marginalized uh community members are
afraid intimidated and do and fear and fear for themselves in terms of retaliation and harassment from the police and that is you know what we we heard let you cswg in town forums in the work that seventh gen made and I still
here till this day when I go out into the community and people come and talk to me and I've experienced it from the police ammer police department and I'm sure others have too so you know kind of having this reality that there's no need
that there's no problem is really you know concerning obviously you know I'm one person you know there's other members there you know philli is is on the committee and Camille is on the committee Shon who used to be a town council members on it an Lopes also who
used to be a town council member is on it and then Ronnie Ronnie from um human rights um commission is also on it right so others are are there to also voice but I you know I'm one of as you all know I'm very vocal so I'm always
bringing up issues and and saying this but I'm really concerned that this might end up being a diluted a weak Advisory Group that will have no power no teeth and no authority to do anything really
but I and I you know and I keep hearing like well it's better we have something than nothing I'm just like what what do you mean it's better to have something than nothing no there's not it's not better to have something than nothing it's better to have something that's actually going to work and have the authority to do the to do what we we say
is going to do especially from the community we don't have something we if we don't put something in place that has to Authority it's not going to be used no one's going to trust it and no one's going to utilize it as opposed to to to creating something that actually has some some you know some power or or some
ability to do to do something and it's it's just interesting to me again that the police don't see this as a benefit for them because right now there's a lot of mistrust and it's only going to get worth worse under this environment that
we're living in in terms of this fear en environment so I'll stop there obviously you know philli Camille I don't know if you all are there if you want want to chime in too and add your take to it but also obviously entertain any
questions yeah go ahead algra um thank you Deborah for sharing that I think it's really um certainly eye opening to see some of the opposition coming out um and it was I really appreciated Russ
um earlier in the comments giving kind of the history of the development of the Rob from cswg forward um because I didn't you know there was a shift in the leadership of the police department and so that is an interesting thing to hear
that it had already somewhat been vetted in its previous form um I was wondering if there was going to be any sort of public forum that the stakeholder group held prior to any of this um bylaw
putting forward to town manager to Town Council back to town manager to um so that that people can weigh in more I mean I think there's a lot to look through and I was um I had some concerns in Reading you
know I think I read not even the I I don't know which version of it I read um but I read a version of it and I I part of it to me felt almost like it was moving in the direction of almost like a PR for the
police which I don't I didn't think was the original intention again my understanding was more that there would be an a place for complaints to be addressed that wasn't like an internal
investigation um and that wasn't post and I just want to say this on the record is that when we filed a post complaint following the July 5th 2022 incident um that occurred between the youth and the ammer police I believe we
filed that complaint in like December of 2022 so it had we'd gone through a lot of you public conversation about the incident we I didn't get a response back from post until I believe it was
November of 2024 so that was an almost two-year response time so I think well post is a venue for this it is not going to be expedient at all in addressing
concerns um and so I you know I think locally if we have our own version of or not even our own version of post but something that can investigate
independently that people people might feel more trust in that than like sending a letter off into the abyss and not getting a response back for two years um because I had honestly forgotten about the post complaint by
the time I got the response um so I I do think that that that time is an issue in terms of being able to proactively and quickly address an incident I think that is much easier to be done on a local level
um which is why I think it would be important to continue to support that aspect of what cswg had envisioned for Rob and um those are
that's that's all I I'll say for now and and I think it's good that you brought that up algra in terms of post because there was a lot of discussion about post and the police basically saying um you know well there'll be double jeopardy because if there's this independent group and then this post and we're going
to have to be investigated twice and so on so forth and then I had to alert them because I think you all know my exper my expertise my expertise is that I oversaw the office of vehicle opportunity at UMass for 17 years which we we investigate you know investigated complaints based on discrimination right
I I did the complaints I investigated complaints and I oversaw complaints right I was a supervisor of those complaints and how those work right is that you do your own internal investigation but someone can also file outside they can file with massachus commission against discrimination they
can file with office of civil rights they can file with Department of highed they can fire anywhere else so you can get investigated multiple times guess what that is what people have they have options right so for me I don't understand when they say that it's just
like post is there yes post is there but you still have to have your internal options to deal with it when I say internal I don't mean just Internal Affairs I'm saying this this board right can deal with complaints that are coming in especially complaints from the
community we can establish that and post is not going to um you know take the place of it or anything else and especially since as we know ala right that when we file that complaint based on on on July 5th post a lot of times is dealing with really egregious situations
right egregious discrimination excessive use of force you know using weapons you know all of those like serious injuries a lot they don't have the people power to be looking at sometimes the kind of the bias right or the microaggressions
all the you know offenses that happen internally within a community unless it rises to that level right so when the police always kind of talking about well we're going to have the double jeopardy and I don't understand it and I don't get it and it doesn't make sense to me right because the thing is is that
there's there's different options there and you still have to have your process and your process that works so for them to investigate themselves which is basically what so the unions the both the supervisory and the police units they've basically stated that whatever comes from this board is not going to be
acceptable to them right I get it that there's bargaining um units and things like that but they're going to be at the bargaining table in July so whatever we decide could be bargained in July all right but they basically stated like we
we're not anything that changes our process we're not going to be in agreement with is basically what they've stated however we could still move forward a bylaw could still be introduced whether they they they're in agreement with it or not and then it can be bargained at the
bargaining table right so so my thing is is that we we still need to and have to put something in place that is strong and not just acques or do something that would be favorable as what you're saying Allegra a PR thing for the police to
just you know say yeah and cosign cosign whatever the police have already um agreed that okay we've investigated so now co-signed that our investigation was fine you know I'm not in that and I already told them that I'm going to be
on the record object saying I object because that's what I'm already doing AC Crow I object to this I object to that and I object to the other cuz I'm going formally document all of the objections that I have but
everal so if if they're saying you know whatever whatever the community decides is unacceptable to them why why are they still part of this process I mean if they're already saying doesn't matter what you guys do we're not going to
accept it that's that's like a you know banging your head against a wall I mean it's like is that communicated to like you know the the the Town Council to say listen the people that you have
on this committee is already firm in their opposition even though we're supposed to work together but they're saying whatever we decide we're not going to accept and I I can appreciate their concern about changing their
processes so you know I mean to not to be overs simplistic but is there a conversation to say we're not going to change your processes what we're saying is that we're creating this body that if
you arrest somebody and they felt that one of your officers overly brutal or violated their civil rights we have this body that will investigate we're not telling you um how to change your process but when we do investigate and we'll make our findings
you have to accept those findings exactly yeah I think I I think that a lot of the difficult conversations that we've had has really focused on that and I think we have kind of you know broached that subject like what are we doing here if you're saying
that they are not going to be acceptable but what I've been told is that as long as the Town Council um adopts the bylaws right but again if we create a bylaw that's actually strong with a that's strong and that it's adopted then that's
something that they'll have to just you know when it's time to go to the bargaining table it's just basically the town introducing that this is the bylaw and then it's basically just working on the impact to them right training or whatever hours that you need to to to
kind of know what is is is going to happen here yeah you know what is going to happen in terms of um you know you know what the process is going to be right moving forward but it'll be the town basically saying listen this is
what we're going to have to do and so I think that this last time when that was communicated I think you know and then obviously everyone's like oh you know there needs to be Poli lece Buy in and we should all stay at the table and talk through everything and stuff like that
they were willing to stay and and talk through um these different aspects but you know my thing is is just like listen yeah I respect that there's bargaining you know and I'm I'm off for unions and and and so on so forth but the point of the
matter is is that it can be bargained right as long as the town brings in the bylaw it can still be bargained it's not something where we can we we we have to just say okay in order for this Buy in we're just going to water down this group you see what I'm saying that is is
not going to be acceptable and and I think you know I think this is an opportunity where and I think the Town Council needs to be aware of this because if contracts come up in the summer and you know they need to be
if if they're truly committed to this resident oversight board as they should be it should be brought their attention that this is the posture now of the bargain of the police department and the Town Council needs to
in no uncertain terms come out and say this is happening we are we are willing to work with you but we're not required to work with you exactly exactly exactly and and that's right and that's a lot of question marks
right in terms of you know us creating a strong bylaw for a a strong body that's going to be independent and then also a Town Council that's willing to take that on and to take that that that fight on because that's what it's going to be it's going to be a fight right because
the police unions right the supervisory and the and and the police unit has basically said where they're going to be at right which is going to be they're going to oppose it you know Gabe I I don't know where he's at because obviously you know he's a chief the only thing that I do know is like I said he
did make that comment you know with all of us there which I heard which was oh I don't think that there's also this this need or problem with it you know but he's still engaging and so on so forth the police unions though they were very clear where they
stand Erica this is very fascinating listening to this because uh unions and I'm also I'm a union person I was Union steward Etc unions are there to protect their
workers to make sure that their workers are treated fairly so I understand that they may want to be you know part of the at the table to make sure that if they have to go to training that they're PID for it you know that they have the time for it Etc but I would turn it around
and say you know what absolutely appreciate you want to make sure that your individuals are treated fairly that's why you want an RO it's we're not focusing on the individuals we're focusing on the institution the institution is historically
situated uh in an approach of um you know uh making sure that the law is is enforced that's their approach approach we want to make sure that they do the best job and also to protect residents and we want to make sure that they are
doing that and so we're looking at the institutional practices we're not looking at the individuals so if an individual has overstepped then maybe the institution hasn't trained the individual right maybe the uh they haven't gotten the appropriate supervision you know so it really I
don't understand why they they think they have the ability to throw a wrench in the roob that's looking at institutional practices to ensure that the institution is maintaining their mission in what they're stating which is to protect you know the residents of of
Amherst and to treat every resident fairly and just justly and so actually you know as you said before it actually affirms that the APD will be looked at in a better light when they when they're working with the RO because they have
nothing to hide and it's not that the RO is going after individuals the RB wants to make sure that even the individual officers are being treated fairly that they're being given the appropriate training the appropriate supervision are not overworked uh are not put in situations that they're not trained for
and so we all win in that situation including every single individual officer that works there as well as the chief so I think you both have in terms of what you stated and what the union wants to do it's the same except often
what unions Happ to do is to protect their people no matter what which is one of the things that I fought against all the time if a union member didn't do what they were supposed to do according to their job or according to the ethics then Union shouldn't be protecting them yeah yeah so those are some of the
things that yeah we definitely have to um you know muddle through and and discuss and and figure out and I think Allegra one of the the you know suggestions that you made in terms of having a Forum right before um sharing
this with the Town Council um or the town manager you know you know bring Mr that would be a really important uh part to have to bring in the community because really for me I would have wanted these meetings to have been public meetings you know what I'm saying
so that all the community would have been involved at the meetings and knowing everything um as opposed to it being these the this kind of like just working group or whatever that that were working on these things and then I'm just sharing things with you all I think
it would have been a much better thing so before we do any outcome yeah it would be important to get the the community feedback right and to have the community at the meeting to at least see what it is that this draft bylaw would be that we would be sending out because
like I said I'm I'm very concerned right now that it's it's not going to be as strong as as it needs to be in terms of this independent body that's going to be able to look at these complaints because um you know the with the the July 5th incident is a perfect example right you
know I know parents and and young people from that incident that I still had no resolution right that still feel that that you know that you know the impact the negative impact that they went through they weren't able to deal with if there was a Rob in place they could
have gone there right and fought a complaint with Rob and just gone through it even if at the end Rob would have decided nope there was you know everything worked out D D D D but if you have a process in place right that's fair that's impartial that's objective that has due process for the police and
for all who are involved right because I'm all for due process you have to you have to have a fair process like I said I did those those types of Investigation for 17 years you know so you you you have to have something where people can depend and respect right and then and
and then the outcome even if it's hard to deal with but the outcome is the outcome right so then it builds that trust between the community and the police and so on so forth right but if you have something that's not transparent behind closed doors and it's the police that are doing it there's
always going to be that did it really you know was it really fair you know and so you know that's that's where we're at right now but I will uh there's there's another meeting in February and then two more meetings were added in March so I
will continue to keep you all posted and share more information information and then you know please continue to provide me feedback cuz I need all the help I can get this situation but um let's move on to the next because I know it's uh 9:17 time is
ticking so um the executive orders yes um so [Music] I did you have information that you wanted to share I know that UMass has been going through some of them and trying to figure that out
I don't have anything specific to share um other than what like what's happening I don't know yeah I mean I mean I think I I want to give the the the space more to everald in terms of the immigration
realm because I I think that obviously that's one of the most pressing ones um but as you all know there's a lot of executive orders um based on on Dei um that spans the it's it's across the board right for public entities for private entities and really saying that
there will be investigations there will be the funding of federal monies if you have Dei programs or anything that has woke ideology or anything that falls within you know social justice I mean
they use all these words because you know I've been reading the actual executive orders um they they use that those that language in a lot of these Dei U executive orders of course you know and most of them they say you know within the next 60 days he's still
saying attorney general or Department of Justice Department of Education you have 60 to 90 days to kind of come up with you know um these processes or Communications as to how these people but once these executive borders went out and remember that they're executive
orders so they're not law you know but he has the agencies that can enforced right and so a lot of um companies a lot of towns a lot of they're right away taking these steps right um but most institutions are still
looking right looking at their processes looking at their procedures looking at things um but the more difficult ones right is like the what happened on was it was it Wednesday I think it was Wednesday or Thursday I don't know there's so been so many but like when he when there's like you know funding right
um there was the budget that said there was going to be no more funding from the grants you know for for Grants and scholarships and so on so forth and so you know one of the one of the areas that actually has been able to stop a lot of these executive orders has been the judicial right so I'm I'm very proud
of you know that my my arm like in terms of like the Justice part of it because a lot of these injunctions a lot of these days I've been coming from from it and um and then there was another one from NIH which is like the the health um
funding which goes into a lot of research and things like that and there was another state from Massachusetts judge um this time on Monday uh doing a national stay in terms of the NIH funding so all of this is you know of course very concerning right and when
you have you know all all of these programs that are dependent on federal money there's a a lot of places that a lot of Institutions that maybe 30% of their funding is federal funding you know or even sometimes more than that so just imagine in one point in time 30% is
gone from your budget so how are you going to be able to continue so these are people's livelihoods and and so on that are that are occurring so um there's executive orders on of course like um combating anti-Semitism so
impacting you know those that um that took part in protests right um you know that any protest that they feel quote unquote was anti-semitic and so on so forth that they're going to be investigating those uh they're going to
be looking at complaints um so you know these executive orders are coming you know Fast and Furious and and for us it's just a lot of you know analyzing but I'll stop there so I can give the the floor to everald around the immigration part of
it so just just to pick up on what you're saying so one of the things that you know when when under the Biden Administration when the right had issues with his policies they would Forum shop
which means they would find a judge that was receptive to um their argument and they usually go to Texas and I believe that as a result of that there were conversations around limiting the power
where one judge gets to issue a nationwide injunction so I I if while while that is happening right now it is more likely than not that we may see some action and whether or not
um that continues to be the case because I if I'm remembering correctly it was either Congress or was having the conversation and as we know the entire federal government is controlled by the right um as how to curb um you know know
the judge's ability to say I'm going to issue a nationwide injunction um on certain things or the Supreme Court was considering um submitting guidelines for that um so but having said that I think
we're now up to three federal judges in three different states I believe um that has blocked um the executive order and Birthright citizenship so the argument that he's making um which is flawed in his face is that
Birthright citizenship you know should only be given to people who are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and for anyone that's paying attention the moment you're in any part of the
United States you are subject to the jurisdiction because very simple put if you go out there and commit a crime you're going to be arrested that is the jurisdiction of the United States so to say that if you were here undocumented
or if you have um a parent here one parent is legal the other is not or both parents are legal and the children are legal then you're not subject to jurisdiction and that is the argument he's making in the executive order the text clearly points out that if one of
the parents was here illegally but the kids were born here they should not be given to ship and that's not what the law says it does require an amendment to the Constitution to do that and I don't imagine how he's going to get two-thirds
of the states to ratify that um so rightfully so it has been challenged and it has been blocked but um in the same vein people should be mindful that it may end up in
the Supreme Court and is a super majority of 63 that is you know that leans to the right and but I I've had this conversation with people um to
say this may actually be a case that the Supreme Court will have unanimous decision on that says you are wrong because the thing with the right the judges that lean to the right is that they like the letter of the law
what it actually says and I so I think this an opportunity for them to come out and say you are wrong you cannot do so and I think that might happen but again we'll see but coming back to a local
level and so people should be aware that you know ice Works in massachus jails okay so there is that relationship there that if someone is
undocumented and ice is aware that they're in custody ice will issue a detainer for that person essentially it's a bit of a like of a warrant to say you cannot detain this person and give us an opportunity to come pick this
person up so I I think of it as a fugitive from Justice Warrant Where um the state who was issuing the warrant SS to Massachusetts hey we have this person who's wanted in our state we're issuing a Governor's
warrant for his arrest we're going to come pick this person up in such and such a time unfortunately you have no right to bail if that is the case and people should understand that because the judges don't have discretion to release
you um if they have a valid detainer or valid warrant they have no discretion to releas to you however if they say they are going to come and pick you up the law allows that you have to be brought back in front of a judge every 30 days
um for a review and if they're dragging their feet with the help of an attorney you can make an argument as to why you should be released now because you are in custody um you know probably under some
underlying charge you are entitled to an attorney because you're freedom is being hindered here to argue bail you're not entitled to an attorney for immigration purposes because immigration is not a criminal matter in for in in that sense
so if you want to challenge immigration um detention deportation hearings Asylum hearings unfortunately you have to hire an attorney to do that for you one cannot be appointed to you you don't have to speak to
immigration officers and that should be very clear to everyone there is no obligation for you to speak to immigration officers um the interviews are voluntary and just like everything else um you have to be mindful that for the
most part they're not going to be on your side if you're having an if you're having a conversation with an ice officer tell yourself the end goal is not to your benefit so you can say I do not wish to speak with you without the
presence of an attorney and just like any other situation where you are being detained they have to comply with the law and but again as I said you need to have an immigration attorney one cannot be provided for you
because this is not you know this is not traditional criminal matter so to speak um again you do not have to speak to them you do have the right to remain silent because again anything you say will more likely than not be used against you you
do not have to sign any documents that they give to you and you do have the right to contact an attorney it's just that it's going to be at your own will now when you're in your home or you know
somebody's home just like with any law enforcement officer they need a valid warned to enter your home they cannot just say ice or whatever and you have to open the door no there's no such thing they
have to have a warrant like any other law enforcement officer that is signed off by a judge and it has to have your name your information and the reason for I to be at your house and as to say hey it's
either a warrant for detention or a warrant for a search it needs to be very clear you can say um I need to see that warrant first they're supposed to give it to you so you can review it I do not ADV I do not advise anyone
who is trying to help someone who is undocumented to interfere with Isis operation because you can be arrested and that creates issues for yourself as well so I appreciate that while you want to help um be mindful of
what you do and put yourself in Jeopardy the other part about being detained by ice and people should really pay attention to this part is that immigration and custom enforcement enforcement is
federal they do not have to hold you in Massachusetts and and that is very difficult for people with your family here in Massachusetts okay if their detention fac C here in massachusett is full they can bring you somewhere else because
again ice is federal and if they have Federal Detention facilities I mean we've seen on the news where they're organizing flights okay you can be picked up here today taken to Texas and you're on a flight out somewhere the next day
so scary to say but have a plan you know talk to your family talk to your friends if um you know if if you're doing something that you're unsure about or if you haven't heard from somebody in
a certain time this is what you do I I think it's not unwise to have those kind of conversations just so your family is aware of what to do should something happen to you I also want to caution people about
giving your money to people who say they can help you with immigration paperwork that are not lawyers or certified by Justice Department to immigration staff because you're going to have a lot of that you're going to have a lot of people saying they can help you and the
reality is they're going to say you have to give me this much money and you're going to give them the money and unfortunately they're not going to help you so again before you give anyone any money be very careful do your research
ask questions and there are legitimate immigration centers in Massachusetts and resources that can help you um so again one of the big things is you are going to see people who offer the help and
quite frankly it is going to be a scam there will be people who will willing to help you and legitimately can try but be mindful of the ones who if they push money on you in the first part of the conversation that's a red flag
okay and you should very very much understand that if you are undocumented and you get arrested under the immigration nationalization act there are certain
things called moral turpitude So based on what you're charged with it makes you deportable um there are certain crimes on its face makes you deportable automatically guns drugs comes to mind
um if you are a lawful permanent resident which means you have a green card it does not mean that you're 100% secure because there's such a thing as conditional residence there is a time period that you have to be in kind of like a probation period before that goes
away and if you if you do certain things within that time period yes United States USCIS can revoke your green card if you have a green card card and you have certain crimes on your record and you're applying for citizenship I would
recommend you have a conversation with an attorney before you do so because again they need to do a full immigration analysis impact to make a determination of if you need a waiver if you can get a waiver and if there's anything you can
get from the local courts that helps with your case I know that's a lot of information but there is a lot of resources um online that help people um one of the
big ones is there is an ice online detain a locator you know it it's it's meant to help find where somebody is but knowing how this new government is not updating
things and pushing information it is not guaranteed to provide you with the information you need if somebody that you know got detained so I I and it is going to be unfortunately arguably worse before it
gets better so talk to local Community Resources um the I I believe the state has a very good website um with resources on there um Deon algra I think what I sense can
be shared on our on our sites because also has links in there that people can use um some of those links come from um Statewide resources and that focuses on immigration
um you know I one of the things I wanted to ask Paul about but we didn't get into as I said because it was a short conversation is what is our local response in terms of you know I know we're consider a sanctuary town
but how are we 100% committed to that do our officers have very clear directives to say you know you do not assist with ice in any form um and of course
there's going to be exceptions violing crimes things like that you know but at the same time kids that are here um whether they are here um documented or you know they
do have rights to you know to enroll in schools and the right and they do have right to be feel safe going to schools so and that can only be guaranteed and protected by you know our local school
board and our local police so I think those are conversations that we should have to see what is our town doing for our immigrant Community thank you AAL that was really important and key information that you shared I mean oh my
goodness so much to think about and to kind of think through um but two things that you brought up that I think might be important to um to see would be like can we add any of this information like you were saying to our
website um because where would it where could we kind of showcase some of this information you know um so that would be one question and then two um we can we can email the town manager and just ask
them some of these questions you know what I'm saying um and I know you have obviously you know better um um you know knowledge base around this I don't know if you wna you know send allegra and I because obviously since
we're the ones that kind of communicate if you want to send us a a slew of of of questions um or if we want to kind of you know pass it by the group or whatever I don't know how we want to do it but we can get that to the town manager and pose those questions you
know yeah I can draft some questions yeah yeah and I forgot to add one thing thinging I think algra had asked about the red cards so I think we did this um under the
first Trump Administration where you know there's this company that prints red cards they call that because they're actually red and on there it lists um people's rights in in different languages they can be ordered in quite a
few different languages um essentially you know telling that what their rights are as like the same size as a business card and um I think I said I was I was going to order some and I did so I I'm
going to drop off maybe about 500 to Crest um I think that might be a good place to put them so if anyone wants to pick some up from there and distribute them elsewhere um that's fine because I think they came in the mail today I had a package I didn't look at it but I think that's what they are so I can
deliver those to Crest sometime this week great awesome Erica you have some questions no um I thought um Philip had said that the Human Rights Commission actually had a resource list on their website and so maybe what we want to do
is affirm um our support for all who live in in Amherst and then link to the Human Rights Commission because I I thought Philip said that you can also download the red cards um and I actually know a couple people who work at am I mean at UMass and they
were given employees were given those red cards uh and we're told here this is you need to know your rights um and anybody else who might need this you need to they need to know their rights so um I think it's great everil that you're you're getting these cards all
over the place but we can also print them ourselves and people should um be able to um get copies of them also in Spanish or in other languages because I think it'll be really important to be in other languages as well um so I think this is all really important I also think that maybe what we should do is
somehow um I mean I I don't know how many people read the amher bulletin but um I know that the Town Council actually did have this conversation with the town manager and there was some response in that amher bulletin but I don't want to misquote it it was the last Amherst bulletin um and it included that ammer
was a sanctuary City and so that did come up and the Town Council was very clear that also wanted to be able to be a resource to people um and the last thing I just want to say is um I you know they're just so many things as you said Deborah they are coming out um I
think this is just the beginning of the impact it's going to have on the people who live here and study here and work here in Amherst um I know that this this state is already considering the cuts that they're going to have in public health in education all across the board
and so it's going to impact the budget which is already you know proposed budget is being impacted and it is going to affect every single one of us here in this community um from snap to senior housing to affordable housing to heating assistance to education it it and of
course you know the whole executive order around um transgender and sports I mean there are people who are absolutely feeling unsafe um if you're not you know a white male who's rich I'm sure you're feeling unsafe um it it's just it's just
horrendous and I'm sure Chris might be getting more and more calls um people are feeling very distressed I think this a very good point about Crest and and so you know
it's I I know Camille has new employees and and and that might be stressful for these new people who are like huh I didn't think was going to be this busy and so I I think we want to I know our meetings are monthly but I think we
should you know check in with her periodically to see you know how people are feeling that way we don't wait another month to find out hey we lost three people like we did a few months ago um yeah so you know and make
sure that those conversations are happening for her to say to her team hey we're in in a bit of Uncharted Territory we might be getting more CA and anticipated about these issues and it might be over woman to you and quite
frankly there's no expectation for you to solve everything because you can solve everything you know and we don't want you to just leave or quit because if feel overwhelmed so we should try to as best as we can be that resource for Crest and so I'm actually going to
rather than just dropping it off I'm actually going to eat her and see if I can make an appointment to actually have a conversation with her while I'm there um to see what we can do in between these monthly meetings so we don't lose CIS staff like we did a few months
ago yeah actually um that's a good point that you brought up because actually alra and I had discussed trying to meet up with um Camille too so if you are going to why don't you do that first just because yeah you're dropping off cards you know do that let us know and
then and then since we would be checking in with her periodically then algra and I can kind of check in with her because that was something actually we had texted each other about earlier today I'm checking in with Camille because yeah it's going to be very necessary for us to to to do
that okay all right folks it's 9:44 so I know we still have another P you know another public comments so I think we want to wrap it up thank you everal again that was was so critical so necessary
and then we'll we'll do the followup um in regards to like linking to hrc's website every you can get us the questions um you'll follow up with Camille and then um we'll continue to
you know do the best we can given such a difficult time we're living through yep do the best we can I just wanted to extend my appre appreciation to all of you for all that you bring to this work and uh sticking
through it um so we have four members of the audience if anyone would like to make an additional public comment you can use the raise hand feature and we will bring you into the room all right good evening again P an from arest
I'm Miss back I I won't talk very long because I know it's late again thank you all um for your time um I appreciate you guys uh discussing immigration such an important uh topic and to have csjc take
time to do this Emerald thank you for the presentation um Deb I'm not sure that Town Council and even Paul truly understand understand the role you play in our town that you
do speak for us you do speak for marginalized group in our town and they should start listening to you because without you and you know some of you in this commit in this committee for
example we won't know a lot of things that is happening in our Mist so I just want to really publicly thank you I know this work is very hard it really breaks my heart that there is
a by by LW um Rob byw committee and it was just only you fighting for the marginalized group that is so depressing and yet we call Our Town a li a liberal Community I'm not sure we you know we
deserve that name because when we look at who makes the decision you know how resources are shared if Rob project is something that white people want in this town it would
have been established two three years ago what I don't get is people that look like me just keep silence and just act like you know let's be nice let's be peace how are we going
to have peace in this town or even trust when we are not you know being treated fairly and respected I mean Deb is an attorney come on now and then he will she you wrote a an
email to town manager and he didn't respond to you about the retreat and as I was listening to the retreat discussion it pained me that Town Council had their own Retreat and the town paid for the
refreshment and then when he came to cssj see Retreat you didn't get any response and I know there are some capable members of CSS JC uh like Pat Romney that is very good in um
facilitating meeting I know you guys have the resources to do that but that's not the point why treat CSS JC different you know from town councel I don't get it it's something that you know really bothered me a
lot I also want to thank um Phillip I've seen a huge difference since you came on board on Dei um thank you for the creative way we've been reaching out to the
community and groups that Paul Bachman has decided to IGN ignore and the Town Council have decided to ignore um and it's yielding result Thank You Phillip um I also appreciate uh p young for
reaching out to you know some folks too in the project that um Dr barabara Love is trying to do uh even with two member Department doing all the work you're doing if this were if this is a
department that serves white people you would have gotten four or even five or even sex staff you know um working at Dei my frustration is this in this town is that people are so afraid people want to cry
favor I don't get it you know we're suffering in this town and when I listen to the immigration discussion to be honest with you I am in immigrant community and I can tell you I can tell you right now nobody will call many
people will not call the police to talk about immigration they will not call Crest why would they do that when our town government doesn't even treat and respect you know uh marginalized people in this town we have upper upper funds
and it just went to the rich people okay come on Drake got $300,000 the rich get richer in this town they make all the decision um let me say this very bluntly
okay we do respect I I mean I served on cswg that was a joke committee human right commission is a joke this committee is a joke to Paul Bachman and to Town Council why do I say this
because of their inaction okay I just feel that CSS JC is a venue to vent you guys come up with great ideas but no
action because what our town government is trying to do is check off the box it hurts me that because you all are so smart wet red you know you know highly accomplished in your different
careers and once a month you come put on your time and everything and nothing happens something have to change honestly with the rck my thing is if it's not going to be
independent body I think people should rally in this town and resist and oppose it that should not be any Rob if it's not independent it would be a complete waste of time you don't want adversary Rob it's not going to
work and I can go on and on but it's just I appreciate you guys so much but I just feel that CSS JC is not accomplishing the vision that cswg had
this is not what with Deb you can you know be you know this is not what and that's why I left last year I did not reapply to continue and because it's like you know turning the way round and
around nothing is happening no action no nothing no nothing it pains me so much and there's so much our town could do and this is election year election have consequences and T council is already positioning themselves and as forward as
to what they're going to use for their campaign they they have money all of a sudden to do the roads they have money all of a sudden to uh to fix Banks Community Center because you know why people my age they vote consistently the elderly
population you know there their campaign stuff I'm done good night my venting uh venue every month I love you all thank you so much thank you miss pet yeah excuse me good uh evening this
is Lauren Mills from South amher I have a little cold I apologize um I just had a few um comments to make since I stayed on the meeting um I thought I should you
know share my my voice and thank you Miss Pat because I wasn't going to raise my hand and I didn't want to be the only one commenting at the end um but uh one of the questions that I had for the crest director is um who is giving Crest
the um description of what is happening on on a call is it the ab APD or is it um when you go to the call does somebody you know explain who is it that that gives you the description um and would it be possible
to include the time and location in the um captured information um because I think that's important information for the CSS JC to have um in your um update you mentioned
the Clark house the survival center and um a apartment complexes and these are all places where um homeless and lower income people
um you know reside or or you know are um in the the area of and so I just would like to know um how you can um again use the information from the location that
that you know that Chris has been um sent to to give us a better um idea and description of what you know is how how CH is being utilized um another thing that I want to say is that
um I believe that deescalation um is part of um cr's job and so uh reducing violence or uh uh reducing
the incidence of violence that may occur with um police officers it may still be under social services but I think it's a good um service that Crest is doing and
I as a community member um would really like to see um what this committee can do um continually continually um aside from what they're doing with the APD because I feel like
we could be more active on a community level um and that that would bring a a larger voice and I know you guys have done that work in the past but I just would hope that you would continue to do
that and I wanted to share that um in the amher rec meeting they um shared um that the um Amherst W is not using Youth
Empowerment to describe its youth uh programs they're using um the term youth Outreach programming and so I think again they're waiting on community members and a community organization to take up um
Youth Empowerment and I I just have a few other things to say I'm sorry if I sound very garly um also I I feel like the the $500,000 comes up again and
again um and I believe that it was returned back to free cash and I would just really urge that the CSS JC and um Our Town Council Members that would be supportive of um a Youth Empowerment
Center would uh lend their voices and step up um to bring that to the Town Council because I don't I don't hear it being presented in the Town Council and that's
why they feel that there is no um there is no need for it or there's no data to support it and and so those are just my thoughts um thank you very much for all you do thank you Lauren not seeing any new hands
just kidding here we go Brian everyone I want to thank you for all of your time and energy that's been going into pushing forward cswg recommendations Deborah I'm like so grateful for your advocacy to push
forward the resident oversight board and all of um the specific requirements that the cswg wanted to just make it independent and to make it powerful um something that I wanted to bring to you all's attention just hearing about Crest and hearing Crest in the community I
think that Crest has done I think Camille's done an incredible job building out Crest I do think a lot of community members are fearful to interact with Crest because of its close affiliations with the police and in your retreat um if you all have the time I would definitely look into exploring
what Crest would need to possibly have a community outreach manager or impact manager because Camille it seems like she's doing a lot she's doing these impact reports she's doing training supervision and it would be really nice to have somebody from the the Amor
Community to bridge that Gap and to really connect with people in the community who were afraid to call the police to call Crest because I think that's that's the Gap and it seems like M this is a possible solution around it given that dispatch is not giving calls
to Crest so I just wanted to throw that out there and thank you all for your advocacy and great work and I'm tuned in I'm supporting you all thank you thank you Brianna thank you [Music]
Brianna not seeing any new hands and seeing that it is the hour of 10 o'clock do we have a motion to adjourn do I can I just move to adjourn can I just adjourn we can just adjourn all right I'm GNA adjourn we are done it 10
o' thank you all for all this waiting through the weeds um I don't know if I have to pause the recording or stop it um I'm gonna stop it and then I'm gonna end the meeting good night everybody good seeing you all good
night good night