um all let's see oh where am I I apologize um all right so it is 632 and I will call this meeting to order this is the community safety and social justice committee it is Wednesday July 10th and it is 6:32 um I don't have the thing that I'm supposed to read but basically the thing that I'm supposed to read is about the acts the special acts of 2021 allowing us to conduct this meeting remotely there is no in-person attendance as we're are all remote um I don't remember what else I'm supposed to say but that's basically the gist of it um so I'll go over the agenda um so we're gonna move things around a little bit from what's posted um Chief Ting has joined us and we will have him here for about the first hour of the meeting um so first we'd like to hear from him wel well let's see welcome we did that announcements agenda review that's what we're doing now okay so then Chief Ting then we'll have public comment um and and then updates from the crest Department Dei Department updates about Resident oversight board Youth Empowerment then we will plan for the fall listening sessions and any other topics we didn't reasonably anticipate and then a second public comment period and adjourn um so that is the agenda here's Deborah um just want to make sure Deborah can you hear us all right can okay we can hear you and Lista um can you just say hello just to make sure we can hear you yes I perfect wonderful all right so everybody can hear and be heard we're all here um Deborah I was just saying Chief tting can only be here until about 7:30 so we'll have brief announce ments have him go then have public comment so the public can kind of hear what he's had to say and have a chance to respond to that the rest of the meeting and then additional public comment at the end well can we also do um member reports still before public comment yeah because I want to make sure to do updates and things like that yes all right um so any announcements okay um Deborah do you want to give your member report oh do you want me to do it now yeah we can do it now and then okay awesome ch um hello everybody um hi chiefting um yeah I just want to give an update from the last meeting um I think uh you all remember that at the last meeting I had um talked about the fact that I was being reappointed to the cssj um and that I was only on the cssc for one um term uh and so um kind of you know put out the information out there that I wasn't being reappointed and then the community um there was a lot of public comment about it in terms of supporting me and then obviously I contacted other uh folks in the community uh also had two articles in regards to it right questioning why it is that I wasn't being reappointed to the CSS JC given my track record the fact that you know I've dedicated my life to social justice uh Equity inclusion and um anti-racism so it was really kind of baffling to me as to why I wasn't being reappointed by the town manager um and so there was an article in the ERS Indy and then one in the Gazette um doing the questions and then I think there was others in the amersy too just kind of asking questions around you know Town committee and how Town committee uh members appointed and what's the rules and regs in regards to it I also did a public records request which I shared with a lot of um community members and the media um and you know I want to kind of thank everyone who um supported uh me in terms of this um and there were countless people that called the town manager met with him sent him emails um you know all sorts of different things which I really really appreciate and I'm happy to report that um the town manager did call me um and stated that he is going to be making a recommendation to the Town Council to reappoint me for the term and I'll be reappointed for three more years so I'm really excited about that um and I'll continue to do this work for you know um few more years I want to obviously thank the cssj you all were really wonderful and I'm really happy that obviously this group is very supportive um and that you know we see how critical this um this the work that we're doing you know why why we do the work right um and again you know I want to give a heartfelt thank you to the community um who like I said countless people and I'm not going to name people just because you know obviously then I'll forget someone and then someone will get upset so I'm not going to do that um but I do want to say the power of the collective voice right the power of the community the power of when it is that the community comes out and feels that you know something is important and comes together and communicates that and I really want to thank Paul bachan publicly for listening to the community and that's one of the things that he said when he U reconsidered was that he he said that the community had communicated with him and were telling him that he had made a mistake and that and he said that he listened to the community so I want to thank him publicly for listening to the community um because it's important that these voices are heard and that's why I'm on this committee right is to to be the voice um for those that that a lot of times can't speak in these feares for a variety of different reasons um and I want to continue to be that voice for as long as as I can be right um so I'm really excited to kind of you know be here and I want to just kind of say one thing as a reminder right um because I wrote it down as to why it is that we do that work which is to firm the town of ammer commitment to end structural racism and Achieve racial equity for black residence which was that that commitment that the town made right was adopted by the Town Council in December of 2020 so this is why we do the work that we do right it's because the town made a commitment and put out those words that I do not take lightly and the community does not take lightly and I know that we don't take lightly on this group right so I want to thank you all and of course I'm really excited about continuing to be proud of this group thank you Deborah that is excellent news to hear tonight um congrats thank you thank you are there any other updates before we move into our discussion with Chief Ting no okay so I think we wanted to invite you here um so that we as the community safety and social justice committee can kind of hear about what your vision is um for the amoris police department under new leadership and kind of think about how to forge a path forward working towards some of the goals that the cswg had laid out um in terms of both the police department and the alternative to police to see kind of how how ammer Police Department can support the work of Crest and how you and um Miss theak can work together so that was kind of Our intention in inviting you here um so I don't know if you want to speak a little bit and then we can sure questions can I can I say something before he starts yes please everal um so chiefting thank you for coming welcome and congratulations on your appointment I don't think I saw you since um you're made Chief and it is a great accomplishment you've been with the police department for 27 years so appreciate it um I know you and your family very excited um something that you've worked for your whole life and that should be um acknowledged so congrats on that um and as much as not everyone was happy with your appointment and again one of the reasons we wanted to have you here is for you to um talk to some of the people that may not be um excited about you being Chief where there is some concerns that the policies are just going to be continued from the previous administration so to speak and but you know I I met with your interview and I know that you very clearly pointed out that you know you had a boss and so now that you're the boss I think it's a perfect opportunity for you to align a vision that um to de's earlier Point um racial Harmony in with the town and I think the police department is a big part of that so again um congratulations it's a great achievement and welcome and um talk to the public um talk to the people that sometimes often feel overlooked by the police or not treated properly by the police thank you so much I really appreciate it and I appreciate everybody for uh inviting me into your meeting uh to meet everybody and to give me an opportunity to kind of speak to you folks and and everybody else in the community to kind of talk about what they am Police Department uh is all about and really what my vision for the police department is and um certainly the committee had posed certain questions that they wanted uh specific answers to and the first one was uh working with the CSS JC and the HRC other social justice focus groups and committees in ammer to make ammer a more inclusive safe and Equitable place to live and Thrive so it troubles me tremendously when I hear that members of our community are not comfortable in in our town Amber has always been a very inclusive area for everyone and this is the aim that we have at the Amber Police Department we want to be seen as an agency that works for everyone without bias you know with that being said you know we feel like we as as an agency and as a 46 member Department we are part of this community uh we don't want to be an outside entity we don't want to be an entity that's just viewed as authoritarian um to be honest with you in our interview process I think I mentioned to you that I don't even really like the the terminology of law enforcement because really that's just a fraction of what we do and law enforcement within itself is something that is a means to solve a problem but that's not really what our Police Department is about our Police Department is about Community caretaking it's about being a part of the community and trying to find solutions to problems um and unfortunately you know certainly there there's a lot of perceptions out there and there's a lot of um things that happen on the national and state level that sometimes permeate into the local level and it gets a little bit cloudy and certainly we want to be as transparent as possible and to be able to work with every group within town to try and eliminate some of those problems and I think we have a unique opportunity right now certainly because we have a lot of a lot of new leadership in town certainly we have Camille from the crest department and I'm so glad that she's here uh we've already developed a really strong relationship and a very close collaboration uh to support each other because I think Crest is important in the town of amers soon enough we're going to have a new fire chief um there's also a new Finance director new communications director there's just this is an opportunity for all of us to kind of harness at this point in time to try and make things better for our town so if I go ahead ever and then I'll I'll jump in after you okay so if I may POS a question um one of the things that I learned during this process was that um the police department is a sector policing model and can you talk about that and help people understand what that means and why that is I sure k so sector-based policing we the foundation of our Police Department really is is community policing and problem oriented um really problem solving um so the way that we structure our Police Department so community policing really is what that means is is being really proactive not only to solve crimes but also to try and prevent crimes you know that's the essence of community policing when I say community policing that involves everybody you know when there's a crime or there's an issue that happens in town that's not just it shouldn't just be the the problem of the police department that's a community problem so we try and share and include everybody that might be affected to try and come up with Solutions and that's really what these Partnerships are all about something that I feel that that has been lacking with APD is having those deeper connections and I've learned over the years that those connections aren't going to come to us and that's something that we have to reach out and Foster um those lines of communications is hopefully going to develop more information more strategies to try and figure out where we need to be in this town uh so community policing really is about proactivity and prevention of crime before it really happens so the reason why we have sector-based policing is because in the past uh the town has broken up into three sectors North Center and South in the past you know when we made assignments for our officers it would just be different every day and it was just random that didn't really make sense to us because if you are a Community member and you need to report a crime or an issue to a particular officer the old system you would speak to a different officer every single day so there was Zero consistency what we wanted was some more consistency where our officers are married to a specific sector so then the people that live in that area know that they can go to officer Smith and speak to that person and tomorrow officer Smith will be there again so that familiarity and that consistency is what we were looking for and that's what we mean by sector-based policing hopefully that answers your question but what what do you say to people though that think that and while I understand you're rationale but you know the town has evolved the town has changed population has changed and what do you say to people that may feel that neighborhoods that have more minorities are being more police than other neighborhoods yeah that's an unfortunate perception and and I've heard that before and I've to taken a good look at our data uh to try and see is that the case um you know from my experience you know a lot of our bipa community live in apartment complexes within Town um our neighborhoods are pretty spread out otherwise and a lot of our calls for service are concentrated within the apartment complexes so you'll see a lot of activity there because we're getting called upon there um and in many instances if you were if we to try and break down those stats you'll see that a lot of those calls are from repeated repeated apartment complexes so it isn't the whole complex itself but it might be from specific areas so what I mean by community policing and community inv involement we've seen that from many other complexes uh that we've collaborated with that have made a lot of changes for example um when I was a young patrolman to a sergeant we uh spent a lot of time at mil Valley Apartments we spent a lot of time at Gate House Apartments um we spent a lot of time at South Point which is now changed and the management did a really good job in trying to figure out hey what what are the solutions to try and make these apartment complexes a little bit better uh so they employed a lot of different resources they spent money on cameras camera systems they hired security guards uh better screening of tenants uh coming in and now mil Valley as an example we hardly ever go there at all you know rarely do we go there for any calls so there isn't a need to patrol there as much so when we do Patrol a specific area it's for for a reason because we know that a particular apartment has specific problems or there might have been a break in there or something along those lines so we're going to give a little more attention to that specific area and unfortunately the perception is is that we're targeting BYO members in reality that's just not the case so I ask one more question before I let you go de so what can the police do and and what plans do you have to change that perception so I I do recognize that that's a negative perception for us and I do want to try and eliminate that you know in the future what I tried to plan on doing we're we're replenishing our troops we're we're down a significant number of officers so we're trying to replenish that it takes time through the recruitment process and as well as the training process to get them up to speed so what my vision is is I would like to have more liaison officers to be able to coordin with our sector officers and specific apartment complexes that way we have a direct conduit with management and hopefully we can develop communication and more um friends with the residents therefore we are going to learn a little bit more about what's going on within the apartment complexes instead of waiting for a call and that way that one designated officer can try and mitigate some of those problems instead of having more Patrols in that particular area so that's something that I'm really going to focus on uh we do have a neighborhood liaison officer that officer bill larmy is specific to town gown issues with the university and he has made tremendous strides in terms of our relationship with the college population and our relationship with the university to try and mitigate uh quality of life issues so we've seen the power of Outreach and having those type of collaborative relationships and I think we can use that model to try and mirror it with complexes and neighborhoods within our town instead of just concentrating on college kids I know I said one last question um I promise this is the last one how does so how does Crest fit into um this model of fears to change perception because one of the big things about Crest is meant to be an alternative to certain police functions not to replace but there's some things that Crest can do so given that you understand this perception and we now have this um Department that is meant to do alternative policing how does Crest fit into um that process that you just talked about they absolutely fit into that process you know I I'll give you an example in in in this particular family in town um there was a family in town and and some folks on this panel are probably familiar with this particular story um this particular person in town was very prominent um worked in our school systems and um and unfortunately he's he was he was ill and his family members had a hard time caring for him and so they have reached out to look for assistance assistance in helping for care for this individual and even getting rides and medications and press came along this is something that we don't have the the resources of the manpower to divert that kind of attention Prest came in and assisted that family tremendously to give them that support you know even if it was aide to the doctor's office or to make sure the medications were right you know so that's something that that they were able to do and that's just a snippet of what they do um to try and incorporate that customer service that's desperately needed in the town um and that's something that unfortunately we know we don't necessarily have the resources for and Crest does uh so they can be incorporated in many other ways and certainly when we discover what issues there are within these apartment complexes doesn't necessarily need to have a police officer deal with it you know it could certainly be a Crest member to come in and help mitigate whatever problem it is thank you Chief thank you Deborah you're no no worries that's why we're here as his questions so um hi Chief I want to you know obviously welcome you um and thank you for uh meeting with us I was glad to hear that you were willing to to meet with CSS JC and I'm hoping that this will be a continual relationship and a continual conversation um because unfortunately I know as as you said that there's this perception but unfortunately because I was on the community safety and working group and remember we did work with the Seventh Generation Collective who ended up doing a variety of different um you know focus groups and also Gathering a data right from people who uh reported around the APD and of course we're talking 2020 2021 right however we're also talking since then so community members come and and talk to me but that data really focused on on saying a lot around what the fear and the intimidation and a lot of retaliation that they felt um from the APD and a lot of times Folk on young people right and young people who are bipar people and and and really kind of you know whenever there were incidents in town whenever any type of Suspicion would occur the the bipar youth would be the ones that would first be um questioned by the police as opposed to uh other youth that would be there whenever there's stops in town and we we we held Town forums you know in cswg and also in cssj and we heard stories over and over again again when there would be stops and if it was a a black um um driver how they would be um you know kind of dealt with by the police and then if it was a white driver what would happen right or even sometimes when it was a white driver but there was black kids in the car it would be the black kids who would get kind of you know um dealt with negatively as opposed to the actual driver of the a car who was you know the White driver so you know we heard you know countless stories over and over again and so for us it's important for us to have this continual conversation right because I heard you I was there at your um talk when you you know were answering questions and you said that you were going to be a different Chief and I'm I'm going to hold you to that right that this is a new day this is going to be a new APD and obviously I am all about that I'm all about and so I want to I want us I want cssj and APD to have this type of Frank honest discussion and be able to have these types of conversations right um and like I said for it to be a continual conversation so for me I guess like some of the questions that I have is one one would be to kind of like kind of talk a little bit around your response for the sector based policing because like I said Seventh Generation Collective did do some work for us and really looked at a lot of the data again 2019 you know 2018 2020 some of the data did did not equate what you are saying right now so it wasn't just Impressions it was actually the data basically confirmed that based on your sector-based policing you were over policing APD was not you personally I'm saying APD over policing the data actually showcased so if you go to the Seventh Generation Collective report they broke it down where they actually showed that a lot of the sector based policing was really more so over policing of those communities where it was lowincome and more bip Park people that lived in the the apartment complexes and what I mean about that is that there was police there when there wasn't any calls right so the calls were few and far between really they were there because they were monitoring and policing and then they were intervening right and then when you compared it to other communities that were like in Amis woods and other more affluent communities the data was a very different and told a very different story so I I don't know if things have changed I will be happy if they have and so one of my questions would be um not not questions but I guess one of my requests would be if you would be willing to share some data to actually showcase that that's no longer what's happening because like I said if you go to the Seventh Generation Collective report that is what was happening happening you know and and that's why we made a lot of the recommendations we made right in the cswg in terms of Crest and other recommendations that we made because we were very concerned and very disturbed by the sector-based policing that was called community policing but really was over policing and not this kind of community policing um kind of um description that you've shared with us here today I hope that that's where things are are you know and that actually the police are building relations in the community but in a way that's more kind of like interactive as opposed to you know monitoring and being there to you know kind of the gotcha and Catcher Type of situation especially in terms of these neighborhoods that are are you know bipar heavy and lowincome heavy so I wanted to ask you that question and then I have two more also after that if you could kind of talk a little bit about that sure so you used uh AMS Woods as an example right and and you're correct we don't police are that often because again we don't get called for for services there so it's again we're problem oriented so if there's no problems there then we're not really going to spend a lot of time there you know we only have three patrolman on on each shift so each call that comes in that has any severity requires two officers so we get used up really quickly so for us to to sit there in areas that don't really have any problems we're not going to spend a lot of time there however recently you know we did get a um we uh there's a a neighborhood that in within amris woods and basically they signed a petition for particular stop sign and speeding enforcement traffic uh enforcement is one of probably the biggest complaint that we get across town across every neighborhood and so we did spend a lot of time in ammer WS we conducted a traffic study and when the when the officers had off time they analyzed how many stops that they had they tried to figure out you know where the violators were coming from is it people cutting through is it people from their own neighborhood so we can try and figure out you know who's committing the these traffic offenses so you'll see a lot more calls within the past year as at Amis Woods because there was a specific problem there and so again you know unfortunately um I haven't seen that study that you're talking about so I I really can't speak in terms of what statistics were presented there uh I'll be happy to take a look at that at some point but I have no idea what that contains so I I can't really speak upon that so to further uh you talked a little bit about uh our interaction with the youth and you know I don't know if if you're aware I'm sure you are you're from this town one of the biggest challenges that we've had is breaking in in terms of having collaborations with the school you know and that's very important to me I've spoken about that in the past because I grew up in this town I'm a member of the bipa community that was me when I was growing up and I had my own personal interactions with APD officers as well um so I have that perspective from both views so from a police department standpoint one of the foundations that I want to impress upon is having that Sol relationship with the youth you know and we're making extremely uh great strides in terms of building that Foundation through a lot of lot of our programs you know we have an after school program that we collaborate with which is called vea steps to success morning movement uh Unity basketball The Rise program we have an Adventure Academy for kids in town we have a fishing derby we utilize our ropes course for different groups um we sponsored a class through ancestral Bridges um and we collaborate with with the university and Mer College to try and have collaboration so we can gain some more perspective with the youth in our town and I truly believe that if we have a good relationship with the youth in our town if we do end up pulling over one of these young ladies or men that we know it's going to eliminate a lot of those barriers that you're talking about you know because we are going to know who these kids are they're going to know who we are um and that's really what we're trying to build here so I hear you and and I understand that perception we're trying to erase that so I what I'll do then is I'm I'm going to for to you you know after the meeting Maybe not today but let's say tomorrow a copy of the Seventh Generation Um you know Collective report so that you have that so that you can review that and then what would be helpful would be you know based on the data that they provided us if you would be willing to provide data in terms of what is occurring now because according to what you're saying basically you all are just going in the communities based on you know calls whereas like I said the the the data that we had analyzed previously when I was on cswg was that there was a lot of Poli policing and monitoring happening without calls without problems actually occurring in those in those communities and therefore you know that's where the problem lies and that's why a lot of people in those communities were feeling very intimidated and scared be monitor you're probably right you know we have these what we call it is Security checks right and so you know for example at the beginning especially on the midnight to8 shift you know at the beginning of the shift we ask our officers to do a perimeter check of their particular sector so they can kind of familiarize themselves right off the bat to see what's going on especially in their business district especially in concentrated areas so then therefore if they roll through there three or four hours later and they can see changes you know so that that is part of sector-based policing we do call that security checks the measure is meant for Goodwill and unfortunately you know it's perceived as as negative and so that's something we can certainly examine and take a look at so I hear what you're saying yeah and then I'm I'm glad to hear that you all are um you know interacting more with the youth in terms of getting to know them um you know hopefully it is in terms of getting to know them in ways especially our bipar youth in ways that is not you know kind of threatening and intimidating because because of things that we keep on hearing so that they will be you know different relations with the APD because you know a lot of times when it is a white youth it's kind of like a pat on the hand okay well you know it's okay which is really what you're supposed to do right with young people young people are going through development they make mistakes that's what happens so I'm glad that you all are dealing with young white youth as youth right and saying hey you made a mistake so I'm not going to you know bring you in I'm not going to do this and that but the thing is that we want that too for our bipac youth right the same relationship that you all are having with the white youth we want it with the bipo youth we want it with the youth that English is not their first language we want it with the youth that is lwi income and so on so forth and struggling right the youth that are marginalized that are not you know part of the you know mainstream town we want those types of relationships you know with the youth youth that are having mental health issues so on so forth it are the ones that we want you all to know hey Crest need to be called for those you know what I'm saying as opposed to you know the police you know engaging in and those types of situations which makes me kind of seg to that a little bit um you know with Crest I I do know that you said that you know Crest is being called in and I'm happy to hear that you and Camille are are having a great you know kind of working relationship and figuring things out but I wanted to ask you you know one of the things that has been really difficult has been around the dispatch right which I know the dispatch is under your purview so I wanted to kind of get a sense from you where are things at to make sure that you know the the correct calls are being dispatched um to Crest and then other calls to APD and for me um like I said I was on the original group CS cswg where we make the recommendations basically you said anything that did not involve violence or or a serious criminal behavior and that's right in the report should be uh going to Crest so I wanted to see what your um kind of take is on on where things are at with that so there's there's a lot of variables that come into play uh you know first and foremost you know unfortunately when a call comes in it's never what it it necessarily is a caller may call something in and unfortunately the only constant in policing is is the the unknown um so when a caller calls in we never we're never quite sure exactly what it is sometimes it is what it is and sometimes it isn't uh so we have to prepare for all contingencies so when I say variables there were a lot of variables a lot of hurdles that that press and the police department had to kind of jump through to get to where we are today you know first first for example um you know it's a change in working conditions when you have a separate agency and when that separate agency comes in and the work that they do is is a difference from the work that you used to do so certainly the unions get involved um so there were the patrolman's Union there was the SEIU union there was the supervisor's Union for the police department and that was a Hurd that we need to to get across and we were we were able to make strides with those uh unions to make sure that we have a strong relationship with Crest so now that that piece is done um the next piece is policies and procedures we have to operate under with policies and procedures simply because with every call that goes through there's really two prongs that we need to satisfy and those two prongs are safety and liability so safety is Paramount and that's the first step so with any call that comes through we have to determine is there a safety aspect so you are saying you know non-violent calls that's the thing is we don't necessarily know if it's nonviolent you know we need to be able to vet out that safety aspect once that aspect is done now we focus on the liability aspect the liability aspect is making sure that whatever the problem is is at the very Le solved at that moment you know and it may not necessarily be solved at that moment we may have to incorporate a different agency or other resources to try and figure out that problem unfortunately the police department you know and I hate to phrase it in this way but with most situations we are just a temporary solution you know we are not a a fix all type of uh entity you know our job is to make sure that we can pass this problem on to somewhere else that has the resources you know if it's a mental health issue perhaps the hospitals are need to get involved you know if it's another issue that the courts might be able to get involved you know and certainly this is where Crest plays a role you know because they have resources that we don't necessarily have yeah and I get that I mean I I understand obviously you know I can't purport to to to say that the you know the seriousness of the work and the risk that you are involved in right that's something that is beyond my comprehension a lot of times however you know and we are being kind of patient in terms of seeing how these things are going to be figured out right because the point of the matter is is that you know there's always going to be variables right but there's going to be certain calls that is going to say okay well this is what it's you know it's a noise complaint or is a or it's a you know kind of like nuisance call or it's a this or to that that there will be certain enough facts to to be able to say Hey you know this is a situation where Crest needs to go you know needs to to be dispatched to as opposed to the police I mean you know there could always be an option for the crest to ask for backup from the police or to ask for assistance or something like that you know what I'm saying but my thing is yeah it's kind if I can answer that real quickly Miss F so and um you know you wanted me to be 100% honest I'm trying to do that so you know another one of the hurdles that we had was that you know initially you know we were under the we were under the impression that you know that the idea of Crest was to be entirely separated so we had said from the from the beginning as a police department we are willing to support press we're willing for co-response we want to be involved but we were we were consistently told nope it needs to be 100% separated separate Dispatch Center separate building separate vehicles separate uh data mining separate reporting systems separate everything so that kind of stonewalled us in terms of okay so where do we stand in terms of the conversation of collaboration because I'm I'm here to tell you we are 100% committed to make sure Crest is successful and that Crest is a part of this community and sustained um and we want to do that and that's part of our conversations is can we have some type of response where you know there's a warm handoff if we decide hey you know this is probably better for cres but we eliminate that safety issue and let's let Crest handle it from this point on or if Crest can say hey wait a second there's some dangers here and this probably isn't our realm let's make sure the police department handles it and we are willing to have those conversations and again that's why I'm glad Camille is here is because with the old Administration we've been waiting for policies and procedures to be developed and they were never fruitful so now Camille is here and we're almost we're right there the the policies and procedures have been developed they need to be reviewed and FedEd out and make sure that we can come up with solutions to that type of warm handoff that you're talking about so we are absolutely open to all of that yeah yeah I mean yeah as you said right that the the vision was always to have a separate entity you know to you know make sure that there was a separate space I think the dispatch though was something that we knew that most likely was going to be you know start out in the police and then you know maybe eventually whatever Crest could have its own dispatch I don't know but there would always be a phone number for Crest though too right so that people can contact Crest and everything um I don't know if I would go so far as a co-response you know I would like you said possibly like either Crest would go out or the police would go out if violence but then the police would notice that obviously there was it's not a violent situation it's actually a mental health or an unhealth situation and then Crest would be you know called in and everything or vice vers or vice versa right shows up and then they need assistance from the police and yeah we we always envisioned that type of collaboration the thing is that yeah there has to be that good faith right so why I'm glad we're that's why I'm glad we're having this conversation because you know like I said part of those were you know we tread we tried to tread lightly because we didn't want to offend anybody we didn't want to we don't want to come off as if we don't want this to happen we don't want it to appear that you know that we're trying to sabotage Christ we're not uh so we were really careful because we don't want to be intrusive for anyone in the in the public to think oh the police is trying to take over we're not you know that's that's the Mantra that we had heard that's that's what we were hearing that everything needed to be separate sear at so we're trying to be careful with that and relative to the Dispatch Center you know they fall under a different Union although they fall under our purview it's still a little bit separated and I think their biggest concern was again the liability aspect because if they send somebody who a call where there's no specific policies and procedures that outlines it and something goes wrong and somebody gets hurt then they're potentially liable because they could have sent the police if it was a dangerous call and they didn't so those are some of the hurdles that that behind the scenes we're truly working on to try and make sure that we can get the correct calls out there good and then lastly because I know I'm sure others have other questions and so even though I I have a ton of questions but I'll limit myself um and I know you have to go soon but hopefully you'll come back again you know to also kind of first continue this conversation but my my kind of last question because I'm sure others will ask other questions that I have to which is you know one of the main things when I was doing the work on cswg and then also now on CSS JC is around making sure that that the police and that's part of our part B recommendations for CS WG which was for the police to be actively anti-racist right which is a which is a culture that it's not just kind of like saying that it's colorblind or just acknowledging that there's race but actually analyzing you know seeing where you know the culture is racist and where the culture is white supremist and white privilege and all of those things to actually actively tackle it right and so it's not just training every once in a while or the training because I know you all go through a lot of training that the state asks you all to to train and then includes you know bias training and so on so forth it's actually a way of of being right where you're being actively anti-racist and and and promoting a culture of anti-racism so I wanted to ask you you know where are you at because obviously now you're the the new Chief you set the goal and you set the standard right in terms of what it is that you want the APD to be about so I wanted to know if that's something that you've already started to promote since you're the new Chief absolutely you know I I've always felt that we have a pretty strong checks and balances within our Police Department I've already implemented a new system um a new reporting system and so basically all of our reports and all of our in incidents and anything that our police officers encounter it goes through a series of checks and balances that goes all the way from Sergeant to Lieutenant to detectives all the way up to the captains and the chief uh that way everybody gets eyes on it to be able to take a look at the incidents and take a look at what the officers are doing out there to make sure that we are doing what we're supposed to be doing doing um you know and again perception is King right you know for me you know again I grew up in this town I've experienced my share of racism you know I didn't grow up with money you know I came from very humble humble beginnings and as well as my family we worked our way up to this point I'm very fortunate to be in this position to be honest with you I never thought I'd be in this position and I'm very very lucky to be here and I think I can make a change um and that's why I'm happy that that I got selected over the other person because I've been invested in this community for longer than just 27 years my whole life um so with that being said if there is an inkling of racism you know within our department and again I'm not trying to Discount anybody else's perception and I get it but if there was any racism in this department we would not tolerate that you know we would get rid of any type of any officers that was racist or any type of inkling of racism within our police department and I know that may sound empty but truly that's my aim and I certainly would not put up with it and I know that the officers here that we currently have would not put up with it either they actually police themselves very much so um with that being said you know when I was talking about my vision of having stronger collaborations with apartment complexes with neighbor neighborhoods where there's more bipo communities again we're trying to make friends the more friends we can make the more they can understand where we're coming from we can understand where they're coming from it's a matter of meshing that together the more relationships we can build upon then the stronger it's going to be when an incident happens there's more understanding instead of this US versus them type of mentality I'm trying to erase that we are one community and I want us to be one Community not disra uh just that's just the police department they go call to call we want we I want to be a part of this community and that's what I'm trying to build set I don't know if you all have some questions Lissette did you have any questions you wanted to ask hi Chief Tang um thank you for coming thanks for having me thank you um you express yourself very well so I really appreciate that um but I did kind of have a few comments and questions the youth programs how are these being sorry how are these being marketed out into the community like flyers social media and is it being done in in various languages uh most of these programs are word of mouth and most of these programs are centered around around the bipa community um a lot of them are pilot programs to see if they work and they've been growing so for example the mo morning movement program has become so popular and successful that there's now a waiting list of kids trying to sign on I don't know if you're familiar with that program um I'm not so what it is is as as you may or may not know the ammer middle school and the high school kids they go to school a little bit later they start school at 9 9:00 a.m. versus other school distri districts because Studies have shown that that kids of that age need more sleep and so that gives them that opportunity to go to school a little bit later so with that extra hours from 7 o'clock to 9:00 in the morning you know this program was developed to have some of the some of the marginalized kids who may not have other opportunities to play sports or to do other activities to come in and play basketball and lift weights and collaborate with other school um officials as well as members from the police department we incorporate members from the University especially from their sports teams as well as ammer college and it's developed into a little bit of a mentorship and what has happened was uh most recently we had a meeting with the school committee because we're trying to further this program and look for some further funding because it's growing so much and we had testimony from the parents and the kids that were involved in how much this program has changed their lives and many anyways you know number one the kids they look forward to it so they go to bed earlier they get their schoolwork done you know it's incentive for them so the parents are thankful hey they're getting on track and it's because of this program something they they want to do it's also eliminating a lot of barriers between the perception of police officers just being out there to get them and that's just not the truth so we've developed relationships to the point where when I see them on the street I know them by name they know me by name you know and I know it works I know it works because we invited uh a group of these uh kids to come and work out with our officers in our police department and the very next day I ran into one of them and they were walking to uh the dining comments and there was like three of them so I pulled over I said hello to them and I offered them a ride and then I learned that they play lacrosse on on the uh high school team my son plays lacrosse and belra town and then a couple days later they played against each other and we just had this really nice collaboration with all these little connections and it truly works it truly works so you know these are some of the things that we're doing we're not marketing it it's it's it's mostly word of mouth and we're looking for uh kids that really need it so that's pretty much what we've been doing oh thank you for explaining that no problem um something I I actually do not know what an officer liaison is so an officer liaison is it's just it's just a a conduit so for example our neighborhood liaison officer bill laramy so he deals with all Town gown issues what what does that mean so that means anytime when there's um we have quality of life issues when we're dealing with college students so he is the point person that's what I mean by liaison we have one particular person for one particular area so that way there's consistency so everybody knows if there's a particular problem with let's say the fraternities they're gonna go and see Bill larmy about it and that's what I mean about having a liaison okay uh is there a liaison with like mental health uh well yes or no we have we have a Cit team which is this a crisis intervention team so when we deal with uh people who have mental health issues our team will actually follow up on them and after whatever incident happened to check up on them and see if they need additional resources we also do have uh clinicians that work in house they are they are paid they are paid for by CSO so they're not employed by us um but we give them the space in our police station so they respond with our officers to deal with certain mental health issues that way it's more out of convenience so if we need a clinician instead of calling for one they're already right there and they can deal with the issue right from the GetGo so we do have not a designated liaison but we do have officers that specialize in that and certainly there's there's room for Crest to handle a lot of those as well okay um yeah I think a lot of my question were actually asked by other members of the um the board um but pretty much you know as things came up and conversations were held one of my questions was how is because it sounds like a lot of the plans that you have for the community um are things that I think press was in created and intended to do so if you the ammer police department is planning on doing that then what would be the point and rle of Crest I I don't see why we can't both do it you know again we're trying to build relationships and um you know some people feel more comfortable with Crest and some are fine with the police we want to be able to give the community that option um and that's kind of how I see it you know and and to be honest with you we we kind of fit in different roles but really dealing with the same type of uh problems and with the same client tell certainly so I don't see why we can't kind of share that together right that's it thank you thank you I had one question or I think we have time for one question from me um so Deborah had referenced Part B of the cswg reports and some of that was the leap report that had gone over some of the policies and made some policy recommendations to change or review policies for so some of them were like pre-ex stops consent searches Rie the use of force policy and I was just wondering if that's a process that has been started now that you're at the helm or absolutely so to answer that question I know the use of force we are actually currently rewriting that it's not so much rewrite um you know as you as you may or may not we're in a credit Ed agency so it's Massachusetts police accreditation commission that gives us that that accreditation status and what that is is every three years uh basically there's a set of standards that we have to adhere to from the Mass police accreditation committee and those standards have to we have to show compliance to show that we are doing what we say that we're doing so every three years there is a an assessment where they bring in folks from from their organiz ganization and they basically dissect all of our policies and procedures and they take a look at all of our compliance to see if our standards are met with their commission to be able to give us that accreditation status so they had just they had just recently come out with a new addition with their standards and what that new addition is there's certain language that needs to be added because of police reform so they want to make sure that in your use of force policy that you have specific language that's included in your policy and that language is adhere to with Mass police accreditation uh also with the Mass police training Council and certainly with the legislator so that is being worked on but it's just minor tweaks so in terms of consent searches so we do have that in our policy but that's frowned upon and rarely do we ever use it we only use it for exent circumstances and mostly because you know it's still on the books but in our court system in in our area that's certainly frowned upon and we don't agree with it you know we're not out here we're not we're not on fishing expeditions to just ask for people for consent when we know that if a police officer is asking for consent as a general citizen you're not sure if you can say no or not you know and we understand that and that's not our Aim so we generally do not do consent searches but it's still there if there's an exent circumstance and we need it um but it's rarely used for uh preex stops and racial profiling that is absolutely prohibited and that's right within our policies and procedure in fact we have a bias policing policy and procedure that outlines all of that and it prohibits it so yes we have uh we have that in place thank you so it looks like it's 7:31 I just want to be respect F of your time um and I have a few minutes any other questions I don't want to leave anyone out if I can have a followup to um actually it's a followup from Deborah and algra's question so with you with the use of force policy what I've seen um with the the Mass state police if if they charge a person um and the use of force was and they use Force um when they turn over paperwork to um the prosecutors that essentially has to give a copy to the defense attorneys um included is a narrative of the use of force that cites the policy um the question is does amher PD have that standing policy that if an officer uses Force then they provide that narrative and site the policy that automatically gives that information to a person's defense attorney so they can review that in protection of um the person who's charged and my second question is one of the things that um you know I appreciate that the police department wants to be transparent um but one of the things that makes people comfortable with transparency is that there's something that can point to so what is 's policy about mandating body cams um with every stop that is done that every officer while on patrol has to wear body cameras and they must be active at all times when they're encountering anyone that they stop or come in contact with so to try and answer your I think you have two questions there so the first question is do we do we automatically whenever we criminally charge somebody uh where there's Force use do we provide our use of force policy so the answer is no yes that's not within our policy and the reason why is because that's a public record so defense attorney that wants to obtain that that's very easy to get uh and if they request it we'll be more than happy to give it to them it's never requested you know because they can find that themselves we have that online right on our website so that's easy to obtain uh that's the reason why we don't apply that uh but we certainly could uh that just hasn't really been an issue with the defense attorney so we haven't visited that and your second question in relative to body camera so we don't have body cameras so the only cameras that we have is our Cruiser cameras uh so on any car stop that Cruiser camera as soon as the lights turn on the camera start to record and that's by audio and visual um but in terms of body cameras we don't have any so that so I can tell you as a defense attorney that watching body cameras doesn't always does justice as to exactly what's transp in and I believe I believe in previous Chief's exit interview he advocated for body cameras and I think you requested money for that to be in the budget um so as a new Chief would you support a budget that meant you know that ask for the town to supply body cameras for the Department I would if the community supported it you know I'm off for body cameras for transparency and I agree with you you know just a video alone doesn't tell the whole story um there's a lot of factors that come into play to uh illustrate a particular incident uh however with that being said you know there there's a lot of factors for um people who want or don't want body cameras I fully support it but if the community doesn't want it then that's some we we try to police our community the way that our community wants us to be policed right uh so that's the way that I'm kind of looking at it if the community says no we don't want our police to have body cameras then that's something I won't pursue um but if it's something that the the community says yeah you know we want that transparency then by all means we will pursue that yeah I think yeah I think the more transparency the better um in terms of and that would also be able to kind of be more Vigilant in terms of what the police are doing it's not just to have a record to see what they're doing but also they'll kind of be more preemptive in terms of their behavior and how are they going to interact with someone if they have body cam on them you know what I'm saying so for me it's just like if there's the funding and if the previous Chief like eal said um had kind of stated that you know that would be something that you know you all would be supportive of moving forward um I think that would be something that um you know those that get most impacted by the police would actually advocate for sure I think that lends for a further discussion to find out if the community if that's something that the community either wants or would accept um again we don't want to to implement something that the community doesn't want um so more discussions on that certainly I would think and then let me just um say one comment in terms of lett's um um point that she made at the end which I thought was a very good one which is and I hear what you're saying in terms of well can't C and the police do both you know do both of them kind of share those types of things I mean I still think though and that's why I was just like you know co-response I'm not really in favor of a co-response between the police and Crest um I still feel that Cress and the police have very separate Lanes you know what I'm saying but they can do kind of like I said the kind of warm hand off and things like that and so I do think that you know as the time continues to go and that's why even though we wanted things already in place yesterday just because the recommendations that we made were back in 2021 and we're in 2024 right um but we we do want to make sure that you know these types of processes I'm happy to hear that there's processes being put in place that these processes you know happen more quickly than not so that there is that kind of like okay Crest is this alternative right to policing because a lot of people don't want you know to have that interaction with an armed police you know what I'm saying because you all do have you know weapons and things like that you all do have arresting powers you all do have those types of other aspects that really intimidate someone and so they'd rather right if they're going through some type of Crisis you know have that kind of um first interaction with Crest and I think like even you know when we was with cswg we met with the police the den police twice with the with living and the captains and a lot of them were saying that the police are are doing a lot of other things that they didn't used to do let's say 30 years ago or something like that right and so Crest I think yeah so I think Crest is actually here to um you know Supply a service right that the police wouldn't have the the the the capacity to do one you know the the or the knowhow and the knowledge because it's a separate kind of bucket to kind of deal with you know so um so I wanted to make that statement then lastly what is your kind of um support in terms of the resident oversight board that was also something that we recommended back in 2021 and unfortunately there's been a lot of delay delay delay for the past few years and that's still not on board so I just wanted to kind of get your take on whether you are supportive of it because this is something that the community wants the community has spoken a variety of times on but yet it's still not in place so just to uh kind of uh touch upon some of the things that you said you know in terms of um um so the resident oversight board that I don't I don't really know where that is you know I think I've told you before that I am in support of that and I certainly am and uh I don't know where that is I mean that's not something that that we were coordinating from the police department so it I have no idea where where that stands but you are supportive of it though if it does come about to to the establishment of a resident oversight board absolutely we need Community involvement to be able to have a voice um you know in all of our activities and you know I understand your charge a CSS JC's charge is to improve the town in certain terms of of social justice and in terms of racial equity and I guess what I would ask for a resident oversight board is for that to be townwide um you know I think there needs to be oversight in every agency you know because there are problems and there's racial equity and systemic racism in every single entity within the town so I certainly support that oversight you know that's something that I welcome yeah and I don't know if you had any thoughts in terms of what I had said um initially which was just in terms of like obviously Crest and and APD having their lanes and things like that so there are models out there from other communities that have what they call is a tiered response so in dependent on so for example instead of having uh a total separation which I don't think we really have a total separation because right now we are still collaborating with each other if you have a tiered response you know there's certain policies that would dictate if a call comes out and it has these parameters right you may only send a Crest member or you may only send a police officer or you may send both and then when both go there depending on what develops then you make that determination of which one breaks off you know so there are models that have tiered response and that's something I think that uh can be looked at to see if it's an option and if it if it if it's something that might work great if it doesn't work we go right back to the drawing board but we will make something work so I'm confident of that right thank you any other questions maybe we can hear from the public well I don't know if yeah Al we can't hear you I mean we're going to do a public comment um but I don't know if the chief wants to stay to kind of hear from the public when they do when we do the public comment because at this point that's what we're going to do open it up I would love to but I got to go um so this is recorded am I correct so I would love to hear what the public has to say so I can review that afterwards okay great thank you for coming thank you Chief I really appreciate you coming out and like I said um you know we'll be inviting you uh more times to come over and uh talk with us I appreciate it I certainly do and I I enjoy the conversation so thank you very much than thank you Chief have a great night thank you Camille bye everyone bye bye bye um so we will have open up for public comment this will be the first of two public comment periods I don't have the thing I'm supposed to read again but basically it's that uh raise your hand with the raise hand function you'll be brought into the room uh you'll have three minutes talk and we won't respond I think that's it all right so I see one hand up right now that is Vera um and we have 10 attendees in the audience at this moment um I don't know if I'm a I don't think I'm a host so I think cam is the host Camille do you think you can bring Vera in hold on one second wait a minute H oh I just did something gallery there we go okay hi this is Vera can you all hear me yeah we can hear you great um viang mini cage I live at barut Farm apartments in ammer um I was going to ask sheie Ting if he um would consider uh freezing his hires and not uh elect to ask for uh a yearly increase as some of our departments um you know they're asked to provide a budget every year um and so I just wanted to to see how he would um respond to that but um at this public comment I um want to express my relief that um Deborah you are going to be continuing your service on this body um I am glad that community members were able to get through to the town manager to change his mind um and I you know I think that it illustrates the problem of having one man be in charge and be in control of many people's you know Destiny um Destinies so um I think that it illustrated by his initial refusal to reconsider um it shows how out of touch um he is with who you are who the community is um and that there's a lot of work to do and hopefully he understands that there's a need for more voices like yours Deborah um you have been a very strong and effective voice for the oppressed and that I hope he understands that there is um there needs to be room for for for you and for more individuals who have this type of courage and effectivess um and reach and connectedness and love for people um you have love for the community and and and and voices like yours um need to proliferate in this town um you know people who are uncompromising people who are not here to collect a paycheck to get you know um a contract with the town to do you know Dei work um and then you know have their voices be diluted in terms of the critique of this town so I really um am thankful that the town manager reconsidered but I hope um that you know people see the smoke um and that people try to put out the fire that is burning within our towns thank you communities thank you thank you ver thank you for your support good evening can people hear me we can hear you miss P good evening okay tamarak drive I listen to some of a CH thing uh discussion first of all I want to thank all of you for your time and one thing I wanted to voice is about community policing and want to repeat what Deborah had said I was part of the cswg group member and we did not recommend community policing and hearing whatever terminology is being used now it doesn't really matter a lot of work has to be done first a lot of accountability the police department cannot just force that into marginalized community in which I belong to it just doesn't work like that so that has to be that has to be rethinking of that it's not something that cswg supported Adam support it we had an incident that happened couple years ago July 5th no accountability and all of a sudden APD wants to start going into our community no it doesn't work like that so that's what I want to say there's more work to be done for people who look like me to trust the police and very quickly um Deborah I respect you admire you I'm very grateful that you are the voice of so many people your courage and for you to be reappointed by the town manager because so many community members rallied behind you but there's still more work to be done by our time manager what we're experiencing in armest is a dict a dict dictatorship regime where people who speak against our town government get retaliated against punished and it must stop I challenge CSS uh JC to request uh to do a public record request for any Resident who have ever applied for any Town committee that were rejected because lack of transparency is also dictatorship that needs to happen and if the town manager refuses to give it to you guys a resident can request for that I can request for that I can even go through through the state we want everything exposed I bet you there are some people that I know who have applied for different boards in our town and they were refused because they don't agree with the status quo in our in our town government it needs to stop it's time for the community to push back on Paul Bachman I also challenge CS SJC to remind you guys that you know part of your duty is to ensure social justice in our town whether it's in business our town government our schools whatever in in our neighborhoods and that you guys continue to not to to forget um the Apper funds that are still money there uh that are organization that were led by black uh women myself included bipo women who criticizes um our T government and for that reason they were being punished for not getting upper funds so it is your duty as social as as a social justice board in our town to keep asking question to our town manager why is it that black Business Association has not received upper funds and yet a white influential nightclub Drake received $300,000 how is there you know where is fairness and we have Community connections excuse me we have a three minute limit okay I'll stop than you no heard the town we have a three minute limit thank you very much but if you want to we can have them go beyond that no that's what I I talk to the town and it is also in the Town Council they give a three minute limit so thank you I'm GNA have to look into that c because that's fine thank you the meetings keep going on and on and I appreciate everyone's voice but I'd like to hear everyone your meeting Camille this is our meeting this is the cssc meeting this is not your meeting yes also I know but I also was told it is as you know it is 3 minutes and it has now been almost 5 minutes I don't I don't care about that I want Miss Pat to continue to talk this is not your meeting I'm I'm the co-chair of this committee and I want Miss Pat to continue talking and she's going to continue to talk I'm sorry so Miss Pat sorry for the interruption please continue the timer already went off so so I I hope you you do not interrupt again Camille because excuse me wait a minute I'm just letting you know I'm glad you are the meeting but I am also here okay and it is also my time that is being taken up and I appreciate because I want to hear everyone's voices but it is also a meeting where it was supposed to be three minutes and it was given five minutes okay and that is a reasonable amount of time for people to get the information that they want out no that's what that's what you believe is the reasonable amount of time but the co-chairs if you please please please may I finish may I finish speaking first okay you you can go ahead and finish F speaking first you're still talking go ahead come thank you very much okay so I just want to let you know that we still have a bunch of reports to get out and it is already 8:00 at night I have been here since 7:30 this morning okay and we all have bus busy lives and it would be great if we could get through this information and move forward okay and not talk about the past the whole idea with Crest is that we are working to get something done in the community so going backwards and we're talking about and talking about and talking about things that have happened all right I am solution focused and Miss Pat I understand your frustrations and everything else but one of the things that would be really wonderful is if we could work together to get things done progressively I understand I read the leap report I also read the Cs the working group and everything else I have information that I'd like to get out now you were very kind and courteous to Chief Ting and his time I would appreciate if we all could get that kind of courtesy it is 8:00 now and we still haven't even gone through half of what is on the agenda I get what you're saying Camille but you do not run the agenda I'm not running the agenda run agenda and it is a three minute Li you have to go then you can go just make us one of the minute limit I'd like to get through and do my part of it at least well if you had to go you should have let us know that right off the bat and I want to hear what people have to say I want to hear what people have to say but I don't want to sit for 20 minutes while someone tells their life story and that's not talking this time there were other things that were going on in the last meeting and they went on and on and on and it would be really nice if people would keep to the three minute limit make a list of the things that they want to talk about and go through that instead of this being a session these are not listening sessions where we're meeting in the community I have met a lot of people in the community and it is great to hear voices but I would like to hear everyone's voice and I'm sorry to I'm sorry to disappoint you but this is not your meeting yet again I have to remind you of that you can remind me this not this is not your meeting I'm sorry and my thing there is thing is we do want to hear the community do want to hear from the community again three minute limit it's not any three minute if they want to speak three minutes they will because this is my this is my meeting along with already in there it was a three minute limit and it was already I read it it was in the agenda okay anyway we're going to move on we're going to move on and then me and you are going to have a discussion off offline on we can have any again we can have one anytime you want I am open door open book I have always stated I am here for the community just don't take over my don't take over my group because this is not this is not the um excuse me but this is the CSS JC it's a group for the people it is for the people and you are taking over it you're not letting the people talk what I'm hearing you just silenced the I asked them I said the time is up that is a big difference thank you anyway let me say this right now if someone wants to go on beond three minutes please do okay if there's any other hands up please speak I don't don't see any other hands up as of right now there will be an additional public comment period at the end that you can speak Beyond three minutes why don't we hear from Camille about the updates [Music] and see what else happens perfect thank you very much all right I'm going to share my screen can you see this not yet no oh I'm sorry okay can you see it now yes okay all right so uh diversity Equity inclusion updates for July 2024 the Youth Empowerment presson Dei will be sharing an americore member who will be working with both departments on youth engagement and Youth Empowerment the americore member will begin her 10-month Fellowship in late August Dei updates the resident oversight board the community engagement report has been provided to the town manager the technical assistance RFP was publicized the town manager has not finalized the SE election process Philip Aila the new assistant di director to begin on August 5th 2024 um becom a Beloved Community event on al Ally ship led by Janna McLure will take place on July 25th 2024 at the banks Community Center from 6 pm. to 8:00 p.m. light freshments will be provided and now on to our Crest updates for July 2024 as you've noticed in the call volume they have gone down um decreased in June they can be attributed to the shift in population in town as school has ended the department was shuttered for a two-day training and two staff attended two-day CIT training and staff vacations the racial equity in Institute so it was a foundational two-day training in historical and institutional racism Workshop philosophy and focus that is designed to develop the capacity of participants to understand racism in its institutional and structal form moving the focus from Individual bigotry and bias the racial Equity institute's phase one Workshop presents a historical cultural structural and institutional analysis of racism the re I the racial Equity Institute is committed to Bringing awareness and Analysis to the root causes of disparities and disap disproportionality in order to create a racially Equitable organizations and systems even 50 years after significant civil rights gains the impact of race continues to shape the outcome of all organizations towards institution wait excuse me institutions and is harmful to everyone our approach has is a movement orientation always focused on people we recognize many intersectional oppressions but what we have learned is that racism is the glue that connects all oppressions and thus our focus on race and injustices that stem from history and belief systems that are reflected in American culture and institutions we had participants from various Town departments including the crest Department Dei APD afd Public Health Department Information Technology planning and the school another thing that was worked on we have this is our emergency Communication Center Sops for Crest so this was worked on in conjunction with the GPL which is the government performance lab one of the things that we're working on is triaging the calls and how um dispatch will be dispatching Crest calls from now on so right now this is in um still being worked on with the Dispatch Center and also with Chief Ting as he did speak on this ammer Independence Day we had the wonderful celebration where we taed assisted with citizen transport supported citizen well-being which is we assisted with ulatory needs and I served as the MC at the event it was a wonderful time and people really enjoyed themselves okay okay um one of the other things I wanted to talk about is how we are also going to puffer's Pond um gra Park M River Etc as there have been discussions with um APD and there have been a lot of calls that have gone through to APD that we are now taking of people at puffer Pond which is conservation land um drinking and loud music and also there's no Unleashed dogs there so instead of having an APD presence what has happened now is that we have been getting calls directly and we go um in place of APD also we are having our pamphlets translated into Spanish hopefully with the help of ammer college they have a session in the fall I've been working collaborative with them to get one of their senior students to come and do the translation for us as we uh last year I guess while I wasn't here had some of our other information translated into Spanish um also one of the things that was talked about was the Youth Empowerment um I got this information today the town finance department is managing the grant with the input and support of ammer recreation and the town manager's office so Youth Empowerment is now in the hands of the town finance department thank you so I have some questions sure so Camille um is uh what is it Pamela is she going to be joining our meetings in the future or is is this how we're going to be getting the information moving forward well right now she was busy with a class uh yesterday and the day before so um today is when she gave me the information so she will be joining she will be Jo will be joining okay so she will be joining because obviously even though you know the report highlighted some some aspects of the information um you know it doesn't give a lot of details and you know I have questions in terms of the de Dei um Youth Empowerment I know you've you've mentioned certain things that are occurring um however I have a lot more detailed um questions to ask and I don't think you you'd have the answers right not on that one but I will tell you this the Youth Empowerment is not in the hands of Dei that's why I just read the statement there um it's in the town finance department is managing the Grant and it is with the support of recreation and the town manager's office okay so so I guess so that's but I'll have to ask that question to Pamela though because Youth Empowerment was always under the Dei I mean that was one of the things that was um stated within the recommendations of cswg that was adopted by the Town Council was that the di would be overseeing the establishment of Youth Empowerment so now you're telling me that Youth Empowerment has totally moved into this other area finance and Recreation yes and so who are these people you know that and this is what I'm trying to explain is that um it never was in Dei okay it went to recre park uh wreck it went to the recreation department and now the town finance department is managing the grant so it never was in Dei well I to differ I'll to differ with you because remember I've been here since cssc started yes it wasn't de and originally it didn't start with de yes it did the grant the grant may have originally been done to go to Dei but the grant was given to wreck and that's I this is what I was asking about it because I was questioning where the grant money was and this is what I I emailed few people today and that's how I found out that the grant was not in Dei it never was in Dei it may have been suggested by the csw um by the working group that it go to Dei but it never did go to Dei it was always in wreck it was given to wreck and right now the finance department is the ones is managing it also um last month there were I'm like I'm looking at my calendar there were three events I it's right that's right because um there was excuse me I'm just looking at my calendar juneth the basketball and race aminy day so those were the three biggest events of the year that happened that Dei put on so um all right so I guess I'll I'll follow up with Pamela and the town manager to ask them more questions about this because like I said that this is new information I've been on in this group for two years and Pam has responded in regards to Youth Empowerment and actually when there was the last americore member that work with Di and Crest his duties was to actually do a survey for the Youth and do um some programming in the meantime while the Youth Empowerment Center was not put in place so again this is I I get it that I did yes I did Al one of the things that I do know is that um the previous uh americore member that that was something that they were supposed to be doing and that did not happen so um I actually went to the americore training um for when we get the americore person and their main focus is going to be on the youth okay but that is they're going to work between Crest and Dei on youth programming but that is not part of the Youth Empowerment and um and I remember from the very first when uh three months ago when I started the first meeting that I went to two days after I started that that was talked about the Youth Empowerment there is that it wasn't part of Dai then so that hard I do remember um okay so um I guess I'll I'll I'll Focus my um questions more so on Crest so are you able to put that those um um stats back up the data in terms of the calls and everything that you all receive sure let me see if I can I think I closed them out excuse me one moment okay let me do a screen share okay can you see them mhm yep I can see them so um just so I I wanted to have a little bit more time cuz I know that it kind of went quickly so I'm not sure that the rest of CSS JC really got a chance to kind of look at these numbers so I just wanted to make sure that people had a little bit of of time to no problem I can also send this to people that want it if anybody wants this that's actually why I wanted it done in this manner so that not only could you see it that also um I can let's see h yeah if you can share um if you could share the uh the data with CSS JC that would be great sure wait a minute let me put this back up now why sorry there we go um and then for me I I guess would be helpful you know some of these are self-explanatory but I you know just so that the community can know you know what it is what if you could just kind of go through okay so it's the call Source May June and then CAD types whatever what what what does cat mean those sort of things sure not a problem all right so the call source is where the calls came from so a town Department um office Walkins previous engagements could be that we've met somebody out in the the community or we've had talked to them at a town department or we have done something with them um phone calls is self-explanatory social service agencies are when other agencies are Partners or collaborative people call us um dispatch are calls that we've gotten from dispatch email and business calls so CAD stands for oh my goodness computer aided dispatch okay so those are the ones those are the how we uh quantify our calls for data um so and this is if you look down you'll see assist a business or agency assist a citizen followup a well-being check Community engagement assist APD citizens transport and community outreach was was formally called The Crest presence Walk Drive which I changed because I felt presence was too um geared more towards police and not Community um it was not I didn't feel it represented our work doing doing being in the community so one of the things also I wanted to mention about dispatch when people call dispatch 911 is actually a call type because all call that go into APD unless they know a specific number all go through dispatch so when people call dispatch they're actually calling the business line but most of our calls because we have been out in the community and I've made it you know my mission to be out in the community so that people can see us um for example today we did the ammer survival center cookout and while we were there we were able to talk to some folks that were having some difficulty and we've already set up meetings to help them navigate some of the things that are happening in their lives so the main thing for us is to be out in the public to engage with the community to meet them and areas where they are like in puffer's pond to meet them at mil Valley Estates Butternut or Colonial Village um that is my goal is to be out and that people don't need to call the police department again because most people who are part of this community now know just to call us directly so yeah go ahead so if say the survival center calls you and they're somebody that they need assistance with does that fall under assist citizen or assist business agency um I think that is that is assist business agency but one of the things also is that we do community outreach which is the part of it is outreaches that we go to the emmer survival center um just to check in on things when they're having events or when they're doing uh their food or their lunches so we're out there meeting the people that are in the community so another example is if they call about a concerned citizen it's a cist citizen um if it's to deescalate at the ammer survival center then it's an assist business and oftentimes this also um results in a followup so um so you're saying I mean I get what you're saying in terms of being out in the community and outreaching which obviously is is a great thing and and it's a big part of it however you know having that option to call into the police because a lot of people know 911 you you know what I'm saying that's something that's been kind of like you know hammered into your head and it's you know three three numbers and people know that so the thing though too that we always wanted to to have is is that opportunity that if they do call 911 because you know they're in crisis that's an easy number to remember or anything like that that you know if it's appropriate for Crest to respond that dispatch will will send out Crest so I mean right now I mean we're seeing you know dispatch like zero for June you know what I'm saying so and in May there was two of dis patch um so you know what what it so are you saying that you're you're doing so much that then dis patch is going to be there's nothing going to be dispatched I mean I just don't see that ever being a reality so what is happening now is that I'm meeting with the supervisor of dispatch weekly and what is happening is we going over the call logs for the previous week um he was on vacation so we went over the past two weeks and what we've done is we've been going over all the calls to look to see what could be a Crest call the problem is is that due to Hippa and regulations and laws I can only see a portion of the call so I can see an address and I can see the call type and as Chief Ting mentioned what is called called in for a call doesn't necessarily mean that is what the actual call is about so because I can't see what the actual call is at this time um I'm waiting on to get some additional training to find out if that's even possible then once that happens then I would be able to see what the actual call is and be able to see what the result was and this way working with dispatch and also with the [Music] um operating procedures that we're working on now as Chief Ting spoke about being able to go to more of the calls to take some of the burden off the police and also to assist the community so in other words right now what's happening is people are calling us directly if they call to dispatch for certain calls then they will call us and that's where we go to so it's not necessarily that we're dispatched to them if something comes through they might just put it right through to us but most of our calls are people calling us directly due to the fact that we've been out in the community and they are getting to know us but back to you uh Deborah what you were talking about those are the things that are in the works that since I've been here that I've been adamant about getting more information and learning from dispatch exactly how we can work together to get these other calls that don't necessarily need to go to APD funnel to us P have you done community outreach in South ammer yes so yes so um I'm looking at some of the places of where I don't have the listing now um one of the other things that's happening is is that there is the I can't read it from here the amris mobile market so the ammer mobile market goes to uh Saturday Tuesday Wednesdays and Thursday they go to four different areas each week and Crest has been going now to do Outreach with them to talk to the community also there's a couple of community members that I'm working directly with um for butternut and Colonial Village so people are reaching out to me to work together so that we can find better ways to deal with the citizens our neighbors rather than calling the police we have any other questions for Camille in terms of Chris or anything else that she share do you still need this up no if you could just um like like I was saying you know if you could just share it with um with us at cssj that would be great sure I can send this out tomorrow yeah because then if we have any other follow-up questions um and then you know maybe if we can get these if if this is something that you could do you know on a monthly basis if we can get them maybe a few days before the the meeting then we can you know digest it a little bit more and then have the information to be able to kind of ask any kind of informed questions that's not a problem so one of the things that I'm trying to do like I said is work um trying to get with the supervisor of dispatch weekly to get these calls and like I said because I can't see the exact nature of the call I can see how it comes in like it may say that it came in as a well-being check okay but because I can't see the narrative part of it um then that doesn't allow me to effectively work with uh dispatch to get the call rerooted to Crest so those are the type of things that are being being worked on and working with um APD and dispatch to get these done so it takes time it's frustrating because um as Chief Ting said one of the things is about how uh the liability aspect of it the safety and the liability um and also you know that we are a standalone department and want to stay that way but at the same time also you know making sure that I'm keeping my people safe too so as a firefighter retired firefighter I know that things can change on a dime so getting the most information that we can will help make this much easier and enable us to work better together I think if we don't have any other questions we can move forward to the next agenda item listening sessions yeah for the town hall because I know we already had selected um a few dates on for I think was what late September yeah so we had selected the 14th of September and the 21st of September two Saturdays so it's just about us kind of trying to figure out like I think if we're going to do two Saturdays maybe try to do one in kind of like you know earlier morning like maybe not super early but maybe let's say like 10:00 or something and then the other one do it later like after 5 so that we get you know maybe a second shift or something like that you know yeah no that makes sense CU we know that there's a lot of people that work on Saturdays so want to be mindful of that um and then what we need to do between now and then is really kind of focusing on where are the locations we need to make like the connections with people in the community to see um you know cuz this time is going to be different we're going to be going into the community into the different let's say apartment complexes and things like that but we want to be invited you know we want to make sure that people are welcoming Us in as opposed to us just showing up you know and I do believe that luren Mills had offered to maybe help with if Butternut might be an option for one of so Lauren can help out with by on that yeah I'll I'll follow up with her about that okay um I will just say this um I spoke to Lauren Mills today she is very active um in her community and also she is very eager to get Crest in and has actually invited us to come table and talk to the residents so that will be coming up I don't know if it's later this week or next week great um and so I think having having a complex would be good I I'm just thinking of which other places have Community rooms like I know Olympia Oaks has like a community room um but I yeah I have another Community member contact in Village Park so I can I can follow up with her there also might be nice to have like one on each end of town kind of yeah Village Park would be great yeah so I'll I'll contact my uh cont contact out there to see maybe if we can um is there anyone else on the committee that has any other um contacts with other folks um you know there's M Valley there's um no like South Point but I guess not called South Point anymore what is it called now to South Point renew I think it's renew okay yeah I still just call it South Point I'm never not going to but um I can try to get in contact with the property manager for the boulders and renew because I believe that they're now owned by the same um real realtor company okay yeah you could but they don't have Community rooms yeah as far as I know you said they don't have they don't have no a lot of the events that they have are Outdoors okay yeah but maybe we could just we could just go Outdoors you know yeah not bad yeah because the thing that we want to do is obviously have you know the translators there um see if there's funding to bring some food and something to drink and things like that so that we make it more of a you know kind of you know almost a festive more informal conversation you know as opposed to you know a formal Town Forum or something like that so you know have food and something to drink there translators okay Boulders and what was the other place that you said it was Boulders and which other one was that I think it's renew oh yeah renew which was the formerly South Point yes okay all right awesome so all right so I think we have three options with algra you going to butut me contacting my contact in Village Park and then um AET with the boulders and renews and then we can um when we meet in August we can um touch Bas and see how things are going because by that point we should probably have an idea in terms of you know times what times we want to actually do it and then um you know kind of work out some of the details so we can put a flyer together and start you know setting out the promotions around it sounds good um is this just for our board or is CR going to be coming as well um I think that's more so up to you Camille if you want to also um be there have some Crest members there to interact with the community when we have the to forums well we could check into the schedule I don't see why not definitely during the daytime one um and depending what time it is Saturday yeah okay sure cuz I think yeah the more opportunities that the community has to connect with C I think it's always a good thing so because they would be these listening these Town forums that we do is more like listening sessions um for the community we do just kind of like a quick little you know presentation very brief in terms of things that we're doing and then pretty much open it up the questions and answers um for the community because it's their time you know with us anything else we want to talk about that in terms of the um but just to kind of put it out there for anyone that's going to also listen to the recording that the dates that we're looking at again is September 14th and September 21st so that folks can at least save the date what's next on our agenda next is any other topics we didn't reasonably anticipate 48 hours in advance and I don't have anything so I think we're obligated toal you're breaking up a little bit yeah you're breaking up administrative meeting so I'm suggesting that um can you is this better yes to have better an administrative meeting so I would I'm suggesting that would do I'm suggesting that we do it the next meeting given that it's a new year for the committee and um I would also like to um try to invite the people that are behind the affordable housing project that's been built in Amherst to one of our meetings to come and talk about and what um credit counseling is available out there now and what people can do in anticipation because um those houses were approved and so now it's just a matter of people doing what they need to do to get qualified for one of these so um with a board's permission I'd like to try and invite um the people that are behind this to see if someone will come and talk um in our meeting that would be great um I can go back because I know the Housing Trust had a little um presentation from them recently and they named the person who's like doing a lot of the Outreach so I can see if I can find her name um appreciate that be good to have um and um everal unfortunately I missed the I don't know if other people heard but I missed the first part that you said it's it's a new year and you wanted to do something I couldn't I couldn't catch everything oh I think we're obligated to have just board meeting um because it's a new term um so I was I was suggesting I think at the start of the new term so I was suggesting that the next meeting be that meeting and can talk about um items goals for the year and things like that um okay like do more of a kind of like since like um you're saying in August that would be that would count as like the start of our new year for the for for our committee and then to kind of do like what would be our goals for the year things like that yes okay great yeah I think what we could do you know even though we can't reply all but you all can maybe get um you know we can kind of send out an email to to the to the group and then you all can kind of just reply to like each person can reply to algra and I to say okay these are some of the things that I think you know the goal should be and things like that and then we can kind of discuss further because I know we're all going to have like different things that we'd want to kind of focus on for the year and then we can kind of um you know discuss those and and see what we want to focus on for this this next um committee year okay makes sense sounds good um the other thing too that you know once I do get more information around who the um the you know who's in charge of the Youth Empowerment um we'd probably want to get invite them to to meet with us too um because you know again this is all really kind of startling and new information to me that the Youth Empowerment is now under you know wreck and and finance or it's always been which again news to me because I I haven't heard that that um statement before so I want to invite them because we need to ask some more questions in regards to that so yeah maybe maybe we could have like a calendar of you know the meetings for the next year and plug in some yes people we might want to invite from the community and it's I think that's my um the idea is for the next meeting it's it's not um or standard but we set an agenda um things we want to discuss people we want to invite um and understandably theend can the agenda may change change um over the course of the year but we seriously think about um committee goals people to invite um and work towards like some of those goals yeah sounds good all right shall we move on to the second public comment period well as long as we're clear that they can go beyond three minutes okay this is Patak again from tamarak drive before I do my second public comment uh may I ask how many people were raising their hand during the first public comment before I got interrupted and this question goes to Deborah how many people in the audience raised their hand for the first time it was it was only Vera and you Miss Pat there go yeah so um I think Camille um and I'm just you know hm so what I wanted to say is that I think you need more time to understand what this particular body is all about it's unlike any other Town committee is very different this is the only body that marginalized folks can come to speak and also I think you need to reflect on what your role is at csjc I am one of the inaugural and founding member of Cs WG myself and councelor Alicia Walker with the support of the rest of the committee and you don't want people to be bringing up history but I'll continue to do that because as somebody like you who is new you need to to know the history we want CSS JC not to be like any other Committee in our town with white supremacy [Music] um uh white supremacy um you know running the like that and so the three minutes for public comment is just made up who came up with the three minutes CS CSS JC right from last year I was a member I served one ter I decided not to continue I can still make impact wherever I am because people do listen to what I say even if you don't want to in and the three minutes doesn't apply to CSS JC and I said that because I was part of Cs WG that came up with this uh committee we want people to come and speak their mind and not to be silenced or be rushed or dismissed or disrespected you did not give your fellow black woman the courtesy she was running the meeting and I mean Deborah and not you would the town manager do the same thing to the town president of course no and I just want to leave it there you've left a very negative impression with your behavior tonight and I want to point that out to you you think you're trying to shut me up it's never going to happen I've lived in this town for 40 years and I'm not going anywhere you better get used to me you better get used to me and I'll continue to speak out until the wrong is Right history will have to be repeated all over again until there is accountability the black Business Association did not get any upper funding this is the Forum because my group belong to marginalized group this is the Forum that will listen to us we work as a body to advocate for my group we have MS Community connections that does great work run by Chinese by Asian-American woman they didn't get funding we have MS media run by Vera who spoke she is the chair board the the the the board president did not get any funding and then you don't want us to come here and speak up we will continue to do that we're not going anywhere and I'll stop here thank you all for your time and I'm sorry Deborah that you were disrespected like this cam you need to apologize to Deborah thank you Miss P appreciate it any other um anyone else want to make a public comment so I I do want to say um you know because we have seven participants and I do want to make that message that you know um I don't want people from the community to feel like they can't come to CSS and speak um this is a safe place you will not be silenced I know that you know obviously when you're told that there's only a certain time limit then you you might think that um you can't speak up but we're here to listen to you anything that you want to bring up in terms of the Town social justice marginalization under representation um and dealing with you know a variety of different things as as as you know Miss Pat stated like in terms of opera school committee whatever the case may be we're here to listen to you all and so I just want to reassert that and reaffirm that because it's very important that we hear from you we hear from the community this is always a place that you can come and and talk to us alra is there anything else or I don't think so I'm not seeing any other hands so we can adjourn at 8:44 right thank you all appreciate it oh we just got to talk about our next meeting yeah our next meeting let's see it will be August 14th and and that is our administrative meeting yes okay we'll just have to kind of everald I know I think you have more of an idea of of you know the focus and and things like that maybe um you can um send some ideas to to leer and I and then we can kind of start working on it and and then like I said others should send us um what it is that you all want to focus on but Abal you might give us more kind of what what is your focus you know okay because we want to get the most out of it yeah because um yeah it's typically not a meeting that's um where we have other agenda items it's literally um to talk about Direction um ground Rules meeting procedures and then put together um a calendar of meetings and what we hope to achieve and try to plan um meetings without having to do them like after each meeting um each time we yeah so yes I will I will work on something and send um to the group well before um August 14 okay that's good okay right everyone um have a good night see you all soon have a good night good night