City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Recording in progress.

Relax. Go. Thank you so much.

What are you doing, Bobby? Hey. I don't know, Bobby.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Worcester City Council meeting. If you can, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and the Star-Spangled Banner.

When you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed At the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars Through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watched Were so gallantly streaming And the rocket's red glare The bombs bursting in air They proved through the night That our flag was still there Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free

and the home of the brave.

Do a roll call. Councilor Bergman. Here. Councilor Belata.

Here.

Councilor Economo. Here. Councilor Pizzolo. Council King? Here. Council Mitra? Here. Council Ojeda? Here. Council Rivera? Here. Council Rosen? Here. Council Toomey? Here. And Mayor Petty?

Here. We have a proclamation. The city of Worcester is pleased and proud to honor 53 years of the former Worcester Pride activities. And whereas it is the birthright of all citizens to live their lives to the fullest extent possible. We recognize that this cannot be fully achieved until all citizens share equally in their rights and are free from fear and discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Whereas the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, and asexual community in the face of increased discrimination continues deliberate efforts to fight anti-trans legislation, attacks on drag performers, and systemic racism. We recognize that the community is strengthening its voice and positioning itself to advocate for the rights of all its members. And whereas the city of Worcester affirms the positive visibility, resilience, and contributions of the LGBTQIA plus community in Worcester, Massachusetts. Now, therefore, I am hereby proclaim the month of September as Worcester LGBTQIA plus Pride season in the city of Worcester and encourage all residents to participate in this observance. Dr. Mitchell, would you like to hand the, oh, wait a second, we got one more. I also I just also want to take a moment to thank the Advisory Committee on LGBTQ Plus Affairs and the Human Rights Commission for all they have done for this community here in the city of Worcester. I invite John Pitsley and his team at the Woo Bar to accept the proclamation on behalf of the community. Yeah, give it to John. I guess they're all coming in.

Thank you. John, you want to say a few words? Sure. To be officially recognized as a safe space for the LGBTQ plus community is an incredible honor, but it's also a reminder of why this work matters. A restaurant isn't just about the four walls or the menu, it's about community. It is about ensuring that hospitality means true inclusion, where safety, respect, and celebration of diversity are just as fundamental as the hospitality we provide. I want to share this honor with our incredible staff. They're the ones who bring this mission to life every single shift. Treating every guest who walks through our doors with the dignity and want they deserve. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Okay, approve the minutes of the June 21st, 2026 meeting, roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bellotta? Yes. Councilor Economo? Yes. Councilor Rizzolo? Yes. Councilor King? Yes. Councilor Mitra? Yes. Councilor Aida? Yes. Councilor Rivera? Yes. Councilor Rosen? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes. And Mayor Petty?

Yes. Public participation, the person may speak for no more than two minutes on any item appearing on the agenda. Mr. Clerk? Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Rule 39, items of public interest. At every meeting of the city council under the public participation portion of the agenda, the chair shall recognize any person seeking such recognition for the purpose of addressing the city council on any eligible item on the agenda, both in person and remotely. Any person who wishes to speak on more than one agenda item shall combine their testimony on all items to one appearance at the microphone. Time for speaking shall not exceed two minutes for any one speaker or 30 minutes for all speakers. rule 40 petitions on the first occasion any petition appears on the city council agenda the prime petition may address the council for no more than 3 minutes on the subject of their petition.

Okay, so we are open to public participation. Your name, city of residence, and item number?

I know it has, it's City of Worcester. I am speaking on 22A, the Citizens Review Board. I'd like to address accountability. It is not just to prevent the future atrocities, but also the ones that are possibly happening now. Homeland Security closed the case. They did not find anyone innocent. The case was closed because Trump closed all of the Homeland Security police cases across the country. And the cities around New England, our size, have citizen review boards. They know something that Worcester doesn't know.

Go ahead.

They know something the city of Worcester doesn't know. They work. They know that history will repeat itself if you don't do something to stop it. The chief is talking about accrediting the police department. costs an awful lot of money. I'd like to know how much. And it will not do anything for the police officer on the street who loses his temper. All the accreditation in the world is not gonna do a darn thing about that. I know, I worked in an institution that was accredited. It took months and an awful lot of people. It's expensive. We all know that the police cannot police their own.

And thank you, I appreciate it. We have a long line here, so thank you. Would you name to your residents?

I'm Gordon Davis. I've lived in the city almost 60 years. I've seen a lot of racism here. And recently, I talked to Chief Saucier, and he said that they're doing nothing, there's nothing he can do about the systemic racism found in the CNA report audit. He said there's nothing he can do. It's out of his hands. He says it's... Money. So that's unacceptable. It's unacceptable because you're taking money out of my pocket. It's unacceptable because the city settled for almost $2 million with those students from Clark. What went wrong? Well, the cops are not going to tell us what went wrong. The manager's not going to tell us because he destroyed the Human Rights Commission. And this body's not going to tell us, because they stuck their head in the sand. They can't even enforce their own rules on Chapter 29 petitions. For anyone who says that we don't need a Civilian Review Board, that's a crock of shit. We do need it. We don't want people investigating themselves. We want the public to investigate them. And that's why I'm here. I'm here because the fish rots from the head. There's a culture of non-transparency. There's a culture of secrecy. Coming down from this body, from the manager, from the police, affecting everything that we do. And in order to stop that corruption, we have to stop it now. We have to stop it with a civilian review board.

Thank you. Name and see your residence and item number.

I'm here about the Civilian Police Review Board. My name is Reverend Joseph Rizzutti. I'm from District 3. On August 25, 2019, at Cornerstone Bible Baptist Church, my family and church members were terrorized by Officer Doni Nunez and Michael Capabianca, Jr. Officer Nunez arrived to speak with my daughter over a custody issue, a civil matter. Officer Capabianca was the peacekeeper. Once we determined that the judge or court had not signed any new orders, the two questions set the officers off. Do you have a new court order and are we detained? In 45 seconds, Capabianca's body cam, on the pilot use of it, will reveal he was acting like a tyrant, I never cussed at him, and I asked for a supervisor. Boy, did he get mad. I was tased, arrested, my son was punched, dragged off the platform of our church, his pregnant wife was punched, thrown to the ground, and a jacked boot put on her back in front of me, John, in front of me. The saying goes, you may beat the child, but you'll take the ride.

Can I direct your comments here, please?

Well, it's true. In October of 2022, we were found not guilty. My son faced one year in prison. I faced seven years in prison. But my son's wife's charges, all dismissed, so you'll never hear about them. Police officers are protected. The commander's review, no violation. Bureau of Professional Standards, nothing to see. The DA won't charge any officers. They have two unions, Local 911 and the Brotherhood of Police. They have mass domestic immunity and qualified immunity. Both protect the government's interests. We need protection for the people, for the misconduct. Without a civilian review board, what happens is these men continue on believing that they will never be held accountable because they have qualified immunity. So when Capabianca teases, hits me, he knows nobody's going to rebuke him. Nobody's going to say, you're wrong.

Good evening, my name is Fred Taylor. I'm the president of the Worcester Branch of the NAACP. And I just want to say that the Worcester NAACP stands strong in support of establishing a civilian review board or an oversight committee with subpoena powers for the city of Worcester. Let me be clear from the outset. We're not advocating for a civilian review board simply because we want a community to have a seat at the table. We're advocating for a Civilian Review Board because we believe the entire city will benefit from greater transparency, accountability, and public trust in policing. We recognize that the overwhelming majority of Worcester police officers are dedicated public servants who follow the rules, perform their duties professionally, and serve our city with honor. The effort is not to attack those officers. In fact, the greater transparency can help strengthen public confidence in good work that most officers do every day. However, time and time again, members of our community have called for transparency and accountability when allegations of wrongdoing arise within the Worcester Police Department. Like any law-abiding citizen, we believe that if there is nothing to hide, there should be no concern about having another set of impartial eyes reviewing the process. We have heard some argue that Worcester does not need a Civilian Review Board or such boards do not work. The effectiveness of a Civilian Review Board depends largely on how it's structured and empowered. Across our country, there are examples that cite for it and against it. But the question before Worcester is not whether every board succeeds everywhere. The question is whether Worcester is willing to take meaningful steps to increase public trust and accountability here at home. The Worcester Branson NAACP respectfully implores the city council to seriously consider establishing a civilian review board. This is not about division. It's about improving confidence in our institutions, strengthening relationships between law enforcement and community, and ensuring that accountability and transparency remains the pillars of our future. Thank you.

Thank you. Is your name .

Aretha Karashka, born and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts. I'm not a member of any organization. Here I am again before you. And I'm angry, and I'm tired. Those of you who were voted in are hiding behind somebody who you just hired. And for this person to say, this is not who we are. We don't need a civilian review board. I'm a civilian, and I'm saying, I want a civilian review board. Because they should, as so many other people, you've already heard it. I don't understand what, I would love to hear what many of you say, because I'm tired of hearing what he says. For this person who does not have any, just hired for this job, doesn't want to listen to the Human Rights Coalition, doesn't want to listen to the DOJ, just because you think that's not who we are. Just like somebody just said, it's not a division. It's not we don't support the police. We want a police that we can stand and not be afraid of them. We just had from Mass Chan another officer drunk driving, side swiping cars. Good thing it wasn't side swiping a father and a daughter walking to the store. If it would have been me, I'd have been arrested. But because he was a police officer, he was not. Body cam, not available. This is an example of what we see and why we want a civilian review board. It's not every cop. I work with cops every day who I would put my own life on the line. And I tell them stories of microaggressions and experiences I've had with officers who are not doing what they're supposed to do. They're aware, but there's nothing that they can do about it because of the culture. The culture that we all know about. I got about ten seconds. I'm a civilian. I want a civilian review board. I don't care what he says. I think that you who have been voted into office need to listen to your constituents.

Thank you. Would you like your name and say your residence?

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of City Council. My name is Sue Swanson. I'm a District 5 resident, and I am here to read a letter from Drew Schneblin, also a District 5 Worcester resident, regarding item 22A. For most of the last two years, I served on the Worcester Human Rights Commission. I stepped down last month because city leadership repeatedly created roadblocks that restricted the commission's work. City Manager Batista's refusal to implement a civilian review board was the final straw. I was disappointed but not surprised. The city manager's own nonpartisan report stating that creating a civilian review board was overdue. After reviewing the report, speaking with post employees, considering other evidence and debating the issue over many years, the Human Rights Commission voted five to one this year in favor of a civilian review board. The only no vote came from commission member and WPD police chaplain Jonathan Slavinskas. The report released by city manager Batista and written by Kevin Levancy claims a review board is unnecessary because the Human Rights Commission is already an oversight structure and because the city has strengthened its review process in collaboration with the HRC. That is factually untrue. In 2025, leadership removed Human Rights Commission leadership, delayed the election of new leadership, slowed the filling of vacancies, and restricted the commission's ability to speak publicly, including blocking a statement condemning a hate crime. The Human Rights Commission is an executive committee which is defined in the city charter as a body that sets policy, yet its ability to affect policy has been limited. City leadership cannot use the commission as a reason to reject a civilian review board while preventing the commission from performing the duties. Thank you.

What's your name?

Grace Ross, 10 Oxford Street, Worcester. Yes, on the Civilian Review Board. I want to encourage everybody to open their minds. Civilian review boards have gotten a reputation of being about punishment. But in a democracy, our goal, I believe, is transparency and the means to build trust. You can hear the distrust. But the way that a democracy changes that is for everybody to have a place to listen, to speak, and to be heard. I think as a woman, when Sexual harassment in your workplace could only be reported to men. It was tricky for women. Similarly, if what we want is a trusting community, then we need a place for people to be able to come where they don't feel like they're talking to insiders. where they're talking to other people like themselves. I have plenty of friends who are police officers. I learned a lot when one of them told me about the post-traumatic stress that he experiences because of his position. right it opens our hearts to each other when we can hear each other's stories in a non-judgmental place where people can share things and you know i think of the progressive police chiefs who got it that it made sense to support driver's licenses even for folks who are immigrants because it created a setting where everybody was accountable everybody paid insurance and it wasn't adversarial The purpose of our Civilian Review Board could be completely different. We get to structure it. We get to define it. What if we made it a place where the dialogue that is necessary for healing, for correction, for clarification, for us to learn from each other and the way that we walk through the world... The Civilian Review Board could be something different here.

Thank you.

Imagine that place. And I'm asking folks to consider putting together a study group to imagine a different thing and learn from everything that has worked or not worked elsewhere. Thank you.

Thank you. Is your name City Residence?

Abby Mortellero, Worcester resident, District 4. Here to speak on item 22A, the Civilian Review Board. And let me state my case as to why I believe we need a Civilian Review Board. Because systemic racism is still a problem. We have racist cops and there's no accountability. I know it is not all cops. I'm just going to say it. It's not all cops. Not even most cops. But there's bad cops on the force. And these bad cops need to be held accountable. And yes, we need a civilian review board. We need that accountability. And all these other options. No, no, no. Civilian review board. And look. It can work. We can create a structure that will work. There's a lot of different ways that it can be structured. We can make it structured in a way that it will work for Worcester. So no excuses. Just what side of history are you on? Are you on the side of accountability? Are you on the side of holding the police accountable? Transparency, are you on that side? Or are you on the side of totalitarianism about, and do you realize that It is a problem. Civilian review board is necessary to hold the police accountable. And again, not all cops, all right? I know it's not all cops, but for the bad cops that need to be held accountable, there needs to be accountability. There just needs to be accountability. All right.

Thank you.

My name is Donald Bork. I've been here all my life, 69 years, and I'm definitely opposed to this thing. Because all I feel is that when the Civilian Review Board will be there, it will be completely biased. I don't see anyone on there that wouldn't be biased against the police department. We have a safer city in Boston, Providence, Rhode Island, and Springfield, and we don't have one, and they all do have a Civilian Review Board. I've been here all my life. I've seen what the police go through. I know myself what they go through because I've gotten in a little bit of trouble. But I got things worked out for me. This review board is crazy. You might as well just put targets on the back of the car. give the people guns and give them cop killer bullets while you're at it. These guys have a tough enough time doing what they're doing as opposed to having a harder time because they already got a state review board. It's just totally crazy for them to have a civilian review board. It's not going to help the city at all. It's only going to make the city more unsafe. Mr. Melissa, you are great. Mr. Melissa was right to say we shouldn't have it. We shouldn't have it. It's just not a good thing. It's not gonna help out the city. It's gonna make things worse. Stop it. I'm talking.

Go ahead, sir.

All I know is, like I said, I've been here all my life, and I've seen a lot, and it's just not the right thing to do. It shouldn't be happening because people, There are a lot of crazy people out there, and just to get some of these people, they got to have a hard time with them, and they have to try really hard. And I've seen it where there was three or four policemen trying to get somebody, and then they finally go up, and then the other policeman slams the cuffs on them, because there's no other way to do it. They couldn't do it easily. And that person turns around and gets a lawyer, and they sue this city. And this lawyer will do it. All these lawyers will love doing it, because they know they're going to make money.

Okay, thank you. Go ahead, Gary. Did your name say residence?

Hi, my name is Gary Hunter. And before I get to the Civil Review Board, if we could take a look at item 14B. It's kind of related whether you want to see what can be done and changes to the charter without a Civilian Review Board. Again, we'd like the, without a review for the charter. It's like the Civil Review Board because it's been put off for 10 years over and over. We need a charter review, we need it now, and I know you could speed up the process to get it done. Now as far as the Civilian Review Board, come on guys, there's many ways this can go. I think people made up their mind listening to the police union only, but There's many ways to go. We haven't told people that want the Civilian Review Board, there's no structure there right now. We can make a structure. to be acceptable for all sides. We need a civilian review board. People don't trust the police officers. We're losing millions of dollars in suits against the police. And you say it's better, but I know there's more suits coming against the police. It's gonna cost us more money. Please, don't say no completely to this idea. Please, set up a bunch of people at a meeting to look at the ways we could set up this Civil Review Board and make it work. Just because it's not working in other cities, we know now what didn't work and what does work. We need you to have an open mind, please, I would also like to thank the city councilors that were able to meet with our group and sit down one-on-one and at least listen to what we said. I know there's some that didn't make it, they were too busy, and we know that too. There's more people in favor of the city, the Civilian Reviewer Board, than you know, so the elections are coming up. Thank you. We're gonna fight you in the elections if you don't listen to the people.

Good evening, my name is Dante Camparetto, and I reside at 4 Manor Street, here to speak to items 22A and B. Today, I serve as an educator, but not too long ago, I was your unhoused neighbor. When you live on the street, police interaction isn't occasional, it's daily routine. It wasn't serve and protect, it was move along, clear out, step off the curb. I was stopped, questioned, and harassed simply for existing while poor. I've had my bike and various other things stolen by officers. I've been physically beaten. I was once hung off the side of a fire escape by police. I've had unhoused friends severely beaten and friends who are raped by police officers. And the abuse didn't end when I got off the streets. Even as an elected official, my 14-year-old daughter was harassed by the department. And when I went to report credible death threats against my family, officers literally laughed up in my face. When the people wearing the badge are the ones violating your rights, who do you call? And when you are a major part of the political machine, what can anybody do? Right now, the Worcester Police Department investigates itself. Internal affairs isn't accountability, it's a wall of silence. Whether you're living on a sidewalk with no lawyers to defend you or serving in public office, going to the WPD to report their own misconduct puts a target on your back. That's why Worcester urgently leads an independent civilian review board with real oversight and subpoena power. True public safety requires genuine accountability, not policing themselves. Establish an independent civilian review board and prove to this city that no badge puts anyone above the law. Thank you.

Thank you. Senator, is your name .

Thank you, Robin Kennedy, Worcester resident, District 1. I first actually want to speak on items 8A and 8B, Councilor King's motion to reconsider signage relative to ICE civil enforcement. This was an issue that came to my office, raised by one of our shared residents, shared constituents, based on a sign that they had seen in another city, in the city of Lynn. They passed it on to me and said, is this something we can do here? And it is exactly in line with the city manager's ordinance. I passed it on to the city manager and to Councilor King, and I didn't come to testify the last time because I didn't think it was something that needed much conversation. And it is literally the least we can do as a city. If you're out in community right now, you know our residents are terrified, terrified of what ICE is doing every day in our public spaces, literally kidnapping residents off of our streets in our community. following the city manager's ordinance and giving some sense of relief that ICE and civil enforcement is not allowed on public property, not only is aligned with the city manager's ordinance, but again, is the least we can do to give any sense of relief. We're continuing at the state through the Protect Act to continue to push for further protections at the state level, but we need our city partners. We're gonna continue to work with the city manager to do all we can. I also want to stand with the many residents, community organizations, and municipal boards and commissions calling on the city not to close the door on civilian oversight of the Worcester Police Department by supporting the city manager's report. The call of our community is grounded in a shared belief that public trust is strengthened when accountability is transparent, durable, and meaningfully independent. Again, we have the list of organizations. You hear your community speaking up tonight and speaking up again and again. our jobs as elected officials is to listen to that and to continue the conversation and i stand ready at the state to do anything i can to support that thank you thank you what's your name state residents

Good evening. I'm Frances Anthes. I'm a resident of Worcester in District 4. I am also here to speak about items A and B, the idea of putting up signs on city property, which would basically reinforce what we've already said as a sanctuary city. And I very much thank the city manager and the mayor for your efforts on that. Right now, we are seeing a lot of ice activity in the city. 2,000 people per day have been arrested across the country, where before July 1st it was 1,000 per day. 500 people were arrested in July in Massachusetts. Several people are arrested every day in Worcester, particularly at the courthouse, even though 70% of those arrested have no criminal charges. um when i was a kid i read anne frank and i really wondered about what i would have done in nazi germany what would i have done if some of my neighbors who happen to be jewish or gay or gypsies were put in concentration camps and unfortunately i feel like we face the same issue right now what is our responsibility when some of our neighbors are being kidnapped, trafficked, and deported to places where they've never been before. I think that when we think about the Haitian residents, our neighbors who've been here for over 10 years legally, the process that we're looking at them going through right now is they get arrested, they get deported to Haiti, they're arrested immediately, their children who are U.S. citizens are in the same vulnerable position. So why would you take your kids to Haiti if you knew that you were going to be arrested and beaten and possibly killed? So you find a really good person to take care of your kids. Now, here in the US, because they're American citizens, now your kids haven't been part of that decision. You, as a parent, are doing the best thing that you can for your kids. What happens when your third grader gets to school and is supposed to learn fractions When that has gone on, when the kids know that their parents have been taken away. So if we don't stand up, we face a problem that is bigger than just one person being deported. Thank you. We face problems in our schools, we face problems in our community. Secondly, I think according to the rules I get a minute on another item.

No, you get two minutes all total.

Okay, I would just say that I was on the Board of Health when we dealt with the Civilian Review Board and I would be happy to talk about that at a different time. I really hope you send it to the Public Safety Committee for further discussion of the Civilian Review Board.

Thank you.

My name is Chris Demetri. I'm a District 1 resident, and I'm speaking about item 22A. The city administration's report with the recommendation not to establish a civilian review board is disappointing, and I want to highlight two particular limitations. First, the report seems to suggest that a civilian review board is not necessary despite the recommendation of the Worcester Regional Research Bureau and many other community-based groups because of positive trends in the Worcester Police Department and the relatively low incidence of use of force complaints that fall outside the jurisdiction of the Executive Office of DEI. While the trends seem to reflect positive change in the Worcester Police Department, that's really beside the point. Calls for a civilian review board are not a judgment of the current WPD leadership or the city administration. Citizens of the city and community-based groups have been calling for a CRB for decades across peaks and valleys of police department practices and outcomes. The fundamental ask is for a community-based oversight system, for power sharing rather than a concentration of power within the Worcester Police Department and the city administration. Second, the report claims that investigations conducted by the Executive Office of DEI constitute independent review because they are outside the line of command of the Worcester Police Department. No one is questioning the integrity of the DEI office and those investigators, but investigations conducted by a city department are not truly independent. CITY EMPLOYEES HAVE A REAL OR PERCEIVED STAKE IN THOSE DECISIONS. ONLY A CRB WITH FULL SUBPOENA POWERS WILL HAVE THE INDEPENDENCE THAT HELPS ALL COMMUNITY MEMBERS BUILD TRUST IN THE POLICE DEPARTMENT. I'M ASKING THAT THE CITY COUNCIL REJECT THE CITY MANAGER'S RECOMMENDATION AND INSTRUCT HIS ADMINISTRATION TO TAKE INITIAL STEPS TOWARD REDESIGNING OUR CURRENT PEACE MEAL SYSTEM OF POLICE OVERSIGHT INTO PLANNED BODY.

THANK YOU.

Tom Reno was the civilian review board. Page 11 of this report, if you know what you're looking at there, they have a bunch of stuff that's not necessary. If you know what you're looking at, in that eight-year period, 102 civilian complaints about use of force. One was sustained, one of 102. So if you look at that, You believe one of two things. Either you believe 99% of the people in the city are liars, or there might be a problem here and this is worth looking into. But of course, this council continues year after year to do something far more cowardly than that. You just don't ask for the numbers. Because apparently your oath to uphold the federal and state constitutions isn't important to you. the mix of the pothole filler, some weird crusade against bike lanes, how many trucks go up Grafton Street. That's all very important. Constitutional rights of your residents, though, don't care. Don't care at all. And we know because if you look at those eight years, you've never asked for anything. Not one piece of data. I looked. that would indicate that you are interested at all in looking at where the Fourth Amendment and law enforcement tend to collide. You don't care, because you have a fun phrase that you like to use, which is really you saying you're going to cover up police misconduct when you say, we got your back. happened on december 9th was that the mayor and the city manager hiding behind their lawyer began this disinformation campaign and those talking points are still repeated today mr mayor the week before the last meeting you went on the radio and you said that uh uh the doj uses a low standard of evidence uh it's the same as probable cause uh but you know it's stated in the report First page. You know who doesn't state a standard of proof, though? It was the police department. You should maybe read Policy 500. How are they going to weigh evidence in these internal investigations? They don't say. And they've been doing this forever, playing with the standard of evidence. Thank you. So they can continue to say, everything's great. You all go along.

Thank you.

Everything's fine. And then Pastor Rizzuti gets beat up.

Your name's C, your residence?

Kevin Cassan, Worcester resident. Those of us that do community work here in the city, we're tired of coming back here for the same thing over and over and over. But we keep hearing the same thing while we're doing community work in the city about police doing stuff over and over and not being held accountable. And so again, we're asking those of you here to do something to correct for that and to try to rein it in and protect the residents of the city. Many of you were here when the DOJ report came out, the investigation. And those of you that were here, many of you chose not to do anything, just sat there. The administration chose to do nothing with that report and not act on it. Asked for a report from the research bureau and then ignored it. We need to step up and do something. I can hear some of you already saying, Well, we got the post commission. We got the post commission. So I just want to remind everybody, or tell folks, because some of you didn't attend the meetings, but Enrique Zuniga, the executive director of the post commission, has been here in Worcester multiple times over the past few years. And each time he's been asked, and each time he's said, the post commission is not a replacement for a civilian review board. I do not have enough investigators. The Civilian Review Board is something different, and I would support it. So we have that on record. The undermining and dismantling of the Human Rights Commission by this administration is disgusting, disgusting. And it's frustrating to see that having been done, and then turned around and says, but don't worry, we're paying attention, we're investigating transparency. Just last week, the TNG reported that the police turned their backs on drunken driving over at UMass Chan. Frustrating, because those of us that have lived in the city decades know this has been an ongoing issue of the police turning their backs when somebody's been stopped drunk driving. And the chair of the public safety committee hasn't done anything about it, and we as a city haven't done anything about it. And it's about time we start doing something to hold police accountable for their misdeeds.

Thank you.

My name is, you can call me Grandma Wolf Paul. I am on Nipmuc territory. And I wanted to talk about a coalition that brought all this out, and that's Project Priceless. I'd like to take a moment of silence, actually, just for a second. Because there's some of them that aren't with us anymore. They came forward. It took a lot of ovaries for them to come forward to start speaking against these police officers. And all they wanted was five demands. And you couldn't even... Even begin to give them that So I believe that they deserve to be heard they deserve and they're not going to go away and also, I wanted to talk about a coalition that I was a part of that I Volunteered epica ex-prisoners organizing for community advancement jobs, not jails Do you know that we had three meetings in? with Ed Augustus about what the cops were doing to the homeless, to our clients. We also had a meeting about the accountability about what some of the cops were doing in front of Stone Soup, and they were pushing homeless away, not doing anything. I was homeless for eight years. Eight years I was homeless. I saw some stuff. I don't drink or do drugs, so I got to see it HD. But these women, these homeless people, they need protections from the protectors. That's what they need. So you know what? We need police accountability. And to the officers that did this to this woman, fuck you!

Hi, my name is Casey Panarelli, and I am from Shrewsbury. I am here to voice my support for a civilian review board, 22A. The job of the police is to protect and serve the community, but when the trust between the two is fractured, there needs to be significant changes made. The DOJ report brought already known issues to the table, like the abuse of power, use of excessive force, and exploitation of vulnerable communities. I witnessed the WPD flood these chambers to use intimidation against victims of sexual abuse who were speaking up. These women were booed and stared down by off-duty cops, but when a cop spoke, the entire rafters were giving a standing ovation. These are the same people we're supposed to trust to protect and serve without prejudice or discrimination. The following examples show why people lack that trust in the WPD. Example one, the cop slapping the man and during a mental health crisis while he was strapped down in defenses on a gurney. I'm a therapist, and my mom and all my siblings are nurses. We would lose our jobs if that was our response. But all the cop got was a five-day suspension, was found not to be used, unnecessary force by an internal investigation. And the kicker, officers actually protested the suspension by calling in sick. Disgusting. Example two, the incident at the beer garden where police used a dog and excessive force, claiming the victim attacked first. The police were proven wrong due to the video footage. The charges were dropped against the man and the cost to Worcester, $275,000. Example three, the police officer chasing the pastor into the church and tasing him, who was literally here and spoke tonight. That one made quite the news story, huh? Millions of taxpayer dollars have gone towards offending these cops. That cost put on the people alone should be enough to create a civilian review board. The mistrust between the communities and law enforcement are at an all-time high here in Massachusetts, as we have scandal after scandal happening within the state police department. Meanwhile, you expect us to just blindly believe that the WPD will hold themselves accountable? You'd have to be an idiot to believe that. It becomes so obvious to me and anyone else paying attention when you pay for the Research Bureau to provide guidance regarding a CRB, and when they put out their findings titled Overdue for Civilian Oversight, a Pathway for Lasting Police Reform, you don't want to hear it anymore. The NAACP, Black Families Together, the Human Rights Commission, the Board of Health, the Racial Equity Audit, and now the Research Bureau all have strongly recommended civilian oversight. Denying this conversation from happening would prove to the people once again that you do not take their safety and concerns seriously.

I'm Martha Cefa. I'm at 4 Manor Street. I'm a mom, and I'm actually speaking on behalf of my Shiro Giselle Rivera Flores, who's also a District 5 resident like me. We want to lift up Senator Kennedy and co-sign everything she said about standing with our neighbors. especially immigrant neighbors. But we're here to speak about 22A. We need a civilian review board because internal accountability doesn't work. These are her words, not mine. Police investigating police, and they protect their own. It has been proven. Campus Police Lieutenant Marcheski, I don't know how to say that, sorry, crashed into three parked cars in July. Officers saw him unsteady, reeking of alcohol, glassy eyes. He admitted he'd had two beers. Department police said to arrest him, yet they didn't. A supervisor told them to issue a summons. It took an internal investigation to catch the violation, and he's still employed. That's what happens when the accused has a badge. In 2019, Lyft surveyed 45 women. Ten reported officers had bribed them with sex to avoid arrest. One said one officer forced her into sexual favors if she wanted to work. They reported it to the city officials and nothing. As a mom, I'm crying. At a city meeting, the captain I mentioned earlier, the guy running the investigation, shut it down and he said, and I quote, women make these claims up. Here's why that matters. He lied under oath. In 2016, he testified on tape. and the city had to pay out almost $275,000 to settle that suit.

Thank you, appreciate it.

Y'all get where I'm coming from? I'll email this statement, but as a mom, I'm aghast that I have to keep talking about the assault of fellow women, right? Believe survivors.

So we have a motion to suspend the rules to continue the open meeting, comment section, roll call.

Councilor Bergman.

Mayor, I didn't hear a word you said.

I'm sorry.

And I was listening.

This is suspend the rules to allow for the continuation of the comment section.

How many minutes?

We can do another hour. There's only a few more people on the line here, so.

Okay. Council Bregman. Yes. Council Bilotta.

Yes.

Council Economo. Yes. Council Rizzolo.

Yes.

Council King. Yes. Council Mitra.

Yes.

Council Hader.

Yes.

Council Rivera. Yes. Council Rosen. Yes. Council Toomey. Yes. Mayor Petty.

Yes. This name is for your residents.

yes uh fred nathan number 15c uh very good uh council amitra i love that idea of making sure that emergency vehicles no matter other you know the condition of the street always have access that is an important very important some of the conditions of the streets And certainly, once we start having snow and ice, get ready. Now, as for the item that a lot of people were here for, I'm gonna take two different things on it. It's a combination of the police and it's a combination of people who are here that were not born here that come here. You can argue whether it's illegal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but I just want to make a point here. There is not a right to come here. There is a privilege, and that is a very distinctive process. Now, as far as the other item that we're talking here about the police oversight, I think by and far the police are good. Are there some bad apples? There were bad apples in the city council. There have been bad apples in the mayors. There have been bad apples in the clerks. There have been bad apples with the city manager. But right now we have you guys. So have there been some bad apples? Of course they have. Anybody who says there's never been any bad apples is naive. I mean, does it gravitate to the point that some of the people here before me, I wasn't there, neither would they.

What's your name and city residents?

Randy Feldman, City of Worcester. First, I'd like to thank Christian King, Vice Chairman, for bringing the proposal last meeting and renewing it this meeting to do no more or no less than what the city manager said is the policy of the city of Worcester to put up a sign that says there will be no civil enforcement of immigration laws on this municipal property. Why does it matter? Well, 40 years ago, I moved to Worcester with my immigrant wife. She got a job opportunity in St. Vincent Hospital. We walked into the cafeteria. There was one person of color in the entire cafeteria in St. Vincent Hospital, her. Now if you look at the city of Worcester, upwards of 40% of the city are people of color and immigrants. This is a very, very small signal to those folks who've come to Worcester over the last 40 years that we got your back. and all we're doing is reinforcing the city manager's decision to get your back secondly when it comes to the review board the human rights commission met last monday and uh the police department and chief saucier reported to us that there were 312 uses of force that were by hands in 2025 and another 40 uses of force that were more than that that means that the city of worcester each and every day uses force. So it's part of the job to use force. It's part of the job to use intimidation. So why do we need an independent look at these things? Because nowhere else in the city bureaucracy is it part of your job to use force and intimidation. That's why this is different and that's why one person making a decision and the city manager okaying or not okaying that decision is enough is sufficient oversight because it's not independent. It's self-interested and it has conflict involved in it and we need an independent view.

Is your name a city resident?

My name is Ambrose D. Tokula, and I'm from District 3. First of all, let me just say happy Labor Day to all of you, our leaders. I hope you had a great time relaxing, and we say welcome back to your job. But I'd just like to speak on this issue regarding the Civilian Review Board. Every time we argue or we come and talk about this topic, it carries this assumption that Worcester Police is the only place that there's no bar apple in that group. And every one of us here know, wherever you have worked since you were born, there's nobody who has come for interview that say, I'm a rogue, or I'm a good liar, or I hate women. Nobody has said that. We all show our best attitude, but after that, that's why we have human resources, because they will check and balance those things. And every time that we try to object this thing, questions arise in my mind. And one of those is, what will Worcester lose if we put on such a committee? That's the number one question that I want to know through our city manager. Will we lose benefits from the federal government if we have this body? What do we stand to benefit? How many people should complain that they have been affected before we say something? Or is it that because it has not happened to this group, or one of your family members or somebody that you know, when will we take that action? Why do we have human resource manager here? Why do we evaluate our city manager through our leaders that we have elected every year? Why is that? So then why shouldn't we also evaluate our police? For me, these are some of the benefits that will help you if you do that. One, it will put a checkmate to the 0.01% bad guys in there. We all know there's somebody there that will abuse the power. We all know that. What I want us to think about is how do we bring a checkmate to this bar so that it don't influence the rather 99.9% that are doing the job. Thank you so much. Let us think about that. The police chief is doing well, but we all need to find this common ground. And to you, my city manager, I would just appeal to you and every one of you. I know my time is up, but I'd like to just make this clear.

There's a story in a patient book.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you. We have other people on the line.

Thank you. Thank you. Please. Okay, we have other people in line, please. Thank you.

Steve Hart, District 1, 22A. Thank you for extending the time, despite some clear resistance to it. Trying to be practical on this matter, I did an accounting in my head. And I think that for this to be approved, it would probably take an additional at-large counselor, one of the district counselors, and the tiebreaker to make that happen. So I'm asking all counselors to just be open to what your constituents want. What do the people in Worcester want? Have you talked to the people about this? Have you made an effort? Unfortunately, the city manager's letter has sparked a lot of interest and it's as though he put his thumb on the scale of this issue. And his letter referred to an established multi-layered mechanism to deal with things. doesn't sound like open and transparent. People at Worcester don't want to hear that language. You know, I was here. I was up in the balcony in December of 2024. And if the police chief had said, go out, all you officers, and scare the shit out of people, the outcome would have been the same of what happened. I stand here intimidated by the three detail officers outside. This is an issue about fear of the police without any accountability and any comfort in our daily lives. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time.

What's your name, city residents?

My name is Heather Preneur Stanek. I'm a resident of Worcester. I'm here to speak on both the Civilian Review Board and the Department of Justice report. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a city employee and authority figure, I don't have to imagine how the woman who had been victimized by members of the Worcester Police Department might feel, because I have a pretty good idea. In December of 24, when I watched those women, fellow survivors, speak their truth to power to a chamber and hallway filled with uniformed officers, to say that I was floored by their bravery would be an understatement. Having been in similar situations, I know firsthand how hard that is. So to see some of those very same women who are still here, if you remember, vilified by some of those police officers, including union officials, to see them step to the podium and demand names, to see them refuse to do anything other than try to dispel any and everything in the DOJ report was an experience I have no sufficient words for. I have since watched with horror as every single city official, including people I used to have respect for, follow suit. As the city also refused to acknowledge the problem, as promises to hold five public meetings about the DOJ report was totally unfulfilled. And now that the investigation has officially closed, I'm watching this body reject any real potential for change in its refusal to vote for any oversight of this city's police department in any form. It's not only wrong, it's insulting. It's clear to pretty much anyone with the ability to run a Google search that most civilian review boards have very little enforcement mechanism, meaning very little risk of discipline to anyone at the end of the day. Still, I expect to watch you vote it down. Even though the Worcester Regional Research Bureau recommended it, the people want it, and leadership within the department has spoken at length about the changes that have been implemented. It's the system protecting itself. It's to be expected.

Thank you.

I know how that works because I'm currently experiencing it too. For over a year, I have been working with the Harvard Cyber Law Clinic in an effort to get the entirety of the police file from the investigation into my rapist.

I appreciate it.

For over a year, they have refused, and honestly, I expect to have to take my fight all

We have a few more people in line behind you.

I have two more sentences. I have spoken with some of you about all of this, some at great length. You know this and say you want to help, and yet nothing changes. Make it make sense. When good people can do nothing within a system to right wrongs they've seen done, you know the system is broken, beyond broken. Worcester needs more than a Civilian Review Board. We need an Inspector General with the power to investigate any city department. If we get one, they should start in legal.

What's your name and say your residence?

Sure. My name is David Coyne. I'm a resident in the city of Worcester, District 5. I've been living here for 37 years. If this was about a bad cop, we would have no problem here tonight. This is about a bad cop and the six other officers who witness what that bad cop does and don't report it to their superiors or to the superiors who decide to turn a blind eye when that happens. This is not isolated incidents. It's the whole culture of we protect each other. These folks are coming at this job, many of them with military experience as part of an occupying army in the Middle East, come here and their mentality is the only people I can trust, the only people I have to stand behind, the only people I should protect are people who wear the same uniform that I wear. And we privilege people who have done military service in our civil service system by giving them extra points because they've done military service. I support that, but I support it not for police, okay? Because we are making it more likely that people on the force, on the police force, are people who are used to being an occupying army. And that is the mentality they bring to this job. A month ago, we met with District Councilor Five, Jose, and with Mr. LaVanchi from the Executive Office Department of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He made clear, Mr. LaVanchi, that in two years, they had handled 11 cases of police misconduct, that the only cases they can handle are ones where it's a discrimination claim. In other words, if you beat the hell out of somebody because you don't like them, that doesn't go to Mr. LaVanchi's office. Only racial, gender, disability, Gender identity and similar categories are covered by his office. They only have enough people to handle the 11. And part of what Mr. Levanchi shared with us, as the manager has publicly shared, is they're upset that the Human Rights Commission spends so much time on police civilian review. They do because nobody else does. I'm done.

Just your name, name, city of residence, and item number.

Hi, my name is Michael, Michael Jackson, and I'm doing 11D.

We should fix the potholes instead. DJ Hill. MJ, look out for the potholes. Uh-uh.

I'm in fact not Michael Jackson, if you did not know. I do not need to be named, but I usually go by Wilson. I'm talking about potholes. Four score years ago, Michael Jackson have wanted these fixed along with flock cameras that are installed in the city that watch for every move. Damn, that's a lot of time left.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Thank you.

Thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm here to speak on item 15 K, the sanitation trucks and workers. I would like to believe that I'm here representing all residents of Worcester who are appalled at the condition of the trash trucks in the city due to the nature of how trash is collected in plastic bags and thrown into the back of a dilapidated truck. where it is then compressed and this in turn creates an environment where trash is exploding out of the truck and left in the street. This is encompassing but not limited to food waste, human waste, pet waste, broken glass, and liquid sludge. Many residents walk in the neighborhood, walk their pets, and children play in the streets where the stench is unbearable. My husband and I are left to clean it up and hose it down. There are multiple 311 calls from residents of the area alerting DPW to this issue. They have never been addressed. My request is to address this issue by either converting to trash bins where they are dumped overhead or maintaining the trash trucks to contain all sludge and trash. Also, I am at the dead end of a road, of Ardmore, and the trucks use my driveway to turn around, leaving hydraulic fluid and trash sludge in my driveway. Please advise to complete a three-point turn before the driveway or put it in reverse down the street where it is wide enough. I'm also here to address another issue of item 10T. We have resided on the street for almost 17 years, and the condition of the road has deteriorated. With each winter, more potholes emerge, and temporary fixes do not last. I am requesting that Hancock Hill and the right on Tiremore to the end be resurfaced. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is from District 3. I'm here to speak on a couple of different items on the agenda. 22A, many people have already spoke about why we need a Civilian Review Board. I already spoke previously about this. I hate that we have to keep coming back, that it keeps getting held. But so many organizations have already said that we need a Civilian Review Board. The DOJ report said that we need a Civilian Review Board. Whether they dropped it or not is irrelevant. They already recommended that we have that. The Worcester Research Bureau has said we need a Civilian Review Board. The civilians of the city have said we need a Civilian Review Board. So it's a no brainer that we need it. The only reason anybody would want to not have it is to protect their friends that may be bad cops. So there's no reason not to have it. Even the cops that are good cops say that we need to have a Civilian Review Board. and if after doing all of this work we still can't get one then i also support item 14b we need to have a review of our charter and see what needs to be changed or maybe review the whole charter and if we can't get you guys to support that then maybe we'll have to get a petition submitted with the 20 000 signatures so that we can get it as item to vote on thank you does your name say your residence

Good evening. My name is Margo Barnett. I'm a resident of Worcester for 38 years or something like that. I, since we last talked about, I'm here to talk about 22A. Since we last took up this item here, I learned something that I think is really worth considering, which is that when Mr. Levancy spoke to a number of us, he told us that in two years, there had been 11 cases adjudicated by his office now i want you to ask the question how does that number compare to the number of of complaints there are to the police department and how are you who who even knows that there that that office is there to um take these cases and this is aside from the fact that that a use of force case that is not a protected class doesn't get investigated there So the question I want you to ask is that if that office were actually dealing with these issues at scale, meaning the numbers that they really are, what else would that office be able to do? That office has really important work to do. There's really important DEI work to do in the city. If they had to deal with, if they were in fact dealing with all of the complaints that come to do with police, with use of force and all the other things happening in the police department, they wouldn't be able to do anything else. So we need somebody else to do it. That's all.

They will go online.

Thank you Samara the first calling users David Webb try meet the resident now.

I guess a little are you able to hear me.

Yes, sir.

Well, good. Well, they were blister blister first and foremost thanks for the proclamation and it's nice to have some restaurants, but don't pretend. My God, I'm gonna have to turn my own audio off sorry about that. You can take this time out of mind this time. Okay, anyways, what's this? Okay, about AA and AB, yes, please do the absolute bare minimum to uphold the claimed values of being a sanctuary city. Kind of sad you couldn't before. 22A and 22B, what's the saying? If you haven't done anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide. So then why is the Chamber of Commerce, the police unions, and the representatives in that room so afraid of a little old review board? I think a civilian review board is necessary because the current systems don't prevent officers from hitting people with their vehicles and then arresting them, throwing protesters to the ground, kneeling on Black people's head and neck on Main Street, threatening to call ICE on innocent people, disabling and or not wearing their body-worn cameras, assisting in illegal evictions, lying on a police report, or in an internal affairs investigation. Treating a drunk driver differently because he's a fellow cop, harassing and abusing the unhoused community, tasing the pastor we heard from earlier. The same officer was actually involved in interaction with me when I filed a complaint. The so-called Bureau of Professional Services ignored it. And these are just some of the ones we know about. The law department actively withholds records of more, like the homicide of Rachel Story. I know these systems don't work because I tried to use them. Cover up Kevin at the EODI also doesn't do his own investigation if the police have already investigated themselves, which kind of defeats the purpose. The Human Rights Commission has been tampered with and muzzled by the manager, who pointed the police's chaplain to it.

You have ten seconds.

Yes, that holding responsibility isn't a matter for the Public Safety Committee, just funding the heck out of them. Michael Manning at the Law Department covers up for them, illegally withholding reports and body worn camera footage until people take a plea deal. Thank you.

So, Mary, the next speaker is Jillian Phillips. I'm going to try to meet the resident now.

Good evening. Jillian Phillips, Office of New Americans, speaking in support of 8 and . Despite some uninformed xenophobic comments that were made earlier by community and some council members, the vast majority of people who are being targeted by ICE are not criminals. Less than one-third of Worcester ICE detentions have criminal convictions or charges, and most of those involve traffic tickets. Approximately 90% of those are already pursuing immigration relief and have a pending court case or asylum application filed with the courts. We have observed ice agents nearly every day in our city, illegally parking in fire lanes, in no parking areas, and handicapped spaces around the courthouse and other areas of the city to stage for the detention of our neighbors. This is not simply a parking issue, it is about how our public spaces are being used and whether people can access them without fear. This constant presence in the city is also having a real impact on our neighbours. Last week a woman whose husband has threatened to kill her and her children was too afraid to go to the courthouse to file for a restraining order because she feared ICE would also take her. Think about that. A person seeking protection from violence was afraid to enter a courthouse because the very place she should have been able to seek safety has become a place of fear. These signs would not tell the community that this is a place where crime is allowed to happen. It would tell our most vulnerable neighbors that the weaponization of federal agents will not be tolerated here. The PROTECT Act has specific provisions limiting ICE's overreach. Other cities, including Boston, Cambridge, and Lynn, have placed these signs already in their cities. Those communities are showing that protecting public spaces and welcoming immigrant neighbors are not competing goals. They are part of the same commitment. Our city, led by the city manager, is seeking certification with Welcoming America to say this is a community that welcomes and embraces immigrant neighbors. This is a small but tangible way to show our neighbors they are welcome here. It's time for city leaders to act with integrity. Don't just say the right thing, but prove it through your actions. Our public spaces should be places where people can seek protection and services.

Thank you.

So my next speaker is David Fort. I'm sure I'm at the resident now.

Yes, good evening. Good evening. I'll just be very brief. I'm going to just wing this. Basically, is that many of you know that I was the chair of the Board of Health. I've spoken with many of you over the years. I don't like to waste time with basically talking to folks who don't, in my opinion, look at the community or certain communities with respect. And I'm not talking tonight to the Batistas, the Rosens, the Economos, the Tomys, Reveres, the Bergen-Pettys. I'm not talking to you guys today. I'm actually talking more to Dr. Mitra. Dr. Mitra is new to this. And for many of us, we've fought this fight for many, many, many years. Dr. Mitra, you know, I first of all want us to say at the end of the day, if you listen to the data that came from the police or the DEI department or from the city, if you believe in any of that data, I definitely got a bridge to sell you. None of that data doesn't make any sense, what they've given you, the experts, even some of the consulting companies that they've asked and the research bureau. They've given data out there. That's the real data. So at the end of the day is that you're new. And so at the end of the day, we really want to make sure that we let everyone know that you, since you're new, we need you to vote for the Civilian Review Board. We don't, in my opinion, I've given up on all the other people that I just mentioned. But you, your vote matters. Many years ago, I had a conversation, matter of fact, an argument with city manager Batista. And he told me directly, he says, the reason why we don't want a Civilian Review Board, because many in the community, they don't want it. Well, in fact, he's part of that community that doesn't want it. And the people I just mentioned, they don't want it. So at the end of the day, what community are you going to be a part of? Are you going to be part of the community that's looking out for the black community, Latino community, women who have been sex trafficked? Are you going to be part of that community? How many times can all of us say this? At the end of the day, we need you to support this. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Next speaker is Lopez.

Good evening, everybody. I just want to speak about the establishment of the Civilian Review Board. I want to pay close attention to the historical context in Great Brook Valley. So the absence of documented incidents from Great Brook Valley and other neighborhoods, particularly dating back to 1995, reflects a troubling reality. Back then, many residents were afraid to speak up, and this fear was rooted in a history of negative interactions with law enforcement, leading to a sense of marginalization and silence. I remember when I was a child at eight years old, when I was mistakenly identified by a police member, police officer, and slammed against the door. This traumatic experience has stayed with me, highlighting the broader issue of police community relations, not just in Craigbrook Valley, but across neighborhoods in Worcester. I want to point out that if the post commission existed back then, I think members of the gang unit would all be fired. It's important to know that many of those individuals who were once part of the gang unit are now in leadership positions within the department. So this transition raises significant questions about how past practices influence current policies and community relations. Residents deserve to know how these leaders plan to address historical grievances and foster cultural accountability and trust. I like the pothole guy, but, you know, this is a serious meeting. You could have done that another time. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

Spend a speaker's Maria. Can you hear me.

Yes we can mission names the residents.

Maria, City of Worcester District 2, 22A as well. As someone who has a degree in trauma and does this work daily, I know that healing often requires acceptance and accountability. Accepting that an action caused harm is the first step to rectifying it. As a community, we haven't seen that. Rather than say we caused harm and we're sorry, we'll do better, we saw many of those in positions of power dismiss or even deny the harm caused. That's pretty much the same as saying we don't believe the victims or we don't care. Their response sets the tone for the community to mistrust you. We all know these stories. We've heard them for years. This isn't new. What we need is for you to acknowledge them first and then do better. This is why we need to be included in the oversight. To act as if you have no idea why we're angry or to say we're just being divisive completely invalidates not just the victims, but also all the hard work so many of us do daily to help people heal from these traumatic experiences. Why is it every time someone disagrees with you it's divisive? We know why. To quote James Baldwin, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it's faced. If you dismiss everything as divisive, or like our city manager stated, serves to further divide us, it gives those in charge a better chance of not having to face or address it. Through the chair to the city manager, I think it's important to remember that your proximity to whiteness will never equal acceptance. It always comes with a price tag and unfortunately it's clear to many of us that you've been paying your dues.

Okay, thank you.

The seminal ice calling users. 10 it's a phone number by last 4 days is one 0, 6, 1, please and you.

Hi, everyone. My name is Giselle. I am a District 5 resident, and I first want to say ditto to everything Senator Robin Kennedy just said. In addition, I'm here to speak on item number 22A. We need a civilian review board because internal accountability doesn't work. Police investigate police, and they protect their own, and it has been proven. Campus Police Lieutenant Markowitz crashed into three parked cars in July. Officers saw him unsteady, reeking of alcohol, glassy eyes. He admitted he had two beers. Department policy says to arrest him, yet they didn't. A supervisor told them to issue a summons, and it took an internal investigation to catch the violation. He is still currently employed. That's what happens when the accused have a badge. In 2019, Lyft surveyed 45 women. 10 reported officers had bribed them with sex to avoid arrest. One said an officer forced her into sexual favors if she wanted to work. They reported it to the city officials. Nothing. At a city meeting, Captain Michael McKiernan, the guy running investigations, shut it down. And he said, and I quote, women make up these claims. Make these claims up. Sorry. Here's why that matters. McKiernan lied under oath. In 2016, he testified he saw a text on a flip phone's outer screen. The city paid $272,000 to settle the civil rights lawsuit because he fabricated it. He lied under oath. That phone couldn't display messages in the way he had said. So the officer who committed perjury dismissed sexual assault allegations given to him by women. The department protected him anyway. He is still sitting in neighborhood meetings at Beacon-Brightly neighborhood meetings. Because of him, the DOJ had to get involved. I think that's a total cover-up and an example of why we need civilian review board and why we need it now. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, so that's the end of the public comment period. What we'll do is just go through petitions, then we'll come back to the regular agenda. We'll go to the 22A, after we go through petitions. Is anybody here for a petition? I see nobody here for a petition. What's that? What number is yours?

12B.

12B, okay, hang on one sec. I request the installation of a handicapped parking in front of 50 Bristol Street.

Yes, sir.

Go ahead.

My name's Dave Corvigini, 50 Bristol Street. I am handicapped. I've got a plaque. They're going to get me a plate. But I've been parking. I own a piece of property that abuts the front of my yard as retainer wall, and I own that property. But the city keeps telling me they have so many feet of it. But I parked there for 20 something years, now they're starting to give me tickets. It was grass before we bought the house, and then the people that lived there, they needed the parking space on Bristol, because half of it was private, and the upper part was the city's, but they combined it. I think back in the 70s. So we've been parking there all along. Now they're starting to give us tickets for parking on our own property. They say you can't park on that property. It butts the city property street. We need them right away. I've been there 20-something years. Nobody's even walked on the front of my house on the sidewalk. But I've got two tickets in the last 30 days. I talked to Tony, Councilor Tony, about it, and he's on top of it. But I just don't want to keep getting tickets. I have nowhere to park. If I park on the street, I live right at the... right over the peak of the hill on bristol they come screaming over the top if i park on the street i'm gonna get my truck's gonna get totaled so that we park we own the property but the guy came he says well somebody called the neighborhood but we saw the truck there so we gave you a ticket they should just came to the door tell me don't park there but they grabbed us twice for parking there we we just figured we parked on one side my buddy's property it's which is all grass like three feet off the road in his yard, they gave us a ticket. And the guy that gave us the ticket says, if you park your car in my driveway and it's sticking out on that piece of tar that we own, the city didn't tar it. I've been before down off of Shrewsbury Street. The guy says, we didn't tar that. The owners of that house tarred that 30, 40 years ago. They said, we don't know what the problem is. It's 11 feet wide, and I'm taking up six feet of my property, and there's almost four feet of tar they can walk on. But it's not city property, but they have a right, you know, so many feet of your property, but they're tagging us for parking on our own property.

Okay, go ahead, I'm sorry.

And they said, you know, you have to go before city council and talk to city council, see if they want to give you. They said, well, what's the thing in your window? I said, it's a handicapped plaque. I'm handicapped since 2009. I've had umpteen surgeries, neck surgery, back surgery, leg surgery for blood clots. And they said, what's the problem? I said, I can't walk far. They said, you're retired. I said, I know. They gave me the plaque. They want me to retire. So I retired in 2009. But where they want me to park, I can't park and walk all that way. so they said go before the city and get a handicap pocket thing you already have it on your truck tell me you need a permit out front but i don't think i should have to do that we own the property why am i getting tickets if the vehicle's on our property okay what we're going to do is send that to traffic and parking and holy river is the chairperson of that committee and uh he'll hear you and come they'll send you a letter yeah to for you up here in front of his committee okay all set no sir thanks guys thank you thank you thank you tony

So we have petitions 11 be I'm sorry not person just your name in the 11 being around no at would know Brooks Street on we've been trying to get the mirrors replaced.

for several years. The traffic is out of control. I have videos with my counselor where cars are coming around the back of me when I'm backing out of my driveway. They're literally coming around the back in the other lane. They're crossing over the double lines to get up Millbrook to Bernco. There's no control. There's no police. There's no nothing. The only thing I can see is a reconstruction team sooner or later if you don't do something. You got tractor trailers are up and down the street. You're selling all the property for enterprise, but you gotta get some safety going on on Millbrook Street. And you should know because we talked about this maybe 20 years ago, and it's been going on and on and getting worse and worse, so I would like something done.

Okay, we're gonna send that to traffic and parking, you get a letter for a hearing, then we'll send it to the city manager.

I filed that a year and a half ago. This is just where it's getting, a week before they're getting ready to do construction on Millbrook Street. It's fine time to really be concerned, but we do need the mirrors if nothing else.

Okay.

Thank you.

What's that? 11 C. Thank you, Mister mayor. Council neutral.

Yeah, the reason I rise to speak on the subject 11 C. The prediction is that last time I had the similar issue on Westport Road where the children playing signage was requested by some residents. But I was told by the commissioner of Steve Raleigh that we don't have that available anymore. We don't do that anymore. So I think if it will be announced and given information to all the city councillors so it doesn't keep coming here because it will go back to the parking and traffic and will probably be the same issue. So that's why I just wanted to say that it was told to me that that sign is not available anymore. So you have to think of speed hump or something different. I just wanted to bring it to your attention. Thank you.

So we'll go back to the petitions. We'll go first, 10A to 10C, we'll refer to the Parks, Recreation, and Cemetery. 10D, refer to Public Health and Human Services Committee. 10E through 10X, we'll refer to Public Works Committee. 10Y to 10Z, refer to Traffic and Parking Committee. Council Hader?

Just on 10V.

10V?

Yeah, just a quick question. Sure. This is on behalf of Kelly Fay and Josefina Fay, request Orear Street from Main Street to Beacon Street to be given the honorary street name, designation of Ruth Rodriguez Fay Way. Do we have an idea when this could be seen in committee?

We'll arrange to make sure it happens quickly.

Okay, yeah, I just want to make sure that we get the information out. A lot of people would like to.

Yeah, sure, just make sure we talk after the meeting.

Okay, thank you.

Okay. Okay, 11A to 11Z, refer to traffic and parking, and 12A- Do you hear me, Mr. Chairman? Yeah, Council Palato? Could I just comment quickly on 11B? Sure.

Yeah, no, I appreciate the resident coming to speak. I had filed this. I filed a similar order back in the winter and I've had conversations with. I think we're at a bit of an impasse where best practice doesn't always necessarily. Address the realities of the situation and these properties on Millbrook street. If you're going westbound on Millbrook, there's a sharp turn there. Traffic is traveling at a high speed. High rate of speed, and there's really no safe way for these residents to back out of their driveways onto Millbrook Street. The resident that just spoke has sent me several videos of several close calls. I just really want to stress the importance of getting this done. I think it really is not going to be a matter of time before a serious accident happens. So we just really, I really would appreciate if we can get a jump on this and provide some safety relief for these residents, thank you.

Thank you. Okay, so with 12A to 12N, refer to traffic and parking, and 12O, refer to Veterans Memorial Parks and Recreation Committee. Take those collectively on the roll call, roll call.

Councillor Bregman? Councillor Bilotto? Yes. Councillor Economo? Yes. The result. Yes, the King. Yes, it's a meter. Yes, it's right up. Yes, it's river.

Yes, it's a rose and yes to me.

Yes, Mary.

Yes. Okay, we take the item on the privilege 22 a key to the case to see management. Transmitting information communication road to a report and recommendation regarding when this was to do in your view book. When they have a presentation by administration, the manager. Mr. LaVanchi? Maybe just identify yourself and your position.

Mr. Chairman, just a point of order. Are we not allowed to speak on this? Yeah, we are. We're going to let him do the presentation. We want to speak on it. There's a presentation?

Yeah, he's going to do a presentation for us.

Okay.

Mr. LaVanche.

Thank you. Through the chair, to the public, to the counselors, my name is Kevin LaVanche, equity officer. Today I hope to provide an overview of our current systems that we have in place. Hoping that it provides trust in the public of what's working internally. but also to take a deep dive to look at the data different trends that we have in place measures trainings so you know i think as a municipality we can do a better job of providing what we do internally to increase trust but before i begin i do want to quickly say to the members of the public the past three council meetings i've witnessed community members coming in to either do the following three things, courage to speak up on what they experienced with the police department, or either reliving some of the traumatic experience by retelling their story, or just the courage to share their story. So I don't, I don't want to be dismissive of that. I hear what's going on and that's something that we're going to continue to work on. I hope there's a world where there's no negative experiences. I do want to take the time and say thank you to the public for those sharing some of those relived experiences. This is something that as administration that we're still working on to minimize those experiences. All right, to start off this presentation, I do wanna thank the research bureau. We partnered with them in 2024. It was a partnership to examine when it comes to the Civilian Review Board, what are some of the best practices and what is out there? What are different municipalities doing? A lot of this report and this PowerPoint that I'm sharing today, it's a built on in terms of foundation from the research bureau, what they provided, right? So this helped us with checks and balances as a municipality Do we currently have gaps in our systems are the things that we need to consider? How do we continue to strengthen some of our systems that we have internally? So just want to say thank you to the research bureau report that they put forward As I said a lot of things that they mentioned in there We are very confident that either our current system has a lot of those tangible items or we need to continue to improve those processes Next slide. So I'll do a quick report overview on what this presentation will cover. As I said, my goal is to really provide a transparent understanding of what's happening internally and the different systems that we have in place to address some of the concerns. So just a report overview, the first part of this presentation is gonna look at the existing structure that we have in place. As we all know, data is extremely important. I will be providing data today, and it's not to diminish any views or lived experience, to provide full context what's happening out there. Another part of this presentation will touch on accountability measures. Outside of the executive office of DEI and the partnership with the police department, under the tenure of the city manager, there's a slew of accountability measures that's been implemented as additional tools that serve as oversights within the police department. The last two parts, I'll be touching on structural and internal considerations of implementing a CRB. There are some challenges that you might not see in reports of different municipalities that I'd like to highlight. Not to only highlight these challenges, but show how our current system, we don't have to navigate these challenges because of the built system that we created. And then lastly is just the community participation and transparency. How the public, how the community can still be involved in this process as well too. All right, next slide. Next one. All right, so as I begin about our existing structures, I do want to take some time to acknowledge four models that the Research Bureau had pointed out in their report. So the first one is the investigatory model. So this model consists of professional investigators that have the authority to investigate. So an outside entity that comes in and that investigates. Once an investigation is done, they're able to come in. They have professional staff that are investigators. Model number two is the review model. So typically, once an investigation by PD is done, the review model takes a look at the internal investigations to assess the fairness and how thorough it was and the accuracy of the findings. Model number three is the audit or monitor model. So this model addresses issues at a systematic level. So you're reviewing policies, practices, expectations within the police department. So they are known to audit the police department through policies, see what changes need to be made. So just to review the three different models, you have the investigatory, the review model, and the audit model. Now the last model that I'll touch on is what really replicates what we have internally as a city. The hybrid model. So this combines elements of the investigatory model, the review model, and the audit, right? So you have elements of outside investigators, elements of an audit, elements of reviewing the results of an investigation case once it's been completed. Next slide. So I'm going to spend a little focus on the hybrid model, and my goal is to show internally as a city how we have this hybrid model working at this current moment. So as I said, the hybrid model combines elements of two or more three oversight types. So one through policy reviews, one through outside investigators, and another at reviewing investigation cases that's been completed by the police department. So keep this model in mind as I now move over to our next existing structure. Each of these elements are contained within the executive office of DEI. Next slide. All right, so I'd like to take a little bit of time, just discuss our authority and jurisdiction. So when it comes to the Executive Office of DEI, through our revised ordinance, the division is empowered to either initiate investigations that are looking into discrimination, discriminatory practices, human and civil rights complaints. How far does this jurisdiction expand over? This is all municipal employees, boards and commission members, cabinet level positions. However, when it comes to elected officials, counselors, we don't have the jurisdiction to investigate city counselors. However, a city counselor can use our process. At that time, what would happen is it would be pushed out to an outside entity to review, to conduct an investigation. So counselors can submit a complaint against a municipal employee, but we won't be able to investigate a counselor. It would be transferred over to an outside entity. So again, what does this authority include when we look at complaints? So it can be a municipal employee versus a municipal employee. It can be a Worcester PD versus the public. It can be Worcester PD versus another officer. We have jurisdiction to investigate if any of these issues are violated. All right, next slide please. Scope of enforcement, so what does our ordinance empower us to do? There are four main strong categories. Overall, when it comes to investigations for the DI office, we really strongly look at protected class harassment, elements of protected class. So what does this look like? Such things as allegations on their failure to provide reasonable accommodations, either unwelcome comments or conducts that's directed based on someone's protected class, Unwelcome conduct of sexual nature, so that can be sexual harassment. And then retaliation is something that we take serious in our process as well too. So this scope of enforcement, these elements that I'm reading off, covers a whole slew of jurisdiction that our team can investigate in. Next slide please. Organizational structure and independence. So I wanna take a little bit of time to explain the structure of our office. Prior to the establishment of the Executive Office of DEI When it came to investigations, this used to fall under HR. And at that time, they only had one sole investigator. Under our current city manager, he has put the time and dedication to build this office where this is the most investigators we've ever had. We have five investigators that are dedicated to doing investigations. The background of these investigators, we have three that come from the MCAD. All of them have legal expertise. Three of them are trauma informed. And they all have expertise on how to conduct investigations. So these positions are civilian in nature. They don't report to Chief Saucier. They don't fall under the police department. They report to myself as the Chief Equity Officer. In addition about this structure is the position myself that I hold. Being a member of cabinet has provided me flexibility not to only have conversations with the chief of police, but any cabinet member that goes through an investigation process. All right, so this allows me to provide recommendations, have conversations of change. So I have a little bit more flexibility in my role than previous officers have had. And that's due to the administrations in terms of what support is needed to make sure that this is effective. To provide context, I also sit on a board with other chief equity officers within the municipal government. Many other chief equity officers either do not have a department, or their department falls under HR, or they don't have the same jurisdiction to even investigate the police department. We're one of the few municipalities that has this relationship between Executive Office of DEI with the Chief of Police to conduct these investigations. Okay. Next slide, please. Oh, okay. Go back one. Perfect. All right, so just a continuation of organizational structure and independence. From a strategic engagement, this process, this department was designed that allows a cabinet member, the chief equity officer, to engage directly with all department heads. Through documented recommendations, through conversations, conversations that are based off of the results of investigation findings, I can have an influence in making sure that the municipality is moving in the right direction. Collaborative improvement. From these investigations, I can point out policy considerations, remedies to move forward, opportunities to improve systems internally in each department. These are things that were not in place prior to that. So being able to have this, not only the capacity, but the jurisdiction to support me in the work that we're doing has been a phenomenal change. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about the investigation process. It's two-tiered, one that only deals with municipal employees and one that deals with the police. So in general, when it comes to investigations by the DEI office, what we're looking to do is gather evidence to determine if a city policy was violated, right? So we're looking at elements of protected class and was a city policy violated by that action. Each investigation is tailored based off of the city policy and what was alleged. Some of the policies, just to mention, which can give you a broader scope of what the DI department touches on, you have protected class harassment, sexual harassment, professionalism, bullying, workplace violence, slur policy. These are city policies that are either in the works or already established. that allows my department to not only investigate, but these are the policies that we're keeping in mind to see what is being violated. So in general if we receive a case the investigators they're tasked with Conducting an investigation but gathering evidence So this might mean calling in witnesses reviewing body cameras reviewing personnel records They have access not only to the evidence that is provided But they can further get access from the city as well to to conduct a full investigation At that point, based on what is determined, investigators write up a memorandum that comes to the chief ECRI officer. This provides checks and balances. So investigators conduct their investigations and gather evidence. Now the chief ECRI officer is the one that's reviewing the memorandum to make recommendations on two things, what was violated and how to move forward, and recommendations with the department overall to not find themselves in this predicament again. The process itself is confidential to the extent that we can keep it at. And now, that is the process when it comes to just municipal employees. But when it comes to the police department, there is a partnership with BOPS, which I'll talk about in a few. So the partnership with BOPS, there's an assessment, a joint assessment that is taking place. In this joint assessment, if we receive a complaint, depending what the elements are, and this is a concern that I do want to address. So if a complaint involves an element of protected class or sexual harassment, typically our team will lead forward with that investigation. If it's only on police standards, BOPS would move forward on that, and there are times where both elements are present, so it's a joint investigation. So I've heard concerns of, well, your department only gets involved if bias is involved. When you talk about excessive use of force logically, most individuals will always add an element of bias. There will always be an element of protected class. So whether I had an interaction with the police department or a police officer who was negative, the why is always because a protected class falls. I rarely see where I had an involvement that had to do with excessive use of force. and it only happened just because. There's usually a protected class that is followed, so that makes us be a part of and relevant of majority of the cases. Now, the cases that don't involve protected class, my investigators, when they're doing the joint assessment, they still provide a report back to the chief equity officer of things that I may want to point out to the chief saucier. It might not be under their jurisdiction, but I'm still able to catch things that myself can have a conversation with chief saucier. Hey, chief, this came up in an investigation. It's not under our jurisdiction, but it's something you might want to keep your eye on. At no point have I ever got pushback from the chief. He's been very collaborative in working with us since we started this process. So I think with those two things that I talked about, majority of the cases, there's always a protected class that's mentioned. Two, even if a protected class is not mentioned, my team still reviews it with BOPS and provides me any concerns that I should be pointing out to the chief. So overall, holistically, it's still covering elements that may not pertain to us. We're still finding a way to still be involved in this partnership with BOPS.

Mr. Chairman, point of order. COUNCIL. THANK YOU. I CERTAINLY APPRECIATE THE WORK THAT'S GONE INTO THIS PRESENTATION THAT THE CHIEF EQUITY OFFICER AND THE CITY MANAGER IS PROVIDING TODAY. THIS SHOWED UP ON MY DESK IN THIS CHAMBER TODAY. SHOWED UP ON MY DESK TODAY, MR. CHAIRMAN. THE PUBLIC HASN'T SEEN THIS. MAYBE SOME OF MY COLLEAGUES WERE PRIVY TO THIS. I WAS NOT. AND THIS IS VERY, VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION, MR. CHAIRMAN. IT'S CERTAINLY NOT MENTIONED IN THE CITY MANAGER'S COMMUNICATION RELATIVE TO ITEM I THINK IT'S STILL 10.5A, THE RECOMMENDATION AGAINST THE CIVILIAN REVIEW BOARD. We're talking about transparency in the moment, Mr. Chairman. I'm gonna ask that we pause this particular presentation so that I can digest it. I'll speak for myself as an elected official. I'm gonna call for a pause so that the public can take a look at this as well. I certainly think that this 55-page report would have done well to have been included in this recommendation. I intended to call this an incomplete recommendation. So Mr. Chairman, I really appreciate this explanation and this review, but it's really leaving myself, I'll speak for myself, as an elected official, as being unable to completely have a dialogue with this. In addition to that, Mr. Chairman, I would ask for a pause. because in preparing for this, I don't know what this one is, I don't know how many pages this one is, 30 plus page report, didn't include this and now we're talking close to 100 pages. I'm gonna ask Mr. Chairman for some courtesy as an elected official And let this be paused so it can be properly digested and I can participate. In addition to that, Mr. Chairman, there's time limitations that were allowed as a scope and a response to the city manager's recommendation that doesn't apply this 55 page i mean that would also we'd have to include that in this um a response to what's being presented today meaning it would take away um a lot of time so i'm going to ask for some respect i'm going to ask for a pause so this can be digested mr chairman Showed up on our desk today had to fish it out never seen it don't know why it's not next week's a city manager agenda it could be attached to I'm not quite sure what the play is here.

But I think there is no pause in the rules that you can we can send this committee for for evaluation of the report.

There's nothing for the people this doesn't exist.

Well, this is taken from the report, correct, Mr. LaVanchie?

It's not in the report. There's nothing about the models in that report.

Mr. LaVanchie?

It is. It's a visual of the report. It's just an extended report.

Mr. Chairman, there's nothing in here about this stuff. That's the way I took it, anyways.

There's nothing in here about elements of this that we should be able to discuss and take a look at yourself.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With all due respect to my colleague, I welcome the report and I'd like to hear the explanation of the report. If anything, it's going to give me more information to work with.

Okay, Council Tony.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I concur with Councilor Economo. I think it's very important that the public does get to hear this. This is a visual representation of the actual report from the manager, from Mr. Levancy, and I think it's very important that this is read and discussed here. That's transparency. We can take it in committee for further discussion, but it's very important, I think, for the public to hear what this is first. Thank you.

I don't see anything in here relative to what was presented in those first few slides.

Not in there. It's not transparent. to the chair thank you um so moving forward with the investigation process um so in terms of timing lists and completing point order mr chairman am i able to take make a motion to hold this given that even though it's not an item like what are we supposed to do here this is outside of the bounds i need to know through the chair to the clerk what options do we have here or can these things just be presented willy-nilly and there's nothing you can do about it

This represents, the way I took it anyways, this represents the report that was given to us. This is just a visual of that report and broken out in pieces, but it's all in the report. It's not. I think a lot of this is in the report. It's not. And so there is no real motion here. He can't hold this. So the motion is to continue with this discussion of this item.

Through the Chair, to the Clerk, will this show up anywhere on the minutes of this meeting? Again, it showed up on our desk. I checked the emails. There's no email of this. How is this gonna be part of the record outside of the verbal presentation of this document?

uh through the chair to the council as the mayor stated my understanding is the manager brought his communication and this is uh the chief equity officer presentation of that uh communication i don't know how much more details is in the presentation but usually what happens is after the meeting takes place that powerpoint will be part of the minutes or will go to a committee if it goes the item goes to committee with it

Mr. Chairman, again, there's nothing in here, take a look at it, there's nothing in here about the model, the exploration of models that's in the actual research bureau report. There is a executive summary is partially in there, but again, none of us saw this until we sat down today.

It's just, yeah.

Well, myself, I don't know. Maybe some folks had privy to it, but I haven't seen this until I sat down.

This is the first time we've all seen it, I think. First time I saw it. And I think this is a representation of the report that you provided us. Correct. And it does have the four, I thought it did anyways, but.

It's preempting this matter that you referenced that we were gonna speak about. Yeah, we are gonna speak.

It's not the first time we've gotten reports, presentations by the manager on something we're gonna speak about. So Mr. Vance, you can continue.

Through the chair, thank you. Just to sum up the investigation process. So when it comes to my office for investigations, We go based off of what city policy has been violated, what protected class in terms of elements is present. COLLECT THE GATHERING INFORMATIONS, THE OFFICER, THE INVESTIGATORS TYPE UP A MEMBER RANDOM, THEN IT'S AT MY REVIEW FOR DISCUSSION. IN MY REVIEW, SOME OF THE THINGS I'M LOOKING FOR, EQUITABLE PROCESS, PROTECT THE CLASS THAT ARE INVOLVED, AND THEN MOST IMPORTANTLY IN TERMS OF DISCIPLINE ON HOW TO MOVE FORWARD, SOLUTION OR REMEDIES ON HOW TO MOVE FORWARD THAT I CAN HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH ANY DEPARTMENT HEAD, NOT JUST THE CHIEF OF POLICE. The division aims to complete every investigation within 90 days. If we need an extension, we'll do so. When it comes to working with BOPS and the police department, and any allegation that has discriminatory elements in it will be submitted to POST through BOPS, and we're in communication if we need that past that 90 days extension. All right. Thank you. So escalation and final determination. So this slide speaks a little bit of once an investigation case gets to my desk, what happens next? So once I determine what has been violated, a mechanism that I use is two things. what's been violated in terms of past practices, what similar employees have found themselves in that situation, and what was the discipline that was administered, trying to make sure that's equitable, and then also looking into the employee's personnel file will also determine some recommendations. When it comes to the police department, thanks to the collaboration that I have with the chief of police, we engage in a discussion where we go over what the facts of the case was and the evidence and what we may recommend. But at the end of the day, the chief of police is the sole authority figure to ensure that discipline is handled. We've just been fortunate to have a good relationship where we can talk about some of these recommendations and how my department can be an assistance. So if it comes to trainings, he may rely on us. If it comes to, it could be trainings, it could be overviews, whatever that he may need help in, we'll try to provide support. At no point in this process have I experienced any pushback from the chief of police. And again, one concern that I would like to address that I've heard before, these recommendations, they don't go anywhere, they don't have any teeth. From a legal standpoint, when you have an investigation that results in a substantiated finding, the chief of police cannot turn his head away from that. That is a legal substantiated finding and many things can happen. If someone's not pleased and they find out that their investigation was substantiated they can go to mcad the mcad will come down knocking on our doors to figure out what steps that we took in place right through a public records request you're able to see what took place so there are many different layers of oversight where the chief can't turn his eye to or just the municipality in general Should we ever get to a point where the chief and I don't agree the next step it is bumped up to the chief conservative the piece which is the city manager so he's operating as a conservative the piece. At that point it is up to the chief conservative the piece to determine what direction would move forward and what the discipline will be. but I can attest that I rarely ever had to submit an investigation to the chief conservator of the peace. 100% of the time, the chief and I always find a resolution that we both agree on. Okay. And lastly, for context on this slide, and I want to keep harping on this, my predecessors or just the office itself, we have not had this type of process in place to have such a close relationship, but it will have an expanded jurisdiction and assisting in investigation as well, too, with the police department. all right so next slide so the hotline complaint process um so many of you may be familiar with this so in december of 2024 the city manager created another initiative designed for residents to submit complaints complaints that had excessive use of force with bias discrimination and sexual harassment right so per se perhaps uh you did not want to go to the police department um you know to to to complain or put in a complaint of excessive use of force you can use the hotline complaint which is governed by the executive office of dei because again it's another it's another avenue or an entity outside the police department that assists with reviewing complaints around excessive use of force of bias and sexual harassment In a little bit, I am going to talk about what the data looks like for that and what we have been getting. But this is something that I want to bring light to the public of something that we can continue to use, ensuring that counselors are aware about this. Folks can come in person for a visit. Folks can submit online or you can call the division directly. All right. So hotline complaint process. So I spoke about this a little earlier, but just to recap. So the complaint process, which was initiated in 2024 of December, when we get a complaint, there is an assessment that is done between my department and Worcester PD. So as I said, again, if there's elements of discrimination or allegations that are motivated by protected class, My team will take lead on that investigation as BOPS second seeds that. If for some reason the allegation does not contain any discrimination, it directly goes to BOPS. As I said earlier, as a concern that I want to make sure that I address, even things that don't fall in our jurisdiction, if there is an issue, the investigators will let me know and I'll have a conversation with the chief. I just at least to bring awareness to that so he's aware of that so in all matters We're still touching on anything that comes through and it's still a joint process with Bob's on that Next slide In continuation of the hotline complaint process, when we talk about coordinations and investigations, the reason there's a partnership with BOPS, they do assist with gathering all evidence that has to do with police materials, whether that's body cam, personnel records, statements, they do assist and have access to that and provide. So that's why that coordination is there. Two, my team does not speak on police standards. Bob's does. So if there's officer of becoming or discourtesy, that's why we have that joint investigation. They speak on the standards of police, and we speak on the standards of discrimination, protected class, sexual harassment, and together that's a joint case. Any intake that has to do with criminal allegations that directly goes to the detective barrel unit and until they're done with that we come in at the end section to review what the report is but anything that has criminal in nature will go to the detective barrel unit on that. So to end off the hotline complaint process Is I want to talk a little bit about reporting the posts and also interim measures? So any complaint that has discriminatory in nature Bops would send over all evidence Evidence that's gathered all relevant information to the post commission. I believe they have to do that within 48 hours in the meantime something that between the chief of police, HR, and my department, we reviewed to see what interim measures needs to be put in place. So for example, we might get a case, and speaking with the complainant, if for some reason the accused is within the same department as them and it's creating a hostile environment, there are certain things that we're looking for to place in the interim measure as we're doing these investigations. Sometimes that might lead to separating both the complainant and the accused. It might lead to an administrative leave. It might lead to a transfer, a shift in, a change in shift, removal of supervisory responsibilities. These interim measures are put in place to not only protect the complainant, but also the environment of the office as well too. So that is determined at the beginning while these investigations are happening. So there are interim measures that are in place. There are reporting structures that are in place to post as well too.

All right, next slide please.

So before I move on, I just gave an overview of the investigation division. So just to do a quick summary recap, we have two different processes, one that involves municipal employees and one that involves the police department. With the police department, we always partner with BOPS, but there are certain cases where my team will lead the investigations or vice versa, but there's never a point where we're not in the picture, we're not in the conversation. um and then lastly with the structure as i said i think one impressive aspect of the structure that a lot of crbs run into is just having the authority and jurisdiction right with the relationship that i have with the chief to be able to call him up on any issue to be involved in his operations or within the department that does allow us to have a say on influence on what is happening within these investigations So the next division I want to talk about is the Human Rights and Accessibility Division within the Executive Office of DEI. Earlier, I went over the different models. So one model that I want to remind you is the audit model. So that model addresses things at a systematic level, reviewing policies and doing audit policies. When you think about the Human Rights and Accessibility Division, you can think of them as an audit, as the audit model. When it comes to human rights and accessibility, their main jurisdiction is to ensure equal access, protect civil rights, and advance full participation within the city of Worcester. Right, so how do we carry out these duties? They oversee the accommodation process. So if employees need an accommodation, language line, policy reviews, Worcester's immigrant belonging program, right? So these are all efforts to ensure that as a resident of Worcester that you have full participation within city business or within Worcester. In terms of scope of enforcement, what they've been really tasked with is to review policies of all departments. Oftentimes, departments will reach out and say, hey, we have a policy that we want to implement. We want to make sure it's equitable. What this division does is review through an equitable lens to ensure that there's not a disparate impact with the policy that they're putting out. So their main goal is really reviewing policy throughout all departments. And there are times where they don't have to wait for a department to submit a policy. They can also do their own audit where the director of human rights and accessibility can reach out to the chief of police. Hey, this policy just went out. Can we take a review? And vice versa, the police department and Chief Saucer solely himself, there hasn't been a policy that they have not ran by us, especially if it impacts the community. So they've been doing a very good job of at least submitting those policy towards us for review on that end. Next slide, please. One more. So outside of reviewing policies, many of us know this and hopefully down this later of this presentation I'll be able to speak on, but other functions that we do outside of the ADA process, reviewing policies, language line, We have our boards and commissions, which has been a hot topic, which I'll address. But through these boards and commissions, they are an extension of our office. They're providing insight, viewpoints of what's happening within the community. And through recommendations, how can the city manager, the municipality move forward or review some of these recommendations? Oftentimes, these recommendations serve as awareness that we may not know. It doesn't always mean that they'll be implemented, but there's conversations or topic of conversation that is happening at a leadership level because of these boards and commissions of what they're submitting. So they're still impacting in a positive way as well, too. Next slide, please. All right, to end off for human rights and accessibility is the policy audit that I do want to discuss. So as I said before, they're really tasked with reviewing policy. When it came to policy reviews, I believe the police department would work with Human Rights Commission in the past to provide these policies. There was an issue with the turnaround on these policies, because they could only work on them each time that they would meet, which was once a month, so which would delay the process of having policies out. Upon my arrival, what we try to do is a two-tiered system. So the first tier system is that when the policy is submitted by police department, it's first reviewed by the Human Rights and Accessibility Division. Simultaneously, the director will also submit that review to HRC to review as well, too. So there's two level of eyes that are being set on it. The quicker turnaround for tier one, which is our department, they will provide their first take on the policy on things to look out for, and we would submit it to the police department. Tier two of HRC, by the time they get to meeting two or three, will collect their reviews and their comments as well, too. And now in totality, we'll put both reviews together and resubmit to the police department. So this does one of two things. The turnaround is quicker. For tier one, the police department is at least getting a first glance of major issues within the policy that they should be aware of. And then tier two is when you get the outside aspect of the community view, also known as the Human Rights Commission on that. So this results where you're not only having an outside agency, the DI office, but also you're having community members being involved, how they involve through public comment sections, participating in meetings, reaching out to your commissioners, but also commissioners are also having that viewpoint of what they can provide within that policy as well too. All right, next slide please. OK, so now I'm going to transition the data. I think when we talk about systems and processes in place, it's important that we also analyze the data to understand the context. I do want to start by saying I'm sharing this data to show full context, not to diminish the number of cases or the number of experiences, but it's also good to understand what is happening out there as well, too. All right. So on this slide, so the first data trendset is excessive use of force cases. So this slide talks about some key findings that the data pointed out to. So when it comes to excessive use of force, there's been a significant decline since 2023, which I'll cover what that correlation to that decline is. Another trend that you'll notice in the data is that most complaints that are investigated, they do result in being exonerated. So what does exonerated mean? Meaning that the incident occurred, but the officer's actions were determined to be justified, lawful, or consistent with the department policy. I will also touch on cases that are exonerated as well, too. Third trend is sustained findings remain limited throughout the trends of data. So what we try to do is not only look at one year, but I think it's an eight-year period to see what trends are we seeing. They still remain limited. And then lastly, there's still been a decline in reported cases. But not only there's been a decline, it also coincides with a lot of the organizational changes which I'd like to credit to our current chief of police, which the data will show. Changes such as more training or organizational structure or more oversight through deputies. There's just a slew of things that Chief Sasha had to put in place that I do think impacts the data of why some of this decline is happening. Next slide, please. So this is a visual representation of the excessive use of force. As I said, if you look at the top, so you have the year from 2018 to 2025. And then underneath the year is different categories of what the cases resulted in. So as I said before, from 2018 to 2022 cases in terms of excessive use of force were in double digits. Of the year of 2021, the reason that is at a lower peak, I assume was due to COVID. In 2023, there have been single-digit cases of excessive use of force. I did say I'll talk about some of this. In 2023 is also when Chief Saucier was sworn in, and I point to that because there were numerous measurements that were put in place through Chief Saucier as well, too, which I'm gonna talk about later on, but you have the accreditation process, there's the body-worn cameras, there's a lot of programs that he put in place that has also drastically put some of these incidents down as well, too. So one of the key findings that I said is a lot of the cases ended up being exonerated, right? So there may be a concern that okay, you know cases that go to pops Automatically are exonerated from 2024 and up we are also a part of that exoneration process so if something comes to the hotline and There are times we receive cases that's already been tried. My team would still review the work or the materials that BOPS has already done. So it's a second set of eyes as well, too. So it's not just being exonerated just by the police department, but you also have my team that's also re-reviewing the materials as well, too, depending on how that case comes in. So just overall, there's been an 81% decrease since 2018 to now, and I still want to reiterate this. I'm not sharing this data to say that one case doesn't matter, but it's good to understand in terms of excessive use of force, we have a city of 210,000 residents. What do the numbers look like? And as I said, I want to still get to a goal where there's no incidents at all, but it's good to provide context of what's happening. I also want to mention that I understand that there's underreporting too, but part of this presentation, I hope the word gets out on what different resources that folks can utilize to ensure that there's no underreporting as well. Next slide, please. Okay, so this second set of data is cases reviewed by the executive office of DEI. So we first looked at overall data of excessive use of force data through BOPs. Now we're looking at data that the executive office of DEI has utilized. So some trends to mention. Number one, when it comes to Worcester PD related cases, this system has always been in place under HR since 2005. But as I said, with our current city manager, we have expanded the capacity and the jurisdiction of this office to review more cases as well too. I think one of the biggest trends that you'll see in this data is there was a spike, an uptick, an increase of WSRPD-related cases. I attribute to that, because our office is now involved, the scope, the lens that we use as well, too. There's been a slight increase, but that also speaks to our office being effective as well, too. And then lastly, any sustained findings, they are resulted in documented conversations, recommendations. You can see that those findings, in terms of documented recommendations, they have been followed through. It also speaks to Chief Saucier of holding his department accountable as well, too. Next slide, please. Okay. So as we reviewed the data up top, so you have a number of Worcester PD cases. So from 2022 to 2023, the cases were extremely low, right? So you had two cases, two cases. And 2024 is when we get a spike that doubles, right? And that spike is to when the Department of DEI was also established. being established in 2024 having the partnership of worcester pd and also the lens that we use to review cases has also resulted more in complaints but also i i would also like to believe that folks are also reaching out to our department as well too if they're not comfortable going to the police department Just as a reminder, the number of Worcester PD cases, these are not cases that are resulted in findings. They might just be preliminary cases, cases that we just reviewed and that we're still doing investigations on. In terms of the cases, this matches up with the data that BOPS has as well too. So this shows that as our office was being established, we're also on par in terms of reviewing cases with BOPS as well too. So as I said, I think the biggest takeaway on this slide is with the establishment of our office, we're being more involved. The jurisdiction has been expanded. There's a stronger relationship with the chief of police and wanting our assistance as well, too. The last line can give you a little insight, the line that says substantiated cases, that gives you an idea of what happens when there's a findings. There might be two days without pay. There might be sometimes folks resign even before discipline gets there. There can be up to five days suspension all the way to retaking a sexual harassment course and so forth. Chief has done a pretty good job of holding folks accountable and making sure that based on whatever substantiated findings presents, that there is a course of action.

Next slide, please.

Okay. So this next set of data is the hotline as I discussed before and there's been many questions is the hotline working what are the numbers look like our folks using them in a quickly walk you through each step so in terms of total communication, so this is data from December 2024 to July 2026. In terms of total communication, there's been 140 total communications. 126 have been telephone calls, which are 90% of how we receive the intake. And 14 have been online submissions, which is 10% of folks filing online. As I explained earlier, how the assessment works between BOPS and DEI, we still have this within the hotline. In terms of cases being referred to BOPS, there's 9.3, so 13 cases. Cases that are led by the executive office of DEI, it's at 5%, so there's seven cases of that. But as I said, in general, even cases that don't fall under us, I'm still able to have a conversation with the chief just to alert him on anything that may be an issue down the line and that's something that we wanna point out to make sure that his team catches that. So primary of these cases are through phone contacts. Some activities that is worth pointing out. I'm gonna show this on the next slide, but in December, there was a high volume. I think any initiative that you roll out, oftentimes, that's when you might see the highest volume. Somewhere around May, there was also a spike in calls as well, too, but that was due to the Eureka Street incident as well, too. And not all these cases, right, out of 140 calls, they don't all result in reviewing an active case. Sometimes we may get calls of folks from out of the state that are concerned about ICE incidents. Sometimes we get calls from inmates. Sometimes we get calls from all various places. But one thing I can say about why this is working, folks just do appreciate that they have either a line or department outside a police department that they can talk to. So that's a lot of, that's a lot of some of what we're seeing in some of these calls, just the appreciation that they can bring some of these forward as well too. So I just message to the public, to the counselors, if we can continue to highlight this hotline, continue to highlight the Executive Office of DEI, you know, oftentimes I hear like we didn't know about this process, I'm hoping this provides light in terms of different avenues that they can use within this process. Next slide, please. This is just another visual of the hotline, as I said before. If you look at the plotted STEM chart, it shows the activity. High volumes of calls in December, somewhat dropped. High volumes of call in May. and then it's just been somewhat relatively consistent like i said in the beginning i understand is under reporting so i do hope that folks can encourage neighbors residents community members this is a resource that is out there as i get again this is governed by the executive office of dei so you would be talking to a personnel staff from from my team on that on the right you can see the monthly breakdown of if calls are coming in via online or through the phone, and then what submissions are going to the executive office of DEI and what submissions are going to bot. Next slide, please. So one of our last data set trends, even though the discussion has been on excessive use of force, we also want to also look into incidents or just arrests in general. So incidents, arrests, and excessive use of force. So when you're evaluating excessive use of force, it's important to just consider what the volume of police activity looks like. So I said in the beginning, you have Worcester, approximately 210,000 residents. On an annual basis, you have Worcester PD that responds to more than 125K incidents annually. So the breakdown, when it comes to incidents that's responded by PD, roughly around 145K. When it comes to arrests annually, 5,355. And then you have the excessive use of force complaints. So the numbers that I show, I try to put everything into perspective. So the numbers that I show where seemingly they've been relatively low. So every single time an officer shows up at an incident or arrest is made, out of those two categories there's only been 29 excessive use of force of complaints so every single time there's an interaction right so that from 2019 to 25 there's been an 86 reduction in terms of complaints that come out of incidents or arrests or just interactions with the police department as i said this doesn't tell the whole story there's definitely under reporting but But the amount of calls that Worcester PD does respond to, majority of them are not ending in excessive use of force complaints. And as I said before, when it comes to the excessive use of force, many individuals do provide the elements of a protected class, right? They don't say it happens for no reason, usually protected class is associated with that, which now invites my team into the conversation.

Can you go to the next slide, please?

Okay. So, this is the same data, but it's presented as a dashboard, right? So, looking at incidents, arrests, and excessive use of force. So, as I said, we try to do an eight-year period to cover a trend. So, the second column, you have total incidents. That's breaking down to each year. You have total arrests. That's breaking down to each year. And you have excessive use of force complaints. The last two columns, what it's looking at is the number of incidents that resulted in excessive use of force and same as arrest. With the amount of high call volumes that PD is responding to, majority of these calls are not resulting in excessive use of force complaints. So like I said, it's just to paint an image, what is happening out there, what is the real issue, what do we need to work on as a municipality? As I said the data is not the only thing that's an indicator But it's just helpful to understand because I do try to be data informed and driven on what needs to take place Next slide please All right, so this will end our data analysis trend. So what this slide is looking at is just overall internal affairs complaint trends. So when it comes to BOPs, what are the type of complaints that they're dealing with? It's separate from what DEI holds, but what do they see outside of excessive use of force? So some of the key trends, overall complaint volume has remained relatively consistent. So there hasn't been a drop, there hasn't been a spike, so it's just remaining consistent. I think one trend that's worth noting is that the complaints come from multiple sources. And one specific source is also the command structure. So you have your captains, your lieutenants, your sergeants, they're also holding their division or their unit accountable. If complaints are being initiated by deputies, captains, sergeants, that also tells me that they're holding their team accountable. So it's not just only coming through the public, but internally Chief Saucier's staff and leadership staff is also doing what they need to do as well too. So the next slide is going to show just an overall of where complaints are coming from, what things are resulting in outside of excessive use of force complaints. Next slide, please. All right. So I said you have an eight-year period breakdown. So when you look at total complaints at the top, you have from 2018 to 2025. That second trend that I was talking to you about, the initiated by command staff, relatively consistent. from 2018 to 2025, meaning that command staff are also holding their team accountable. The rest of the columns are resulting in how cases are resolved. As I said, when it comes to things being exonerated, that relatively stays high, but if you look from 2023 and on, that's when our team also reviews some of those exonerated cases if they're being tried again, like if it comes through the hotline or Someone would like to get a review of that our team is a part of that process So they're not doing that only solely on by themselves All right Next slide please Okay, so this part of the segment, we're done with reviewing the data. We're gonna take a look at some key components when it comes to accountability measures that's been in place under the city manager's tenure, right? So I've talked a lot about how our office does currently operate as an oversight and has different elements of these different models. But outside of that, there are different tools, initiatives that are in place that also further provides an oversight. So on this page, there are 10 accountability frameworks that I'm gonna touch on to further explain if my department is not involved, what are other measurements as well, too.

Next slide, please.

So the accreditation status, so you have the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission. To my understanding, I've done this at other institutions, it's not an easy process to be accredited. What it looks at, it's a process that establishes frameworks of professional standards to promote consistency, transparency, equitable practices and accountability. When you talk about the standards, there's about 274 required standards. So you have an outside agency that puts a department through a rigorous process from formal policies, informal policies, expectations, ensuring that all those compliances are happening before they get accredited, right? You're reviewing police standards. You're reviewing policy protocols, expectations, and trainings. As I said, it's really rigorous. I do give kudos to Chief Saucier's team for going through that. And just for context, not a lot of municipality police departments go through the accreditation process. It's basically flipping every rock within that department to ensure that it meets its standards. This also bleeds out to how police officers patrol the streets as well, too. So internally, if policies are reviewed, if standards and practices are updated and they meet their certain requirement, that should also impact the performance of any officer. Next slide, please. This is a continuation side of the accreditation process. So this focuses on how it strengthens accountability. Right. So establishing a comprehensive, standardized written policy procedures, providing an independent external review. So as I said, you have an external outside entity that's coming into the department. to also do a review, and just to enhance transparency. So this whole accreditation process is looking to improve the operations within the police department. If you succeed in going through this process of those 279 standards, of several things happens. One, in terms of your policies, they're all up to date. Two, in terms of how the department is ran, it would be more efficient. So this is, like I said, something in terms of context to make it very plain, not a lot of municipalities go through this process or are successful through this process. So we're about halfway through that and I look forward to being fully accredited.

Next slide, please.

So I touched on this earlier. It's just a policy and review compliance. Instead of covering this slide, I do want to take a moment to cover concerns just around boards and commissions. In general, boards and commissions do play a critical role. As I said, they're an extension of the office. They provide insights of what's happening within the different communities, voices and perspective that we cannot be on. Through these recommendation process, They help generate conversations at the leadership level. It doesn't mean that every single recommendation will be accepted, but there's conversations around that, right? And something that I try to do within my role is I work with every chair and vice chair of any board, board and commission. outside of council time. So for example, for HRCs, whoever is the chair or the vice chair, one thing that they can attest to is that if they wanna have a meeting with the chief of police, if they wanna have a meeting with the cabinet member, through me, I will coordinate that meeting, right? So I try to provide them insight on what's happening and what are some of the reasons that we may not move forward with a recommendation, right? I think oftentimes there's a lot of narratives, It's challenging work, but we're still working on trying to show that we can enhance that relationship. And something that I've been committed to is meeting with all boards and commissions, attending all meetings, but also sitting down with the chair and vice chair on any department head that they might want to meet with. So as I said, there may be challenges, but we're still working to improve that relationship. I also want to pitch that we have

Are we receiving questions for after, or are we okay to jump in?

He's almost finished. I want to finish up. Okay, thank you. I think six, seven more pages.

Thank you. So yeah, what I would like to end off on, when it comes to boards and commissions, there's a lot of open seats right now. So if this conversation is about building trust, building transparency, and being involved, I do encourage you to sit on the board. Sit on the board and commission. Even if you don't make it on the board and commission, then attend the meetings. Through public comments, through public participation, your voice can still be heard. And they have the power to call in, whether it's the chief of police or any department head for any type of demonstration so they can ask questions and follow up on. Next slide, please. So another initiative, body-worn cameras. So this was implemented not too long ago. I do believe a lot of the decrease in excessive use of force is because of body-worn cameras. So now you're capturing not only what the officer is seeing, but multiple perspective if other officers are involved. The public has a right to do a public records request if they want to pertain a body camera. And just remember too, while this is one mechanism, it's not the only mechanism that we rely on, right? So we have access to body-worn cameras, statements, interviews, personnel records, but this has been a driving force of why you're seeing some of this decrease when it comes to excessive use of force. That's not the all say all and be all, but at least we can get live footage of what actually took place versus only relying on statements on that. So that's been a huge accountability impact. Next slide, please. So this one I won't touch too much on. As I said, the establishment of the DEI office, something that has grown in the capacity and the jurisdiction through the support of the city manager. It is worth noting that a lot of municipalities may not even have a functioning office, let alone to have a relationship with the PD department to be a part of their operations. All right, next slide. So another measurement that we talked about is the CNA audit, the racial equity audit. Upon my arrival, this is something that I did hear about for a while. So in conversation with the city manager, we wanted to work on transparency. So there was a lot of conversations around, OK, what did we do with the audit? Is it just sitting up on the shelf? So part of what we did is created a dashboard, if you go online. It's a public dashboard with all of the 34 recommendations, and it shows at every phase where are we, what we implemented, what the recommendation was, what has the impact been. So it's just ways to encourage transparency with the public, but also for the public to hold us accountable. So you might see things such as policy change, data collection, community engagement, internal improvements. So it's all about just being transparent. And a lot of what was recommended in the CNA audit is also changes towards the police department. So all 34 have either been addressed or that we're actively working on, and it's all online for the public to see. Next slide, please. All right, last three accountability measures that's been in place. I wanna touch a little bit on training and just education and compliance. So when it comes to our annual anti-harassment as it pertains to the police department, my team doesn't only just do investigations. They also assist in training the police officers. There's three methods on how we do this. Any new employee that is a new officer coming in, they have their own design new employee orientation where my team covers the annual anti-harassment and anti-harassment training. For in-season officers, officers that's already been within the system, we do a yearly anti-harassment refresher as well too. Lastly, something that I'm proud about that I want to speak on is the launch of the DEI Academy, something that Chief Saucier had open arms to. Not only did he have open arms to, but it's also part of the curriculum before they graduate to become officers. So that DEI Academy, what it really focuses on is providing tools and frameworks for officers to utilize as they're patrolling, right? So it's not that they're learning on the job, but they're being They're being introduced to stakeholders early on, and these stakeholders are speaking to them about either issues or challenges within certain communities that they should be aware of. They're covering the history of policing. They're covering best practices for de-escalating. They're covering using the equitable lens and what that looks like. And this is also within partnership. with their training division within the PD department as well too. So not only investigations that we have impact, but also through training as well too that's happening. Through the CNA audit, part of the DEI Academy, we've been able to get stakeholders to be a part of these presentations as a recommendation. And it's been going on strong for the past two years. So that touches just a little bit on the annual anti-harassment, but also education portion as well too. All right, next slide. So promotional oversight and police captain assessment. So what this slide speaks to, anytime an officer is due for a promotion, they go through an assessment center. What is the assessment center? It's basically a two-day interview process. If you were to be the chief of police, if you were to be a sergeant or a captain, They put you through different scenario assessment aspects. So you have situational analysis, you have citizen engagement meetings, you have operation meetings, community meetings, operational leadership, counseling and discipline. These are like some of the six categories that these assessments look at. The reason this is, This is up here in terms of as an accountability measure. In my role, I'm also a part of this assessment. So I am one of the few assessors that can provide outside input on maybe certain scenarios that's missing that these officers should go to. So I can either serve as an assessor or an observer. As an observer, I review the questions see what's taking place during the assessment, and I'll talk to the assessors after, like, hey, we may want to consider having a scenario around this. And a lot of the recommendations that I might make is based off of either investigation cases or what's happening in Worcester to ensure that that officer that's going to that promotional interview, that we're really testing their knowledge or how they react to every situation. So you get an element of DEI being present in some of this promotional oversight as well, too. Next slide, please. Lastly, as I said, boards and commissions are extremely important. One board that has done some collaboration with the police department is AAC, the Accessibility Advisory Commission. When it comes to people with disabilities or the community with disabilities, how we interact with them, oftentimes folks are either nervous to interact or don't have quite the knowledge on how to do that. And that also extends to the police department. So with AAC, they've been invited to train officers through new employee orientation on when it comes to approaching someone with a disability, what is the correct way to do that? How do you announce yourself if they're visually impaired? How do you approach someone that has a mobility impairment? These boards and commissions are taking a role in what the training and practice looks like for the PD department. One example is through the AAC, when it comes to mobility, how are officers having interactions with folks with disabilities? Next slide, please. All right. This is towards the end of our presentation. So what this slide covers is just structural and internal challenges, right? So I want to paint a picture of some of the challenges that you may not see online, you may not see through different reports. Internally, when it comes to implementing the Civilian Review Board that the Executive Office of DEI does not have to navigate. But at least it just puts out there what some of the challenges that you may not be aware of. or CBA, so the Collective Bargain Agreement, to implement a Civilian Review Board is also you're impacting employees' workers' conditions. Anytime employees' workers' conditions is being impacted, you have to engage in negotiations through the CBA. To engage in negotiations, sometimes it can take years. It doesn't happen overnight. Within the same year, within the same month, it can take years. um two it's time consuming and cost cost consuming as well too and there's a lot of legal components um with our with our ordinance of the di office we're we are already empowered to do this work now rather than bringing a separate entity to go through a collective bargain agreement that can take years until you reach a solution next slide please So another challenge that a lot of Civilian Review Board face is authority regarding disciplinary recommendations. So under our current organizational structure, it's the chief of police who retains authority and responsibility when it comes to disciplinary. But because of the relationship that we have, I'm able to engage in these conversations with the chief. I'm able to point out things. I'm able to provide awareness or policy recommendations that he can consider. Not only am I able to do that in real time, It's not months after. Oftentimes, some of these CRBs, they're providing these recommendations after the fact that the investigation is done. We are here right in the beginning of the investigation all the way to the end. So there's constant communication between the chief and I. So the system that we have is built in a way that We're already ingrained in some of these challenges that many CRBs will still have to follow. So oftentimes, recommendations are not taken by CRBs. But because of, like I said, because of the relationship that we have, I'm able to make some of those recommendations with the chief and just review how do we move forward as a municipality. Next slide, please. Another challenge is just access to information. So oftentimes, civilian review boards don't either have the clearance or access to information or evidence. So when it comes to municipal records, technology system, personnel information, they oftentimes struggle to get that type of jurisdiction to have the access to that. Our investigators, they have access not only to police records, but also when it comes to the municipality. So that's just something to keep in mind. We get additional support from BOPS, from the internal affairs if we need information that we can't get our hands on, we do get additional support on that. So one concern is how providing access to CRB is not readily easy.

Next slide, please.

Training requirements and qualifications. Many of folks that sit on CRBs, their residents are civilian in nature, right? But that also requires a certain amount of training, right? Training that's needed, so ensuring that someone has either legal background, understands investigation procedures, understands police standards, understands constitutional standards, can understand the use of framework, the use of force framework or disciplinary process. So you just want to make sure that you have members that are equipped with this knowledge, right? And that's not something that you learn overnight. Through our investigators, through our entire division and the partnership with BOPS, these things are being covered, right? We have attorneys, we have legal experts, we have folks that's been doing work around this that has this understanding right now. So to be effective, you should have some of these training requirements down already. Next slide, please. Funding is such a huge part of any CRB. And it's not just throwing money at a CRB and saying, let's see what happens. It requires building support staff, ongoing training resource, and management systems. What's important to understand in this slide is a lot of the funding that is required with the CRB has been dedicated or poured into the executive office of DEI. As I said, there's a lot of municipalities, let alone having a DEI department, that doesn't have a substantial funding. Our funding for the DEI office, the manager has invested and has provided a good amount of funding, and that is being utilized within our within our current system to ensure that we can carry out some of this work as well too next slide please lastly what i want to cover is just a chain of command many crbs don't understand how chain of command worked within the police department and i point this out because this is what helps have a working relationship. The reason why we do have a good working relationship with the police department, because we do understand the chain of command. It's a structure that provides safety and how the department moves forward. And who should be in conversation? Who do you talk to first? Their structure and how to navigate chain of command. My first six months, I did nothing but sat within the police department to understand that structure. Met with different deputies, met with the chief of police, met with sergeants, lieutenants. to ensure that I can build trust but also understand how they're doing their operations. Without this understanding, it makes it, there can be a rift in terms of a CRB working with the police department. So organizational structure is very important when working on the CRB and understanding how that works. Next slide please. All right, just to summarize some of the considerations of implementing the CRB, just some key points, right? It requires more than just a new body. I've heard like, hey, let's get the structure in place. There are numerous things that the CRB will have to go through from CBA negotiations, to funding, to the expertise. to several things, right? There's an existing system that's already in place, and we're not saying that system is perfect. What we're saying is what else do we need to add to the system to make sure that it does what it needs to do, right? So how do we continue to add to this already existing system? I have an open door policy to anyone, any member of the public that wants to have conversations around improving our process. That's something that we'll continue to do as a municipality. and how do we focus on strengthening these existing frameworks, and where is there room for participation and transparency? So I hope this summary provides just an overview of some of the challenges that you may not see in Civilian Review Board reports. This is just more internal information that the Executive Office of DEI, we're already in place where we don't have to jump some of these hurdles. And lastly, what I forgot to mention, as a part of the training for any Civilian Review Board member. There's also no consequence if a member of a Civilian Review Board were to be persuaded by politics, were to share information. If my team is in a position where they share confidential information, attorneys can be disbarred, they can be fired, there's a threshold, there's things that they have to comply to in terms of standards, where oftentimes members of civilian review boards, which has been a concern of confidential information being shared, all that happens is that you're just kicked off the board. with my city employees, there's more weight. What happens if they share information, if they're persuaded by politics? As I said, they can be disbarred, they can be fired, there's more at the stake of that. All right, next slide please. Community participation. This is one of the last slides. So this really focuses about HRC. So when it comes to community participation, one thing for me about the Civilian View Board is how do we build transparency, trust, and have the public be in the know? Right now, we do have that vehicle through HRC. As I said earlier, there's open seats. Even if you're not an open seat, attending these meetings as well, too, is a way to have insight. Something that I've changed within the leadership of HRC is that they have monthly meetings with Chief Saucier. These are candid meetings of what's happening. We've heard about X incident. What's really going on? Chief has been nothing but great with open arms on meeting with the leadership of HRC and explaining whether it's a rationale or process of what's happening. something I try to pride myself on. If it's going to be a no of implementation, I always try to explain why it's a no and what does it impact. You can ask any HRC member. One thing that I'll always do is explain why. You may not like it, but at least I can be transparent of why we can't move forward with something. Open public meetings, the open public meeting law, that's something that the community can utilize. So if HRC wanted a monthly update through Chief Saucier each time, members of the public can attend, can attend and ask questions as well too, or through public comments. So there's ways that this community can engage through HRC, through public comments on that. This somewhat has a dotted line as an oversight. This is one of the boards that goes to the police department often. Monthly there's meetings with Worcester PD. That's not something that we used to have and now Chief has been open arms on that. Currently, through the format of HRC, they do engage in an annual data review. We do it every year. What this data review contains of You know outreach and recruitment. You know make up some demographic of officers cases that are happening. You name it they've asked chief every single thing so that that's another opportunity perhaps that we can build on that and have by monthly meetings right, but there are ways that the community can be involved and just to improve our system. Just for the many reasons as I conclude, this presentation was not meant to diminish anyone's lived experience of what's been happening, but it's an opportunity to understand the current systems that we have in place and the work that we still need to do to build a better system. But there is ways that the community can participate in what we currently have in. You know, just for these many reasons at this time, we won't move forward with a civil review board, but we'll continue to find ways to increase our capacity, continue to find ways to make sure that our system is doing what it needs to do. And I guess my call to the public to the counselors, you know, continue to find ways to spread the message of not only our department, but the resources that we have. Right. If if the if there is a fair when it comes to the police department and come work with the executive office of the there's a lot that we do. And I want to make sure that we continue to get the word out.

Well, thank you for the presentation. Much appreciated. It was in-depth, I think. We usually don't do that, but I thought that it was important that the public understands and the council understands exactly what we're doing.

I know Council Toomey- Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, can we motion the recess so I can use the bathroom? It's an hour and a half presentation. Can we do a five minute recess?

Five minutes, please. All those in favor? Roll call. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, we're going to continue our meeting. Roll call.

Council Bregman? Here. Council Bilotta?

Here.

Council Economo? Here. Council Rizzolo? Yes. Council King?

Here.

Council Mitra?

Here.

Council Hader? Here. Council Rivera? Here. Council Rosen? Here. Council Toomey?

Here.

Mayor Petty?

Here. Okay, Council Toomey?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, Mr. LaVance, I am incredibly overwhelmed with the depth and breadth of All of that is reported tonight. And I think it's really important that you had this visual as well, because I think it really illustrated all of the hard work that's being done collaboratively, not just within the police department, but within other agencies here and outside as well. And the question isn't whether we want police accountability. We absolutely do. The question is whether creating another civilian review board is the best way to achieve it. And I believe that Worcester should focus on an oversight system that's independent, transparent, timely, and grounded in professional expertise. while preserving due process for our officers and protecting the public. And I think that what you've outlined here does that. Can we continue to improve? Absolutely, always. And I think that that's the most important thing is that we continue to look inward, attempting to see where we can improve ourselves and continue to support the public and our police officers at the same time. And I just want to thank you for that. And it was very clear to me, all of the work that's gone into this, that this is a really comprehensive plan. And I think that there's a lot for people to know about in the hotline number. is I had that open to that page, and I just missed it.

Oops, sorry.

The hotline number, just for people to know, thank you, is 508-799-1995. Correct? All right. So it's clear, it's transparent. There are opportunities for people to talk about issues or concerns. And I just think you've done a great job. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Rivera.

Thank you. I just wanna also, like my colleague says, Council Toomey, that the report was phenomenal. 34 pages, it was, I'm glad, honestly, I know it was held and held, but it gave us time, or at least my time, to really get into the report. And I had 10 pages of notes that I was going to speak about and things that I wanted to mention, but SEEING THE MEETING AS LONG AS IT WENT, AND WE DON'T WANT TO KEEP GOING. I'M JUST GOING TO TOUCH UP ON A FEW THINGS. FIRST, I LIKE THAT THE CITY OF WISDOM CONTINUES TO EVALUATE AND ENHANCE ITS ACCOUNTABILITY FRAMEWORK THROUGH INITIATIVES DESIGNED TO IMPROVE TRANSPARENCY, STRENGTHEN OVERSIGHT, REINFORCE PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS, AND BUILD PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IN THE WISDOM POLICE DEPARTMENT. During the current city manager's tenure, a number of accountability measures have been institutionalized to complement existing departmental processes and expand opportunities for independent review and community engagement. Police accountability is achieved through a combination of leadership, policy development, training, independent oversight, organizational transparency, and continuous evaluation rather than relying on a single initiative. The municipality has adopted a comprehensive approach in which multiple systems work together to provide accountability, support fair and impartial policing, and strengthen public trust. And I think that's important because what a lot of the civilians who want the CRB, they want that public trust. They want that relationship with the police department. And we want them to know that we want that as well. And it's not, no, it's not just the post commission. No, it's not just a body cam. No, it's not the city manager or the human rights commission or your office, the office. IT'S A COMBINATION OF EVERYTHING TOGETHER AND MOST IMPORTANTLY I LIKE THE RELATIONSHIP THAT THE EI OFFICE HAS WITH THE POLICE DEPARTMENT WORKING TOGETHER FOR ACCOUNTABILITY MEASURES BUT I ALSO LIKE THAT THE MUNICIPALITY will continue strengthening evaluating and building upon its existing accountability framework to measure current processes remain effective transparent and responsive to community concerns because that's what it's all about that's what we all want and and we're just trying to say that we want to give what we have now an opportunity so thank you for that thank you council bergman

that thank you Mister chairman. It's not going to be any mystery to anybody that's heard me speak on the sort of the board. I don't before my fact spoke about over the last few years. No secret that I was against it then, and I'm against it now for a variety of reasons. I appreciate Mr. Levancy's presentation. It was, as was said, thorough, complete, full of a lot of creative graphs. And I will say, had I seen the graph that somewhere between 125,000 and 145,000 arrests occur per year, so we average it out to 135,000. And there is four, five, three complaints of excessive force over the last three years.

Had I seen that before today's- Excuse me, I can't, I can't, I can't.

Speaking, everybody's respectful, everybody's- It usually happens when people are disrespectful, so I understand it, it happens a lot. So bottom line is the percentage of complaints for excessive force compared to the number of arrests is ridiculously small. So what this situation means to me is this is a solution for some people looking for a problem. The reality is we can always do better and as Mr. Levansky had said we three four five those numbers should be zero but I don't know if we'll ever get to zero but we can certainly try I also understand they could be underreported I accept that but even if you doubled them which I think would be realistic in assessing whether or not they're underreported you still have a handful excessive force compared to the number of arrests that happen in the city. So I don't think Worcester stands out as a city that's crying or screaming for a civilian review board. But let me go back to what I said in the past and why I was against it years ago before seeing this report, why I really stand to vote against it again today. First of all, I think it's an unfair system. Why do I think it's an unfair system? Because I don't know of any other profession that's judged by people who aren't in the profession. Lawyers are judged by the lawyers when there's suggestions of malpractice. Doctors, the tribunal always has to have a doctor. There's a suggestion that somehow a civilian review board, people who've had no experience in policing, understand policing. So they're going to be able to determine whether or not when they're walking down a dark alley and somebody suspicious reaches into their pocket, they're going to be able to determine somehow whether or not they should or shouldn't pull their weapon because there may or may not be a gun. in somebody's pocket. The Supreme Court has spoken on this. And they said you can't do a Monday morning quarterback, paraphrasing the Supreme Court, on a police officer's actions. You have to understand what a police officer faces at the time they're facing it. Why do I say that? I'm not saying police officers are never wrong. What I am saying is no civilian that doesn't have police experience can put themselves in a position to judge that. I don't believe so. Let me also say that it would be practically impossible to get a civilian review board that doesn't have a bias. Nobody's neutral about the police department. What I heard tonight is a lot of people who probably don't realize that their Facebook posts contradict a lot of what they said. There's some good police, but I'm not saying every policeman's bad. Go to their Facebook page. Every policeman's bad, the stuff they write about. the police officers is just unbelievable. From what I can see, not everybody. There are people here with legitimate concerns about policing, and I respect that. But I think the most important quote of the night for me, for the majority of people in the crowd, was the individual said, it's time to hold the police responsible for their misdeeds. That's the kind of person you're going to put on a civilian review board? Is that the fairness and equity that somebody's going to present themselves in judging what a police officer does? Let me also say this. I wouldn't want to put the manager or anybody else in a position to have to pick a civilian review board. First of all, I don't think it's necessary. Second of all, I think it's subject to become highly political and not accomplish what the ultimate goal is. I think we need to continue on the path we're continuing on. There were 19 points the Department of Justice report came up with that the Worcester Police Department can improve on. All 19 are being addressed as far as I understand. And most importantly, I think it's important to remind folks, because I heard somebody from the audience say something totally opposite of this. The Justice Department, of all their recommendations, 19, not one or two, but an exhaustive number, never said the City of Worcester Police Department Should have a civilian review report. Never said it. You'd think after 19 recommendations, if that was something important to what the Department of Justice thought, they would have recommended it. Never recommended it at all. So I'm going to be consistent with what I've said over the last few years. I think it's not a great idea. I think it's a bad idea. I don't think you're going to ever make everybody happy. I think there are some people legitimately have concerns about policing. I respect that, and I'm going to work hard along with my colleagues to make sure that we continue to encourage the police department to do better. But let me be honest, I think there's a lot of people here that will never like police. And no matter what version of a civilian review board you put up there, they still won't be happy. That's the nature of what policing is. You're never going to make friends being a police officer all the time. Hopefully you make more friends than you don't. But it's not like other professions, where when you get approached, you're necessarily appreciative. So at the end of the day, I don't know what my colleagues are going to do. I suspect I know what they're going to do, but my vote's going to be as it has been over the last few years. I think whatever incidents there are can be addressed. I think the number of incidents are small. There shouldn't be any, but there will always probably be some, because you can't please everybody. I do think at the end of the day, we have a good police department here in the city of Worcester. It doesn't mean we have to. be cheerleaders, but it also doesn't mean we have to fall into what I call trap of believing that the 60 or 70 people that were here tonight represent the 210,000 people in the city of Worcester. Yeah, Mr. Hunt, I knew you'd like that. There was a study done by one of our newspapers which took a poll and said over 60% of the residents of the city of Worcester support the police. And I know that intuitively, because when I go to the crime watch meetings, which represents the entire city, and a mixture of people in all the different neighborhoods that aren't necessarily here tonight, By and large, they tell me they're very supportive of the Worcester Police Department. So I don't believe the representation we see here tonight represents the city. If I'm wrong, there is an election around the corner. I've heard that a year ago, and we'll hear it again, I'm sure, over the next year. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. We have Councillor Carmel, followed by Councillor Wahida.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I want to thank Mr. Levante for his, I feel, very comprehensive report. Thank you so much for bringing it forward. I'm not going to go over everything. I agree with Councilor Toomey, Councilor Bergman, Councilor Rivera on their comments. I won't re-etch them. But I do want to just say a couple things too. I guess what impressed me the most Is the working condition between DEI and our chief and the men and women of the Worcester Police Department. Because quite frankly, when you have a department as the Worcester Police Department or DEI, and you want to have tough discussions, it's great that both parties can come to the table and have that discussion and look at what needs to be changed and addressed. Because everybody's always throwing out the word transparency. Transparency this, transparency that. Well, this couldn't be any more transparent because everything I heard was that the chief is more than willing to listen to what you have to say. The chief is willing to participate in making changes if that's the case. And it further tells me that we have the right chief at the right time here serving the city of Worcester. I appreciate very much so that just some of the notes I took down as we were talking outside of my highlighting here. There is more accountability going through DEI than going through Civilian Review Board. I appreciate the fact that there are more investigators outside of our system, which I think also adds to the transparency that everybody keeps talking about. And really, people don't want to hear it, but I'm going to say it. The post commission, 92 decertified offices in the last few years, 90 suspended. As Council Bergman said, it's been no secret that I've been against the Civilian Review Board since day one and will continue to be. Just one question for you, Mr. Levante, if I may. Do you feel at ease, comfortable with the processes that we have, the policies that we have, and the working relationship that you and the chief have?

the worcester police department and the way it's being operated mr lavantry yeah through the chair um i wouldn't say i feel at ease i'm always someone that thinks there's always more work to be done um i like the direction they're heading in but there's still a lot more work to be done on that

And I appreciate that answer. I also appreciate that you brought forward avenues for people to get in touch outside of getting in touch with the police department, because I think that's just as important. But this report that you've brought forward and went over today further instills more pride in me. in our Worcester Police Department. Our leadership in Worcester Police, your leadership in your department, and the leadership from our city manager. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Councilor Ojeda.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I do rise, I really do appreciate this information. I'm one that would have preferred to have this information earlier, just because I prepared for 22A. And although this does fall in line with it, it just has opened me up to many, many questions. And I don't want to keep people here all night, but probably wish I had the opportunity to go one-on-one prior to this so I won't have to have so many questions, but I think it's important for our people here to have that opportunity as well to dissect it because some of them that were here would probably have been very happy to hear some of this stuff. One of the things you mentioned through the chair Mr. Levante, did I say that right? I want to make sure I say the name right, thank you. You had mentioned the investigators. Three are trauma-informed, but I don't think we have any background history on them. What was the hiring process? Where did they come from? Are they Worcester residents? we just don't have that information so i think that would be good to have especially if we're talking about people that we want to be on a civilian review board we would have all this information we would ask this information from them as well so i think sharing that information with us would be um would be valuable um as i continued you know one of the questions i think either the chief can help with this question or the city manager to the chair is where are we at with the accredited accreditation process um I know you mentioned a little bit but how far away are we and then you had mentioned um there are standards you know again what are those standards my chief for Mr Blanchard yeah through the chair I'm going to call the chief touch on the accreditation process and I'll talk about the investigators after okay chief

Through the Chair of the Council, as Ms. Levancy had stated, there's 274 standards that must be accomplished. That is usually a two to three year process. We started in March of 25. We are making rapid movement on that. I'm going to say out of policies, we started out with 150 policies, 49 of them have been changed. The others are being consolidated or being completely revamped, and those should be done within January or February. Once that's done, we call the accreditation people to come in. They do an external review of everything we do where we have to provide evidence. So if we say we changed something, we have to show evidence that it was actually something concrete in what we did. So I would say hopefully within the next year.

Okay, thank you. I wasn't sure if Mr. Lansing wanted to follow. So with that being said, I'm pretty sure there's somewhere within this process that... Or maybe it's a question to you, is there any civilian input? I mean, what we've heard tonight is common ground, transparency, community, trust, trust in us within this process. Where do the residents fit in into this accreditation process? Because obviously it's valuable information.

Mr. LaVangie? Chief?

through the chair of the council the people who do the accreditation are not police officers most of my civilians they are part of the massachusetts accreditation commission if you look online there's a ton of information on who they are what they do it lists all the standards that we need to accomplish and then you have to get re-accredited every three years. So I'll give a quick example. Our policies, there were policies we had that were still in use from when I came on in 1994. Now, every single policy has to be readdressed every year to make sure you're still utilizing best practices throughout the country and throughout Massachusetts.

Yeah, thank you, thank you. So I guess what I was trying to say is, do we reach out to our own residents in this process?

Through chair to council, no, because it's a very technical thing. Our crime lab is already accredited. People come in every three years and they look at everything they do, but you have to have the expertise in that area in order to make a valid assessment. And it's the same with the policing. We go from changing what they do in the cell room as far as the cells, How we deliver medication, we had to have doctors come in. There's so many things you have to do that you cannot be just a lay person to come in and do that work.

So would you say this is an opportunity to the chair, to the chief, or Ms. Levancy, is this an opportunity to add more involvement within our communities? with our constituents to add this within the policy or add that to a standard, something that probably we haven't had back in 94.

Through the Chair of the Council, we do not create what standards are there. That again is by, it's a standard that's current throughout Massachusetts. Every single police department seeking accreditation must meet the same standards. What we do do is we have civilian police academies. And we're starting when I'm speaking at one tomorrow. So we do different processes where people can come in and they can get a hands on.

uh mr feldman is he's gonna be one of them he's gonna be a star student starting tomorrow don't be late so and i you know the reason why i say that because i think it's an opportunity somewhere somehow to again reach out to residents you know throughout this whole thing i was reading um the key thing was you know, getting their feedback, them trusting in us, trusting in the DEI process and things like that. So I think, you know, finding ways to incorporate that. As I continue with this, there were some other questions I had regarding some of the, on page 13, the case results. So number of WPD cases. So down at the bottom, substantiated cases, remedial actions, there was two-day without pay, resigned prior to verbal discipline, five-day suspension, and retake sexual harassment policy training, five-day suspension. What caught my eye is we tried prior to case completion. What happens then to that individual?

Chief.

Through the chair of the council, I was about to terminate that individual and that person resigned in lieu of termination, at which time when we notified post, one of my comments was to decertify that officer so he can never be a police officer again. So that's as far as you can go. You need to have a certification to be a cop. If you don't have that, you're all done.

But since he retired prior to doing that, the case or whatever issue that just, I don't know what happened, you know what I mean?

Through the chair of the council, that was sustained, so that's part of his record, he's part of POST. Okay. We didn't just stop and say, yeah, now you're retired, you're all set. We sustained the case and then we delivered the recommendation to POST. So just a recommendation, so therefore- They suspended him, and then you have to wait the certification.

Okay.

He cannot be a cop right now.

All right, thank you. Is he allowed to collect any type of pension or anything like that?

He was not charged with a criminal offense. The offense he committed was not criminal in nature, but it was conduct unbecoming and a few other things that are civil in nature. And contrary to what people say, we do go by a preponderance of the evidence when we look at any type of internal affairs case.

Thank you again looking at this on page 13. I guess one of the things that came to my mind is are any of these. Consequences or. Are they really, I guess the only thing that comes to mind, are they really hitting home? Can we change that? I mean, a gentleman, or an officer, I should say, I'm sorry, two days without pay. Do you think that's substantial? Are we in a process? Are we looking towards probably pushing it a little further? Because whatever it is, I don't want someone to say, well, that's only two days or five days suspension. I can deal with that.

Through the council, I mean, through the chair of the council. On the Mass General Law Chapter 31, Civil Service Law, and that's part of this as well. When you find, by proponents of the evidence, that the person, 51%, they committed the infraction of policy violation. Once that's done, you have to go with, when you're administering discipline, it's called just cause, and that's part of civil service. If you do not follow that, and I'll give you an example. Did the officer know of the reasonable department rule? Was the investigation conducted fair and was it objective? Was discipline progressive? And that's an important thing. If someone didn't do anything ever in their career and now they don't have their body cam on, they can't be fired. It has to be progressive discipline to protect. the due process rights everybody has, including a police officer. So we go through a list of things of what we can and cannot do based on disciplinary infractions prior to. So when you say two days, that officer may not have had any type of discipline in his whole career, or her career, and that's what we came up with for the discipline, because it was just cause. If you do not do that, and it goes back to civil service, and it gets overturned, that officer gets their job back, if the officer was fired, and they get back paid. So you have to be very careful on how you administer any type of discipline because there's always an appeal.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Lavancy, so to the chair, you had mentioned coming up with solutions and outcomes and going back and forth with the chief. How do you come up with these solutions? Is it evidence based? Is it based off of, again, the policies, the state, and whatever it may be?

To the to the counselor and this is for any department. So something that my team has created is a database of all municipal employees in terms of policies that's been violated to track. You know, if X was involved in sexual harassment first time, what has been the consequence? If X was involved in protect class harassment, what has been the consequence? The second thing that we look at is also the the personnel record of that employee as well too. And both of these databases is providing insight of what is the appropriate discipline and making sure that we're being equitable on that. So those are the two that I utilize to make recommendation, but also in partnership with any department head, they might have further information that I'm not previewed to. So between those three years is what helps comes with those recommendations. And majority of my recommendations is to help to move forward, right? So if there needs to be retraining, Obviously, if it's really egregious, we'll leave that to the chief of police, or we'll pull in HR. But most of the time, it's how do you correct that action and move forward? But that's how the recommendations are populated.

Thank you, thank you. And you mentioned driving accountability, stronger policies. Again, it mentions transparency, it mentions public trust. Again, are these opportunities for residents to be able to sit down with yourself and your team mentioned that you know if counselors can to uh be more involved or just get that information out like do you plan on having more of a listening session talking sessions to help again with this account accreditation and just so you know i i i believe in accreditation i think i think we need it i think it's important um because that's a huge accountability piece that you have to see over you know year after year and every three years so i think it's important but again i It states this many, many times in here about being able to have public trust and that transparency. We want to promote that. But I don't think I've heard where you invite them to come here, but there's opportunities where we can have meetings outside of city council. A lot of has had meetings in other districts to get people more involved because we go to them versus them coming to us. Again, are these opportunities to be able to get into the neighborhoods where people aren't coming out and having these opportunities to hear them?

To the Chair, to the Councilor, great question. I'll make myself available for any meeting. And I've said that since day one, whether it's to have conversation. One thing that I'm big on is just seeing different perspective. But more from a formalized process, I still want to point out the platform of HRC. So folks from the public can always attend meetings. Oftentimes, they discuss various things, whether it's policies and those from the public can attend those meetings. And if they have any questions, they can follow up or ask those questions through public comment section as well, too. But outside of HRC, I'm always open and willing to have any conversation with any resident that has a concern on policies or that wants to update that.

I truly appreciate that because I think it's important for us to be able to start doing that. and i'm hoping you know through the chair to the city manager if we can start scheduling um within my district i'm ready for it to have these type of conversations this is like like everyone has mentioned this is really good information that we can share but it's also an opportunity to listen to see what you know what is needed and then that goes back to again the accountability piece and transparency um you know i noticed in here also the um The numbers have decreased in the, sorry, I can't remember. The complaints, but the arrests have increased. So that's concerning to me. Although, you know, again, those numbers have decreased as far as the complaints go. Thank you, Ray. Appreciate it. On page 15, they have increased. In 2021, we had a total of 2,470 arrests. And it has increased since. And it's gone up to 3,885 arrests. So again, to me, that's a concerning number. Obviously, the excessive use of force complaints have decreased. And that's good to know. But the concerning part is that right there. And I think that's a number that I think it's important for us counselors to know what our... I guess what are the reasons people are getting arrested for? I think I've asked this question several times to just get a better understanding where we as counselors can help in our neighborhood meetings and let residents know like, you can't tell your son, he can't, you know, being a street slave and hanging out, breaking windows or whatever, or talking to kids or things just to notify residents of things that are common things that are going on in the neighborhood where we can get them to understand this is what's going on so they can become more proactive versus seeing these numbers of arrests increase. So that's something I'm not sure if that's an order, but if there's a way to figure out what are the common themes of the top five between 2021 till now of those arrests. So I would appreciate seeing that. You spoke about accountability impact. You talked about training. Are all these trainings mandatory or will they be mandatory? You mentioned several different types of trainings.

Mr. LaVanchi.

Yeah, through the chair, to the counselor. So there's two sets of trainings. You have trainings coming from my office, which are mandatory, not just the police department, but any new employee coming in. They all have to engage in sexual harassment training, new employee orientation onboarding. And then with the police department, as I said, the chief has been really great in terms of ensuring that the training that we provide is something that new cadets that are going through, they must go through that. And then Chief can speak about also the training that he also has provided in terms of additional training. But to your question, they are mandatory. You have about a minute and a half.

I'm sorry, that's for new cadets though?

New cadets and existing police officers. So we do two-part training. We'll get the new cadets, but we also do a two-year annual training of all existing officers as well too.

That's good. I think it's important for our citizens to know that as well, right? This information is important, but also know that that training obviously leads to accountability as well. And then again, transparency. Chief, did you say, you said you want Chief Hudson to say about it or not?

Chief?

Chief?

Well, I know we just went through the cohort training. That was for the management academy. We went through that. Now they're going down a rank lower. So these are all mandatory trainings. And they address a wide range of things, so it's good. And it gets everybody from different departments to get to know each other, which also helps tremendously.

Okay, thank you. I think for me, the most important thing is ultimately the city manager made a recommendation. And ultimately, it comes down to the council to decide what we want to do. Whichever way the vote goes, I still think we have an opportunity here. Obviously, Mr. Levancy said he's willing to meet with the community and have these conversations. So I look forward to it. One last thing, you mentioned about boards and commissions. Can you explain exactly which ones, just so anyone that's watching or people are here know what exactly you were talking about?

Sure. So when I say boards and commissions, there's a few that the DI office oversees. So you have Black Affairs, Latino Affairs, AAC, Human Rights Commission, the status of women and also the LGBTQIA+. So we have six boards and commissions and they're really identity based. So it allows residents from different communities who share some of those characteristics to sit on these boards and provide insight what that community might specifically be going through within Worcester.

Okay, so again, I encourage residents to take up Mr. LaVancey on his request and ask to become more involved. And again, if you're not able to get on the board, attend the meetings, this is where all the work will be done. Thank you, and I look forward to those meetings.

Thank you. Okay, we have Council Mitra followed by Council Boada.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I'd like to thank for all those who came here today and tonight and really spoke their thoughts and their minds to us, which is very helpful. I think that is democracy. We hear you. It gives us a lot of things to think about. I also want to thank our chief equity officer for, I know it's been a lot of patience for you. We've been waiting to make this presentation. I'm glad that finally we'll get it done for you. And you made a great presentation for us, giving us at least the whole idea about what is happening at this point. I just wondered that if this presentation could be available to everyone in the residence, if you can post it on the website or something with a request to the city manager, that would be very nice if everybody can see this report so we know the analytical findings that you have which might be important for everyone to know. I would also like to, Mr. Chair, thank someone who called from the online, Mr. David Fort, and mentioned particularly about me to being the new city councilor, you know, give the opinion, thinking hard about the situation. I just want to let everyone know that we all, those who are elected here, are elected thinking that we become your leader, We make our judgment. We make our opinions, keeping fairness in mind. What comes to my own conscious is what I'm going to say. And that's what I think we are all given this opportunity to lead here as your voice. like Mr. Ford, that I'm going to say what I think comes to my mind in a genuine way, in a right way. But when it comes to talking about the Civilian Review Board, which we have been talking about, I've heard many people come and talk, I would probably like to discuss it breaking my thoughts into three things. Number one is option. Number two is improvement. Number three is fairness. Civilian review board is an option. It's an option given to us to take if needed. Now, one might say, or I would like to know, that why do we like to have a civilian review board only for the Worcester Police Department? We have DPW, we have DTM, we have Parks and Recreation, we have Economic Development Office. We're not asking to have a civilian review board for all other departments. Divisions at all. We're asking for having a civilian review board for also police department and rightfully if you really think about it because this particular department has Been given an extraordinary power that probably others don't We have the police department has the power to detain you has the power to arrest you the power to shoot you and They have that extraordinary power. And that's why probably every resident is asking, can we have a civilian review board to kind of make sure that they are not abusing, overusing their power, which is extraordinarily different than many other departments. If I'm not wrong, I think that's why people are suggesting for the civilian review board. But I'll go back again to say that civilian review board is an option. If it was supposed to be something that civilian review board should always be attached to all police department in the entire country, it should have been a law. The civilian review board is, by law, is a part of the Usta Police Department or any police department because they have that excessive power that has been given to them by virtue of the fact the kind of job they do. But it is not a law. It's a choice that has been given to us to choose if need. Now, I would say we have a new police chief for the last two, three years, Chief Paul Saussure. And he has seen the past. He has seen the allegations that were brought to us by DOJ and those allegation points, such as overuse of power, overuse of the force, misconduct, sexual misconduct, not treating people with dignity, and many others, which were the reason that all these things came up. But I think we learn from our past. We see that we have had these situations. Can we improve upon it? And that's where my second point is improvement. We want to have a civilian review board to see that we have an improvement in all these points that was brought forward in front of the city manager or the council. And we have a new chief who has seen those pasts, and as your data, And a deep presentation that you made today shows that there has been a decline in most of the allegations that was brought to us. If he has been able to do that, I mean, the manager has hired a person to lead that department. We have to let him do his job if he is showing that he has made the improvement in what we expect him to do and brought forward the things that is suitable for us, trying to bring the trust back of the community into our police department. And maybe someday this police department will be an exemplary police department in the nation by his leadership role. And I think that since he has shown that improvement, Let us all be fair. Let all be fair. I mean, anyone be hired is hired to do his or her job. Responsibility to be delivered in the right way. And if you don't do that delivery the way the administration requires you or expects from you, then we go to the option. Then we have other options to look into. One of the options could be the Civilian Review Board or anything else. So I am looking into the option of Civilian Review Board. Do we need it now when our current police chief is really doing well and improving the situation? I think it would be not fair. Let's be fair. Let's be fair to a person who is trying his best to bring the trust of the community back into our division. He's doing his best. I would just like to ask, police chief, I'm sure you think that in your role, you have taken this responsibility that you will bring us good results going forward. What is your opinion on that? Chief?

For the chair of the council, that's correct. The men and women of the Worcester Police Department are engaged in doing just that. That's what we want. We want the public to trust us. We want to be as transparent as possible. And those are some of the inroads we are making because that's what we set out to accomplish. And that's what we're going to do.

Thank you very much. I think that's what we expect. I mean, I would like to request you, I'm not going to make a real motion here, but I'd like to see that maybe every six months you bring us the results of your findings on all those points which have been our allegations. excessive use of force overpowering you know miss sexual misconduct and we'd like to see it goes down to zero maybe that's not always possible but that should be our smart goal that i have always been talked about let's have a measurable points and bring it to us every six months to show how you are doing and let the council see that you are making an improvement that is what we expect So at this point, when things are going forward in the way that I think we all are expecting, I'd like you to bring the trust back of the community into your department. And I think what you can do, I have full confidence in the way you have already delivered some of the results based on the result that was presented in the analytical data by our chief equity officer. Thank you for that. You know, I'm a businessman. I'm an entrepreneur. I have an office manager in my office. I tell her my rules, regulations, policies, and I say, make sure that everybody does the right things in the office. Now, after hiring that person, if I say, but I gave you all the rules, I hired you as a manager, but I have five people over you who are going to monitor you. to make sure that you are doing the right job, that you are doing it. And that's not be fair to her. That would not be fair to her because then she'll feel insulted. I mean, we have given her the job to deliver. We have given the chief the job to deliver. I'm glad to see that you are now associating with the Department of Equity and the DEI department, and I'm glad that the things are working. I hope the decisions will be made right. And so going back to the option, looking at all these improvements, I would like to be fair, fair to our police chief, giving him the chance. and probably not look for the civilian removal at this point. I'm not saying that I'm against another option, but at this point, I'd like to give him the chance to continue and bring us back the trust of this community to your department. And I wish you the best, and thank you, Mr. Chair, to give me the opportunity to speak.

Thank you. Thanks. We have Council Bellotta.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I want to thank Mr. Levancy for the in-depth report. And I just wanted to start with a few questions about the processes that were mentioned when it comes to policy review. And it was mentioned that the Human Rights Commission and the Access Advisory Commission Review policies and having served on the human rights commission and done some of this work and it was, you know, we've again had a great relationship with the chief of the police department. I think we've made some really great progress. I'm curious how many of the. Policies has the access advisory commission reviewed for the Worcester police department in the past since this has been in place. Mr. LaVenture.

To the chair, to the counselor, there's a correction. So when it comes to AAC, they engage more in trainings. HRC is the one that's doing more policies. So for example, what I had stated was that AAC, they assist in interactions with PD and folks a part of the disability community. What is the appropriate way to approach folks with a disability? What is the etiquette way? They've been involved in orientation with new officers coming in and they have a segment. So they've been more involved in terms of training, less of policies. Policies is more on HRC.

Okay. So as a follow-up question to that, the AAC provides, like you said, some type of disability etiquette training. Does WPD do that themselves? Is that part of this might be a question to achieve? Is that part of the and I know there's been some additional training that recruits are going through, which has been great. I'm curious. Is that part. Of new training that's happening, or is our, or is that training only happening via the access advisory commission?

THROUGH THE DI OFFICE, WE TAKE CARE OF TRAININGS IN TERMS OF DISABILITY ETIQUETTE. A CHIEF CAN SPEAK TO ANY ADDITIONAL TRAININGS, BUT THROUGH NEW EMPLOYEE ORIENTATION, THROUGH HARASSMENT TRAINING, THROUGH IN-SEASON OFFICERS AND OFFICERS COMING IN, THEY ALL RECEIVE THAT. IT'S NOT JUST WPD. ALL NEW EMPLOYEES COMING IN.

Yeah, so I was, again, referring to just WPD recruits. Is there any type of training that they're getting in regards to how to interact with individuals with disabilities? Chief?

Through the chair of the council, that's included in their academy training. They go to the academy, I believe, 26, 27 weeks, and that is one part of the curriculum that is mandated by the state.

Right, thank you, I appreciate that. And again, I think the Worcester Police Department is going in a much better direction. The chief, the city manager, the administration is implementing policies, internal policies that I think definitely help. And I know, and I think as the majority of Worcester residents know, Again, the vast majority of Western police officers serve with integrity. They care about the community. I've worked as a district counselor and growing up in the city. I know many police officers that care about the work. However, you know, there are when issues arise and when there are mistakes, I think it's important that we really make sure that. Accountability and proper disciplinary actions are happening. So, 1 thing that I, again, the, you know, the report is great. It talks about, uh. You know, improving use of force oversight, but I believe that. You know, the, the report does not necessarily address, I think the central issue, which is, you know, whether was there's existing internal system of oversight are sufficient. To insert ensure transparency and accountability, and I think a civilian review board would be a helpful addition. I don't see it as a replacement. I also don't view it as something that is is. Uh, meant to be, um. You know, it's not existing to loom over the shoulder of a police and it's not about being punitive. It's about building better policy and making creating a more transparent, incredible process. Right? That really benefits both the public and the police. And I absolutely believe that is happening with a lot of the internal. systems of oversight and the external additional overviews of use of force. But going back to the Human Rights Commission, what concerns me about the report is that over the past several years, the Human Rights Commission has reviewed and raised concerns about numerous police policies, but there's only been virtually one that's been adopted, which is the use of the language line, which is a great thing that WPD is now doing. But again, the majority of policies that HRC has, policy recommendations that HRC has submitted have not been taken up. So that's just a concern of mine. Again, I know the, you know, I believe the vast majority of WP officers served with honour, integrity and a deep commitment to protecting our community. But I still worry that there is, and some of the things that that give me pause are some of the things that have come up recently with the report about the mass officer with the report about. In the telegram that was over the weekend about officer who had repeated. Uh, instances of of, uh. History of similar issues, I'm reading the article here history of similar issues of misconduct. I know there was as a chief set escalating levels of. You know, reprimanding or or excuse me what the word is. I, you know, I don't think a civilian reward is there to. to, you know, it's not there to punish police. It's there to build better community, you know, and transparency. Um, I, so I'm, you know, opposed to the manager's recommendation of not opting for a civilian review board. Um, again, I think it's important, you know, that we had the, the Worcester Regional Research Bureau. We've had, um, the CNA racial equity audit that talked about concerns over, uh, how WPD does how they implement disciplinary action like so for example the 2024 cna audit it uh surveyed sworn and uns the non-sworn police personnel and found that 44 of wpd personnel strongly agreed that wpd disciplinary action process benefits individuals who are favored by city officials or command staff that's not me saying this this is from the report that the cna uh that the city You know, had, um, had done and I, and 43% strongly disagreed that has a transparent process for disciplinary action. Again, this is from 2024. I know a lot of that has changed, but just some of the data and the reports and things that coming out still. Give me give me the impression, and I believe that it could still be helpful to have and again, a civilian review board does different things. There's just different models of it. So, uh, you know, some of the boards about 4 minutes left.

Thank you.

So, I just want to address, you know, civil roots great. The way the civilian, the civilian Academy, and I think that points to that. There can be a good relationship between the PD, the police department in civilians. uh again the word civilian refers to individuals who are who's not a sworn law enforcement officer um you know majority just like post commission the majority of folks that are appointed these commissions go through significant vetting they also go through significant training uh and they're they're backed by staff so there's uh crvs can also they often include uh you know people that have work professionally with law enforcement, whether they're caseworkers, social workers, whether they're mental health careers, people that their professional careers intersect with law enforcement. So it's not like we're just picking random folks off the street and saying, you know, here, serve on this board. So, even civilian review boards that I think would be great for Western is to have a position that's occupied by a former law enforcement. All these perspectives are important. And as many of us have said tonight, it's all about hearing different perspectives and working together. And I still think that this is something that could be. Beneficial in that, you know, would bring a collaborative approach to improving policy again. Not all these models are just meant to loom over the shoulder and dictate day to day operations of the police. And I think also, it's great to see, like, the chief pointed out. And this has been mentioned before the amount of arrests in the. Very extremely low number of of complaints and how well that the Worcester police officers are managing use of force and doing different diversionary tactics that speaks to the training that speaks to all the improvements that is happening right now and that the chief is doing and that are the city manager is pursuing. So I give. All due credit, you know, this is important. These are all internal changes that are necessary. I still think there could be. It would be helpful to have in addition of some type of external oversight. Um. But again, I think we are going in a better direction. I appreciate everyone's perspectives and, you know, I go to all the neighborhood meetings too. And here, most of the folks we all are working with PD and. But there's just like folks here tonight, just like folks that neighborhood means is a variety of opinions. And, but I think what we are doing right now is. going in a better direction, but I still feel a Civilian Review Board would be a helpful addition, not a replacement to anything, but an addition to. So thank you.

Thank you. Council Fussell.

Mr. Chairman, through you. I contemplated whether to speak on this issue tonight and I decided I would stand and explain my decision because I owe it to my boyhood friend, chief of police. I owe it to some dear friends that are police officers currently with the WPD and retired. And I owe it to the city manager, who I believe is a fine man and trying to do a great job here for us. Most importantly, I owe it to the residents of the district I represent, and they need to know why I'm gonna vote the way I am. Mr. Chairman, through you again, no one could be more pro-police than I. My record shows it in the legislature. Brought home hundreds of thousands of dollars for overtime community policing grants in the 16th Worcester District that I represented. Again, I'm not touting or blowing my horn, but was... Honored to have the award of Legislative of the Year from the Mass Police Association in 2006. So again, I hope no one doubts my commitment and my belief in the Worcester Police Department. But I did experience something along the campaign trail last summer with someone who was employed with the Worcester Police Department, a sergeant in the Worcester Police Department, that I believe came by my house on the clock in his, on my cruiser and took a picture of a political sign that I had in my yard. And within 24 hours, that picture showed up on social media Saying oh for solo is supporting this anti-police candidate he must be anti-police and on top of it that person that Officer that I'm speaking of commented on it and Supported that if if that that the post was what I just what I just spoke about and he agreed with it that if he has that sign on he's anti police. We need to vote for his opponent. So I did go through human resources and make and file a complaint. The investigation took place and it was decided that he wouldn't be charged with anything because there wasn't enough proof. And I would say also the brazenness of him to do that with a ring doorbell camera on my door that unfortunately was not charged and I did not have the ability to produce any evidence from that camera. If I did, it would have been a mute point. But I didn't. So it was a he said, he said. I get it. I'm in full agreement. Unless you have evidence and you can prove it, that's the consequences. I'm a big boy and I understand that. But in my heart, it happened. And... I feel that as long as someone that caliber is still working for the police department, if he was retired, I probably would be voting the other way, to be quite honest. But it left that kind of impression on me that, again, trying not to be personal, but I've seen him in action. And to me, he's a poster child for a corrupt cop. And I definitely believe he's capable of repeating the same behavior again. So, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to end it there. Again, I'm a man of my word and I know I've spoke with the chief. about where I stand on this issue. And that's why I had to get up and explain, again, to him, to my dear friends that are police officers in this city, to the city manager, and again, most importantly, the residents of the third district that I represent here in Worcester. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Council Rosa.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know my colleague, Councillor Frasolo, said that he didn't have enough evidence in the case he just described that I didn't know anything about. But even a civilian review board would have had no evidence either in the same situation. But in any case, I've been against a civilian review board here in the city of Worcester for the Worcester Police Department for many, many years. I'm not gonna go through all the reasons and all the details tonight, except looking at the research, they generally don't work. I mean, I know the folks who spoke tonight and favor this, and a lot of them have told me Most people in the city want it. That's not what I'm finding. I talk to a lot of people in the city. We agree a lot of times and we don't agree sometimes, but I'm not so sure that that's what the people in the city of Worcester want, a majority. I find it just the opposite, so I don't know how we decide that, but it doesn't seem to work the way that they expect it to work anywhere. Tonight I have an item, if we ever get to it, we have on our council calendar, I have an item about dealing with the homeless issue in Worcester, like four cities, and I named four cities around the country that have taken a regional approach to homelessness, and so that's a whole different issue. But I mentioned four cities. July, when we first had this big discussion, I guess August we didn't have this discussion, July and tonight, so two months, I haven't heard one person in favor of the Civilian Review Board who mentioned what city, any city, where it's working. I just think the folks should check into it. It's not working well in too many places, and I'm not sure what one is, but I know in my homelessness order, I did make sure I found at least four, and I'll talk about that if we get to those issues tonight. i had the pleasure right at 5 30 before this meeting tonight of meeting with seven folks several who spoke today they were all in favor of having a civilian review book and i had the pleasure some of my colleagues did over the last several weeks my meeting with them was tonight and right before this meeting and i did bring up the dei office and suggested to them on a couple of of occasions during the meeting that they might want to look into dealing more with the DEI office with some of their issues. And I think what they tended to say to me is that, and again, I'm against a civilian review board and maybe for a second here I'm being a devil's advocate too. They said, well, the city, what we want, what we want is an independent board That's what they wanted, an independent boy, some independent body to take a look at this. And I think I had a good discussion with them about that, and that was before I listened to your great report tonight. I mean, I think I did fairly well at that meeting, considering I didn't have all the details you gave us tonight and outlined so well. But they're looking for that independence, and I guess through the chair, I would say to Mr. LaVanchi, how would you answer that question? They're saying DEI, good department, what they do, good stuff, we support them. But they seem to want an independent group. Is the DEI office that's part of the city of Worcester government, is that an independent body through the CHIP?

Mr. LaVanchi. Through the chair, to the counselor, whatever entity or board that we have, it will never totally be independent. Even on a civilian review board that's appointed by either the town manager, the mayor, or the city manager. But as I said, through our process, we're the closest thing to independent. Outside of the police department, civilian in nature, when things can't be resolved, it's pushed up to the city manager who then acts as a chief conservator of the piece. So in any of the research that's being done in municipalities, there's no such thing as a completely independent board. There's still some sort of dotted line where the manager or the town manager is appointing these members that are still at the pleasure of that city manager.

And through the chair, if there were to be a civilian review board, which again, I do not support, but if there were to be one, I assume that no one on that board would probably be a city employee, is that correct?

Mr. Vangie? Through the chair, to the counselor, depending how that process works for different municipalities, no.

If I remember correctly, maybe through the chair to the manager, am I right that no city employee can serve on Worcester's boards and commissions, am I correct? Did we change that over the years? I know it used to be that way. Maybe it's been changed. Mr. Mayor?

Dear Chair, to the council, it's a policy that's been stated by the city administration. There have been scenarios where we've had employees serve on different boards. For example, we had an employee in the past serve on the status of women. But when it comes to regulatory boards, they're depending on that role. But it's a policy that the administration has for city employees not to play a role in those.

thank you and i'm again through the chair i'm not trying to make a case for civilian reports because i do oppose it but that's what i heard through my meeting tonight that you know they want an independent board and i understand what you are saying no board would be 100 independent but if it didn't include uh city employees it might be a little different but That's not the case I want to make. But the discussion we've been having the last few months really goes back, am I right, Mr. Chairman, to the city manager's report where he makes a recommendation that we not have a civilian review board, and I believe that's an informational report. Is that correct?

It's an informational report, correct.

Right, okay. And what we've done over the years, there's a couple of choices. Sometimes we send those reports to committee, and sometimes we file them. And, you know, listening to the discussion from the council tonight especially, because we haven't really voiced our opinions, you know, in our meeting. We've listened to a lot of other folks. You know, I can see that the majority of this Worcester City Council does not favor He takes my position, too. I have the same position. Does not favor a civilian review board. So on the informational report, I'm going to make a motion that we file that report. So the manager, some people agree with it, some people don't agree with it, okay? We're going to always have that. There's always two sides to every issue. So I'm going to just make that motion now that we file that report as we've done to so many other reports over the years. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank Mr. Levanchi for the comprehensive report. It was comprehensive. He put a lot of time and effort into it, worked with the chief, the administration, the department. We've come a long way in the last three years. I think you've been here two years, Mr. Levanchi?

through the chair, October will be two years.

These are tough issues. And for what you do with the training, I'm very impressed when you do the training over at the police department or the fire department and putting the recruits through your weekly training once a week. I'm impressed with everything the chief has done. I feel like councilor Rosen has, I just find civilian review boards ineffective. There's always drama attached to him and you don't seem to work great and the chief has done. I think anyways. You know between the advisory committee is putting together. I think it's slowly putting that out. I think I read that in the paper the other day. The accreditation process. The 19 responses the DOJ report. And also. Some of the, not just the 19 responses, but you'll also create another report talking about the DOJ report trying to refute some of the stuff that they had stated in that report that you could find out anyways. Changing all the policies every year, reviewing the policies on a yearly basis. And we're not, you know, nothing's perfect. You know, there's issues, and it was brought up tonight with a lot of different things that happened with the police department and impacting the community. But... You've really put the chief when it comes to law enforcement, have really put accountability in place. I've seen the change in three years. I think it's a tremendous change. I think for the first time, the Worcester Police Department is in a really good place. Doesn't mean we can't improve on more policies and procedures going forward. I think to do a procedure when you're on board, to undermine everything the chief has done for law enforcement here in the city of Worcester. That's why I don't support it. And that's the question. I think the Council of Metro might have brought it up, but accountability measures, Mr. Vanchu, what's our plan for accountability measures to bring out these report every, I think, six months was the motion where we asked some type of report on discipline, et cetera, and excessive force cases. You plan on bringing it every six months, bringing a report out?

Chief Saucer. Is that the Chief Saucer? Is that the Chief? Both the chiefs are soon. The storm is he's the one.

So I think the report I think I think there's an accountability issue here. Trust in the community building that for us because I think in the report and so then you mentioned at the end. talking about there's ways that the community can participate. You mentioned the six, several boards that you're in charge of. And I think that's important that people know that. There's one thing that was brought up, I get the point that Councilor King was sort of making earlier, but I went through, once it was brought up, I went through page by page as your presentation was, it was right direct on between the report that you wrote and the presentation. But there was something that was in your report was the models. You brought up the model, the hybrid model. What's the point of bringing the hybrid model up? Is that something that you think that we're doing now? Is that what the point behind that?

Mr. Levine.

Through the Chair, to the Council. So the point of bringing up the models was to show that the research that the Research Bureau has done in terms of best practices, we have a lot of those elements in our current system. So I was trying to show a parallel between different models that are out there and currently what our internal system has.

I think we have strong internal processes in place. Either way you look at it, I think City of Boston, it's BOPS that does the actual investigation for the Civilian Review Board. And here we have, even stronger, we have police doing a certain part of it, and DEI doing a certain part of the investigations, and sometimes you work together, depending on how the circumstances of the case are. So we have strong systems in place, and I think the Chiefs worked hard over the last three years. And it's not easy. Being the chief of that Worcester Police Department is one of the hardest jobs in the city of Worcester. And to get it done, to keep everybody on board. But you see the difference, the morale, I think, in Worcester Police over the last three years and out in the community. And crime stats where they are today compared to other cities our size or even bigger than us. We've got better stats around the country. And I think it's because we have a community effort. You're out in the community. The police are out in the community. And it makes a difference. I just think this would undermine everything the chief has done at this point in time. It doesn't mean we can't, as it's been suggested, we can't track this over the next year and see where we are a year from now. Thank you.

Council King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Much appreciated. I just want to preface my comments by clarifying that while I appreciate the information here in this packet, what I objected to in the beginning was the inclusion of the exploration of the models, which was not part of our packet. And that comes to the crux of some of this consideration, Mr. Chairman. You know, that consideration is what does work. We heard some statements tonight about civilian review boards do not work. Really? What model? What form? Are those the ones with subpoena power, without subpoena power? What model? And we haven't had that debate, Mr. Chairman. We have a report from the research bureau. I don't believe that's even come before council, through the chair to the clerk. Has that research bureau report come to council?

No.

What was the court to chair to the Council, I believe that was an ass from the city administration. So think that came to the center all as it comes to Council has not come to say comes Mister chairman.

That was my objection previously. We are discussing aspects of a report that wasn't present. Certainly a thorough report. I have a number of questions that come out of it. But I will just begin by saying that I'm a process person. The city manager knows this. I had this exact communication and discussion with the city managers recently, I think last week. What that is is the concern of the order of process. And let's think about a couple of things. And just to be very clear so that I can continue, I reject this recommendation of the city manager. We do not have significant oversight. That's why we have a research bureau report How did that come about? How did we get here? We got here through the people. How do we get the research bureau report? Through the support of the city council, through an item that I filed repeatedly, asking for updates. What's the research? What's the evidence based practices? Speaking with the city manager when he was the deputy city manager. And finally getting it to the floor after he finally requested an independent body to do exactly that. But it came because of the people. It came because we've had a number of concerns about we need more sufficient oversight. We need it because, again, that's why DOJ was here, because we need more oversight. They came because of a lack of elected fortitude. A LACK OF COMMISSION OVERSIGHT, HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION. THAT'S WHY WE HAD A DIVERSITY EQUITY AUDIT. HOW THAT HAPPENED. IT HAPPENED AFTER WE HAD TO ADVOCATE FOR THAT, MYSELF AND OTHER COMMUNITY MEMBERS. CAME FROM THE PEOPLE. DIDN'T COME FROM INTERNAL. IT WAS PUSHED BY THE PEOPLE AND EVENTUALLY SUPPORTED BY THE MAYOR AND THE CITY MANAGER AND THIS COUNCIL. IT DIDN'T MANIFEST ANY OTHER WAY. That's why we had the race dialogues. The same process came from the people asking for additional oversight, talking about their experiences. That's why we're here. New procedures were necessary, new policy, new operations. Why? Because we had women that came in who reached out to the federal government. And we had additional inquiry into the community, into law enforcement themselves. If we remember as part of that report, there were concerns about discipline, favoritism, etc., within the police department. That's not to say that the chief is not doing his job. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying those are the facts. That's why we're here. Certainly, reading their most recent newspaper article where it appears that after a threat of litigation, we're going to release some documents pertaining to this department. And that doesn't seem very transparent on its face. Let's do better with that. Let's think about the impact on public trust. It's undeniable that we have folks that really believe we're doing the best we can. I think we've done diligence to the best of our ability with what the resources and tools that we have. But this is another tool in the toolbox. New policy was implemented, but doesn't ensure that we can't have an additional oversight. Talk about the civilians that will assist the chief on his committee that he's created. That was one of the recommendations in the equity audit that was pushed by the people. When you talk about The community groups, there's a whole list of them. We've heard them. When we talk about human rights commission, human rights commission is an executive commission. And through the chair to the administration, if we could just ask the clerk to indicate what an executive board or commission does. What is their charge in the city of Worcester? You could just read it from the Chair.

Mr. Cork?

THANK YOU, MR. MAYOR. THROUGH THE CHAIR TO THE COUNCIL, SO IT'S AN EXECUTIVE BOARD OF COMMISSION ESTABLISHED BY THE CITY DEPARTMENT AND SUPERVISED DEPARTMENT OF OPERATIONS THROUGH THE EXECUTIVE OFFICER WHO IS THE ADMINISTRATIVE HEAD OF THE CITY AGENCY. CITY MANAGER APPOINTS ALL MEMBERS WITHOUT THE NEED OF CITY COUNCIL CONFIRMATION.

COULD YOU READ THAT FIRST SENTENCE AGAIN, PLEASE?

IT'S AN EXECUTIVE BOARD AND COMMISSION ESTABLISHES POLICY FOR CITY DEPARTMENTS AND SUPERVISES DEPARTMENTAL OPERATIONS THROUGH AN EXECUTIVE OFFICER WHO IS THE ADMINISTRATIVE HEAD OF THE CITY AGENCY.

YES. SO IT ESTABLISHES POLICIES. AND WE TALKED ABOUT ONE SUGGESTION THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION GAVE THAT WAS IMPLEMENTED. It gives you a bit of pause. And I want to speak a little bit to Human Rights Commission, who's charged with some of this policy work.

You're in your second five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When we talk about that commission, I filed an order I'm just gonna speak to him really quickly. I filed three orders that was unanimously supported by this council asking for oversight and asking for the city manager to respond with regards to any recommendations made by that entity. So through the chair, to the clerk, if you could read so I can preserve my time. Those orders that were filed in December of 2024, September of 2025, in February of 2026 through the Chair.

Mr. Cork. Through the Chair, to the Council. So I printed the orders out for you, Council, but I have to locate them now.

Thank you, I need to preserve my time. Chris.

So to chair to the to the council, there was an order on December 17, 2024. City managers hereby requested to provide city council with a copy of all memos, notes, recommendations that the city receives from the Human Rights Commission. There was a September 30th, 2025, city manager here has requested to provide city council with a report concerning recommendations brought forward by the Human Rights Commission relative to police departments and language capacity, including information concerning the degree of recommendations that have been accepted and implemented by the department. That was one as recent as February 24, 2026. City Manager has requested to provide City Council with an update concerning the previous adopted order from December 10, 2024, which read, request the City Manager to provide City Council with a copy of all memos, notes, recommendations the City receives from the Human Rights Commission.

Through the Chair, the Clerk, do you have any evidence that that was provided by report? I know that it wasn't, but do you have anything that indicates it was?

Through the chair to the council, I have to do some research.

Okay, thank you. City manager asked that commission to stop focusing on police conduct and focus on other priorities. as the DOJ report and the race equity audit was both in progress. There was a resistance or delay in meeting with HRC leadership. There was refusal to release reports that were requested. The policy recommendations the council has no idea about to date. refusing to support some requests for changes in policies relative to the sexual assault unit, et cetera, juvenile arrest, canine, et cetera. And of course, prohibiting a release of statements about racist graffiti and language. So again, an internal process that wasn't working. Mr. Chairman, I'm also going to ask the city manager to read Well, we're not going to have to read. Through the chair to the administration, I was very happy to hear Kevin Levancy say a couple of things. One, that data is not the only indicator. My question to him is where is the qualitative data? It also indicated that concerns are underreported. Want to know what efforts have been made and made an indication that he hopes that today's presentation goes toward educating the public. Want to know what the administration has done and will do in that respect. So to the chair, to the administration.

Mr. Levancy.

TO THE CHAIR, TO THE COUNCIL, YOUR FIRST QUESTION ON QUALITATIVE DATA, AREAS OF THAT I CAN'T SHARE, THAT'S THROUGH WITNESSES, BUT I CAN DO A BETTER JOB OF COMPILING QUALITATIVE DATA.

I'M SORRY, TO THE CHAIR, I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT, I COULDN'T HEAR YOU.

To the chair, to the council, in terms of your question on qualitative data, that is an area that we can continue to improve. The qualitative data that I do have come from the process of interviews, which I will not be sharing. But in terms of collecting in consensus, that's something that we can improve on.

To the chair, where's the qualitative data in the data that was reported to support the joint recommendation?

So when you talk about qualitative data, you're taking statements from individual and seeing what their lived experience is. That's not something that I provided on this port. I was looking at statistical data to understand.

Thank you, so there's no qualitative data, Mr. Chairman. We've heard testimony, we've heard folks, we've heard our own colleagues give testimony about experiences, and in this report, There's no capturing of that. That is a failure, Mr. Chairman. It's a failure of the administration, it's a failure of the department as it relates to this. Again, how did we get here? 1993, 1993, Mr. Chairman, Cristina Hernandez died during a police interaction. That was one of the first times that folks asked for a civilian review board, Mr. Chairman. And here we are today, Mr. Chairman. The question to the chair, again, is as it relates to the protected class, I think was the statement, is always part of the allegation, something to that effect. I would like that broken down for me. Given your educational capacity, your professional capacity, what does that mean? What does that mean?

Through the Chair, to the Council, protected class is a set of different categories.

Let me clarify, Mr. Chairman, that's not my question. The statement that was made that I wrote down was that almost always protected class is an element of the reports and concerns that are brought forward. And I know that's what you cover. You also said there's other instances, but you said there's always an element. What do you interpret that to mean?

The chair to the counselor said majority of cases have an element of protected class being involved, meaning that there's a protected identity that is the rationale to why they're making the complaint. So they were either treated differently based on a protected identity, which has our team being involved. Majority of the time, if excessive use of force is alleged, it's usually false because a protected class was violated.

What's that mean in terms of systems? What's that mean in terms of the populations that's been impacted?

So in terms of what does it mean for in systems, that means, one, that our team will always be invited into the conversation, will always be part of the investigations. If you're talking about in general, what does that mean for the impacted? Impacted parties, yes. through the chair to the council uh i'm happy to provide a report on that that's it and if you're going to want to put a report to i'm happy to provide a report on that is that all you have through the chair that's all you got for me tonight you have 30 seconds through the chair through the chair yes mr chairman um

There is no Research Bureau report here before us. I'd like to make a motion that we get that report before us, so we can take a balanced view of this. That would be my motion. Mr. Chairman, I got a couple of more things I'd like to talk about here, so I would like the opportunity to do that. And that is, there was a statement made, Mr. Chairman, that if someone violates- So we have to get a motion to suspend the rules, roll call.

Council Bregman? No. Council Bilotto?

Yes.

Council Economo?

No.

Council Fazzolo? Yes. Council King? Yes. Council Mitra?

No.

Council Ojeda?

Yes.

Council Rivera? No. Council Rosen? No. Council Toomey? No. And Mayor Petty?

Yes.

So Mayor, that motion fails.

What's the count?

So you need eight votes. You have Council Belotta, Council Fazzolo, Council King, Council Ojeda, Mayor Petty, yes.

Okay, so you can wrap it up. Okay, Council Bergman.

I just want to follow up with two more things. I didn't use all my five minutes. I don't intend to. I think Council Belotta had mentioned something that I mentioned. I just want to be accurate about it, because I think that there was some inaccuracy in it. Not intentional, of course. I was comparing and I am comparing the number of excessive force complaints to the number of incidents. If I said arrest, that wasn't my intent and the conclusion's the same. It's less than 1% and it's well within the national average and probably lower. than most major cities our size. Let me just also mention that I don't believe we're here because there's an amount, a successive amount of people claiming excessive force. I look at the data, I look at the graph, 2,023, four people, 2,024, five people, 2,025, three people. Again, even if we double that, we're not here discussing a civilian review board because less than ten people have filed an excessive use of force complaint against the city of Worcester. I think in large part we're here because of the DOJ report, which in many ways really Caused a lot of difficulty as far as trying to understand how to address a report that was allegations. And I'm going to end by saying this. And I'm going to define an allegation because I think for a long time since the DOJ report came out, very few people have understood or at least acknowledged that an allegation is something that is made without definitive proof. or evidence, and until... You got 30 seconds, go on. Yeah, if I don't get interrupted again by fake coughs. Until facts are verified, until facts are verified, the allegation remains an unproven claim. Had we discussed the DOJ report in the context of it being an allegation as posed to many people here, just saying it was proof of police misconduct, I don't think we would have spent the time we've spent over the last year plus discussing these issues. But at the end of the day, I'm glad we're taking a final vote on it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

So we have some motions. One motion from Dr. Meacher. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to withdraw my motion. Okay, Dr. Meacher has a motion to provide updates every six months of the benchmarks that you provide tonight in the report. Did I get that right, Dr. Meacher? Yeah, okay. On this or on?

Yeah, point of order, just on my motion on asking for the increase of those arrests, if I can get those numbers.

Okay, we missed that one, okay. So Dr. Meacher's first, roll call. Is this the motion to file? No, this is the motion for Dr. Mitra to get a report every six months. Update a report on the bench marks. Okay, roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta?

Yes.

Councilor Connaval? Yes. Councilor Zolo? Yes. Councilor King? Yes. Councilor Mitra? Yes. Councilor Hayter? Yes. Councilor Rivera? Yes. Councilor Rosen? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes. Mayor Petty?

Yes, no comes over here had a quiet and for an explanation increase of arrests that would provide a new port tonight.

That's a Berman yes, it's a lot of. That's a kind of a yep, that's a zone. Yes, that's a king yes, that's a major yes, it's all you know, yes, it's river. Yes, it was a yes, it's a to me yes, Mary.

Now we have Councilor Rosen's motion to file. Roll call.

Councilor Bergman?

Yes. Councilor Bilotto? No.

Councilor Economo?

Yes.

Councilor Rozolo?

Yes.

Councilor King? No. Councilor Mitra?

Yes.

Councilor Hader?

No.

Councilor Rivera? Yes. Councilor Rosen? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes. Mayor Petty? Yes.

Okay, we'll go back to the regular. Okay. We are in hearings and orders 7, 8, the 7, C, the motion is to open the hearing. Mr. Chairman, we have to take 22B still, correct?

22B. Is the point of order 22B? Yeah, I was gonna go get that at the end of the night, yeah. Okay, there are some questions I have related to that and I don't want these folks to be gone when it comes up. Okay, let's just finish where you started and we'll go to that. Thank you. I mean, I'm referring to the city officials.

Oh, okay, hang on everyone, okay. Okay, we have 7A, we can motion to open the hearing, roll call.

Council Bregman? Yes. Council Bilotto?

Yes.

Council Economo? Yes. Council Mazzolo? Yes. Council King? Yes. Council Mitra? Yes. Council Ojeda? Yes. Council Rivera? Yes. Council Rosen? Yes. Council Toomey? Yes. Mayor Petty?

Yes. And what most of them made to go to 22 be. And it's all okay to move the first thing to me a public safety for the public discussion regarding the closure departments of justice investigation that was the police in the CEO was that we also have I think that. I don't that is in the table like this.

I thought we just did that table item.

No, 23F. Motion to take this off the table. 23F is the Transmitting Information Communication of the U.S. Department of Justice's report on the Western Police Department. This is from the account of the municipality. Roll call.

Mr. Chairman, can we take those separately, please? No, I'm just. So wait a minute, what do you roll calling what? Taking it off the table? Yes. We also mentioned the other item that doesn't need to be taken off the table. Correct. So what are you voting in?

Right now it's a vote just to take it off the table.

So it's not on 22B?

It's related to that, it's the same thing.

I know, but you're not voting on 22B right now? Correct. Okay.

No, Mr. Mayor, I withdraw my order.

Okay, what's that?

I withdraw my order.

I'm gonna speak on it, Mr. Chairman. Okay. I'd like 23F to stay on the table.

Okay, okay.

I'm not sure why.

So you're withdrawing your order?

Yep.

Councilor Toomey has withdrawn her order.

So motion's to file.

Motion's to file, roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta? I'm so kind of yes, that's was all yes, that's a King know that's a major yes, I'm so I don't know. That's river. Yes, that's a rose. Yes, that's a to me. Yes, I'm a yes.

Sam is filed to go back to the agenda.

So I asked to speak on 20 to be so pointed to came up. You prevent me from speaking on that.

Yeah, I guess we have to reconsider that okay, but I screwed up on that one. Reconsideration local concert Bergman.

It's a lot of yes, it's a car. Yes, it was all yes, it's a king. Yes, it's a meter. Yes, it's a hitter. Yes, it's a very no. It's a rose and no to me now. Mayor Patty, yes. So some and we don't have enough words to reconsider trying to be. Excuse me, we don't have the 8 votes to reconsider 20. We need 6 to reconsider.

Considerations a folks.

Yeah.

It was my fault.

This is Jim. This is getting a little crazy. So you try asked to be heard on that.

Councilor here.

Sorry, just a little confused on when you said, sorry, it was your fault, what are we talking about exactly then? Councilor King wanted 23. 22B. 22B, Councilor. But we voted on 23.

Yeah, Councilor Toomey took it off, withdrew the item and filed it.

So that's what we voted on.

So we voted on to file it.

And then we just reconsidered it first.

Actually, we let Councilor King talk before we filed it, correct.

So where did you go wrong? He didn't let me speak.

Let him speak, but okay. So there's nothing we can do about that.

It's fine.

Because it got voted?

What?

Sorry, I should stop. Because it got voted? Yes. There's nothing you can do? Even though there was a mistake?

Yeah, we need eight votes to reconsider it, yeah.

But it should never went to vote, right? If you were saying you made a mistake?

Yeah, but that's, I try to get. How many votes do we have for that?

Through the Chair, City Council, we had seven votes. It was Councilor Bilotto, Councilor Fezzolo, King, Mitra, Ojeda, and Mayor Patti.

Those are the rules.

I just want to understand what we're doing.

Chair, could we make a motion to reconsider that?

Can we do it again? We already did. No, we just did that. Okay, thank you. Good try, though. Okay, so going back to the- This is why city government has no responsibility in public.

It doesn't matter what the chief-

Thank you. Reconsideration. Order of City Council, Christian King. In accordance with the rule 30 of the rules of the City Council, Councilor King requests reconsideration of the vote of the City Council. The August 1826 regard to the following order. The question and Mandarin saw signage at the appropriate locations for the city staying the property may not be used for some immigration enforcement activities for requesting manager create a draft ordinance, the city council's duration lead to the enforcement of such signage.

Council Bregman? This is to take off the table, Mr. Chairman.

This is reconsideration. So you need eight votes of reconsideration.

No. Council Bellotta? Yes. Council Economo? No. Council Vizzolo?

Excuse me, what are we reconsidering? I apologize.

It's getting late. We were on 8A. 8A. Which is the signs. Yes. Yes, okay.

Council King? Yes. Council Mitra?

No.

Council Ojeda?

Yes.

Council Rivera? No. Council Rosen? No. Council Toomey? No. And Mayor Petty? Yes. Mr. Mayor, that motion fails for reconsideration.

Because through 30 City Council comes to King request reconsideration of the vote the City Council August 18th in regard to the phone. I am part of the on Christian King request to see man just part of the draft on its way to the prohibition of civil immigration enforcement activities on certain appropriate properties in true language has included and said on us that requires signs be listed in such properties and all appropriate languages Roko.

Councillor Bergman? No. Councillor Pallotta?

Yes.

Councillor Economo? No. Councillor Zolo? Is this AB? Yes. No. Councillor King? Yes. Councillor Mitra? No. Councillor Hayda? Yes. Councillor Rivera? No. Councillor Rosen? No. Councillor Toomey? No. Mayor Petty?

Yes.

Mr. Mayor, that motion also fails.

Okay, we did petitions.

We are on- Mr. Chairman, I'd like to change my vote. Is that possible? Reconsideration?

We'd have to reconsider it. It went down anyways, but- Yeah, motion to reconsider, roll call.

Is this on 8A again?

On the vote, if he wants to change his vote.

On A or B? 8B. 8B? Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta?

Yes.

Councilor Economo? Yes. Councilor Zolo? Yes. Councilor King? Yes. Councilor Mitra? Yes. Councilor Hayter? Yes. Councilor Rivera? Yes. Councilor Rosen? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes. Mayor Petty?

Yes. Okay, roll call. Roll call on the reconsideration.

Council Bregman. No. Council Bilotto.

Yes.

Council Economo. No. Council Rizzolo. Yes. Council King. Yes. Council Mitra.

No.

Council Ojeda. Yes. Council Rivera. No. Council Rosen. No. Council Toomey. No. Mayor Petty. Yes.

Okay.

Mr. Count. What was the vote tally through the chair?

Mr. Clerk?

So on 8A, it was Council Belotta, Council Rizzolo, Council King, Council Ojeda, and Mayor Petty. The numbers are fine. The numbers? So it was 8A, it was one, two, three, four, five. And then AB, based on the recommended consideration, was one, two, three, four, five.

Also 6, 5, 6, 5, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6

Sorry, what did we vote? 13 A and B. 13 A and B to file? Yes. Hunter Economo? Yes. Hunter Zolo? Yes. Hunter King? This is A and B. 13 A and B. And B? Yep. Yes, to file it, yes. Council Mitra? Yes. Council Ojeda? Yes. Council Rivera? Yes. Council Rosen? Yes. Council Toomey? Yes. And Mayor Petty?

Yes. I'd like an appointment of Lauren Tiberio, Jennifer Maddox, and John Finn to the Accessibility Advisory Commission. Roll call.

Council Bergman? Yes. Council Bilotto? No. Council Economo?

Yes.

Council Rizzolo? Yes. Mr. King.

Mr. Chairman, can we take these appointments individually?

No, they're combined, yeah. Remember the roll call.

Let me understand that, just a point of order. I don't know if I've ever voted like that before.

THROUGH THE CHAIR TO THE COUNCIL, IF YOU GUYS WANT TO SPLIT THE MANAGER'S COMMUNICATION WITH THE MANAGER, BUT ON THIS ONE COMMUNICATION.

I THINK WE WANT TO START THIS OVER AGAIN, THOUGH. THE FIRST ONE IS LAUREN TIBERIO, ROLL CALL.

FOR LAUREN TIBERIO?

YES. JUST HER? OKAY.

ROLL CALL. COUNCIL BERGMAN? YES. COUNCIL BELOTTA? YES. I'm so kind of yes, but there's a low yes, but the King yes, but to meet your yes, I'm sorry to yes, that's right there. Yes, that's a rose and yes, but the to me yes, I'm everybody.

Yes, Jennifer Maddox will call.

That's a Bergman yes, that's a lot of.

Yes.

I'm sorry karma. Yes, I was over yes, what's the king. Yes, what's a mutual yes, so a yes, I'm sorry there. Yes, it's a rose. Yes, it's a to me yes, I'm a yes, I'm John Fenn will call. That's a Bergman yes, that's a lot of yes. The economy, yes, it was all yes, but the king yes, that's a major yes, so you know, yes, it's a very yes, it's a rose, yes, it's a to me yes, I'm a pretty.

I get it, but OK. I'm going to approve of the amendment to sell your hands ever that the motion is to advertise proposed ordinance roll call.

Yes, that's a lot of yes, it's a common book. Yes, it was a low, yes, it was a king. Yes, it's a meter. Yes, it's a hitter. Yes, it's a river. Yes, it's a rose. Yes, it's a to me. Yes, I'm a pretty.

Yes, 13.4 age has been information communication of the economic development initiatives.

Mr., excuse me, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, Councilman Pallotta.

Is it possible to hold 13.4 A through C?

If you want to hold under privileges, then you're right.

I'd like to, yes.

What's that? Oh, you can send it to committee, okay. We can hold it under privilege? Okay. Yes. Okay, we are on 13.30A, transfer information communication of the upcoming DCU special tax district borrowing. It's under MO. Roll call.

Council Bregman? Yes. Council Pallotta?

Yes.

Council Economo? Yes. Council Rizzolo? Yes. Council King? Yes. Council Mitra? Yes. Council Ojeda?

Yes.

Council Rivera? Yes. Council Rosen? Yes. Council Toomey? Yes. Mayor Petty?