Task Force to Reimagine the Former Public Safety Advisory Commission Workshop - August 5, 2025

This is scary. All right, let's try this. Is that a little better? Yes, the opposite end of the spectrum. Well, welcome everyone.

My name is Denali, and this is a community workshop to help inform the task force that is working to redefine what a future Public Safety Commission might look like. I really want to thank you all for coming in. It's beautiful outside. This is a lovely turnout. Um, we have a very simple agenda, but it's probably not going to feel like a typical public meeting.

So what we're hoping to do is create some space for some constructive dialogue. We had a kickoff meeting back in June with the newly formed task force, and we heard some input that there was an interest in having more dialogue at kind of a more informal setting. And so that's what we're trying to create tonight. And so that's the hope. And our agenda is quite simple, just to listen.

So we've got folks in the room that are members of the public, and I really want to thank you for the courage it takes to participate in something like this. It's very brave, and I have so much respect for you making this a priority. We also have people who are elected officials here in the room. We've got members of task force here, other people that typically are wearing hats where they're in a leadership role, and this is a space for them to check their hats at the door and be participants. So my hope is, and my challenge is, for everyone here to make space for safe and constructive conversations tonight.

So a little bit of housekeeping. Thank you. I knew I was going to forget the housekeeping part. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I looked right at her, didn't I?

Um, when we scheduled this meeting and noticed it, um, we didn't know that the building closed at 7, and so there was an initial communication that went out that had us going until 7:30. So our time is actually a little bit less than we had envisioned, but I have a treat for you because it's almost summertime, right? Um, it's not happening in the room, but right at 7 o'clock there's actually going to be pizza outside.

And that's from me personally. So, um, if you stick around until 7, and if everybody does a good job, then you'll all get pizza. There should be enough. There's actually going to be plenty because I need to plan for a few more people. So, uh, we are going to just dive right into the agenda and get things rolling.

I see we have more than one person at every table, counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 tables, awesome. Uh, what am I forgetting? Should we just dive on in? Okay. I want to say so much more, but I want to get you guys talking.

So, uh, this is Isabella. She's going to be helping me co-facilitate. We have 2 agenda items. First one's just an icebreaker, and it's just to get you guys talking at your tables. Um, we're not going to report out on the icebreaker because I want to save our time to move our attention to the nuts and bolts of our workshop question, which is to help with the needs— defining the needs of public safety and well-being in Anchorage so that we can take that information and refine a really robust process for this task force.

So I'm going to turn it over to Isabella. She's going to get you guys rolling on an icebreaker. We're going to spend about 5 minutes getting to know each other at our tables. And then we're going to get into the good stuff. All right, here we go.

Thank you. Well, I'd like to echo Denali's comments on this. Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate everyone taking the time to join us tonight. Um, for our introductions, like Denali mentioned, we'd like you just to take a few minutes and meet your neighbors at your table and introduce yourselves.

Um, but we'd also like you to think about this question that we have on the wall for you: what makes you hopeful when you think about public safety and Anchorage? So Think about that when you introduce yourselves to your neighbors and, yeah, just what makes you feel hopeful. And if it's as simple as you're really excited to get to Nellie's treat at the end of the night, that's totally okay too. Sound good? So 5 minutes, we'll give you 5 minutes to discuss at your tables and then we'll move into our workshop, which is going to be on this wall over here.

Thanks everyone.

Why not? And it was my irritation with some of these newer people, and I think you'll hear from our Vietnamese friends that they don't have the same issue, right? We were quite involved in the South Vietnamese movement where we had some party hires from the other side, and I asked the individual, "How come you still lie?" He said, "It was a party, and it was fine, so it had to be a party." And it was 6 months later. How was the side of home at zero? Absolutely.

So, and actually, what I'm doing is I'm doing a show for kids. Of course, with age, kids, they grow up. I know the new games are very different than the ones back in the time that kids played. But I would call and they'd say, you know, hey, it's time for PlayStation 2. And they call and they're like, oh, well, Monday through Friday, 8 to 4.

And I'm like, that's not great. It's so many hours. Of course, when I was at home, So let's build off of that work, and we're going to turn our attention to this side of the room. And I do want to invite, like, you guys, maybe if you're in the back, if you wanted to move, that would be pretty cool. We're going to be over here, uh, doing some work on this wall.

Uh, so should I just give them the instructions, or— all right, so here's the deal. Um, on your tables you will have markers. And you all have these half sheets. Okay, so our workshop question is— this is basically what we're doing tonight, okay— what are the community needs to ensure safety and well-being in Anchorage? So that's the question.

And when we think of our answers, if we could try to answer like 3 to 5 words Okay, so this might be different for different tables. You kind of decide what works for your table. Sometimes it helps if people want to take a minute on their own and think about their answers and then discuss. I heard a lot of people already excited about talking, so if you're ready to start talking and it works for your group, I would just let you— I would encourage you all to just make sure that your group is kind of on the same page about what you're doing. Okay, so, um, on your own if it works for your group, answer the workshop question on your own.

Kind of think of your own answers, um, and then share out with the group. So share with your small group what you came up with, um, and then if you can— I'm not going to be too strict on this— but if each of your tables can come up with 3, narrow it down to 3 that you, you agree are kind of the top priorities for your table. And it's okay if you can't agree, okay? That's just a way for us to kind of narrow it down. And we're going to give you like a good 15-20 minutes to work on this, so this is kind of part of the, part of the process.

Then just so you know Um, you're gonna— each, each of your tables is gonna have 3. Then we're gonna have a full group conversation about what the tables came up with. We're gonna start putting the cards up on the wall and we'll start talking about what they mean as a full group. And that's the agenda, you guys. So this is like our creative way of getting public comment, um, through this group process.

So, um Very good. Is that everything clear? All right, I can tell you all are ready. So, um, what are the community needs to ensure safety and well-being in Anchorage? And then when you start writing your cards, do you see this?

Write big like this, like try and get it to 3 to 5 words if you can, and try using the markers. Somebody always uses a pen and you can't really see it, so All right, off you go. 15, 20 Minutes. We'll come around and help you if you need it.

Google it.

I don't know off the top of my head. No worries. But I will recognize it if we see it. What is the— what is the name? A-C-P-R-C. A-C-P-R-C. That doesn't sound right.

A, C, S, P, R, T, C. Ah, that's the center of the room. That's the center of the room. Oh, this might be it. What's her first name? Uh, Deb.

Deb Williams. Yeah, you know what, um, I remember her speaking in public comment.

I think this is it, actually.

Nope, I got no idea. Yeah, sorry. No worries. Thank you for trying. Alabama Commission of Public Records and Archives.

That's Alabama.

Alright, Isabella, do you want to do the card collection? If each table can hold up one card. What is your first card? This isn't it, so don't worry. So one card from the table.

Let's start. Which are you?

I know you could— how about you guys can have two this first round just because you're big? Okay, yeah, this is where I get Okay, I'm gonna let you guys kind of sort that out. You ready to see what we heard? All right, improve outdoor spaces. I'm gonna get my steps.

I'm gonna stand closer to the wall. We have a whole table up here, so he wants to come up.

Infrastructure choices, neighbors.

Responsive government, community input.

Trust in response.

We all have a sense of belonging. I'm not used to using the mic. It's kind of nice. You guys can hear me though, right? I do have to be loud.

Okay, information and communication outreach two-way, Commission public with an arrow in the middle. All right, okay.

Community oversight and direct involvement.

Nice job on the wallet sticking. Trust and transparency. Nicely done. Look at that. Okay, I know some of you are kind of far away, but my question is this: when I was reading those out, were they clear?

Were any not clear? Does anyone Do you have questions about any of these? Which one? I'm curious about the infrastructure choices and neighbors. Like, is that one thought, or if someone hit unpack, kind of, is the one in the middle?

Okay, so whose table is this? Infrastructure, infrastructure choices and neighbors. Who's this one?

Okay, so, um, did you hear Anna's question? I did, yes. So, and people can hear you, it sounds like. How are we doing? Do we need the mic?

Yes. Okay, speak. All right, uh, so this one was ours, and some of the things we talked about were, um, the neighbors that we know, and, uh, that makes the group feel safe within their area that they live, ability to make choices and just having that. And the infrastructure, so good lighting, sidewalks, things that make us feel safe when we are out and about at nighttime. And then one other piece of information that we had is what does the community need to do to ensure the safety and well-being of the residents of here?

So thank you.

Nicely done. Does anyone else at the table want to add to that? Yeah, did she cover it? Kimberly did it? Yeah, well, when I saw the question, I thought it was really broad about what are the community needs.

There are a whole lot of community needs. I don't know if we're talking about specifics, so we're narrowing it down to problems that are seen in the paper or talked about, whatever. So I did have a problem, still do have a problem wondering what the question means as opposed to what can we do to make this a community that's safe and livable for visitors and residents here. Yeah, great feedback. So it was a big question for me.

It was. It is a big question. Awesome. Okay. Are there other— whoa.

Okay. No? Just—. I'm going to do this. I don't want to mix them up.

So we are going to add a question and then I'm going to go back to my workshop question which is Do you have questions about these? So, a meaningful voice and how it's policed. Okay, great. So other questions in terms of clarifying what we meant with this round?

I heard from the table over there was, um, what are the community needs, um, as it relates to this potential commission, or as it relates to everything? So that's my question. Yes. Are we talking about what are the community needs that could be addressed by this commission, or all of the community needs to feel safe and welcome? So that's, that's Thank you.

So it was intentionally a broad question, so it isn't surprising that some of you are like, "Get more specific." So that was intentionally a broad question to start surfacing what matters most, so then we can start thinking about, well, what is the role of this commission and what isn't the role of this commission? So awesome Some observations there. I love what I'm hearing. Other questions about what the tables came up with? Or are you ready for another round?

Are these clear?

They all make sense? That might be true. Okay. Do you have more cards that you would like to forward to the wall?

See, the markers are still out. That's totally fine. I'm going to start reading these off though, okay? All right, so we've got accountability, police, government. Nice.

So I'm going to kind of make a line down here, but if you, if you go, wait a minute, what does this belonging one mean? You can ask me about that All right, trust building, accountability, and transparency by government, right?

Better collaboration and understanding.

Some people have All right, stability in our police force.

Police/fire crisis response.

Qualified staff and manpower Power. Let me know if I didn't read that correctly. Okay.

Okay. Are there questions about any of these? Felix, maybe you could point to it and I'll grab it and then I'll bring you the mic. I've run out of lamps. Yeah, which one?

You want—. You got questions about tubes? I'm I'm fully supportive of that, but tell me which ones they are. Yeah, so the two are trust— no, capability, police, government. This one?

Yeah. Okay. And then that second is quality. This one? Oh, yeah.

Okay. Yeah, those are the two that I have. Okay. And so essentially the questions were— yeah, you just read it one at a time. Maybe.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, I, I would just want I want to unpack this one similar to the question that Anna had. Okay, so whose table is this?

Yeah? Okay, so the question is, can we just unpack this a little bit more? What do we mean by this? Is that the question? Yeah.

Yeah? Sure. Okay, tell us more. Uh, well, primarily I think because Chris is trying to combine two concepts in one card. Yeah, that's okay.

But I think the main point is that trust is important on its own. How do you get there? Some of the steps include having accountability, transparency. So there's a lot of different things. I don't want to just rip off the map of the table, but You know, as a community member, if you are trying to get an answer from a government agency, with me, with the other agencies, well, you have trust that the information you're getting is accurate, delivered in a timely fashion, that you can actually get an answer when you ask a question.

And that can be our government, who is an entity for our children, choice, not just police but other entities as well. Well, great. Does anyone else at the table want to add to that, or— yeah, anything further on that? I'm sorry, I just walked in, just got off work. Okay, so you weren't part of this one?

Accountability, transparency, yes or no? Got it. Okay, I think I'm part of a lot of it. You are a part of all of it. Okay, we're going to come back to you, but welcome Welcome and thank you for coming.

Okay, we have a second card here that was flagged for a question, and it's the same question, Felix, if I get this right. No, it's a more specific question. Okay, I'm bringing you the mic. So this is qualified staff and manpower. What's your question?

Yeah, um, so I guess for the table that Brooks went, if you just expand a little bit on what you mean by qualified.

Oh, we're going back here. Basically what we meant was in law enforcement, they're understaffed, and we need qualified staff folks. Okay. They can't effectively do their job if they're not staffed appropriately. With qualified help.

Okay, so we're talking— we're talking about law enforcement? Law enforcement, fire department. Oh, okay. Anyone that falls under public safety. All right, yeah, let's hear from others.

I don't think that it was intended to say they're not qualified. I think just want to be really clear, that's not what the intention was. Okay, it was saying we needed lots of them. Okay, we needed enough of them, and right now they're understaffed and there's not enough to really be able to do the job. So there's a desire to make sure that they're fully staffed with qualified staff.

Is that right? Okay, great. I wonder if you want to add a few words to this. I know we're taking good notes, but so we're clear what that meant. Can I just add the last question really quick?

Please do. I wanted to add to this idea of trust and how trust is built And the— also there's the reality that, um, that over time, if you think about these, not those two sides, but the side of the government and the police department, that sort of thing, and the side of the communities, I think in this day and age both feel burned in many ways, right? Both feel like there have been things that have happened in the past that has broken trust. And so how do you build that back? How do you I think that's naming that and recognizing that.

It can't just happen, right? There's reasons that that trust is broken or hurt or damaged. So just recognizing that is important. Nice. Okay, I saw a hand over here.

Who was that? Jim? Which card are we talking about? Trust. You want to talk about trust?

Let's talk about it. Thank you. To me, trust is built by relationship. The Anchorage Police Department is not a government entity. It's a family of our neighbors.

They're our brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts. They bleed just like we do. They have aspirations and fears just like we do. So if we're going to build trust with anybody, we have to have a set of expectations. We have to let anybody know what we expect of them.

And if they do not live up to that expectation, then they've broken our trust, or we have a communication problem, and some of these other things that we talked about. So one of the first things we have to do, in my mind, to build trust is to figure out what we want our police to do, what we want the fire department to do, do. They cannot do— no government agency can do everything. We can do as citizens many of what police department is tasked with doing wrong. They are trained specialists just like doctors.

We can understand the medical needs of our family members and so on, but when it gets to a higher level, we go to the professional and we build trust with that if they break it, we go to another doctor. So in this particular case, if we have an expectation— so to do that, we have to tell them what we expect them to do. What is their role? And how do we want them to do it? Then, what is the resources that you need to get that job done?

If we told them, they've accepted that job, we've given them the money, and then they don't, then they So those are some of my thoughts in terms of what trust means with the patient partner. Jim, wampai. Thank you. Lovely thoughts. All right, I'm coming back up here unless I see a hand.

Oh, we're going to do another round. I'm going to ask you to name—. Oh, that was the one! I was sticking to the rules all of a sudden. You guys are just spitfishing.

All right, so I'm going to put the trust fund back up here. That was nice.

And then this one's got some clarification. We're now staffed more qualified manpower. Okay, so kind of gets that assumption. All right, how about the other ones? Other questions about what we see at 1:1?

Which one, Darryl? Uh, I think there were one or two about accountability. I would just like to hear hear from— I don't think I need the mic— from the tables that wrote about accountability. I'd like to hear what that means to them. All right, so help me out.

Accountability. Yep, so there's this one. Whose card was this?

Yeah, all right. Can you say more about this over here? So I think accountability I think it needs to be the same expectations for every single group. I think all the police officers, I think firefighters, parents, public officials, everybody needs to be transparent. Obviously there's things that have to be done in the right order to get things accomplished, and sometimes you can't speak to things before they can go out for public distance, everything, status quo, and when to to go, but I think we have the rules apply here, the rules don't apply here, and the rules apply here, and then they don't apply here.

They need to just be done across the board. Thank you, Melissa. Anyone else from the table want to address this, or did Melissa cover it? All right, nice. Was there another accountability one up here that Yeah, so we talked about this one already— trust building, accountability, and transparency.

So that was, that was over here. Do I have that right? This was our group over here. Is there anything more you want to say about accountability, or how do we do there? Okay, okay.

Question about this or accountability or—? All right, let's hear it. One of the points that I'd like to kind of bring into the space is accreditation. And that's, uh, Melissa just stepped out, but that's a part of— the standards are there, they apply to everybody, they're tailored to the type of organization it is. And it is the same for everybody.

Accreditation. Uh, problem is to get to that level, it costs money, right? Someone has to stay on top of it. And it's also one of my concerns for accountability for what we think this advisory is going to be, because if you're going to do accountability for every type of public safety, somebody's going to get left out. So just want to put that into the mix when we continue to synthesize what is the goal of this commission.

Thank you. I'm wondering if that's on one of the cards here. No. Okay, so, so maybe that'll sneak in. Okay, other questions of what we've come up with so far?

So far, coming your way, Jason. Yeah, I'd like to add a little bit to the accountability competition because as a concept, I'm fully supportive of it. As an enforceable sort of concept, how do you get there, right? So I agree with what you're saying about the contract when police forces understand between them and what they're signing up for. And I don't have the answer for the mechanism, but I think it's important that that mechanism is understandable by the broader public and accessible to them in a meaningful way.

Not just we have a commission, but does the commission meet on a schedule where the broader public that's working 9 to 5 can access them and interact with them? So realistic solutions that are going to actually work for and with the community beyond just rubber stamping commissions.

—I still see a lot of cards on the table. So looking at the clock, it's still a little bit of time here. But are there any other questions of what we've come up with so far? We've already talked about some big ones. Mercedes, which one?

Uh, just clarification on crisis response, like what, what is that fully mean? Police and fire crisis response. And what color here is blue? Okay, so whose card is this? I'm coming your way.

I look at all these hands going up, you can't wait to talk about it. All right, who wants to go first? Emily, there you go. We're speaking about the mobile crisis response. The police has a team and the fire department has a team, so So, um, we were talking about how crisis response— I think like some other people have mentioned—.

Can intervene in situations where the police then don't have to intervene and to help with de-escalating. Also, I'm wondering if you can share the piece about, uh, that you mentioned on paramedics and training. Sure, yeah. Uh, hi everyone, my name is Matt. I'm a firefighter with Station 4.

Um, so when we talk about crisis response, response. This, this has become kind of a huge thing in the past decade, not just in the years but kind of across the country, um, where emergency responders are responding to more, um, clients in, in crisis, more— sometimes it's behavioral crisis, substance abuse crisis. So there is, there's sometimes there is a lack of understanding or even a lack of training on a national level for paramedics As EMTs, we are very good at treating the body, but sometimes we can fall short of responding to people in crisis. So we do work with the mobile crisis team a lot. It's staffed with a clinician and a firefighter, either an EMT or paramedic, and that's kind of the training that we do.

But there is room, of course, for more because this is becoming a much bigger thing. But I think that plays into qualified manpower. We're currently 74 to 130 firefighters short to meet minimum staffing right now. So I think if we— my goal is to bolster the staffing, increase our training crisis response. I think we can respond to the community in kind of a more robust way.

Okay, you had your hand up. I think they covered it. They covered it. All right, so this is, um, first of all, it smells really good. Yeah, they all probably do, but for some reason I was like, oh, it smells really good.

So, you know, who's, who's got the lead on this?

Okay, I mean, I think like we intentionally asked a big broad question So may or may not be in a role of a future task force. So like PolicyCop, right? And I'm guessing there are some people that know who, you know, think that other folks have the lead on this, but I don't know the answer to that. So I think this, this is important because people really care about this, and I think a lot of people know why this is important.

But once we get to talking about a future task or a future commission, you know, this big, right? I don't know if that's what we want. We don't— we're not deciding this today, by the way.

Okay, other questions on what we've got so far?

What is it about a charter? Which one? Goes back to accountability and track and trace. Back to accountability. You guys know where those are.

All right.

Uh, so I have a very quick joke. Um, a conspiracy theorist, uh, dies and goes up to heaven and meets, uh, God and says, I just have one question. And he says, uh, God, who shot JFK? And God says, Lee Harvey Oswald. And the conspiracy theorist It says— that says, "Oh, it goes even higher." And the point is that don't trust me information, right?

Doesn't matter in this space often. So building trust and accountability and transparency— if the trust isn't there in terms of what you're being— what's being shared with you, what's being said. So that's, I think, as we go back to these questions, one of the we have to dig into is what do we mean by accountability and what do we mean by transparency and how do we get to a place where we can actually trust the information that we're getting back and forth. Because if it doesn't matter what it is, it's, "I don't believe those people anyway," then we'll never get to a place where we'll trust. So I just want to say that that for me, not today, but at the heart of digging into those words, because we all are using those words but I'm not sure we have the same meaning for I'm seeing lots of nods.

All right, are we talking accountability? All right. Um, he always makes me think of other things when he talks. Um, operational definitions for us here in discussing what we expect for the Commission, because English is a very tenuous language that We give meaning to words and the other person is not tracking that context. And the other thing for how do you tell someone how to create a relationship?

Back to, I think it's Jim, on expectations. So I think before we get into the big and the ugly, for those to be standardized so that we are working from the same, um, space. Nice. Okay, I still see a lot of cards on the table, so I think we're gonna move us. We can keep coming back.

I mean, we're hearing some themes, right? Yeah. Okay, so let's do another round of cards, but we can keep coming back to this stuff. I mean, that tells What matters most when that happens, right? All right, bring on another round.

And if you're out, you're dead.

Way back in the '80s, we had a John Frank hearing, and it was a kind of a time when the police chief and the fire chief responded to John Frank. He helped solve all the issues and then responded to the policy. But that's why you're here. But the core of what we had to do, so to speak, was make sure that we had a policy that was going to be adhered to. But yeah, that seemed to work out over the last 5 or 6 years.

Is this really— Does it have a prioritization?

Usually everybody's like, we got our 3, we're good. But y'all are like, stop it, talk a little more. I think it's awesome. I want to create space for that, if that needs to happen.

Nobody has cinnamon.

Secure energy and people-centered physical infrastructure.

Secure energy and people-centered physical infrastructure. Communication.

Shared public safety objectives.

Expansion of non-LEO perspective— response teams. Response teams. Sorry, if you're not on my All right, expansion of non-LEO response teams. I get that right? Non-law enforcement.

No? Okay. So I'm sensing some— there's letters. I know somebody has a question. I'm going to start with this one because, um, I had a request to go back to this This one, if I have this right, is this the card that you had a question about?

Okay, whose card was this? Well, that was our card. That was yours? Okay. We just have one thing.

All right. One additional thing that some of us at this table wanted to bring up is just that the word meaningful in this is— seems like kind of a key phrase or a key term. Term that ultimately this process should really grapple with and try to really hone in and define the— and capture the sentiment of community members about what we mean by meaningful voice in how the community gets police. And I can't— I'm sure initially it's sort of subjective, so we probably all have kind of own idea of what the word in this context means. But I know it, but an example I can think of what it doesn't mean is what the old Public Safety Advisory Commission was.

Can you say more about that? Well, though for those who have followed this and are kind of familiar with the workings of the municipality and so on, you know that there's a system of advisory commissions that have existed and some have come in and out of existence over time, and they're intended to find a way for citizens to participate in various municipal processes. The old Public Safety Advisory Commission was one of those. It no longer exists, and part of the way that you know that it wasn't a very meaningful body was that when it went away, nobody cared.

Uh, that's a sign that it probably wasn't a meaningful mechanism in the eyes of the community for having a voice about how the community gets policed, even though I think it's fair to assume that that was probably part of the intent in creating it.

I just want to add the other side of that, and then I think there is a— I don't want to speak for our public safety leaders, you know, police, fire, but I think meaningful can also be fearful of an overstep, right? Meaningful, maybe to them it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's, that's too much of a role. So I think that word meaningful of what is the right role so that it's meaningful to both both the public safety systems and the community is one of our biggest challenges here. You got something to say about meaningful? Yeah.

Yeah. Ah, let's hear it. This is probably a mistake in the meantime. So, uh, okay. So, so generally, uh, advisory commissions, uh, so as I'm going to sort of talk about this here.

If you go up and you speak and you're either doing it in an advocacy role in public or you're doing it on an advisory commission, if they say what you like, they take what you say, and you say, "Okay, good job." But if they don't, typically they ignore it, or you've created an enemy. And so unless there is some sort of shared power mechanism involved, it can just go into a black hole, and then people typically avoid it. They show up and they become part of the process and they realize it's basically what they're communicating is being completely ignored. They check out, they leave, and then it just goes away. And so that, that is, uh, some of the unfortunate parts about advocacy in general or advisory commissions is that if there's a bad decision-making process up top, or if they just decide to say, no, we're not going to implement any of the things you say because we don't— we're not receptive to them, then essentially nothing has change and things will improve.

And then the question is, what is actually an improvement? What is not improvement? But there has to be shared power, and you have to include people, and then find a compromise, and then you have adults at the table. But, you know, on any number of topics, it's just a lot of students. So that's kind of it.

That wasn't a mistake. Okay.

Okay, um, how do we do? We have shared power up there. That was awesome. Right in town. That's great.

Right in town. We're kind of getting to the bottom— I want to say bottom of the barrel in a bad way, but like, if there's something that's not always assumed, there are some really powerful words that are coming out of this conversation that are kind of giving me goosebumps. So, um, but I want to make sure that we have some space for any questions or clarity on this last round here. And I see shared power. Okay, I'm going to stick shared power up here.

So we had empower people to help create a safe community, secure energy and people-centered physical infrastructure, communication, shared public safety objectives, expansion of non-LEO. That's law enforcement officer, right? Okay, I think somebody was trying to ask me, so I thought I'd just answer. Questions about this last round? And if I forgot one, apologies.

Question? So that's not when the expansion of, uh— Which one? Non-LEU. Yeah, you have a question about this one? Yeah, what their thought process was based on specifically which areas they got.

Uh, so I know this was this table. Table, right? And so the question was, what was the thought process? Uh, yeah, um, are you talking about mobile crisis teams? Are you talking about homeless outreach response, things of that nature?

Um, Jason? Okay, here we go. Primarily I think it was the mobile crisis team, um, because of the situation. I, I think we've seen great results from the team that we have. It is— so the police has a team, the CIT team.

CIT International a couple of years ago just put out a white paper stating that the model that they brought forth that's been operating for a number of years is not the best model, best practices to actually have somebody support someone through a mental crisis. So, so in that regard, yes. And then the, you know, outreach to homeless, yes. I think, I think really any anytime that you can take law enforcement out of situations where law is not even the issue, you end up with better results. So that's really kind of us coming there.

Yeah, just a bit of feedback on that one. All right, let's hear it. Is this where I'm gonna regret it? Okay, okay, I'm gonna stop last. So, um, I've been going to camps for a very long period of time, and I can tell you this, most of the people they see police come out, whether it's the Hope Team or anything else, they spawn for a bit and then they back away.

And so people automatically lose some opportunities to get help if you pair outreach with law enforcement. And it's not that Ruth Eyal is a bad person or other people as well, it's just the reality of the situation. Some have past trauma, you know, police, uh, just that one. And, uh, so they may miss out on housing opportunities Some don't make— just get bad injuries or any types of things. And so I think when you're looking at the response right now to the homeless situation in town, the ways it could be better resolved, either through not going through the eviction process directly or specifically with outreach teams who are not compared to law enforcement at all.

And yeah, there are ways to do it. And they think if they want to improve public safety, they should start that route and also sanction camps as well, because then it's not on the street corner, it's within a certain area, and then you provide a pathway south. So, um, it's a way to work with the problem of public safety, but for another day. All right, you did good. Okay, just looking at that clock.

That was, that was really good. Um, but again, like, what we're starting to think about— we know this is part of public safety, but at a certain point we're going to have to talk about where it is, right? So we're starting to think about kind of the range here. All right, non-LEO. What's— you want to know what that means?

Oh, you want— okay, tell us what it is. Expanding on the expansion, because for Alaska analogy, if we should go upstream from what we're all reacting to, you know, why is a police officer in a space when we could have had somebody there earlier, right? Is it a social work situation? You know, is it a mental health crisis? There are lots of incidences that show up on a dispatcher's log that probably could have been helped earlier.

And also the after. So, after your initial contact with an officer, is there a survivor advocate? There are different words out there. I'm using survivor advocate. Is there a survivor advocate that's going to follow up with what happened, how do you feel, do you need any more services?

Because we can't always go upstream, so some more work on prevention and some more work on follow-up. Nice and done. All right, I'm gonna— is it about this one? About the follow-up, which you just said. Okay, let's hear it.

And then I'm just— we're down to our last 5 minutes, so I'm gonna put it up. But you have a lot of things. Let's hear it. All right. Hi, my name is Catherine.

Some of you know me, some of you don't. I am the mother of Tyler May that was killed on June 3rd of last year by the English Police Department. And what she just said at the back end, that was the worst part process because I got met in a parking lot, given a brochure, and told have a good day.

I had no idea what was going to happen. No one came to guide me through the situation. If it hadn't been for community people— this man right here had to call the police department every week, how many weeks, just to get my baby self-battery. The aftercare for the people that— I know we're not victims, I get it, I get it— but the aftercare is horrible. It's horrible.

I was just lucky to be given the privilege to know that if I didn't stay on top of things, I would never get myself sober. The process is horrible. Something needs to be done. There needs to be somebody that once they— someone is killed by police, there needs to be someone assigned to that family that deals directly with the families after. Is aftercare a word that resonates with you?

Yes. Can I talk you into making a card that says aftercare? Sure. Let's get that up on the board. That seems pretty important.

Thank you for sharing. Yes, ma'am.

That was really powerful, and it's great of you to come and share.

All right, aftercare, going up. Are there other birds Learning questions for— are there any cards out there that need to come up? Card shuffling.

Yeah, okay. Try new ways to engage and connect. That's kind of new, right? We don't I don't normally do this, but we're doing it tonight. Does anyone want to talk more about this?

Ideas? Do you have ideas? Yeah, let's hear it. Yeah, I think, um, it was kind of a theme in— well, at some point we talked about kind of how would the commission be helpful, what role would it have, but I think more generally, we— there was neighbors connecting, um, you know, it's hard to get information out there. I think Cameron brought up you could have all the data in the world and then if people don't believe it or they don't think it's— they don't trust it, then it's not going to get you anywhere.

And then also we also acknowledged, you know, there are plenty of folks who are not in this room who need to be in this conversation, and that's always the challenge of having a meeting regardless of format or participants, right? So thinking also about how, through the process, but also how a commission, whatever it looks like, would be able to do this that and to try outside the box kind of ways to do that, or just other ways to make those connections.

I see a hand up here. Might be the last one. Let's hear it. Just on that, what— how is this conversation going to impact the commission? Like, I— the people have been so great to have this conversation, and just how are How is the community going to see this show up and what the commission looks like, what next steps?

Is there another work session that's happening that's going to build on this, or what's kind of the future? I love that that question happened right now because that was about what I was going to talk about. Is there anything else that somebody wants to get off their chest very quickly before I fit it into that? Are we good? The timing here is impeccable.

So what's next? All of this amazing input with— we have an amazing note-taker, and look at Grace's note. Yeah, yeah. So this is— we wanted to make space for this conversation and for, for it to be as broad as possible. So because, you know, it's hard to agree on how to narrow it all down, right?

So we will be producing a recap of this discussion. On your tables, you see a QR code there. My suspicion is that many of you may have already responded to a feedback form that is on the task force website. If you haven't, hopefully you'll consider doing that. I think we've already We've already received— I don't know what the latest count is, but over 50 responses to that feedback form.

And we're reviewing all of the input as a way to help inform the question of how do we design a task force process that can actually get decisional about this, this future commission. So this is a really important part of that conversation. So there will be a report, and, um, we will be having other work sessions. They probably won't be like this. We might have speakers, we might have a completely different format.

Um, we haven't actually made that decision yet, and so we wanted to have this conversation and hear, you know, from this sort of map before we put that sort of structure on it. Um, but I think we're getting dangerously close, and so we'll have, uh, we'll have some structure and decisions about the other meetings. So does that help? I'm like, we're not done yet, but we're getting close. So if you haven't done, uh, if you haven't done the online feedback form, please do.

It is for other or speakers or topics that you think is important. We're all ears. Uh, I'm guessing there's pizza outside. And look at us, we're keeping these guys closed right now, so we gotta let the staff go home. We're gonna break this room down.

Thank you everyone for making this a priority. It's been so important to talk to you.