ORDER-2020-106 : An Appropriation from Free Cash, account number 01-324001, in the amount of $195,714.85 to various Police Department Accounts as set forth herein.

Transcript (~44 min @ 17:30)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 17:29 Speaker 1: Grigoraitis chairman sanella 11 yes thank you thank you chief thank you chief next up we have order

▶ 17:38 Christopher Cinella: 2020-106 an appropriation from free cash account number zero one dash three two four zero zero one in the amount of one hundred and ninety five thousand seven hundred and fourteen dollars eighty five cents to various police department accounts as set for here we have

▶ 18:34 Speaker 3: Thank you for this opportunity. This is a request for free cash for the following line item over time to supplement this year's budget to support a vehicle that was damaged. to replace a 14-year-old fireman to support three vehicles to be available for questions.

▶ 19:07 Speaker 2: I couldn't hear you.

▶ 19:11 Shawn M. MacMaster: Mr. Chairman, I think there's feedback maybe from the police chief's radio and a difficult hearing as well.

▶ 19:16 Speaker 3: Oh, I hear filing cabinets closing and opening.

▶ 19:23 Christopher Cinella: Were you going to go into detail on this order?

▶ 19:27 Speaker 3: I thought I did.

▶ 19:29 Speaker 2: I could barely hear you.

▶ 19:30 Speaker 3: Okay, I'll try it again. Thank you for your time. This order is for free cash to support the following item. Overtime, $25,000 to support a vehicle that was damaged in a crash and it needs to be replaced of $12,000, $26,000 to replace our 14-year-old firearms, as well as to support three vehicles that are clearly past their lifespan.

▶ 19:54 Christopher Cinella: Thank you. Well, I think I want to just kick this off as the liaison to public safety. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to say tonight in light of this order and with what's going on right now in our country with respect to the heinous murder of George Floyd. And I was watching the news and saw a recent speech made by the New York Police Benevolent Association President Mike O'Meara. What struck me, he said, quote, our legislatures are failing us. Our press is vilifying us. Stop treating us like animals and thugs and start treating us with some respect. We've been vilified and it's disgusting. I agree. Everybody's trying to shame the police right now and calling for defunding. I find it ironic that a few weeks ago May 21st appropriations to be exact we had a resolution that counselors McMaster and Stewart put forward in recognition of National Police Week and I heard a lot of praise that night from several counselors and the administration just to refresh your memory here's a small sample because that was a long time ago we thank you for your service and quote heard that several times quote i want to commend the chief and the department for your commitment for the community policing community policing is what it's all about in a place like melrose and it creates a level of comfort and trust with all the residents that is so important that i don't think it exists in every department or in every community end quote quote sense of community you guys provide is wonderful thing end quote that's just a few later in that meeting we unanimously moved the bottom line what looks like an underfunded budget to begin with after the chief had spoke about upgrades to firearms and the fleet and no one had asked any questions or had any comments now i was initially on board with amending this order swapping out the guns for implicit bias training simulator or using the funds towards body cameras or dash cameras This is an action that I think could have been taken immediately, but it looks like the money now, based on a letter that we received today, will just be pulled from the police department. I think that's just wrong. And the bottom line here, is there work that still needs to be done with regards to training and technology to make the Melrose Police Department better? Absolutely. The last time I checked, the Melrose Police Department had zero civil rights violations. There's nothing but honor and integrity for that badge and to this community to serve and protect all of the residents, 28,193. So perhaps we can be asking them, what are they doing right, just like we celebrated on May 21st, instead of trying to take away their funding.

▶ 22:58 Shawn M. MacMaster: that i'm in favor of this order as is council mcmaster thank you mr chairman uh good evening uh chief lyle uh chief i would just like to um ask some questions of you first regarding uh the uh the firearm uh request for 26 000 just so it's clear to the entire council and to the public watching at home. What is the age of the firearms in question that are looking to be

▶ 23:24 Speaker 3: replaced? They're 14 years old. This process started last fall. I had spoke to the auditor's office after we did our annual shoot in the fall. Every year we do an annual shoot re-qualification for the entire department. At that time our sergeant David Akel who was our armorer for the police department came to me and said hey chief these these things are getting tired we're constantly repairing them it's time for them to be upgraded and replaced what did the autos office he said chief he said rather than put a line on me a budget I will deal with this with free cash and here I am in

▶ 23:57 Shawn M. MacMaster: chief we are not adding those to our arsenal on top of the firearms that we currently have the Glock 40s these are replacement firearms is that fair to say

▶ 24:10 Speaker 3: The existing ones will be a trade-in. There's a trade-in value for them. Each one's worth approximately $225 for a trade. They will be traded in, and then will be replaced with new ones.

▶ 24:19 Shawn M. MacMaster: Okay. And, Chief, so these are handguns, otherwise referred to as sidearms, correct?

▶ 24:25 Speaker 5: Correct.

▶ 24:26 Shawn M. MacMaster: And this appropriation is not for any type of a long gun or military-style gun. Is that right?

▶ 24:31 Speaker 3: No, it is not.

▶ 24:33 Shawn M. MacMaster: Okay, and Chief, these are semi-automatic guns, correct? Meaning semi-automatic, which sometimes is confusing to the public or misunderstood, simply means that upon discharging around, an officer doesn't have to reload the firearm for his safety and the safety of the public. Is that correct?

▶ 24:51 Speaker 3: You know, counsel, you have to go back to the history. Many years ago, law enforcement was outgunned, and we had six shooters when I came on. Yes, that was that long ago. And the FBI and many, many law enforcement agencies, and that's when we went to the semi-automatic handgun or our service weapon. They carry between 15 and 18 rounds per weapon. It's a sidearm. It's what we work with. It's a tool of our trade. the last time we replaced them was 14 years ago those prior ones were 15 years old this is our

▶ 25:31 Shawn M. MacMaster: second round with an automatic sidearm and chief the the firearm that we currently have is a 40 caliber and you're looking to reduce it to a 9 caliber correct yes we've had a study from the

▶ 25:38 Speaker 3: fbi it's a smaller round it's a more accurate firearm um more cost effective most of the

▶ 25:48 Speaker 3: the military uses the 40 caliber this is a nine millimeter it's a smaller round

▶ 25:54 Shawn M. MacMaster: so it's this is this is a firearm that police departments are getting away from based on an FBI study conducted in 2014 because it's a it's a lower caliber firearm than a 40 which is high correct okay chief how many firearms are we

▶ 26:16 Shawn M. MacMaster: looking to replace approximately 50 do you have any idea what our neighboring police departments use? Are they using higher caliber or lower caliber if you

▶ 26:25 Speaker 3: know? It's a combination of I know that the Stoner Police Department just went to 9 millimeters and they were very pleased with the response that they got

▶ 26:34 Shawn M. MacMaster: from the department. Chief how long have you been employed with the Melrose

▶ 26:39 Shawn M. MacMaster: Police Department? Approximately 34 years. And of those 34 years how many have you

▶ 26:47 Shawn M. MacMaster: been chief? Approximately 14. Chief my understanding from reading the mayor's memo is that there is a request to take the money that was initially earmarked for replacing these firearms to in replacing them with smaller caliber firearms to use that for implicit bias training that according to the mayor's memo would be vetted and it seems perhaps coordinated by the HR director. In your time as a police officer in Melrose, has the HR director, the human resources director, ever been involved in making decisions relative to police

▶ 27:31 Speaker 3: officer training?

▶ 27:38 Shawn M. MacMaster: Chief, have you ever been given any indication by anyone as to why the human resources director might be in a better position than you as chief to determine the training needs of our police officers?

▶ 27:49 Speaker 3: You know, it's tough to digest. I just got notified of that this afternoon.

▶ 27:53 Shawn M. MacMaster: Okay, so as far as you know, she's never had any law enforcement experience. She's never worked in a law enforcement agency.

▶ 28:00 Speaker 3: Not to my knowledge.

▶ 28:02 Shawn M. MacMaster: Do you know if she has any experience customizing training curriculum on any particular topic to a law enforcement audience?

▶ 28:09 Speaker 3: Not to my knowledge.

▶ 28:11 Shawn M. MacMaster: Okay, Chief, and you referenced an FBI report. And that report, which I'm familiar with, was released in 2014. It did a scientific comparison between high-caliber handguns and lower-caliber ones. So, it probably wouldn't surprise you that according to the FBI, higher caliber handguns, like the ones we currently have, that we are looking to replace, missed their intended target 70 to 80% of the time. That doesn't surprise you, right? Because you're familiar.

▶ 28:42 Speaker 3: No, it does not.

▶ 28:44 Shawn M. MacMaster: So, the firearms we're looking to purchase are more accurate, considering that if a firearm that is a higher caliber, particularly the type that we have, is ever discharged 70 to 80 percent of the time, regardless of training, because there were training requirements, that that is likely to miss the target.

▶ 29:02 Speaker 3: Yes. Okay.

▶ 29:03 Shawn M. MacMaster: And, Chief, from a public safety standpoint, does that statistic raise any red flags for

▶ 29:08 Speaker 3: you? Oh, yes.

▶ 29:10 Shawn M. MacMaster: And what are those red flags?

▶ 29:11 Speaker 3: Every time we go to the range, every year we qualify. It's very apparent. And I have to defer to my counterpart in Stoneham. There was remarkable change when they went from the 40 to the 9 millimeter. Their scores went up considerably.

▶ 29:27 Shawn M. MacMaster: And based on scores going up considerably, the red flag, is it fair to say, or one red flag might be the fact that if 70 to 80% of the time rounds are not hitting their target, going somewhere else which is a public safety issue.

▶ 29:46 Shawn M. MacMaster: Absolutely. Chief, it probably wouldn't surprise you then that that same FBI report that you referenced also indicated that police departments that decide to switch from a 40 millimeter firearm to a nine millimeter firearm are quote providing their armed personnel the best chance of surviving a deadly force encounter.

▶ 30:11 Speaker 3: that's not a surprise to you is it nope not at all

▶ 30:14 Shawn M. MacMaster: and it probably wouldn't surprise you chief if i told you that the fbi report said that nine millimeter firearms like the ones that were initially approved for purchase by the mayor have less recoil are cheaper in terms of ammunition costs are cheaper in terms of repair costs and have a higher functionality in overall reliability that would let's

▶ 30:38 Shawn M. MacMaster: talk about ammunition costs for why would it be at low cost if we approve this purchase because the public at home is wondering you know our police department like most police departments are typically not discharging their firearms can you talk about the reasons we do discharge firearms of which the public is most likely unaware and the associated costs of that

▶ 31:05 Speaker 3: if you're having a higher caliber firearm the cost comes down to training when we train it's cost effective to use a nine millimeter versus the 40 caliber the 40 caliber is a military round and obviously with the military being the world's policeman um that ammunition is not readily available it's like anything the cost goes up with a nine millimeter is more readily available

▶ 31:27 Shawn M. MacMaster: and with the more rounds chief the more rounds that are are discharged the higher cost it's going to be so the point i'm making is that if if you're if you're trying to qualify which is a requirement that our offices have to have so many hours a year is that correct yes they have to qualify in that if they are missing 70 to 80 percent of the time we are using more ammunition that is a higher cost to the police department correct yes okay with respect to repairs in terms

▶ 31:59 Shawn M. MacMaster: of volume how would you categorize the uh the volume of repairs over the last five years with

▶ 32:08 Speaker 3: our 14 year old firearms it's constant a big thing is there's there's uh illuminated sites on the front and they blow off constantly as they go on it's like years of anything years of a vehicle they hit a lifespan the warranty in these is 10 years they're 14 years old they start to

▶ 32:26 Shawn M. MacMaster: fail like anything and aren't there significant costs associated with trying to repair older firearms because you're either going to have to send it to a gunsmith or you're going to have to if it can be fixed internally our armor will attempt to fix it so whether you are paying an hourly rate to a gunsmith or to an armorer or you're paying for internal parts that are costly need to be tracked down for a 14 year old firearm that's going to have costs associated with it

▶ 32:52 Speaker 3: correct it's more cost effective to replace the firearm than to repair it chief in your

▶ 32:58 Shawn M. MacMaster: professional experience as a police officer for 34 years and as a chief here in Melrose for 14 years, would purchasing these new firearms better position the Melrose Police Department to fulfill its responsibility to serve and protect the public? Yes. In your professional experience

▶ 33:18 Shawn M. MacMaster: as a police officer for 34 years and as a chief for 14 years here in Melrose, would the city save money in both the short term and in the long term considering ammunition repair

▶ 33:34 Speaker 3: costs if we purchase these firearms yes it's approximately 180 foot dollars per weapon

▶ 33:38 Shawn M. MacMaster: mr chairman just a few few uh remarks if you can indulge me for a moment i think it would be important to uh focus on a timeline as we consider the order that's before us uh this evening. On May 25th, Mr. Floyd was killed in a despicable and disgusting act of violence at the hands of a police officer. Seven days later, a full week after he was killed, after mass protests erupted across the country, the mayor sent the City Council a request for an appropriation of free cash in the amount of $195,714.85, 26,000 of which was earmarked for police department firearms. Now 10 days later, the administration has changed its mind as to the necessity of purchasing the very firearms that just a few weeks ago it deemed a priority. The mayor's memo that was sent to us today does not adequately explain what changed between june 1st the date that the administration filed this order and today mr floyd had already been dead for a week mass protests had already

▶ 34:58 Speaker 5: lifted across the country when the mayor earmarked this money for new firearms so what has changed

▶ 35:02 Shawn M. MacMaster: over the last few days that wasn't already known on may 25th when mr floyd was killed Now, let me be clear. I am 100% in support of implicit bias training across city departments. But I find it preposterous that to get there, the Melrose Police Department, who right now as Councilor Sinello referenced, is failing unsupported and underappreciated that they're the targets for losing funding because of a despicable, disgusting act in Minneapolis other despicable acts that have occurred across this country by bad apples that money has already been targeted as being a priority and now that's changed and i find that disingenuous i find it concerning and it is something that i can't believe we are even considering tonight i think

▶ 36:01 Shawn M. MacMaster: it's unfair i think it defies common sense because if we transfer this money that has already been identified as a priority you heard the chief say that it will compromise public safety in his mind he conceded to that he said that we're going to save money as a community we're in the middle of a pandemic right now that is hitting this community in all communities extremely hard from an economic standpoint so beyond being unfair the common sense attached to this order doesn't exist to me. And I say that with respect. And let's be honest with ourselves. Does anyone really believe that the administration can't find $26,000 anywhere else within the $950,000 of free cash appropriations before this very council this evening? We can't find $26,000 else elsewhere we're gonna target the police department the administration couldn't find it in three hundred and nine thousand earmarked IT department tonight the administration couldn't find it in three hundred and thirty one thousand dollars earmarked for the Department of Public Works but we're gonna go after twenty six thousand dollars in a in a police department appropriation that just a few days ago was determined to be a priority now the The mayor's memo also says that money will be encumbered and used in the FY21 budget for implicit bias training.

▶ 37:34 Shawn M. MacMaster: Are you telling me that Mr. DelaRusso, who can take a rabbit out of a hat, can't find $26,000 in an $80 million budget that this council is poised to pass on Monday? I find that hard to believe and I would imagine that all of you do too. If we approve this request tonight, the only thing that we'll be doing is undermining public safety. When I'm speaking to the request, I'm not talking about the request to pass this order. I'm talking about what I expect to be an amendment based on the mayor's memo that we received today. And at what cost? At what cost is this council willing to be branded as reactionary over responsible?

▶ 38:20 Shawn M. MacMaster: At the cost of outdated, inaccurate, 14-year-old firearms missing their target and landing on a playground. At the cost of those firearms missing their target, God forbid, if there is ever a school shooting. At the cost of those firearms missing their target on Main Street in the middle of the day if an officer is fired upon after a bank robbery. At the cost of responding to a domestic violence call only to be met by a batterer wielding a better functioning firearm? Those are costs that I am not willing to bear, regardless of how fashionable it might be these days to call for defunding the police department. Thank you, Chief, for being here. Thank you for all that you do. Please let your officers know that we support them. We care for them. We are here for them. And we willing to work with you in all department ads to find solutions to the very difficult challenges that we face to ensuring that we community operate as equitably as possible. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.

▶ 39:28 Cory Thomas: Thank you. Mr. Chairman chief file. Thank you for being here and thank you for your continued leadership and service to the community. This council has been very vocal unified in our unified stance. the terrible actions of police officers in minnesota led to the murder of george floyd people from throughout america need to come together learn from our mistakes continuously educate ourselves and move forward for the greater good of all americans regardless of race gender sexuality or religious beliefs the budget this council has been reviewing was handed to us about three weeks ago in it the melrose police department had a line item in the 2021 budget for 26 000 to purchase new service weapons and ammunition for the department for the department melrose is very fortunate to have an exemplary exemplary police department chief mike lyle testified before the council in may to laud our police department and let us know that they receive annual diversity training as part of their yearly continuing education trainings our police force is made up of men and women that are part of our community many officers grew up in melrose and choose to raise their families here now many of these officers are neighbors and friends they coach our youth basketball youth hockey and our youth baseball and their kids are classmates with our own children i feel our officers should not have to use the equipment that was last replaced when this year's graduates of the melrose high school were four years old i'll be supporting this budget for the melrose police department as originally presented

▶ 41:02 Jeff McNaught: thank you council mcnaught mr chairman thank you chief lyle for being here tonight. Can you hear me okay or are you hearing an echo? I have a lot of thoughts. First I want to say talking about current events for all of us I think is a bit nerve-wracking. We're all colleagues. We're mostly friends. We're not going to agree on everything we may say things in ways that we wish we said differently thereafter but I do have thoughts on on the memorandum that we did receive today which I didn't get to read until a very short time ago so my my my words may not be as eloquent as chairman Sinella or counselor McMaster or counsel Thomas or anyone that goes after me and some of it may be a little bit repetitive but I do want to say that on May 25th George Floyd was brutally murdered in Minneapolis Minnesota and I would say by police officers one I won't go off on my own tangent about why I think the charges should be higher than and they are for those four officers.

▶ 42:32 Jeff McNaught: I don't think Chief Lyle disagrees that Mr. Floyd was murdered. I think Chief Lyle put out a statement immediately that I was both relieved by and respected very much about what happened to Mr. Floyd. I'd also like to say that Mr. Floyd is not the first black male or female

▶ 42:59 Jeff McNaught: has been brutally murdered inappropriately by police officers there is systemic need that needs to change that needs to take place in law enforcement I don't that just means within police departments I'm an attorney I think I think systemic change needs to take place in our court systems across the United States I think it needs to take place in almost every

▶ 43:28 Jeff McNaught: institution in america i am a believer and a huge supporter of the black lives matter movement

▶ 43:35 Jeff McNaught: i'd like to think that i understand what it means i truly do i don't know what it's like to be a black person but i'm doing my damn best to to understand and learn and for a while i've been a believer in that movement but i've also been a believer that not all police are bad and um I'm in agreement that I'm a little bit puzzled as to how we went from May 25th to a June 1st order request, requesting $26,000 for new firearms, what the change was from then to today. I know that these are emotional times day by day I know all of our emotions are swinging probably back and forth on thoughts that we're having about things that were in the news and things that continue to happen in society the memo

▶ 44:34 Jeff McNaught: cites that the the service weapons most police officers rely on their service weapons as critical tools in securing the community and its residents. It

▶ 44:48 Jeff McNaught: cites that they're 14 years old. It cites that the prior set they had were 15

▶ 44:58 Jeff McNaught: years old. The memo cites that the Mars Police Department has been underfunded for many years. I view trying to take away this extremely nominal amount of twenty six thousand dollars as a form of defunding i don't want to go overboard and say we're defunding the morrow's police department uh but we are underfunding them and that's before this twenty six thousand dollars and um i don't agree with with going after this twenty six thousand dollars i think it it gives off the complete wrong impression of what we should be trying to do with our police department which is join forces with them as our number one ally in the fight against racism and a fight for to be as inclusive as we can be and one community open to all and i don't think we have a chief before us tonight who disagrees with that i don't think it was george floyd's murder that are that irrevocably i'm an attorney you think i should be able to say that word better change the context and the meaning of of the conversation that we're having today that has this has been going on for a long time we could read off along with the names that have been brutally murdered by racist police i'll say that right here and stand by it that does not mean that all police are racist or bad there there's a big distinction there do we have a

▶ 46:38 Jeff McNaught: problem yeah we do we do um our budgeting should should reflect our local values i i agree with the mayor on that point um i don't think that taking this 26 000 away does that i know that there's

▶ 46:53 Jeff McNaught: ideas to have the human rights commission um vet vendors and um look into who we can use to pay this twenty six thousand dollars with to provide implicit bias training i assume that's the training we're talking about for essentially every uh employee in the city of melrose twenty six thousand dollars aren't gonna last a half a day for 50 people if you want rail experts is it is that just my echo or is someone else not muted i'm gonna mute you um that money is not

▶ 47:36 Jeff McNaught: enough money to make any difference whatsoever in in ensuring that we get the training that we need master is right we had a lot of free cash we could have used for this this problem is not new and we should have been thinking about this a while ago that is not at all to put blame on anyone including mayor broder and saying you should have known this three weeks ago um so if i appear as if i'm doing a little bit of monday morning quarterbacking i don't intend to do that but I do want to say that I work at a school every year where we do implicit bias training diversity training however you want to phrase it the name changes almost every year for all of our incoming students at a law school and I can tell you $26,000 would not cover half a session for a couple hundred students. Half a day. So we really need to look into a lot more free cash or develop a line item that shows that we're serious about investing in this. And this is for everyone. This isn't just for the police department. And I don't think that the mayor was saying that either. I want to be as fair as I can. This is the message that I read today and the request that we have before us. So I don't wanna read this in any way as attacking the mayor in any way. I understand he's under the same pressure we all are. But I do read, when I see that this is not and must not be interpreted as a criticism of our police officers, how else can we take it? I mean, if we're saying we don't wanna get you new guns, which is counterintuitive to being safe by using old guns, it is it I read it as a statement of mistrust and again I don't think that's

▶ 49:37 Jeff McNaught: where we want to start off with with the current state that we're in and how we want to communicate with the morrow's police department I don't think that we want to start off by saying hey listen we're gonna hit the pause button on getting you the tools that you need to protect everybody because essentially

▶ 50:02 Jeff McNaught: This, I don't want to say that this is the mayor's view, but it's saying cops nationwide are not bad. And by the way, respectfully, Chairman Shawn, I don't agree with everything that the New York police, I think it was their union president said. I thought he was out of line in a lot of the things that he said. So I'm trying to be as fair and balanced as I can in my statement here.

▶ 50:28 Jeff McNaught: I'm not done and I apologize, but I do have a few more notes written down.

▶ 50:37 Jeff McNaught: I know nobody wants to hear that we need added positions in the city of Melrose, but we desperately need, instead of asking any commission to take their time to vet vendors and come up with solutions for us, we need to hire professionals.

▶ 50:50 Jeff McNaught: And those people may be within that commission. I'm truly not sure. I don't know of anyone personally that is on the payroll in the city of Melrose who's qualified to say this is how much money we need and this is the training we need. And I do understand that that is the reason likely that Mayor Brodeur is trying to put together committees and groups to look at this stuff. But this is way too serious of an issue to just send off to a commission, an unpaid commission, that may not be trained. They may be, I could be wrong, may not be trained enough as a director of community engagement and equity would be, for example, that could work with everyone. And when I say that, I don't just mean hiring one person. I think you have to hire support staff for that person. And I think it's important that the city of Mars has this. So for everybody who's screaming at me now in their heads or out loud at their TVs about more tax dollars, I apologize.

▶ 52:12 Jeff McNaught: but I think we need it trying to wrap up shortly I think I said this at the beginning but systemic change must happen it's not just in police departments it goes far beyond police departments it's in almost every institution in America it starts with people every one of us every single person at home if we have training done for every employee including us in the city of Melrose that may accomplish something but there's 27,000 people who live in Melrose and there's 324 million or so that live in the United States of America and I'm not saying everyone's right or everyone's wrong but everybody's got to be part of this this discussion we can't just put it on the police And I realize that it's easy to do that right now, and I won't go into why, but it's what we see on the news, and it is real. What we're seeing is real. I'm not denying it at all, and it has to stop. But I don't think that this is the way to do it. Um, and I would like to take us back to the night of May 21st. When when we honored tomorrow's police department, and I'd like to thank them again. And I'd like to hope that we can all ask and I'm asking, I know. I believe with all of us and saying, we want to be, we want you to be a number 1 allies in this fight. And we appreciate all you do, and I'm sorry for. Going on longer than probably my allotted time.

▶ 53:56 Maya Jamaleddine: but thank you thank you so much chairman and thank you chief file for being with us today i'm not going uh to go through details about and discussion about whether uh we should take the 26 000 or no from the free cash or whether from the police department i just want to clarify after I heard my fellow councillors. I don't think anyone ever questioned or doubting our police department. I think every single occasion we have, we share our respect, utmost respect and appreciation for our police department. I think we always felt felt welcomed by them, and we always felt able to work with them. I don't think this is a discussion at all. I think when the mayor asked for the training, he didn't target one department, he asked for all the departments. So, please don't take it personal, Chief, and don't feel that it's only the police department who are asked to take this training, because at this point we are starting with with every single house every single department to to be aware of what's going on around the nation and not inside our city only um regardless if i'm gonna be sub uh uh voting in in favor or opposing i think uh we should realize that we never doubted the um the devotion and uh the the highest um quality of service that you provided to our city so thank you so much for your service and for the whole police department

▶ 56:01 Leila Migliorelli: thank you mr chairman um and thank you chief lyle for being here tonight uh if you can all bear with me through my own stream of consciousness talking. I think, you know, for me, reflecting back on when we passed the bottom line on the police department's budget at the time, Chief Lyle had a slide up talking about future considerations. And there I saw the implicit bias training on the list of future considerations. And at that time, I thought, well, you know, we are in a budget crunch we we were have to be bare bones and it's not something that we can invest in now and that's okay and we'll put it off um the events uh that happened over the last you know two weeks um it changed my mind and i think that's you know to the other point my counselors are making about what's changed since may 21st to now i mean shame on all of us really for for not investing earlier shame on myself for not speaking up at that point and saying can we allocate money for this future consideration for the police chief um i i don't i'm not surprised at all frankly that you know two weeks ago three weeks ago we didn't have this on our agenda we have it on now i mean this is how society works things happen you know murders happen we become reactive and all of a sudden it becomes you know a huge issue that we have to take action and then three weeks from now it's going to go away and i and i just i'm not i'm not up for that and that's not my role here as a city councillor is to ignore those things and let them pass i know that we're all struggling with the fact that we have a fantastic police force um we've got great city officials departments school department we we want to support them and the money has to come from somewhere now for me the i've been asking the mayor and all of you know this um for money for implicit bias training i i want more than 26 000 i've asked that i've made that perfectly clear that we need a greater investment i've i've said that we need more money find it somewhere and and we need to set it aside i i know that if this year we don't have enough money i don't care i want at least some foot in the sand to some some marker for us to get started on this this was the proposal that was sort of put in front of me um the 26 000 for guns we have received near over or 20 emails from residents um my concern is hearing from them and wanting implicit bias training and then also funding um new guns i i admittedly had trusted in a conversation that they're having a conversation about whether these guns are necessary or not and this is something we could take off the table i I am listening to constituents who want to see change. It doesn't mean I'm very comfortable with both supporting and questioning at the same time. That's not a hard spot for me to be in. And I think that's a spot that we all have to be in. We can both be supportive and also want change.

▶ 59:16 Leila Migliorelli: change. I think that we need to put our money where our mouths are in this. And I don't see this as taking money away from the police. I know that the chief may feel differently. If someone, if the mayor had presented, I can't take money away from another department. don't have that responsibility or that ability um I just need to to stand true to both what our constituents are asking for and the need to fund this implicit bias training and agree with you know councillor McNaught if we could have a person that would be fine I would love to see councillors joining in that call um with the same enthusiasm they have here tonight thank you anybody else the

▶ 1:00:04 Speaker 2: the will of the committee.

▶ 1:00:09 John N. Tramontozzi: Motion to recommend this for passage.

▶ 1:00:14 Speaker 3: Second.

▶ 1:00:14 Christopher Cinella: Motion to recommend for passage made by Councilor Tramontozzi, seconded by Councilor McNaught. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

▶ 1:00:21 Speaker 1: Vice Chair Migliorelli. No. Councilor Tramontozzi.

▶ 1:00:26 Speaker 2: Yes.

▶ 1:00:29 Speaker 1: Councilor McMaster.

▶ 1:00:30 Speaker 5: Yes.

▶ 1:00:32 Speaker 1: Councilor McNaught. Yes. Councilor Eccles.

▶ 1:00:37 Speaker 3: Yes.

▶ 1:00:40 Speaker 1: Councillor Garipay. Yes. Councillor Stewart. Yes. Councillor Thomas. Yes. Councillor Jamala Dean.

▶ 1:00:55 Speaker 1: No.

▶ 1:00:57 Speaker 2: Grigoraitis.

▶ 1:00:59 Speaker 1: Chairman Sinella. Yes.