ORDER-2023-36 : Appointment of Kevin M. Faller as Chief of the Melrose Police Department effective December 1, 2022

Transcript (~1 h 17 min @ 1:03)

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▶ 0:44 Jen Grigoraitis: we have no participants in public comment, I will Emotion by unanimous consent to close public comment and public comment is now closed. We have one order before us tonight order 2023-36 appointment of Kevin M follyer as chief of the Melrose Police Department effective December 1st, 2022. And as our invited guests get settled at the table. I will entertain a motion to suspend the rules. So the most has been the rules made by President Cinella seconded by counselor Eccles all in favor any opposed the rules are now suspended welcome, mayor Broder and Captain falier.

▶ 1:18 Paul Brodeur: Thank you very much Madam chair and members of the committee very much appreciate the opportunity to move through this evening for a perhaps one of the most important things I will do as mayor and I'm here obviously excited to present you Kevin failure as Melrose. My nominee to be melrose's next chief of police. Before introducing him. I would like to say a few words about how we got here today, meaning the process and how much confidence the extent the extensive recruitment process. We conduct it gives me in asking you to approve this appointment as you all will recall in March of this year with your support the city height and executive Search firm known as Municipal resources Inc to lead the process of recruiting our next police chief MRI worked with my Administration to develop a highly comprehensive recruitment strategy to produce a diverse pool of Highly qualified candidates. Community input was a high priority in every stage of recruitment starting with a Citywide survey to the community and Municipal Employees. We asked the community to weigh in on the most important qualities. They would like to see and a chief and we had over 400 responses to the survey including many with quite detailed thoughts and comments. Those survey results allowed MRI to develop is referred to as an ideal candidate profile and challenge statement, which they used to attract potential candidates. Well suited to meet the specific needs and concerns of Melrose. Prior to the beginning of the process of their recruitment process MRI also interviewed over a dozen Community stakeholders to develop their understanding of the desirable traits Melrose residents. Wanted to see in the next chief. The position was advertised for about a month using State national and international professional recruiting venues that resulted in 23 candidates who applied from 10 states. MRI screened reviewed and ranked candidates based on their resumes and written responses to an essay questionnaire. From that they conducted phone interviews with qualified candidates and five candidates were recommended for the assessment center two were from out of state and three were from Massachusetts in August MRI created and conducted a long a day-long Assessment Center. Consisting of various written and verbal jar-related exercise exercises to to consider and rate the required skills knowledge and abilities and identities and identify strengths weaknesses and suitability of each of the semi-finalists. At our administrations request at my request the assessment center included a community panel to ensure that the prospectives of Melrose residents were included that panel consisted of 12 Melrose residents of diverse professional and personal backgrounds and experiences with law enforcement who are giving the opportunity to engage with and observe the candidates throughout the day. Four candidates participated in the assessment center as one withdrew before the process began. If the conclusion of the assessment center following the analysis of the result MRI recommended two candidates were final interview with me and my leadership team and upon completion of those interviews MRI conducted a comprehensive background assessment or investigation of the selected candidate, Mr. Foyer. So it's with a very high level of confidence in the thorough and thoughtful process that brought us to this day tonight. That I now introduced introduced to you. Excuse me, the person I know. Will lead the Melrose Police Department with Integrity capability and deep allegiance to the city of Melrose Kevin Fuller Captain fullier grew up in Medford. Holds a bachelor's degree like so many people in Melrose from Tufts University and a master's degree in criminal justice from Anna Maria College. He's a 27-year veteran of the City of Medford Police Department where he served with distinction as Captain at the Command Staff level for 11 years and for over 20 years at the supervisory level. I believe he is an excellent match with the Melrose Community is seeking in our next police chief in that he has a strong understanding of the needs and expectations of a moderate effective Police Department. He's well prepared to build on the solid foundation of community policing established by Chief Mike Lyle and the dedicated men and women of the Melrose police force and it's a long time resident of Melrose is already developed deep ties with the community. He and his wife have lived here since 2004 raising two daughters and he has coached as many of you all have Melrose youth soccer and basketball Kevin's father who came to this country from the Philippines also worked in Melrose who worked as a physician at Melrose Wakefield Hospital for over 50 years. As I've said many times before the hiring of a new police chief of the city of Melrose is one of my most important responsibilities of as as your mayor and I remain confident they am certain that Chief as Chief Captain falier will serve the city of Melrose and the Melrose Police Department with commitment passion and integrity and for those reasons. I am very pleased to be able to introduce to you my nominee for a chief of police Melrose Kevin Foley Kevin.

▶ 6:58 Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First of

▶ 7:01 Speaker 3: all, I'd like to thank the mayor and his staff in MRI the company that was involved in this election process. But also more point when we had a question conversation earlier on who the 12 community members were not to get too deep into the assessment center. But it was one of the things that really stood out the way the city of Melrose handled that Assessment Center was involving the community and not just retired Chiefs generally is what they what you do. So when I saw that I said, well Melrose is, you know, they're taking this seriously because they're getting Community input and Community advice rather than just, you know, a retired panel of chiefs is what I've seen so I'd like to thank the mayor and his staff of that the community members and I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the council members that had the The pleasure to speak with since my press release went out that I was a nominee and I appreciate the time that you took all the council members at a spoke to to kind of reach out to me and vice versa to get to know each other before tonight, and I think it would. I also want to congratulate and thank Chief Lyle

▶ 8:07 Speaker 3: for his 36 years of service to our community. Not just the city of Melrose. It's my community

▶ 8:13 Speaker 4: too, and I get big shoes to fill. He's a

▶ 8:15 Speaker 3: great man. He's been he's been a great leader for us, and I just wanted to get that on the record. I've a lot of work ahead of me. But thank you Chief Lyle.

▶ 8:25 Speaker 3: I want to keep my my remarks a little bit brief because I know you have a lot of questions follow me that will probably draw out some of the things that you maybe wondering but what I really want to emphasize is I'm excited. I'm very excited to become the next chief of police of Melrose. And and why is that it's probably the same reason you all are on the city council you live here. You want to give back you want to give more to the community rather than just do your day jobs and then come home you want to do something you want to make an impact and I kind of never thought that I would have this opportunity sort of the way when I got on in 1995. Everything was sort of kept in house Civil Service

▶ 9:01 Speaker 4: rules were a little bit different.

▶ 9:03 Speaker 3: The way things are changing and the way they should be changing it. You know my opinion with the evolution of policing is is sometimes you may not have to keep it in-house and I'm sure there's qualified. I know there's qualified candidate candidates within the city of Melrose police department. But when this opportunity arose in the job announcement went out outside of the department. I had a long conversation with my wife and my daughters and and we my family not just me made the decision to to put my name in the Hat and it's a tough decision. I'm leaving a great job. Most people leave a job when you're unhappy or you there's a problem that where I come from my colleagues in Medford, and I'm hoping I can keep my composure when I resign not retiring in

▶ 9:49 Speaker 4: a few days. It's a great great

▶ 9:52 Speaker 3: job and I'm taking a big gamble. But the reason why I'm taking the big gamble is because this is my community and and I want to do more for it. There were other chief job openings and there's going to be more especially in our area and I had other Chiefs and I had people call me while these openings will happen and saying you got to put in for that and so no I put in for Melrose. So well, there's another this town pays a lot more and I said, so I said, no, it's not about that. I'm not going to community that I don't have any stake in. And I have a stake in this community. That's pretty much it. I know you guys have my resume that may have won over a little bit, but I just wanted you to know where I'm coming from and why I'm so excited to join this. It's a great City and even more it's a great Police Department. I wouldn't take the Gamble and leave 28 years behind if I wasn't coming on to a job that I know the men and women there are already doing a great job. I'm just hoping to improve that and make it better.

▶ 10:54 Speaker 2: Thank you.

▶ 10:55 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you. I just want to note for the record that counselor. Jamaladin has joined us and I have counselor McMaster for questions with Vice chairmagliarelli and Q.

▶ 11:04 Speaker 5: Followed by cancer crime trading. Thank you madam. Chair good evening. Mayor.

▶ 11:06 Shawn M. MacMaster: Good evening, Captain. Welcome to the chamber. Good evening, sir. We had an opportunity to talk as you as you know as recent as this morning, so some of these questions we've talked about one-on-one, but for the public to understand a little bit more about you. I'd like to talk a little bit about vision. As a Melrose resident as a police administrator and a nearby community as a candidate for this position who is done his homework enough to get you to this point. What is your Preliminary assessment of the Melrose police department and based on that assessment in that that experience. I mentioned having lived here serving as a police administrator and Medford. Where do you want to take the Melrose Police Department?

▶ 12:02 Speaker 3: Well to answer your first question. I think I alluded to that in my opening remarks. It's my It's a great Police Department because if it wasn't what I probably wouldn't want to come here right to be honest with you. So I know they have a solid foundation. I know some of them men and women already on the police department some of them at the Command Staff level. So I do have an Insight of where they are and I've already had you know quite Pretty open and Frank conversations with some of their leadership and we went back and forth about you know, what did you do in Medford? And what are we doing in Melrose? Well, just because you did that Medford doesn't mean it's gonna work in Melrose. I understand that but what I quite simply said to this person was all I need to do. All I need to do is answer this question. Can you do it better? Can you always do something better? And he said yes I said that's all I'm trying to do. I said I'm not coming in from Medford and pose what we do there because maybe you do it wrong. There's certain things that I know they do better than us in Medford. And that's what my vision of the Melrose Police Department is. We can always do something better and that's not just on the police department. That's that's in life. And that's what I hope to bring to the city. Thank you Captain first

▶ 13:10 Shawn M. MacMaster: 90 days on the job. What would you look to do?

▶ 13:14 Speaker 6: So the first three months that's well.

▶ 13:20 Speaker 3: I have an idea what I'm going to do and I'll share that with you. I'll answer the question. So there's some tangible things and there's some sort of intangible things first thing I need to do. I need to get to know the men and women of the police department. Like I said, I only know a handful of them.

▶ 13:35 Speaker 6: If they're gonna work for me or vice versa, I'm

▶ 13:37 Speaker 3: going to work for them in essence. I need to know them. So the first 90 days it's going to be priority number one to have a one-on-one meeting with every single officer. There's only I say only 50 because 49ers because that's half of Medford. That's not a lot of people see I have to meet with every single person that's going to be on the job and work for me. The reason being not so much for me to explain to them.

▶ 14:01 Speaker 4: So I want to meet them personally. Like what are you about? You know

▶ 14:04 Speaker 3: what you're married you have kids like I want to know the Personnel on a personal level. But most people say well you probably want to tell them what you expect of them. I said well no, it's actually the quite the opposite. I I want to meet the person that I'm going to lead. I want to know what they expect from me right as a new Chief they used to

▶ 14:24 Speaker 3: a certain way right Chief Lau has been half of 15 years. But I want to know what do they expect from the new Chief to come in? And that's one of the first things that's on my agenda 90 days. That should be simple in 90 days meet everybody. Learn what their expectations are of me. But at the same time conveying my kind of visions. And what I expect from them the other the other thing that I want to do certainly policies and procedures. That's probably one alpha on my list. I want to know where we are in Melrose for policies and procedures we practice in the best practices we up to speed with post commission use of force all that stuff. So that's on my goal. And then the third thing there's several things but the other thing is community engagement if from doing my research, I think they could be

▶ 15:13 Speaker 4: a little bit more of

▶ 15:17 Speaker 3: community outreach in Melrose as far as a police department goes so I'm going to speak to my command staff and see what we can do to improve that kind of Outreach in Medford. I was just involved in creating Community engagement unit that specifically designed for community outreach for all the different especially the marginalized communities, but we call it a unit but it's really not a unit. It's supposed to permeate the whole department. So I want to do that and I think in within 90 days That's certainly reasonable and lastly not to keep going because I have a lot of my list is to have a command staff meeting. That's the most important thing. I think for kind of getting my vision this full lieutenants. They're going to need to know exactly where I stand and what I expect of them. Okay, because that has to permeate down and then have it kind of cyclically come back up because in order for us to move forward the vision has to be shared from The Command Staff and they have to buy into it in order to sell it and I don't mean sell it in like a you know, snake sales oil sales like sell it like legit like you have to buy into it. So staff meetings will be regular and and then community outreach like I say, can you stop meeting with you guys

▶ 16:31 Speaker 3: meeting with the business community that the Civic organizations the religious organizations get them to know me and the first 90 days great and

▶ 16:38 Shawn M. MacMaster: Captain you mentioned Command Staff you and I had an opportunity to talk a little bit about that the mayor and Had conversations about that he's been very open minded about some of the ideas that that I've conveyed. We've had a couple Subs that have conversations one of the observations that I've made is we are we don't necessarily operate from a command perspective like many other communities do I think historically structurally and Melrose even though there are four lieutenants. It's pretty much been a Command Staff of one. We have 10 sergeants, which is very Autumn heavy in terms of Supervisors. That's essentially a quarter of our department our sergeants. So from a structural perspective, what is it that you would be looking to do in terms of maybe trying to make recommendations that would change that and maybe create opportunities for Sergeants. So they have some way to advance opportunities for lieutenants. So they have some way to advance show and as you know changing, you know training is part of changing culture, right and we can talk a little bit about that. I know you have some ideas on that, but but so is finding ways not to create or breed complacency, right? And so if there are a chances for for Officers sergeants lieutenants to advance. That's a very Proactive way of trying to affect culture. So yeah.

▶ 18:05 Speaker 3: It's a very good question. And I know you say advancement and I'm not sure if you meet advancement rankwise.

▶ 18:13 Speaker 4: but I look at it and maybe what you're actually

▶ 18:15 Speaker 3: saying is sort of laterally different just different options for offices a patrol offices in sergeants to kind of instead of being stock for lack of a better word in their position or there are different opportunities for them within the police department and

▶ 18:30 Speaker 3: Yes, and that's conversations. I've actually already had with leadership and actually union membership.

▶ 18:36 Speaker 4: Because looking at the kind of

▶ 18:38 Speaker 3: structure of the department.

▶ 18:41 Speaker 3: coming from a larger Department with a kind of a really strong support staff with a very specialized where job descriptions are very clear and who they report to just from the outside looking in with a smaller Department like that.

▶ 18:56 Speaker 4: I think you're right. So it's a it's one of my things

▶ 18:58 Speaker 3: that I'm going to sit down real early with the lieutenants and figure out actually had a conversation today with one of one of the gentleman to kind of stop thinking who in your sergeant rank who won

▶ 19:12 Speaker 4: the supervisor ranks could be utilized differently

▶ 19:14 Speaker 3: than from Patrol to give me more of an administrative. Support staff and I'm talking more on the lines of policies and

▶ 19:23 Speaker 4: procedures development grant writing.

▶ 19:26 Speaker 3: Professional Standards Internal Affairs that type of

▶ 19:31 Speaker 3: stuff that were you know my job. We have a whole specialized unit just for that rather than one guy wearing many hats, you know, I feel it's better if you kind of you know spread it out a little bit and that's your particular job because there's certain Tasks that perhaps the current chief or just any Chief in general could be doing in a smaller Department that probably maybe he shouldn't be doing if you understand what I'm saying should be

▶ 19:55 Speaker 4: delegated or and it also gives the rank and file what opportunities to

▶ 20:00 Speaker 3: improve themselves and I mean that I don't mean it just to train to learn more different aspects of the of the police department. So reorganization of the department, you know, completely flipping it upside down. No, that's not going to happen on the first 90 days, but we'll get we've already actually had those conversations.

▶ 20:16 Shawn M. MacMaster: That's great. And I'm glad you're approaching this role from a big big picture perspective understanding that advancement isn't always rank. It certainly is but those lateral moves shopping is an opportunity to tap into the interest in the potential resources that officers sergeants may already bring some expertise

▶ 20:38 Speaker 3: that they may have in it just to jump on that too it just because you're like I was focusing more on the supervisory level because what I Envision what I want it should be a supervisor someone's in charge of Professional Standards policy making Internal Affairs, that should be a supervisor, but I know that there are a trollman On the police department that probably have a high skill set that I can use to help me as well administratively. So that's going to be my job in the help of the you know, the current sort of Command Staff of the to identify those offices and actually assist me with you know, who's kind of

▶ 21:15 Speaker 3: Who can we use differently? You know, I mean round plague round plug round hole type thing. I think that's great. And I think

▶ 21:19 Shawn M. MacMaster: the the the union will be supportive of that because it creates opportunities to ownership. So thank you. Can you talk a little bit about your understanding of the concept of problem solving policing and what would that look like in practice in a community like Melrose?

▶ 21:37 Speaker 3: It's an excellent question. So problem solving problems. Any problems on a police department could be many they could be internal, you know job performance discipline. I wise but you know problem-solving also involves what we do right solving neighborhood problems solving speeding solving crime problems.

▶ 21:54 Speaker 6: So it's defining a problem as

▶ 21:56 Speaker 3: a police officer. I look at it many different ones administrative and then the patrol end of it but it really comes down to you know problem oriented policing which you know has been on the books, you know, I don't know how many years and I I people may make fun of me but I still go by that sour model, you know yet. Yeah if anybody knows what the Sarah model is, but it's skin analyze response and assess so for problem solving you have to number one identify what the problem is because the problem could actually be underlying and what you think is the problem especially internally when you have a disciplinary problem or work performance problem the problem that's in front of you might not be the real problem. There's often may have a personal problem or a wellness problem right something in his family. So you have to actually identify what the problem is. Before you even solve it, right. So you got to do that. Then you have to analyze it come up with Solutions and then you have to do the response. Try it out. How you gonna fix the problem? And again, this could be speeding. It could be a disciplinary Province the same model. And then the last thing is to assess it. And that's the most important is the fourth one.

▶ 23:02 Speaker 4: Did it work? You can't like Implement. I'll use discipline. For example, you

▶ 23:09 Speaker 3: give discipline to the officer It's Not Over You have to follow up. You have to assess did it work call them back in 30 days two weeks. Hey, how you doing? Check his stats check check, his is he banging in six still or now? If we go to the patrol end of it speeding crime same sort of thing. We Implement increase patrols. We do XYZ.

▶ 23:33 Speaker 6: 30 days two weeks, whatever assess it. Did it work?

▶ 23:36 Speaker 3: And if it didn't work, then what we do, it's a cyclical thing you go right back to scanning. Yes analyze response assess. It's kind of a textbook answer but it's in the textbooks for a reason it works.

▶ 23:48 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you. So captain in your 28 years in the job. You've obviously seen a lot you've experienced firsthand paradigm shift in policing since when you started Based on what you've seen what you've experienced essentially holding almost every rank in Medford. What would you apply here? What are the biggest takeaways from that experience that you would apply here?

▶ 24:16 Speaker 3: Sure, so yes, I mean in my 27 plus years.

▶ 24:24 Speaker 4: I've either worked in a supervisors. I think every every Department unit

▶ 24:27 Speaker 3: our aspect of policing at least on the Medford end of it, you know, criminal investigations Internal Affairs Patrol policy making

▶ 24:36 Speaker 4: community outreach. I I've done it all

▶ 24:37 Speaker 3: I don't I'm trying to be humble about it, but and we've had some unfortunate incidents in Medford with homicides and

▶ 24:45 Speaker 6: shootings. I've supervised those So I bring tomorrow's a lot

▶ 24:49 Speaker 2: of like.

▶ 24:51 Speaker 3: Knowledge and experience as far as how to handle crisis situations as far

▶ 24:57 Speaker 4: as crime goes, but the biggest thing I

▶ 25:00 Speaker 3: think I bring from Medford. Oh, I will bring from Medford and my just personal experience is

▶ 25:07 Speaker 3: my ability to create a positive work environment. People that have worked for me or with me. No, I'm always. At work with a smile and it's hard in policing to do that. But if your leader or your boss a supervisor comes to work with a positive

▶ 25:26 Speaker 3: attitude It generally permeates. So that's

▶ 25:28 Speaker 6: the biggest thing that I'm most proud

▶ 25:29 Speaker 3: of actually when leaving Medford is getting sort of the feedback from the the men and women that worked for me and a bunch of them. I don't want to go off and attend it too much took me out to dinner the other night to sort of celebrate and and that was the stuff that kind of hit home when they

▶ 25:47 Speaker 6: said few kind words. It was it was a pleasure working

▶ 25:48 Speaker 3: for you always came with a smile on your face and into a

▶ 25:52 Speaker 6: fear and that's that's you know, those are the things that a

▶ 25:54 Speaker 3: resume throw the resume away. You know, someone tells me I'm a fair person and a nice guy.

▶ 26:00 Speaker 4: I'll take that I'll take that. So again, I'm not

▶ 26:01 Speaker 3: not even enough to know a smile and and hey how you doing is going to get me get us through the hard times but You come to work and you create a positive work environment and expect that

▶ 26:13 Speaker 4: from the people that work for you and correct it when it's

▶ 26:15 Speaker 3: not there. It's going to make the job easy when we go out of a house meaning the station and interact with the public.

▶ 26:22 Shawn M. MacMaster: Right. I just have one final question and that relates to the topic of training which I mentioned earlier the mayor mentioned post requirements is mptc just general requirements. I don't know exactly what it is now, but I know not too long ago the 40 hours mandated training left very little flexibility for specialized training that Chiefs May identify, maybe eight tests 12 hours of that with, you know, unfunded mandates with interest that you may have in specialized training is associated costs. Some of those direct costs. Some of those are costs that more associated with back-filling positions. What in understanding what I mentioned earlier, and I know you have a solid understanding of how training affects culture. What do you think of the opportunities to tap in to resources that may exist for training you come from a department that I know has been active and aggressive and pursuing grants you talk a little bit about that understanding the constraints that Chiefs face generally as it relates to all of these other requirements. I mean you have you have first aid you've tactics you have firearm safety you have CPR you have all of these training requirements that you need to focus on every single year that doesn't leave a lot for the types of issues that I know many of us are concerned with which are reaching marginalized Community Sean. So you talk

▶ 27:52 Speaker 4: a little bit about that. training is is the key

▶ 27:57 Speaker 3: to everything and I want to go often handed too much but The hiring is number one training and promotion those those three kind of elements. Make a police department you hire the right people and you do it the right way you train them the right way and you promote the right

▶ 28:11 Speaker 3: way and that's going to make a successful Police Department training isn't free and we know that the city council is is the purse right? So it's one thing and I'll put it out there right now. I'm going to advocate for the men and women that are going to work for me. They need the tools. They need the training to be safe and they need the training and the tools to be successful and meet the expectations that we as community members want including post commission reform that now requires more training. I've always been for training never mind mandated training. I've always been fun and it goes to your point about having the officer feel a little bit more valued or more important the more training you get the more you're

▶ 28:53 Speaker 6: exposed to so the training budget.

▶ 28:56 Speaker 3: I know what it is. I will learn if it's enough. But outside of that. There's a lot of grants that are out there to kind of get I don't want to call it free money, but it's money that the city can use and I just learned of a few more this morning that I email myself that we already missed it for this fiscal year, but I have the dates for next fiscal year that I know the metals Police Department doesn't have them right now. So that's that's money. I'm already looking forward to hopefully getting us the next fiscal year but no training is Paramount training is everything but I will tell you this and I said this to I think it was the assistant City budget. Finance lady this morning. I said training costs money. The money that you are going to spend are we as taxpays is going to spend to train the police officers is a lot less than if we don't train them and we get sued or reliable or if somebody gets hurt. You can't put a cost on that and I want that. I want that to be known because that's something I'm not going to back down from when I have to come and advocate for the people are

▶ 30:02 Speaker 7: gonna work for me training.

▶ 30:04 Speaker 3: Cost money, but it's always worth it.

▶ 30:07 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you. Just just final statement. I was very pleased with your opening remark about. Why you want to be the police chief and Melrose and I think to those to the public that may seem like a natural move going from a captain to achieve, but in reality to the general public and those who work in the police and Community know that going from a captain and a community like Medford to achieve in a community like Melrose for some wouldn't necessarily be the right professional move. It might not be the right move financially retirement wise, so I think based on your willingness to come here. It says a lot to me about. Thank you your values and why you want to be cheap that you want to be chief for the right reasons. It's not about a pension. It's about wanting to get back to your community. And in you are you are sacrificing you're coming from Civil Service, you know Department good position now you're clearly doing well there and I I am confident that you will do well here and I'm glad to offer my support tonight Captain. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 31:14 Jen Grigoraitis: I have Vice chairman literally followed by counselors. Karmchatie Williams jamaladin in Eccles. Am I missing anyone else?

▶ 31:24 Leila Migliorelli: Nice Trembley Riley. Thank you madam. Chair. Thank you. Mayor Broder. Thank you Captain falyer for being here tonight my first one to start and say thank you to the mayor for implementing such a thorough search process and kind of going over that I think it provides validation and Trust in the community that you selected by by having MRI come in and also engaging the community in the process too. I think that means a lot. Oh, thanks,

▶ 31:51 Paul Brodeur: that's you you all supported that financially. It's very much appreciated. I do think it's the right move. Thank you.

▶ 31:57 Leila Migliorelli: A counselor McMaster answer asked some of my questions so I'm just gonna kind of wrap a few of the one and we thank you for your conversation last week. I think Communications is a big piece of the police chief's job, you know, whether it's communicating with the council communicating with City departments communicating externally. I wondered if you can talk a little bit about some of your experiences and what you would bring to the city in terms of ensuring, you

▶ 32:25 Speaker 8: know enhanced Communications particularly in difficult situations.

▶ 32:30 Speaker 3: so I guess I'll kind of answer this and I play well

▶ 32:36 Speaker 4: in the sandbox with everybody meaning that,

▶ 32:39 Speaker 3: you know, I can sit and have professional discussions like what happened now or I could go out my friends and have a discussion or I get interview, you know, pretty hot and criminal and no matter where I'm at. I'm able to relate in communicate and listen to whoever is in front of me and the key to communication is listening. It's not talking and I I think what I bring in my experience, you know to answer your question. My experience is is I'm a good listener and I'm Fair like I said, so I think we need to sort of bridge that

▶ 33:09 Speaker 4: gap or rebuild the bridge that may

▶ 33:13 Speaker 3: have been lost over the years between the police department and City Hall and all the city as a whole and and I don't really mean that just murals. I mean I'm talking like police in general especially at the last three years or so. It kind of went. For various reasons that we all know and we really have to bring that back and it all starts with communication and having meetings not dictating what you know, I'm gonna impose on you vice versa. You have to listen to each other have those conversations and then move forward.

▶ 33:49 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you. I think you just kind of touched on over the last three years with the pandemic and with a lot of the changes in the way people are looking at policing and making sure that you know marginalized populations are feeling comfortable in our community around policing. Could you talk a little bit about some of your experiences in Medford in handling that you know in the last two years particularly since you know 2000 in the events of George Floyd how you worked to engage the community in the work of the police and create a positive relationship?

▶ 34:25 Speaker 3: Yes, I can actually cite one specific example if if not more but I this one stood out to me because this was it was either George Floyd or was one of those other unfortunate police shootings or police, you know that resulted in the death of of an African-American and we had some protest planned in the city. One of them was it was an organized group. And so

▶ 34:50 Speaker 4: what what the chief

▶ 34:52 Speaker 3: did in the Command Staff is two other captains at the time.

▶ 34:55 Speaker 4: we instead of

▶ 34:58 Speaker 3: waiting for the protest to happen. We actually contacted them and initiated conversations with them and had them come to the station and let's talk about number

▶ 35:07 Speaker 2: one.

▶ 35:09 Speaker 3: Your protests because they were going to March and

▶ 35:12 Speaker 4: all through the city and what we did for us

▶ 35:14 Speaker 6: was at least welcome conversations, right? Tell

▶ 35:16 Speaker 3: them that you know, the police presence will be there

▶ 35:21 Speaker 4: to ensure your safety while you're walking we're not

▶ 35:24 Speaker 3: going to interfere with it. We're going to let you do and get your message

▶ 35:25 Speaker 6: across but one of the biggest things I think

▶ 35:30 Speaker 3: we did with this same particular group was we invited them into our trainings. So we had and I'm not sure if it was implicit bias training that day or was Something similar and taught by police

▶ 35:42 Speaker 6: officers as well. So we invited the kind

▶ 35:45 Speaker 3: of I don't know if you'd call them the board but the leaders of that group to sit in for the day and watch how the method police.

▶ 35:52 Speaker 6: Are Department trains our own offices in issues such as that in the

▶ 35:56 Speaker 3: feedback that we got from them was exactly what we were hoping for that. Number one. They were happy that we extended that sort of Olive Branch and not close and put up the wall that oh, they're gonna protest. Well, we're just gonna put our right here on and and we'll be ready for a battle. No, we did the complete opposite. We invited

▶ 36:17 Speaker 3: them in to see what we do. We didn't other agencies during that tough time, you know, they had metal barricades in front of the station and riot gear and all that stuff. But there wasn't even a right yet. And you know for some people like if you look at the psychologicals the way

▶ 36:30 Speaker 4: if you already that you're up here, you can't bring it down here. We didn't do any of that. We just

▶ 36:38 Speaker 3: Functions as normal sure we had an incident Action plan, but it we were ready if we needed to be ready, but we didn't just come out and be militaristic and look like we're ready

▶ 36:47 Speaker 6: for a fight. So my experience with that

▶ 36:51 Speaker 3: was was a great learning experience because we proactively did the outreaching rather than coming the other way. I just putting up that wall and I think it worked very successfully and there were other events not what that group.

▶ 37:03 Speaker 6: that the police attended

▶ 37:06 Speaker 4: and then after that we've you know,

▶ 37:10 Speaker 3: we're not like I don't know what to say friends, but they're very very open now when we want to have communications with them.

▶ 37:16 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you. I think that's of critical importance. I know there's a lot of community groups in Melrose that would appreciate that level of communication and being brought into the process, and I just think that's a fantastic thing to do. So, thank you so much. I don't have any other further questions, but I'm looking forward to supporting your appointment. Thank you.

▶ 37:37 Speaker 5: Thank you councilor. Karmjady.

▶ 37:40 Manjula Karamcheti: Mayor Broder, thank you first for outlining the thorough process. I agree with what councilorelli said it was so great to hear sort of the extents of the extent of what happened and how the community was involved such a good model for future hiring practices as well. I also want to say I loved your answer of why Melrose it was the first question that I had on my list so I won't ask you to repeat it. But just so appreciate wanting to give back to the community and make it better for for our kids or families and our citizens. You talked a little bit about community policing and starting that Community engagement unit. I would love to just hear a little bit more about that and your thoughts on how to increase visibility of the police department and Melrose what proactive Outreach might look like and your thoughts on building Partnerships with the different organizations. and institutions in Melrose, so

▶ 38:46 Speaker 3: The good news is is I know we just kind of put on I think

▶ 38:48 Speaker 6: it was five brand new offices and we're actually at a staffing

▶ 38:53 Speaker 4: level that I think we've been higher than we've been in

▶ 38:54 Speaker 3: a long time have correct me from wrong. So the advantage of that is number one. We have a little bit more personal that we're flexible with to kind of put in different areas kind of like what counseling McMaster was talking about kind of reorganizing or creating different little divisions. What I want to do. As far as that Community engagement unit. I want to emphasize what I said earlier. I don't want to make it a specialized unit though, because that's that's where you run into problems. Sometimes a police departments when you have specialized units, it creates a little bit of a rift between the front line Patrol offices and it's just the nature of the game you have detectives and you have Patrol offices the community engagement unit simply needs.

▶ 39:36 Speaker 3: Supervisor and it needs someone to run it but the community engagement unit should be the actual whole Police Department everyone. No one's excluded from it. Now. How do you get them out there and do more events you get a convince them that it's worth. It's our it's not not worth it, but it's not job and you have to make it rewarding for them. You have to make it rewarding for the community. But what my goal envisions are as far as specifically to

▶ 40:00 Speaker 3: do that is to have probably in my first three months. I

▶ 40:03 Speaker 6: don't know if I said that about the six way is to outreach to those different organizations

▶ 40:05 Speaker 3: introduce myself kind of

▶ 40:09 Speaker 6: see what their ideas are as far as what they want

▶ 40:11 Speaker 3: from the police department because the last thing you want to do for a community engagement unit if that's what we'll call it is to mandate and dictate what the event is going to be because if you truly want to be partners the police I'm not going to go and say hey we're going to do this event. We're going to have it here and we're gonna do this we're going to do this. We want them right the group. So we're

▶ 40:30 Speaker 6: going to outreach to come to us and say well we want

▶ 40:32 Speaker 3: to and then we'll have these discussions. We'll hopefully some good community events now back to the grants.

▶ 40:38 Speaker 6: There's there's certain other grants. I know that Melrose doesn't

▶ 40:41 Speaker 3: have that would give us money to sort of fund that right. So if we don't have a line item budget to budget. You know like we just went out I use I run the federal forfeiture accounts too in Medford drug accounts, and we have a represented on the DEA which brings in a ton of money and forfeiture money. I use that money a lot in Medford specifically for

▶ 41:03 Speaker 6: community events because it doesn't cost a city anything money doesn't come

▶ 41:06 Speaker 3: out of a budget. It's perfect for it certain guidelines you use that money for and we have a representative on Melrose who's on the DEA and I've already opened up and looked at what money is expected to

▶ 41:20 Speaker 6: come in. So as far as

▶ 41:22 Speaker 4: how can we do it?

▶ 41:24 Speaker 3: Yeah, you can have all these great ideas. But if you don't have the

▶ 41:27 Speaker 6: money to support it, it's hard to do it. So that's kind of.

▶ 41:31 Speaker 3: what I'm already looking at how will we get think outside the box to

▶ 41:35 Speaker 6: get those events that we can

▶ 41:39 Speaker 3: fund because most of those events involve. What does

▶ 41:40 Speaker 4: everybody like food music?

▶ 41:42 Speaker 3: Who's paying for it? Right? We're not going to

▶ 41:46 Speaker 4: make the community pay for it if it's a community event. So if

▶ 41:49 Speaker 3: it's not in the budget we gonna get it.

▶ 41:51 Speaker 2: You got to look for help. I don't

▶ 41:53 Speaker 3: know if that answers your question. But like that's kind of the way my mind's working because it's worked where I come

▶ 42:01 Speaker 6: Should be able to work here.

▶ 42:03 Manjula Karamcheti: That definitely answered that question. You may be aware that one of the things that we did in the Melrose community over the past year was distribute diversity equity and inclusion survey and those results were presented and some of the things that came up. through that were sort of, you know, our different historically marginalized populations and their connection to the police department and also in the residents in Melrose have spoken about their issues of driving while black or brown and just Feeling like perhaps when situations come up where people of color are involved, perhaps the care and attention to those situations has perhaps not been as deep as others. So one of the things I was excited to see in your resume was some of your training on racially motivated traffic stops Prejudice and violence. So I would love to hear a little bit about how that experience and knowledge that you have how you might utilize that in Melrose as well. Sure. So

▶ 43:15 Speaker 6: yes, I'm kind of glad you brought that up too. So one of the

▶ 43:19 Speaker 3: Well the more rewarding. Aspects of my career where I where I'm coming from was dealing

▶ 43:28 Speaker 6: with the kids so that that prejudice

▶ 43:30 Speaker 3: and violence education. It was a program that we started in

▶ 43:33 Speaker 6: Medford and I was the first middle school instructor to teach it and it's it was in the middle schools. And you know, it's basically just violence, you know how to recognize how

▶ 43:41 Speaker 3: do you descalate what are the issues of race racism? And then the other thing that we did was the cops and kids program, which was

▶ 43:52 Speaker 3: it after school program, which was for kids that you know, the mom and dad was working or they had nowhere to go after school. So they would

▶ 43:59 Speaker 6: have to stay after school. But that we the police got involved in

▶ 44:01 Speaker 3: what we would do for the first 30 minutes would was do the homework, right? So we wouldn't do it but we would help them so they had to

▶ 44:09 Speaker 4: do their homework. Then after that we was it was

▶ 44:13 Speaker 3: awesome. We played sports with them pretty much is what we did every day. And then

▶ 44:16 Speaker 6: we take them to Bruins game Celtics games. It was awesome. But as

▶ 44:20 Speaker 3: far as you know, the diversity equity and inclusion aspect, That survey you did. I actually participated in that

▶ 44:26 Speaker 6: as a citizen. I remember filling that that thing out

▶ 44:29 Speaker 3: and I read the report that came back and you know, like the mayor talked about, you know, my dad's from the Philippines and you know, I'm

▶ 44:41 Speaker 6: Half asian, you know, and I I experienced that first hand growing up as well as my brothers and sisters, you know being called the

▶ 44:44 Speaker 3: names and and I know what it feels like. Girls I think is 82% white 9% Asian three

▶ 44:51 Speaker 6: percent black three percent Hispanic or so Police Department

▶ 44:56 Speaker 3: doesn't have any minorities in lathe, unless you want to include me now, right?

▶ 44:59 Speaker 4: So we need to we need to kind of

▶ 45:01 Speaker 3: I kind of we do we need to get the police department. I mean, we will reflective of what the community actually represents. Because I know on that survey. I think because I focus I know the Asian population. I think they were the most. Out of the groups that had either

▶ 45:19 Speaker 6: no interaction with the police or sort of negative.

▶ 45:22 Speaker 3: And there was reasons that the you know, the study wasn't really sure

▶ 45:25 Speaker 6: is it because they avoid the police or like what was the reasons why so that kind of hit home with me? It's like how do we

▶ 45:31 Speaker 4: How do we get that Outreach to them where you know, they want to interact to

▶ 45:35 Speaker 6: us? And and I said this to someone recently it's recruitment. It's all about recruitment. It's all about like that's why I talk about the schools.

▶ 45:43 Speaker 4: We have to be more involved when they're little

▶ 45:46 Speaker 3: Sometimes it's too late when they're already 25. Maybe they know they're not gonna what's hard to turn them around you want kids at the young age, especially the marginalized Community to not be afraid of us.

▶ 45:58 Speaker 6: to look up to us and then lastly to be want to

▶ 46:00 Speaker 3: become one of us because when we

▶ 46:05 Speaker 6: recruit and when they take the civil service exam because Melrose is still the service. We're Bound by Civil Service rules. So you can only take

▶ 46:11 Speaker 3: the top one out of the top three. In order to get the more marginalized Community as police

▶ 46:18 Speaker 6: officers on that list. We have to get them to

▶ 46:20 Speaker 3: take the test right and want to become us and my

▶ 46:25 Speaker 3: goal is to get him when they Young.

▶ 46:26 Speaker 6: Because those positive influences they don't

▶ 46:29 Speaker 3: go away. How many times do probably everyone that's from how many times you've actually been pulled over. I had the police come to your house not many times. I wouldn't think so that one interaction or two or three that lasts.

▶ 46:40 Speaker 6: So if you have a jerk that comes to your house pulls you over. You pretty much gonna paint us all this jerks, and I don't think we realize that.

▶ 46:53 Speaker 3: So that's how I think you know the diversity Equity inclusion specifically in

▶ 46:57 Speaker 6: on the police department.

▶ 47:00 Speaker 3: statute recruitment and getting them when they Young

▶ 47:03 Manjula Karamcheti: Well, I can check off my youth engagement question as well. So my last question is just really around the interaction between policing and mental health. Obviously, I think a lot of individuals who end up with police. It's really more related less related to specific crime, but more about mental health issues. So it would just love to hear a little bit about your experience with that and sort of what your vision would be for having a police department that knows how to deal with mental at mental health issues and de-escalate and that kind of thing.

▶ 47:39 Speaker 6: So the front line offices patrol office is

▶ 47:42 Speaker 3: actually everybody on a department is trained in is trained in icat in various mental health responses how to

▶ 47:48 Speaker 3: deescalate how to recognize someone that maybe having a mental health episode in order to keep it

▶ 47:54 Speaker 6: at this level, right? So you don't use force or

▶ 47:57 Speaker 3: try to avoid that. The one of the the bigger things that I'm proud of what we currently do is we have actually three clinicians on staff three that housed in the medical police station and the detective unit. So every mental health call substance abuse call overdose call.

▶ 48:16 Speaker 3: That the officers go to we actually changed a little while back where the reporting systems were kind of. Not report wasn't written on every one of those cases. They were kind of, you know medical and we'd be so we now make sure that every mental health call if we overdose.

▶ 48:32 Speaker 3: Every incident that could involve mental health

▶ 48:34 Speaker 6: a substance abuse it off as a has to write a report on it and

▶ 48:36 Speaker 3: then that report because I supervised detectives and they work on a detective. So the lieutenant tried to detectives then

▶ 48:44 Speaker 6: assigns that case to someone from the family services unit and the three social workers that we have on staff work under the Family Services Unit. So they do follow-ups with every one

▶ 48:55 Speaker 3: of those calls if they're not Medford residents is generally a representative from like from a neighboring agency, then they'll call their cohort over there and then give them the information but it's very very important for

▶ 49:08 Speaker 3: the obvious reasons. Obviously these people need help and sometimes criminal involving the criminal

▶ 49:13 Speaker 6: justice system is not the best solution. So we do our best

▶ 49:19 Speaker 3: to document it right and then follow up and get these people to help that they need.

▶ 49:25 Manjula Karamcheti: Thank you so much that those are all the questions that I have and I really appreciate your thoughtful answers and look forward to supporting you. Thank you. Councilor Williams, thank you. Thank you Captain father who's

▶ 49:36 Ryan Williams: good talking to you the other day. The colleagues I have here have asked a lot of great questions. So I don't want to be legal any of that. But I wondered if you had thoughts with regards to community engagement about specific members of members being institutions Community groups volunteer groups. If you thought about in your first 90 days maybe to use that that excellent time window that counselor McMaster put out there. Who would your priority Outreach Target speed if you thought about these folks yet.

▶ 50:12 Speaker 3: I have I have so

▶ 50:16 Speaker 3: I do I know in general terms what I want to do. I have to get this

▶ 50:18 Speaker 6: specific organizations though. So I know there's the Melrose alliance

▶ 50:21 Speaker 3: against violence is one of them. I was just made aware of

▶ 50:25 Speaker 6: the follow your Arts as another is another

▶ 50:27 Speaker 3: great organization. And then you have a Civic organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and the Knights of Columbus and all those and sort of reach out to them. But one of the other

▶ 50:36 Speaker 6: Groups, so to speak is the clergy

▶ 50:39 Speaker 3: the different religious organizations

▶ 50:42 Speaker 6: in the city to get them get us

▶ 50:44 Speaker 3: more involved with them. We do a faith in blue event.

▶ 50:51 Speaker 4: in Medford, and what we generally try

▶ 50:54 Speaker 6: to do is I'm pretty sure I think it's I think

▶ 50:59 Speaker 3: the faith in blue event is is sort of like National Night Out where it's it's one night, but we we've

▶ 51:03 Speaker 6: the last three years we've chosen different

▶ 51:06 Speaker 3: sort of

▶ 51:08 Speaker 6: religious organizations churches to involve them in in the event so So those are those are the sort of the major groups. I've already

▶ 51:16 Speaker 3: thought about reaching out to.

▶ 51:19 Paul Brodeur: Just so you'll know you don't let me interrupting captain that we've kind of have also built a little bit of a launch plan.

▶ 51:30 Paul Brodeur: For Kevin. Yeah, that's around some of the very traditional players like the Chamber of Commerce and rotary and some of those folks there in some respects easy to schedule so she might imagine there's going to be a lot of that initial Outreach to touch some of the institutional players.

▶ 51:48 Ryan Williams: Pleasant I would put a plug-in for my friends at the pad bike committee. We're a group of people were not an institution. We don't have a 501 C3 or not Incorporated, but we're a group of folks that do a lot of work promoting safety on Melrose streets. And I think that the folks in that Community would appreciate sure a little bit of Engagement from the from the police and that leads me to my to my second question. So in Melrose according to Melrose Wakefield Hospital the largest Source of trauma is from traffic violence, whether it's intentional, sometimes it is sometimes it's unintentional cars hitting cars cars hitting people cars hitting people on bicycles Etc. And a lot of the counselors here Ward counselors. Probably here like I do a lot of complaints about speeding cut through traffic. This is probably the number one request that I get for police people almost always when they are worried about these issues. They want police involvement, you know, I don't hear from other things, you know, I don't hear about people asking for police help from other areas, so I want to hear a little bit about your view on The rule that police can play not just in the kind of transactional traffic safety, but also in the longer term planning of how to make Melrose streets safer.

▶ 53:15 Speaker 6: Sure, so the police officer's job has evolved.

▶ 53:21 Speaker 6: A lot especially in the last five years or so. The one thing has never changes is traffic enforcement and we had a conversation about this this week and we

▶ 53:30 Speaker 3: have a traffic division, right but it doesn't mean traffic

▶ 53:33 Speaker 6: enforcement should be just simply for the traffic.

▶ 53:37 Speaker 3: Division, you know, the regular Patrol officers out

▶ 53:41 Speaker 3: there at night day should be enforcing traffic violations and

▶ 53:44 Speaker 6: trying to make the streets specifically in Melrose safer. I also

▶ 53:47 Speaker 3: want to qualify that by saying enforcement to me personally if you're asking that is

▶ 53:51 Speaker 6: Sort of multifaceted so, you know

▶ 53:54 Speaker 3: just by writing someone a two dollar a ticket. Maybe just as effective as a warning. You have to sort of take it on a case-by-case basis, but I think we both can agree on you have to do something

▶ 54:08 Speaker 6: you have to enforce you have to start violations when you see it and you have to make the streets safer to kind of circle back to Grants and I

▶ 54:16 Speaker 3: don't know if we talked about this. we just got a grant and I hate to keep bringing up, you know method but

▶ 54:26 Speaker 6: We just got to grant for 60,000 for Traffic Safety that

▶ 54:27 Speaker 3: and I they just sent me the link so I can try to get that here 40,000 of

▶ 54:33 Speaker 6: that sixty thousand dollars is set aside for overtime for enforcement which is perfect because that's visibility and it's enforcement. So it's a double edged

▶ 54:42 Speaker 3: in a good way because we're going to have offices

▶ 54:44 Speaker 6: out there but you're also going to enforce because that's what you're supposed to do on this specific Grant. So they'll be dedicated just for

▶ 54:50 Speaker 3: that the other 25,000 was set aside

▶ 54:53 Speaker 6: for equipment safety equipment. So what we did

▶ 54:57 Speaker 3: in Medford, we just bought I don't know how many but bicycle helmets so we can give them out at those events like National Night Out and community events. So it's cheered from what I understand Melrose could be with the population. We are about 29,000

▶ 55:14 Speaker 6: we could be eligible to get about 40,000. But again $40,000 is more than we have right now.

▶ 55:21 Speaker 3: So that again helps with what extra money over here, but it helps your constituents. It helps the community because now we're out

▶ 55:28 Speaker 2: there visibly doing more.

▶ 55:30 Speaker 3: In the office get paid for it, too. So that's always a good thing. Right so It's a win-win for everybody.

▶ 55:38 Speaker 4: Thank you.

▶ 55:40 Speaker 5: Counselor jimaldean. Thank you.

▶ 55:41 Maya Jamaleddine: And I'm chair. Thank you for being with us tonight and thank you for stepping up to this role. Thank you for your leadership as well mayor.

▶ 55:54 Maya Jamaleddine: We've talked a lot about what is it that you're gonna bring from Medford to our community. What is the one thing that you feel that really mattered strive? And and you would love to see it in Melrose. I know Medford is probably more diverse. Then Melrose marus is demographic is changing. And so would love to hear from you. What is it? We will be looking into change in marrows.

▶ 56:32 Speaker 3: Sure.

▶ 56:34 Speaker 6: On that note so there's a couple things but I I want to emphasize what sort of what I said earlier as far as the you know, the diversity

▶ 56:44 Speaker 3: of the police department. We we need to do that and we need to do that through recruitment because of

▶ 56:51 Speaker 6: the reasons that I stated before the Civil Service guidelines kind of

▶ 56:54 Speaker 3: you can only hire who's there and we

▶ 56:57 Speaker 6: need a more diverse list. So we need to

▶ 56:58 Speaker 3: get more diverse candidates to want to become

▶ 57:02 Speaker 6: police officers. But like I said, what how do you

▶ 57:06 Speaker 3: make them become police officers? I want them want them to become police officers. You have to positive interactions with them. So that's you know like that. That's what I would bring over to Melrose.

▶ 57:19 Maya Jamaleddine: very good and I would love to see that we did ask Chief Lyle the same question about why we are not having a diverse Department police department and I if I remember it correctly one of the Answers was you know, there's not a lot of people of colors that are interested in applying for marrows. They would rather. You know serve and other communities. So how would you change?

▶ 57:52 Speaker 4: it's an interesting answer because he could be

▶ 57:55 Speaker 6: right but I think it's actually it's it's not just Melrose. It's it's everywhere. It's in it's not

▶ 58:01 Speaker 3: just the marginalized Community. We're having a problem attracting anyone to become a police officer nowadays because

▶ 58:07 Speaker 6: of the really Some certainly deserves. So maybe

▶ 58:12 Speaker 3: not deserve bad bad incidents that have happened over the last few years.

▶ 58:15 Speaker 6: So a lot less.

▶ 58:20 Speaker 6: We just had a lot of a lot of candidates in Medford.

▶ 58:22 Speaker 3: We used to have hundreds and hundreds of

▶ 58:24 Speaker 6: Medford residents on the list. We had 32

▶ 58:28 Speaker 4: last time and we blew almost

▶ 58:29 Speaker 3: right to the end of that to try to find.

▶ 58:33 Speaker 6: Medford residents, but more importantly qualified residents

▶ 58:39 Speaker 3: because we bypassed several and that's a problem that all police administrate

▶ 58:44 Speaker 3: is a facing right now is not only reaching the modulized community. Just reaching anybody to want to become a

▶ 58:50 Speaker 6: police officer nowadays. So again

▶ 58:55 Speaker 6: in that starts kind of what I said earlier is rebuilding

▶ 58:56 Speaker 3: those bridges.

▶ 58:59 Speaker 4: With the you know, the Magi

▶ 59:01 Speaker 3: Community, but just just in general like the public we have

▶ 59:04 Speaker 6: to fix what went wrong.

▶ 59:07 Speaker 3: And get that reputation and get that professionalism where it needs to be. So when kids graduate high school, I go to college they want

▶ 59:16 Speaker 6: to become police officers, you know,

▶ 59:20 Speaker 3: I used to get kind of tooled on for lack of a better word. You know, I we've kind of said my dad's was a doctor he thought every time but he's still

▶ 59:28 Speaker 6: somehow he's still at the Melrose Wakefield doing something because he's over

▶ 59:33 Speaker 6: there the other day but my brothers a physician my two

▶ 59:36 Speaker 3: sisters a nurses and and everyone would always say Jesus. Yeah. You went to Thompson. You became

▶ 59:41 Speaker 4: a cop and thanks for all that money. Dad you but why I say that I've

▶ 59:47 Speaker 6: always wanted to become a police officer. And and that's what we have to instill in these kids that just because your dad does this your mom does this whoever does that you

▶ 59:57 Speaker 3: do you want to do and I was fortunate enough to have a very supportive family that you know,

▶ 1:00:01 Speaker 6: They're so proud. You know, my dad and mom is excuse me.

▶ 1:00:05 Speaker 3: It's so proud of me now. So that's what we got to get instilled for the kids when they see us

▶ 1:00:09 Speaker 6: on the street or at a football game or whatever.

▶ 1:00:15 Speaker 8: as

▶ 1:00:17 Maya Jamaleddine: as people like white people and as people that walk with accumulated Advantage I wanted to ask as you know, you know coming a chief. What is it that you would be serving folks that are walking with accumulated disadvantages in our community those that are you know, probably always there is a barrier to come to the police department or probably there is a barrier to Reach out for help. For instance those that are undocumented in our community or you know, there is so many different groups that you know, they are in their need of the police and for one reason of the other.

▶ 1:01:09 Speaker 8: barriers

▶ 1:01:11 Maya Jamaleddine: was in the middle always.

▶ 1:01:15 Speaker 6: It comes down to trust is what it

▶ 1:01:16 Speaker 3: comes down to and in specifically when you mentioned undocumented immigrants, you know,

▶ 1:01:25 Speaker 6: I'm pretty I'm pretty sure on correct me from ryment that Melrose is a sanctuary City. No, so they voted against we well aside here. I put you on the

▶ 1:01:36 Speaker 3: hot site down. No, but aside from that, you know again, this goes to policies

▶ 1:01:42 Speaker 4: and procedures. So we have a method we have a we have a full policy

▶ 1:01:45 Speaker 3: on how to deal with that and and it just happened recently where one of my offices is doing

▶ 1:01:49 Speaker 6: a

▶ 1:01:51 Speaker 3: I don't want to get into it too much, but it's a

▶ 1:01:54 Speaker 6: staying on profit possibly human trafficking and

▶ 1:01:56 Speaker 3: whatnot and and is the issue is with The kind of the people who are talking to him or undocumented and and

▶ 1:02:04 Speaker 6: all this stuff and and I said, well, you're gonna make sure two things I said.

▶ 1:02:08 Speaker 3: We're we're not arresting anybody. We're not taking any criminal charges for any in, you know, undocumented stuff. Now,

▶ 1:02:15 Speaker 6: the only time we enforce any of that stuff is if someone breaks the

▶ 1:02:16 Speaker 3: law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. But we are not in the business of going and and taking people in for immigration violations or anything like that. That that's not at least my opinion. That's not

▶ 1:02:28 Speaker 6: the police. That's not a police officer's job to get involved

▶ 1:02:30 Speaker 3: in that because those people, you

▶ 1:02:35 Speaker 6: know, like you said, sometimes they're going to

▶ 1:02:36 Speaker 3: need help and if they can't call us we can't help them and that's going to be a problem. So it just

▶ 1:02:42 Speaker 6: it comes down to trust.

▶ 1:02:46 Maya Jamaleddine: We have to develop that so and I have to say, you know with full credit to Chief Lyle. He always had the same statement. He had the same stand supporting, you know, undocumented and minorities, but I feel that this message was never taken seriously for those that are undocumented to get that trust. So what is your plan to build that trust? I'm sure he had it in his intention for some reason undocumented or you know, some of the people of color who reach out to me. They never felt that they can Get there.

▶ 1:03:24 Speaker 3: It's an action question and I'll be quite honest which I don't know. I don't I don't know. How how do you

▶ 1:03:29 Speaker 4: how do you reach out to undocumented people

▶ 1:03:32 Speaker 3: that? How do I find them? You know, you don't say it? I I to be quite

▶ 1:03:39 Speaker 6: Frank. So I'll offer this to you if if you

▶ 1:03:42 Speaker 4: know people that I like that fit or

▶ 1:03:45 Speaker 3: in that position personally. Have them reach out to me or give me the contact information. I'd be more than happy to sit down with them wherever they want home coffee,

▶ 1:03:54 Speaker 4: like wherever. And you follow

▶ 1:04:01 Speaker 3: him saying it's just hard for me to find someone that I don't know whether yeah.

▶ 1:04:02 Speaker 4: But but I can assure you that myself and

▶ 1:04:06 Speaker 3: the men and women are going to work for me are going to

▶ 1:04:08 Speaker 6: share that same sentiment. So I offer that

▶ 1:04:13 Speaker 3: if you if they're trust me if there's anybody you know, that feels

▶ 1:04:16 Speaker 6: like they can't call the police but whatever reason that is.

▶ 1:04:19 Speaker 3: I'm here. Hopefully I'm here in December first. Yeah after

▶ 1:04:23 Maya Jamaleddine: I get yeah, you vote but you know people that are watching they hear you they understand right now and it means a lot sure so to more questions, I promise I'm not gonna take more longer, but the first one is You mentioned that you're going to do a lot of changes. I you know, I hear you you're gonna do you have a lot of plans and which is amazing. You know, we're happy with what Chief Lyle have done all these years serving our community. It's extremely respectful man, and we would love to see changes because always there is room for changes and Improvement and I appreciate to hear that from you. What would what is your plan if your department and you know any member of your department would say? We're happy with what we're doing. We're not ready to change and any pushback.

▶ 1:05:32 Speaker 6: So I I also I want to make myself clear

▶ 1:05:35 Speaker 3: too. I I hope I'm not coming across for anybody who's watching this

▶ 1:05:39 Speaker 3: that I'm saying that I'm gonna come in and flip this place upside down or that the police department currently are doing

▶ 1:05:44 Speaker 6: things that I just don't agree with that's that's the furthest from

▶ 1:05:48 Speaker 3: the truth. So I need to come in. I need to understand the culture of the

▶ 1:05:49 Speaker 6: police department. I certainly have to understand what is going on before I

▶ 1:05:51 Speaker 3: make change, but if somebody thinks I'm coming in and not going to make change they're wrong because why I'm why like what leader would come in and not want to make change. So if to answer your question if this pushback is going to be pushback, that's not if it's natural. It's human nature, right? I'm coming in as an outside and whether or not I lived here for 19 years or whatever. I'm change. I'm different. I'm coming in to their house.

▶ 1:06:18 Speaker 6: Right? So I have to like I said meet with all those people understand what motivates them and that's what I think, you

▶ 1:06:26 Speaker 6: One of my positive attributes again is I think I

▶ 1:06:28 Speaker 3: understand the human psyche enough what works for one person is not going to work for that guy that woman. You got to treat them individually and see what kind of works with

▶ 1:06:36 Speaker 6: each. So if someone isn't going to kind of buy into the

▶ 1:06:38 Speaker 3: cultural that I'm going to want to have on the police department.

▶ 1:06:44 Speaker 3: They may have to find a new job. I don't know I'll be pointing as I can like either they're gonna be miserable for the rest of their career. or find another career because you know like

▶ 1:06:56 Speaker 3: counseling Master said I'm taking a big gamble to leave when I come home coming here. and I'm not going to kind of I don't know what the word I want to use. Not do what I want to do because of if

▶ 1:07:08 Speaker 4: I feel it's right and the men and women around me. You know,

▶ 1:07:11 Speaker 3: my Command Staff feel it's the right thing to do we're going to do it but it's 50 people. You're not gonna get a hundred

▶ 1:07:18 Speaker 6: percent of everybody. It's just it's just the way it goes, but

▶ 1:07:21 Speaker 3: we're all going to work together. But you know

▶ 1:07:25 Speaker 3: the Chiefs the chief for a reason and they'll get the input and what they're getting the men and women want but you know, that's why we may have to make difficult decisions. Yeah, and

▶ 1:07:32 Maya Jamaleddine: we do have great, you know. person members of the police department are great in our city. So I'm sure that you'll you'll find great accept work with my last questions working at a organization organization that supports mental health and addiction and you know people suffering with some mental health issues. We always had this disconnect when it comes to a crisis and we have we have to communicate with the police with the way that they deal with the situation and with a client our clients. Do you have a plan on how to outreach and and build that relation with those organization? Yes,

▶ 1:08:27 Speaker 6: so just kind of

▶ 1:08:29 Speaker 3: what I said earlier.

▶ 1:08:33 Speaker 6: Have to look at the organization of the detective division specifically because that's something

▶ 1:08:35 Speaker 3: I think would fall under them because that's kind of the way it seems appropriate to you know, who's in charge of domestic violence who's going to follow up on those those victims

▶ 1:08:46 Speaker 3: sexual assulttimistic violence mental health substance abuse.

▶ 1:08:49 Speaker 6: That's a family services type unit. So we're

▶ 1:08:53 Speaker 3: going to get those people trained on how to do it. And I know I know Melrose has I had a counselor

▶ 1:08:59 Speaker 3: on staff shared Sharon wood Stoneham, you know, certainly I don't expect three on stuff like I haven't method

▶ 1:09:05 Speaker 6: but that's very important. It's very important because it's the role of the police officers changing. So if you

▶ 1:09:11 Speaker 3: get actually have a social worker or a clinician on staff to work

▶ 1:09:14 Speaker 6: in partnership with the police officers to either take the work off at this person that person share it that's that's

▶ 1:09:20 Speaker 3: ideally what I would want. But again, it's it's Staffing do we have the Manpower a woman power and do we have the professionals outside

▶ 1:09:27 Speaker 6: of the police department to come in and assist us and is

▶ 1:09:31 Speaker 3: you know, they are available. It's just I know right now they sort of sharing one clinician.

▶ 1:09:37 Maya Jamaleddine: Well, thank you so much, and I wanted to ask. You Captain whenever you know, hopefully when you start and whenever you start giving the service of doing the homework for the kids after school, I'll send my kids to you. So just let us know whenever this starts. Thank you so much. Thank you.

▶ 1:09:55 Speaker 4: Very welcome.

▶ 1:09:56 Speaker 5: Thank you counselor Eccles.

▶ 1:09:58 Jack Eccles: Thank you madam chair. Thank you Kevin fire for being here and mayor brother for putting him forward. I just have one question because a lot of mine have already been answered. One of the main interactions of the police chief with the council was around the budget free cash grants and other transfers you talk a little bit about your experience and nattering and maybe some challenges or opportunities. You see in Melrose with that. So yeah,

▶ 1:10:22 Speaker 6: so the budget the budget question has

▶ 1:10:24 Speaker 3: come a lot and it actually came up, you know during the assessment and and you know, it's very rare for someone who's

▶ 1:10:31 Speaker 3: not been a chief. To have first-hand experience preparing a budget of putting a budget together. I will

▶ 1:10:37 Speaker 6: say this I may reference about the forfeiture counts and the drug account site manage those for the last 12 years in Medford. So I you

▶ 1:10:43 Speaker 3: know, I'm pretty good at math but it also know, you know how to handle handle money. And as far as the budget goes, you know, we have a good communication with my current chief and I've Finance person who handles it and you know, whenever I send someone a training or approve vacation time off

▶ 1:11:00 Speaker 6: or whatever like that. I always consult with that to see

▶ 1:11:03 Speaker 3: where we at the budget. Where are we out in the overtime budget where we at in training

▶ 1:11:06 Speaker 6: budget because I don't know if I can send this guy to this because in

▶ 1:11:08 Speaker 3: the backfield for that, so I have the, you know workings and the knowledge of like how it works But to answer your question. I don't have yet to prepare my own budget. I actually the mayor and the cities already been kind enough to give me some crash courses on it prior to coming on board. So we had a pretty good meeting this morning actually on how the

▶ 1:11:26 Speaker 6: budget works and what to expect moving forward.

▶ 1:11:30 Jack Eccles: Great. Well likely be seeing you. Then. I look forward to supporting your nomination. Thanks for the time. You've given me so far and I will see you on the traffic Commission.

▶ 1:11:42 Speaker 5: counselor Stewart

▶ 1:11:43 Speaker 9: Thank you madam chair. Thank you Captain Fowler Mr. Mayor for Bringing him forth my questions

▶ 1:11:51 Robb Stewart: have been answered. Just want to thank you for listening fairly comprehensive discussion being open transparent about your thoughts and ideas. And with that I would like to make a motion to recommend this appointment to full Council second. So we

▶ 1:12:09 Speaker 5: have a motion to recommend made by counselor Stewart seconded by President. Cinella. Is there any questions on discussion?

▶ 1:12:18 Shawn M. MacMaster: Councilor McMaster Just one thought for the mayor. So Mr. Mayor, I'm consulate Jamal Dean made a very good point about the changing demographics in Melrose over the last 10 years. We have seen growing Moroccan a growing Haitian and a growing Chinese population. I'm sure for the Outreach tour that you're starting to plan. You have the Millers Human Rights Commission on there. I would also suggest the English conversation program through the Melrose Public Library and the Immigrant Learning Center in maldon, just three places to hit

▶ 1:12:50 Speaker 10: so thank quite I mean it probably goes without saying but the hospital is going to be but you might imagine for all the reasons to have discussed. It's critical partnership for for the city to have a working relationship with with Metals, Wakefield.

▶ 1:13:05 Speaker 5: Council thank you Council guy everybody. Did you have anything on discussion? Yeah,

▶ 1:13:08 Mark Garipay: I just had one one item. Thank you for being here. Thank you for answering all the questions as you know in Melrose we have a an old Police station that is probably outlived its useful life and in Medford seems like I think they have a fairly feeling new one. Yes. Were you were you involved at all in in the design or building or yes experience that you have a question you could bring here in order to try to help us. Yes something different

▶ 1:13:41 Speaker 11: with that outdated building. Yes. If

▶ 1:13:44 Speaker 3: obviously that that is one of

▶ 1:13:47 Speaker 6: my goals is to get us into a new police station, but we

▶ 1:13:51 Speaker 3: just opened up a little less than three years ago in Medford brand new Taj

▶ 1:13:57 Speaker 6: Mahal type. It's it's amazing. It's beautiful and

▶ 1:14:00 Speaker 4: the morale

▶ 1:14:03 Speaker 3: when we moved into that, you can't really put a price on that because

▶ 1:14:08 Speaker 4: everything is brand new three is down the line. It still looks brand new. We have a brand new. gem facility that we actually offer

▶ 1:14:15 Speaker 3: Wellness breaks to our offices during shift where they're 45 minutes to go work out during the shift and it's not I'm kind of go off an attended yet, but For me I look at it. It's not physical. It's momental

▶ 1:14:28 Speaker 6: Wellness because of the stress that you know, these

▶ 1:14:31 Speaker 3: people are under including myself. But yes, I was involved in the committee literally from

▶ 1:14:36 Speaker 4: from researching it to moving in. We myself on

▶ 1:14:43 Speaker 3: the current chief at the time involved. Like

▶ 1:14:46 Speaker 6: I said from start to finish we went toward

▶ 1:14:50 Speaker 3: all the relatively new police stations in

▶ 1:14:53 Speaker 4: the in the Commonwealth and we met with all their Command Staff

▶ 1:14:56 Speaker 3: and it was the best thing that we could have ever done because we got ideas from them what worked and what didn't work and there were

▶ 1:15:02 Speaker 6: certain agencies that had a brand new police stations and they were like,

▶ 1:15:05 Speaker 6: Who designed this, you know, it was already sort of outgrown. And so the three is that we've been

▶ 1:15:11 Speaker 3: in there a little bit less than three years knock on wood the people

▶ 1:15:14 Speaker 4: love it. I mean, we we literally me

▶ 1:15:17 Speaker 3: and my chief literally picked out the furniture we picked out. We we attended weekly meetings with the contract as well construction was going on so I'm actually glad you brought that up because I bring with that here because I know it's in the early infant stages. But it's going to help when we get to that point because we do we do need a new police

▶ 1:15:38 Speaker 6: station for sure.

▶ 1:15:41 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you before we call the roll which I'm feeling pretty good about. I just wanted to add well two things. I wanted it's time to stop. Okay, I want to actually take moment to just thank my colleagues around the Horseshoe for some really I thought incredibly thoughtful questions that I do think some of the diversity of experience in this community is was represented in what was discussed today. I want to thank you Captain for both your answers tonight. And also the time that you took to reach out to all of us. I know we talked at like seven pm on a Tuesday night while I cooked dinner. So I I really appreciate the fact that you made yourself available to us. I want to thank you mayor Broder for conducting a search that I know was not without challenges but really kind of persevering to bring us a candidate of such incredible caliber and my one question for you Captain is how can we help you be successful as you prepare for this. I know we've asked a lot of you what you know, what we need from you. What do you need from us? What I

▶ 1:16:38 Speaker 4: need from the city council is to be to be there

▶ 1:16:40 Speaker 3: when I need you and and I'll be there for when you need me because just like in any relationship if you don't see me for 364 days, and then I show up and say I want money or I want something that's not how you handle a relationship. So we

▶ 1:16:54 Speaker 4: need to work together to

▶ 1:16:58 Speaker 3: To come up with plans and ideas that

▶ 1:17:01 Speaker 6: are going to benefit the city as a whole. I'm not talking about just us the police department because I know you have to

▶ 1:17:08 Speaker 3: deal with every, you know, kind of department head and agency,

▶ 1:17:11 Speaker 4: but what you guys can do for me is just to be the be there for me when I need to

▶ 1:17:15 Speaker 3: call, you know.

▶ 1:17:18 Speaker 6: And and run something by and pretty pretty straightforward.

▶ 1:17:20 Speaker 3: I'm easy that way.

▶ 1:17:22 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you. And with that I will request that our call.

▶ 1:17:29 Speaker 1: Vice chairmanelli. Yes counselor McMaster. Yes counselor Eccles. Yes counselorpe. Yes counsel. Jamaladi. Yes. Counselor Stewart. Yes councilor Cronin shooting. Yes counselor Williams. Yes, president. Sonella. Yes and chair regardless. Yes. That is 10. Yes 10 yesterday. This

▶ 1:17:50 Jen Grigoraitis: will be recommended to the full Council next week. Thank you so much for your time this evening and congratulations. Thank

▶ 1:17:58 Paul Brodeur: you. Thank you Council again very much appreciate the thoughtfulness of the questions and your engagement supporting this from the beginning when we decided to do an outside search in an assessment center very much. Appreciate it.