Boston City TV, MA Office of Police Accountability and Transparency (OPAT), 28 Apr 2022

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Internal Affairs Oversight Panel (IAOP) Public Meeting - 04/28/2022

Description

Recording of Internal Affairs Oversight Panel (IAOP)'s public meeting held virtually on Thursday, April 28, 2022.

A

All right, um I think we can go ahead and get started. um I know that um some of our interpreters are having uh some issues um with the correct channels, so I apologize. I will fix that as soon as I can, um but I do want us to go ahead and get started so um good morning. This internal affairs oversight panel meeting uh will start in just a minute. My name is ben tillman and I am oped's board administrative assistant, this community meeting or I'm sorry. This public meeting is uh public and will be recorded.

A

All members of the public have their cameras turned off and before we start there are a few housekeeping items that I'd like to cover. um First, we have turned on zoom's, auto captioning.

A

Each person will need to opt in to see these captions and you can select the live transcript button on the toolbar at the bottom of your zoom screen to see these captions appear, the mayor's office of language and communication access is providing language services today in american sign language, spanish, mandarin, vietnamese, cape verdean, creole and haitian creole.

A

To hear this meeting in any of these languages, you would want to select the interpretation button on the toolbar at the bottom of your zoom screen and select the language channel that you need, after each of our interpreters or I'm sorry, each language team introduces themselves.

A

I would also like to acknowledge our asl interpreters um jess, and I apologize I'm blanking on the name of the other interpreter, but they will be jump on shortly.

A

I'm now going to pass it over to the other interpreters to introduce themselves.

A

I believe I have turned off the interpretation.

A

B

Buenos diaz, my name is.

B

B

C

Hello, my name is tina my partner, terry, and I will provide mandarin interpretation for this session. I'll explain the zoom interpretation instruction in memory.

C

D

Good morning my name is vietnamese interpreter um myself and my partner meehan will be the interpreter for the meeting today. uh Xin zhao will be.

D

E

Good morning my name is vanussa gomez, green myself and the other interpreter. Eugenia moreira will be providing interpretation from english to cavert and creole bondi.

E

F

My name is cynthia and the partner that I'm partnering with is sadaq and will be the haitian cruel interpreter for today. Thank you.

A

All right, thank you very much to our interpreters. I am going to open up those channels.

A

And uh if anyone has any audio problems, um please just let.

G

A

A

All right, can you hear me now barely I apologize.

A

Is this any better, much better? Thank you awesome. Thank you.

A

If anyone has any audio issues, please just let us know and as a reminder to our panelists, please speak uh relatively slowly and don't speak over each other so that we can make this easier for our interpreters and with that I am now going to pass it over to our iaop chair, uh judge, leslie, harris.

G

Thank you and good morning. Everyone um thank you for joining us for the first internal affairs oversight panel meeting of 2022.

G

My name is judge leslie, harris retired, and I am the chair of the internal affairs oversight panel, further city of boston, ordinance established an office of police accountability and transparency, which took effect on july. First 2021.

G

We have called the public meeting of the I up this morning. We will run through the agenda agenda that you can see here. Can we post the agenda? Please we will discuss the 2022 meeting calendar, hear opec, executive director, stephanie, everett and um give miss everett will give the director's report and we will discuss any additional business that the panelists choose to bring up.

G

I would like to acknowledge the panel members we are joined this morning by christina miller, julian mondale jesse sinois.

G

Our final panelist alison cartwright had informed us ahead of time that she would not be available to join us today.

G

Our first order of business today is the review. um The 2022 meeting calendar. This calendar was posted with the public meeting notice and opec staff can send the link to this document. In the chat.

G

The meeting calendar was approved by the opec commission on april 19. 2022.

G

All of these meetings will be held publicly. Do any of the panelists have any questions about this calendar.

G

No thank you hearing none. I will now move to the executive director's report with stephanie everett. Please.

H

G

H

Chair, I think my my mu didn't um come off in time personally um with the calendar, whether it's here or some other place, just that one of the dates does not work um for me. Unfortunately um october 22, um the october 2022 date, I'm not sure if that can be changed or adjusted, um I just might be in labor that day, oh okay,.

G

um We will discuss that and see if we can make accommodations for you, but if not, then we will miss you at that meeting and congratulate you at the same time.

G

G

Okay, any other.

G

Okay, miss everett, please.

I

Congratulations.

I

So, thank you um judge harris for uh allowing me a few minutes to just give an update um during these times.

I

I think it's important for me to provide an update on what's going on in um and around the opera office, um and um so I won't take up too much time um so, as you may have heard, in fy 23 the fy 23 budget, the maze budget was released um a couple weeks ago in that budget opac fy budget is um 1.465 684 000., um that is an increase over the fy 22 budget of 165 000., the the increase three, the key investments that I want to highlight for you on why there was an increase is we did request three key investments and one of which was a community mediator in the ordinance it did call for a mediator as a solution to some of the complaints, the less serious complaints that would be brought forth um through the opat office, um and they specifically mentioned um having someone on staff um at oppat to handle um complaints that could be mediated out.

I

So that's one of those uh positions of funding for that position um at the opat retreat.

I

I also spoke to you all about having a year-long internship program, so that was something that was put forth in our budget um for fy23, so having this year-long internship program for high school students and college students, so we'd have one of each for the year and their focus would be on the police reform efforts, as well as again the youth um advisory council that I'm very interested in having kids create um and that youth advisory council efforts would actually start with the summer when we will have our youth our summer.

I

Youth works come in the kids start in june, so I'm very excited to have two kids who come in last week. We had staff go out and participate in the open, um the job fairs that were happening throughout the city um and our staff was very excited. I participated in one.

I

It was really good to see these kids they're very excited and wanted to know more about how they can use their voice to elevate the conversation around police reforms, um and I think, all in all, we had like probably 60 70 kids, who were interested in wanting to participate in our summer program.

I

um The third investment was around a consultant to look at the bypark hiring retention and promotion practices with nbpd, and that is something that we do have to report out on um every and semi-annually, and I send me on a report and it's for us. We wanted to really look at not just the data that we could get directly from bpd, but also look at how we can look at creating policy procedures to make some changes around that. So that's what that consultant will be looking at.

I

um Also for the month of april, I have been meeting with all of the city councilors. We were hoping to have them all done this month. We had to move one yesterday, because um now senator um uh edwards is moving on she her. They had a good buy celebration for us, so we had to move one of the meetings yesterday um to next week, but I've met with every counselor, except for two will have one meeting this tomorrow and then one more next week, um just to provide them an update of everything that has happened.

I

My one year anniversary is on what, on tuesday, um so really just providing an update of everything has happened, the foundational building that we have done from the hiring of staff to having the space that you all have seen um at internal affairs oversight panel um and the work again of the foundational building and the work that needs to happen going forward in the next year, and that is partnering with them to just get the word out about knowing what we do in this office um and what can be done in this office, not just police misconduct, but the policies and procedures that we can do here.

I

So that's um what I've been doing with them and will continue to do and work with the city council going forward. um As you know, we are in the midst of a police commissioner search and just wanted to do a brief update to let you know if you haven't seen um there is a job description right now. That's update that has been put out. It came out probably three weeks ago now um that it's a real aggressive approach to try to get us a police commissioner in place by june.

I

So please take a look at that police, commissioner search.

I

There's a lot of reform um efforts being put in place that we really want the next police commissioner to take our office seriously work with our office work with you all as members of the panel, and I think it's important for you to just really be informed of the efforts that are being put in place to move that work forward, um as we look to have a commissioner to partner with us on this work, and um it's going to be important, especially as the summer rolls on that, we are really informed about what's going on there and I will give you updates as they come my way um and then.

I

Lastly, our staffing hiring update. We are continuously hiring in this office. We are still having for three intake workers, we're still hiring for two investigators. So please, if you have anyone, please send them our way. Our office is currently being outfitted for more security as more files come in here we want to make sure that we are secure. We want to make sure that people in the office are secure as well, so we're doing a lot of work.

I

um But if you happen to be in nubian square, you can drive by now and see that we have our signs up. um It's very exciting last week to see our signs go up um so the logo in the office of police accountability. Transparency is up, we're still getting furniture slowly but surely, um and hopefully for the first quarter, fy 23.

I

We will be able to announce that we can have an office opening, so everybody can come in and really see and it goes again ties into the getting to know opac, so that community does know that we are here and the services that we provide and ways that we can move beyond the marches and continue the work that we started so two years ago and many moons ago before then. So that's the updates that I have for you all.

G

Thank you. Thank you. um Are there any questions from the panel.

G

Hearing none is there any other business that any panel member would like to raise.

G

G

I want to thank all of you for being president for our first public meeting and I look forward to working with you and um hopefully we will impress both the police and the community with our efforts, which is our goal.

G

So thank you there any questions. Please contact the opec staff at opec boston.gov or at 617-635-4224.

G

Hear a motion to adjourn.

G

And a second, please.

D

G

Thank you all those in favor, I I we stand in the german. Thank you all and thank you to the public for attending our first meeting.

I

Thank you thank.

C