Boston City TV, MA Office of Police Accountability and Transparency (OPAT), 19 Apr 2022

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From YouTube: Office of Police Accountability and Transparency (OPAT) Commission Public Meeting - 04/19/2022

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Office of Police Accountability and Transparency (OPAT) Commission Public Meeting - 04/19/2022

A

So we can start the meeting it's 1002 and today is tuesday april 19 2022. I was about to say august.

A

It broke. I was like skip through the whole summer, um it I am going to stop talking right now and let ben tillman, who is in charge of our boards and our administrative work of the boards, take over and do some housekeeping to kick off. Our commission meeting.

B

Thank you very much stephanie, so this will be relatively quick um good morning. This commission meeting uh is just about to start. My name is ben tillman, I'm the board administrative assistant. um This community meeting is public and it is being recorded. um All members of the public have their cameras turned off, um as do the majority of our interpreters, except for the asl interpreters.

B

um We have also turned on zoom's, auto captioning feature. Each person just needs to opt in to see these captions. You can select the live transcript button on the toolbar at the bottom of your zoom screen to see these captions appear. Opat staff will also send these same instructions in the chat.

B

um The mayor's office of language and communication access is providing language services today in american sign language, spanish, mandarin, haitian creole, vietnamese and cabo verde and creole um to hear this meeting in any of these languages.

B

Select the interpretation button on the toolbar at the bottom of your zoom screen and select the language channel that you need I'll, ask each of the interpreters to introduce themselves, and once everybody has introduced themselves, I will turn on those language channels.

B

So whoever wants to start introducing themselves feel free.

C

Okay, I can start. My name is erica perez. I will be your spanish english interpreter for the day.

D

Okay, very interpreter can go next good morning. My name is vanuzza gomsgreen I'll, be the keyboard and interpreter.

D

E

E

F

G

Morning my name.

F

F

A

Is everybody gone.

B

I believe so um we are, I apologize.

B

The andrew should now be able to share his screen, um and hopefully that will fix it.

H

I'm sorry, um I'm I have a concern about the mandarin interpreter. They were breaking up very badly. Can they do it again just to make sure that they're they can be heard.

E

B

No, your uh your sound is a bit distorted.

E

Okay, uh I'm going to replace my headset and I'll be right back! Oh wait! It's actually good! Now! Oh okay! You want me.

B

E

Another introduction again.

B

That would be great if you could. Okay. Thank you.

E

You're welcome.

E

Thank you sorry about that.

B

No problem, thank you very much um and I am going to open the language channels now.

B

uh And stephanie, we should be good for you to go andrew. Can you flip through one more slide? Thank you.

A

Great, thank you all so much so again. Good morning today is april 19th and we are having an opec commission public meeting. This is not our typical community meeting, as dictated by the city of boston's ordinance that created the office of police accountability in transparency.

A

We are required as a commission, to meet four times a year for a community meeting. This is not a community meeting. This is a public meeting. We have official business that we need to handle that's outside of the community meetings.

A

We are also charged with doing regulations and issuance subpoenas, amongst other things, and so this is the outside of the community meeting um situation. Where we do have some work, we need to do as far as voting on a temporary board schedule as well as setting our next meeting in june. That will be part of the board schedule, but first before we move on to that, I do want to ask that we said that we do approve our meeting minutes from um our last meeting that we had.

A

I believe that meeting um sorry, our february 15th meeting. um It is just as a way of setting how this works, because we do only meet four times um per year. We put up draft meeting minutes on our website because we are required to issue post-hour meeting minutes within a short period of time, so this will be for all of our board meetings, uh whether it's the civilian review board internal affairs board or in our community or board meetings that we have or sorry public meetings that we have for the opec commission.

A

We will put them up as a draft and then, when the respective board meets again, we will finalize them and since we are meeting again, I am asking that a motion be put forward for the february 15 2022 meeting minutes.

A

Can I have a second.

I

Second, it.

A

So I would say any opposed, but it's only three of us.

A

So the minutes are approved, um so they will be noted and they will be changed on our website from a draft to a um final, um and so we will move on to our temporary board schedules. Again we are the the commission um there is.

A

I try to separate them out, there's a panel aboard and a commission, um and they do have very different um goals and responsibilities, and our goal and responsibility as a commission is to set regulations that will include a very firm schedule for our board and panel and ourselves as a commission to me and because the commission um our charge is to meet with the community. I believe that we have a lot more flexibility.

A

If you go to the next slide, we can look at the the schedule that we have in place, because we have to look at a lot more of the regulations. We talked about them in our february meeting. One of those was: how do we handle complaints, especially incomplete complaints where a complainant will come in and ask will give us part of the information we need to seek out further information? There's a lot more of those things that we need to go through as a commission as we come up with the regulations.

A

But as we begin this work, what we need to do is move forward and just setting a schedule, just a temporary schedule for 2022, so that we can get this work going um and so and calling a meeting to get this work going for 2022.

A

um I do believe that we'll have the regs done by um the end of the summer, um at least a draft that we can present to the public, have a public comment period and then be fully adopted by this commission by early fall. But I wanted to present to the board the commission.

A

This proposed schedule is a temporary schedule for 2022 just so that the entire 14 person bodies that make up both the civilian review board. The internal affairs panel, which you both serve on, would at least have something on their calendar. So they know when they're expected to meet um going forward, because that has been a question amongst the members.

I

No questions here.

H

The meetings will all be at 11 o'clock.

A

Either 10 or 11 um that the first ones would be a very short of they would be short meetings because we still are waiting to get information and investigations are going, especially for the spinning review board. Internal oversight panel will have some records. They do need to review. That are an appeal, um but yes, they should stop between 10 and 11 o'clock.

A

But just having the date, I think it's like the biggest thing that I know that a lot of members needed to know so they can put it on their calendar.

A

But they will start all in the morning.

A

As for the opec commission meeting, because they are community meetings, um I did not put a date down, because I believe that we should, as a commission decide what base works better, we will have to hold them. There's some that should be in person, um and we need to have a conversation if we're working in person, they need to happen at different parts, as the ordinance says across boston. So the reason why they don't have a date.

A

We would have to work with another entity to figure out their availability to house us, um and so I didn't want to put a date down there, because if we go to a community center or a library, it would be their availability to actually house us, and I don't know when that would be.

H

I want to point out that the november 8th date is also election day.

A

Oh that's a good day, so that's thank you. So we can change that. um We can change that now to the following tuesday, which is the 15th. Yes, so um good catch yeah with great catch, so we'll change that now from tuesday. So either we can go a week. We probably can go a week before uh well no the week, I'm trying to think we'll go the week after I think the week before will probably be unavailable too. So we'll change it to november 15th.

A

So again, this will just be the calendar for 2022 and, as you can see, most dates are on a tuesday or thursday all day, turn tuesday and thursday, and except for the opec commission, which we can change to accommodate. But we do try to at least have 30 days. It will have opac staff in a staff meeting and a board meeting or paid a meeting or commission meeting once a month.

A

So we try to spread it out for 30 days.

A

So we're okay with this with the change of november 8th to november 15th, um I will ask that a motion be put forth before the commission, so we can vote on this and I will get it out to the respective board and panel. Remember.

I

A

I move to move, I you have to wait for the judge just to move it first, so it was moved by the judge, sucking it by by peter and um all in favor, so temporary schedule for uh the oversight of the internal affairs oversight panel and the civilian review board, and the opec commission for the remaining 2022 calendar year has been approved by the opec commission and for the next opec commission meeting. We were looking to have another zoom meeting and we're looking at, I believe, um there's a date.

A

Then what date did we settle on? It's? I want to say june 14th. If you are, if this is a date that works for you all. If not, we can we'll send out a message to you all about the june date. I know that, there's summer vacations coming up, but more importantly, school vacation, some children get out.

A

I know we have to look at the calendars for that date um and look at whether or not we should do it in person or over zoom, um but we will send out a message to get that on the calendar as soon as possible.

I

June 14th flag day.

H

Yeah, that's not a holiday. Is it.

A

It's a it's flag day, but it's not a tech. It's not a day off. I believe, but it's the week before it's the weekend leading into juneteenth.

I

A

I

Seems to work well for me. uh So um to the extent I think if you go later into ju as you get later and later into june, it's like kind of the graduations and everything um so at the moment, june 14th is clear.

H

What time will we meet.

A

We can meet at the same time if that works for everyone.

H

A

H

A

11 a.m. Yes, thank you, okay, and are we performing the zoom option as well.

H

It's so pure, but I'm open to whatever works.

I

Yeah I'm open to either I mean, I think, maybe for the june one, uh because the next one september I think september, might be a good if it's possible for in person. um But I feel like june is: um if we're gonna make a decision now and like not have to keep changing back and forth. I think, having it be virtual, probably makes sense for the june meeting and then september, try to target being in person um just.

H

A

That gives us time to try to find a location. I mean the location would be here at the office. um We are still staffing up with furniture, so hopefully our furniture will be there. I can't guarantee all our furniture will be here in june. We are um kovit is still slowing down deliveries, but we are hopeful that we will have all our furniture and by then um but september. We should definitely have all our furniture by september, and then we can. Hopefully we can probably still work on a hybrid um option.

A

Okay, and is there any other business that um either of you would like to discuss.

A

That would not have needed to be noticed um for today's meeting before we adjourn.

I

H

I move that we adjourn hey.

A

A

All in favor aye, I thank you both so much. um I will send out an email shortly with these dates. You all have a good morning um and I will see you all in well, some of you all next week and some in may and then in june. Thank you. Thank you.