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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020_12_21 Racial Equity Taskforce Minutes Minutes of the Racial Equity Task Force of the Town of Mamaroneck Held December 21 at 7:00 pm, via Zoom Present: Jeffery King (Town Council member, Chairman), Sabrina Fiddelman (Town Council member), Helen Horsham-Bertels, Diana Lovett, Lynne Murphy-Rivera, Andrew Tannenbaum, Gonzalo Zeballos, Stephen Altieri (Town Administrator), Paul Creazzo (Chief of Police), Lindsey Luft (Assistant to the Town Administrator) Also in attendance for Item 1, Roundtable: Jaine Elkind Eney (Town Council member), Toniann Gagliardi (New Rochelle Branch Chief, Westchester County District Attorney), Dr. Mark Levy (Executive Director, Community Counseling Center) and Jirandy Martinez (Executive Director, Community Resource Center) Mr. King called the meeting to order. I. Roundtable discussion-Community Stakeholders Mr. King introduced the participants and framed the conversation. He described the creation of the task force, and the advent of Executive Order 203. He described the need for collaborative, transparent communication to bring about needed change. He asked each member of the task force to give a brief introduction and tell the group what brought them to this task. Ms. Martinez prefaced her comments by saying her experience and the experience of the Community Resource Center (CRC) was mostly in the Village of Mamaroneck and with the Village Police, but since the communities are so close and borders so porous, the issues are across borders. She pointed out that Black and Brown people are more likely to be pulled over by police or have the police knock on the car window if they are parked in certain areas for any length of time. Frequently, white residents of the community will call police if they see a person of color in the neighborhood. The group discussed the need to educate all residents and change cultural paradigms, and how to build trust and trustworthiness between the police and communities of color and between higher income and lower income populations in the community. Mr. King agreed these are important issues that the task force hopes to address now and going forward. Ms. Martinez pointed out that the Community Resource Center is trustworthy to its clients because it is made up of the community, speaking to the need for diversity in the police force and throughout the community. Dr. Levy explained the Community Counseling Center (CCC) works predominantly with children and young people. They do a lot of work in the schools and with at risk youth. He spoke about how trust is built between youth and the police. Community policing is the basis of building that trust. In our area this is done substantially through the Youth Officers assigned to the schools. His experience with the Town of Mamaroneck Police Department has been predominantly good. There are fewer problems here than elsewhere. The police refer at risk youth to his organization. Dr. Levy spoke about the work the CCC does in the Hommocks Middle School with small, diverse groups of students to break down racial, cultural and income barriers. He offered that his organization used to provide sensitivity training and training on mental health issues for local police departments. They would be willing to do so again in the future. Dr. Levy was asked about the diversity of his team. He spoke about the La Casa program which has just received funding to go forward. Ms. Gagliardi spoke of the work she does with the Town of Mamaroneck Police. She usually works with the department after criminal charges have been filed. She has had overwhelmingly positive experiences with the department. She has found the Chief to be open to new policies. She works predominantly with the Chief and detectives who she says give a lot of attention and careful consideration to each case. But, she added additional training is always a good thing. Ms. Lovett raised the issue of the false reporting of crime and NYS Assembly Bill A03566. Ms. Gagliardi discussed some of the difficulties in proving intent. We spoke about the need for community education. Both Mr. Zeballos and Ms. Horsham-Bertels noted that they and their families had experienced more negative interactions with community members than with the police. We spoke about how to create more ways for the police to create bonds with the community, particularly young people. Ms. Elkind Eney mentioned the DARE program. It was noted that the DARE program, which has since been discontinued, did give the police the opportunity to meet and interact with elementary school children in a positive way. Other methods of community building mentioned were; having police attend forums of all sorts at the CRC (although that would have to be the Village of Mamaroneck Police), sporting events and local tournaments, etc. We discussed other stressors that are occurring in the community now; increased domestic violence as people are spending more time at home and the need for rental assistance when evictions are permitted to occur. We briefly discussed the need for affordable housing in the community as new more expensive buildings are replacing old housing stock. While these are not directly related to Police reform, they do speak to the increased level of stress and concern in the community. II. Approval of minutes. Minutes of the meetings of November 11, November 30, December 7 and December 17 were approved. III. Discussion of timeline Mr. Altieri shared a timeline for finalizing a report to be sent to the Governor by the April 1 deadline. The task force will need to send a draft report to the Town Board by February 12. The committee scheduled meetings on December 28, January 4, 11, 21 and 25 to ensure that this deadline will be met. Mr. Altieri will be responsible for drafting the report with the Task Force providing the specific recommendations. We discussed the level of response to the survey to date. We have received about 200 responses. This is only approximately 4% of households in the Town. Ms. Lovett noted that we were hoping for closer to 20%. Mr.Altieri will prepare a post card to all residents and a flyer to be posted in apartment buildings in the Town to further publicize the survey. We may need to push the final date for receipt of responses back from January 8 to January 15. Mr. Altieri will also forward data on the ethnic make-up of the Town of Mamaroneck from the Westchester Department of Planning. We will use this data to see if all segments of the community are responding to the survey. We discussed making a video to promote the survey but no decision on that approach was made. Mr. Zeballos did hypothesize that participation is low because many residents may not have had interactions with the police. st We will issue another robocall and associated email shortly after the 1 of the year. Chief Creazzo and Mr. Altieri will provide written answers to our questions on their initial packet of materials before the end of this week. We will discuss that information at our meeting of December 28. We will need to turn our attention to discussing what reforms and recommendations we wish to make. The next meeting of the Town of Mamaroneck Task Force on Racial Equity will be held via Zoom on December 28.