Hi everyone, thank you so much for coming to today's meeting on uh pathways and gun violence advisory council.

Um you have a forum today, which is really exciting, even though we technically aren't voting on anything, it's nice and uh a majority of us can come.

Um we'll uh we'll have a conversation at the later part of the meeting in terms of schedule and see if the things are challenged for folks.

Uh but with that being said, um can you get our roll call please?

Council McGill, cancer stanches, I'm sorry.

Who's that?

President, thank you.

Corey Jones present Diana Darlington present.

Alan Williams is that same detective David Perez?

Present.

Michael Stevens is that Robert Bailey?

Present.

James Fonds, you have seven present six apps, so you have a form.

Thank you.

Um so the first item uh discussion on the Rhode Island Safe uh School Act that suggestions to strengthen the policy is um so this is what we've talked about in the past.

Um it's in regards to trying to secure sustainable funding uh for this type of work.

Um as you're all aware, um a lot of funding for community wise intervention and similar programs uh comes from the federal government historically we are not seeing um a lot of action uh on that end under our current uh president uh has different priorities.

So um, you know in in that aspect of trying to do our due diligence and finding funds, because we obviously know uh what needs to happen.

We we have so many people um that are doing this type of work across the city and the city around this table.

So we could definitely hash out certain details for without having uh sustainable funding sources for this type of work.

Um a lot of it like uh is being done and we want to work on it is gonna be really difficult.

So this is something that has happened in other parts of the country and it has been um converse about athletes they house before.

Um so I think uh we are gonna be joining uh firearm.

Oh what's what's the little bit about it?

Sure.

So um with the um road island safe school act.

Um I've been working on sorry I've been working on um policies to see what we can do to actually um strengthen uh some of the policies that's already intact because as of right now um under this act is only for bulletin.

So um what I'd like to see um if we could work on adding is the um commute to one from school and um once again Kennedy Plaza and uh during school hours um with our youth.

So that was the uh policies that I feel we should try to work on in strength.

Um so just to clarify, so this is an existing uh state legislation and what what you're saying or proposing is a certain amendments to be added to to that.

Correct.

Okay.

So that it also entails um, as I said, it doesn't have the um safety of our um to inform school and um during school hours and in it only uh actually flexibility.

Yeah, I was gonna say um if you could just provide like a super brief, like general overview if folks that might not be in one of you guys provide that uh for folks that might not be super familiar with the Rhode Island Safe School Act.

So I'm not super familiar, so correct me if I say anything wrong.

But what it looks like is that it was uh a statute passed by the General Assembly, and then it gave some type of policy making jurisdiction through the Department of Education, um, where they have this seven page kind of statewide bullying policy, uh June 30th, 2020 twelve.

Um, and the introduction says the statewide bullying policy is promulgated pursuant to the authorities set forth in 1621 34 of the general laws of Rhode Island, known as the Safe School Act.

The statute recognizes that the bullying of a student creates a climate of fear and disrespect that can seriously impair the student's health and negatively affect learning.

Bullying undermines the state learning environment that students need to achieve their full potential.

The purpose of the policy is to ensure a consistent and unified statewide approach to the prohibition of bullying at school.

And then it looks like the sections are definitions, school climate, uh policy oversight and responsibility, information, destination, uh reporting, investigation slash response, disciplinary action, social services slash counseling, social networking, other redress, adoption of policy.

Yeah, so I think I like those additions.

I think this is a strong piece of policy that we probably should examine, you know, through in and throughout, um, because you know, violence starts with bullying, you know, a lot of times, right.

Yeah.

No, go ahead and be so.

I just want to add that I'm glad that you were mentioning um commuting, because most recently we've had um several parents and several young people express their safety getting to and from school.

Um we have just helped, we have three young people that we are helping, but it's really just a band-aid.

So what we've done is we've given uh parents a gift card for an Uber, but which is like a hundred dollar account.

So that will probably cover for two weeks of getting them back from school.

Um, one parent in particular, she can get her child to school, but has major concerns getting him home.

Um, so that's just a band-aid fix, right?

And we don't have the funds that we can do that for everyone, but even if we did, right?

I think we have to think about the fact that we are also now putting Uber drivers drivers at risk as well.

You know, so I don't know the solution, but I just wanted to share that we've been getting a lot of calls in regards to safety with commuting, mostly commuting home is uh is a big safety concern.

And I would like just to add quickly, I mean, even just transportation just generally it is already uh a difficult uh thing for the school department and the city and different schools.

Um I remember last year when uh the school district was proposing uh reducing the length that they would cover for uh very rip the password for students.

Um so I think we're kind of we should probably try to dig a little deeper on on that issue and definitely try to find um some alternatives or other solutions.

Yeah, that's uh definitely a very popular uh unfortunately place where where a lot of um violence, you know, after school, especially is happening among the youth in the city.

Anyone have any else about Dexter Moore from uh PBSD just joined us?

Uh he's the new chief operating um officer at ABSD.

Um I'm gonna ask Dexter in his introduction to tell us a little bit about his time in Oakland, California, where he worked for the school district there and um actually did some work around community violence intervention.

Uh so interestingly enough, when I had met Dexter and he told me he was from Oakland, I was like, oh, I attended a workshop on school safety, you know, CBI at the CBI conference um that Oakland uh presented.

And Dexter was actually uh very involved in that work.

So you know, I think it's it's helpful knowing that we have someone that has this experience and um if we're able to you know try to make a way to secure these funds that um here PBSD, you know, Dexter can bring that experience and work with the CBOs who've been doing it for a long time to execute.

So with that, Dexter, you want to unmute?

I know he just got off a flight and you know just got to his hotel.

So yeah, thank you, Director Jones.

Can you all hear me okay?

Yeah, okay, wonderful.

Good afternoon.

Uh Dr.

Dexter Moore Jr., uh Chief Operating Officer, PPSD.

I think this is week eight or nine for me.

I'm sorry, I can't be with you all in person.

Uh just landed in Philadelphia for the Council of Great City Schools uh national uh conference, which is um convening of the 78 largest uh urban school districts in the country.

Um here for a couple of meetings on behalf of the district.

Um appreciate the the introduction and invitation, uh Director Jones, just a little background about me.

Um recently relocated with my family from Oakland to Providence, um, where I was the uh chief of staff locally unified school district for the last uh three years, worked in the district for four years, was the executive director of district strategy on the superintendent's office prior to that.

Um, and Director Jones and I were just talking background and kind of shared interest and commitments.

Obviously, public safety and the safety of students, staff in the larger community is always a priority and top of mind for all of us.

And so he asked me just to share a little bit about the work that we did in Oakland and some of the um kind of initial thinking of ways that we might be able to find some intersection here in Providence.

Um, unfortunately, um my uh colleague who oversees uh safety directly, Jay Menard is out um today.

Um but I he reports up to me.

And so uh we're very synced in terms of our safety protocols.

And I know he works really closely with um the Department of Children and Youth with uh the Providence uh police department as well.

Um in Oakland specifically, a couple of things that we did was um there is a department of violence prevention that was stood up in the city as a result of a um ceasefire uh report um uh that the district, I mean, that the city had commissioned about 15 years ago.

And so um in my role as uh chief of staff for the district, I worked uh really closely with the mayor, um, with the uh chief of the uh department of violence prevention and the chief of the police department um to eventually stand up what we call the school VIP team program, and the VIP team was a kind of three-tier model.

Um so VIP stands for violence interruption and prevention.

Um, and so we uh stood up this model uh which was really sort of focusing on um our high schools who had the greatest need around um incidences of violence, traditional violence, gender-based violence, community violence, and how that impacted um student enrollment, student attendance, student achievement, um, and a lot of the issues that were bleeding from the community into the school and vice versa.

Um and so we stood up this program um at six high schools.

It was a three-tier model.

So we had a violence interrupter, we had a life coach, and we had a gender-based violence coach.

And so it was three personnel.

Um and we partnered with um, we know that school districts often don't have either a the capacity or be the expertise um to really lead this work.

It's a really niche work in terms of thinking about violence interrupters and prevention and just being critical messengers at the neighborhood level to really try to intervene, intercept, and um, you know, try to address things before they um before they get any larger.

And so we partnered with a lot of community-based organizations who really had the expertise, um, had the established relationships to be able to go to an incident um and intervene immediately and then be in communication with us about um how we needed to be at the school site, tightening up our procedures, checking in with students uh to make sure that incidents is in bleed into the school.

And so we stood up that three-tier VIP team model, um, was able to secure some uh federal funding to do that.

So each model um cost about 250,000.

So we were eventually subcontracting with these organizations.

So pretty costly model.

Um, and with um limited district resources and also limited city resources, we had to rely on some grant funding.

And so uh this is year three of the program being implemented.

Um, unfortunately, unless there are some resources uh to keep it stood up, the district and the city are looking about how uh looking into how they can try to re um resize it so that it's sustainable over time.

Uh, but in the model, we definitely have seen just some demonstrated impact in terms of um having touch points with students for gender-based violence, making sure that incidents is again um having impacted school sites and then overall uh just making sure that um you know the the level of violent incidences that happen in the community don't impact our schools.

And so we've been able to see some pretty early data there, um, but it's still early yet promising.

So um I'll stop.

I feel like I shared uh enough for an intro and happy to take any questions I share with Director Jones, yeah.

Yeah, you know, in my new role, I'm really here to more so better understand the role of the committee um and be a listener and to be able to take back some notes and then happy to come back in person in the in the near term future to share more.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dexter.

Thank you.

So I think it could be helpful, you know, folks in the committee can tell Dexter a little bit about what we've talked about from you know what you were saying with the Kennedy Plaza and you know, we tried to talk about the safe passage model, like what Lisa just said about what the nonviolence institute is doing.

Um, maybe there's even some work that can happen now, you know, with the existing routine and work together.

Y'all want to tell them a little bit about that?

I think y'all are better than me doesn't.

Can you see me if I look here all of you?

Oh, if anything, all right.

I want to know where I'm talking to.

I can see.

Look you in your face.

So welcome to Providence, Rhode Island.

We're happy to have you.

Thank you.

I'm Lisa Pina Warren.

I'm the executive director of the Nonviolence Institute.

And um, one of the things that we were talking about before you came on, um, me personally, I was talking about how there's been a lot more requests for our assistants with getting youth mostly from school.

A lot of parents are able to get their students to school, but those parents that are working or having other obligations have difficulties getting their children home from school.

Um, there's been a lot of violence, you know, after school.

Um, one of the things that we have done, obviously, we obviously, but we are a community-based organization.

We're a nonprofit.

But we have, you know, some funding that we're able to pull from that we have been helping a few uh families get from school by uh assisting with Uber gift cards or Lyft gift cards.

Um, but that's just a band-aid.

That's just temporary.

And what I was saying is one of the concerns we have is that we're also now putting if a youth is in danger and they're getting in an Uber, that doesn't stop someone from causing harm to that vehicle still, which could be put in an Uber driver in harm's way as well.

So again, it's just a band-aid, but we're just trying to figure out how to assist the best that best way that we can.

Um, but again, I just wanted to acknowledge after uh Ms.

Garland was speaking that we have had an uptick of request and helping to get children home from school.

May I ask a question?

Sure.

Okay, thank you.

It's good to meet you.

Um are these like one-time time time bounded requests or these like indefinite requests around safe passages, leaving school to get back home?

Like, are these after an incident?

Are these after um you know, hearing some kind of uh conflict or um retaliation um or something targeted specific at a student or family?

Yeah.

So the three individuals that we're currently helping is because of uh safety concerns.

Um one in particular, his school is down here in um downtown Providence, and um, you know, the easiest way for him to get home would be walking over to Kennedy Plaza and jumping on a city bus.

But unfortunately, last year he was a victim of a stabbing, him and his sister.

He still attends the same school, and there have been threats made to him.

His house had also been shot at um within the last couple of months.

Um, so we are this is just temporary, like I said, we are, you know, our outreach team, so our credible messages, I know that you call them something else and um on the West Coast, but our outreach team is working closely with the family, trying to figure out one, how to mediate the situation, gathering all information possible and mediate in the situation.

Um, but this one that we are that I'm talking about right now, um, there's a long history.

So we are really concerned about it and we're trying to figure out what the plan is.

Uh, I think ultimately the mom's plan is to move out of state.

Um, but again, it takes time, money, and effort to make that happen.

So we are working on that.

And then the question, I'm sorry, all temporary fixes because of issues that have occurred.

Yeah.

And then what's the connection with the school side around those?

Or is this primarily with the student and the family?

So the one in particular that I just mentioned, it was also the school.

We have a good relationship with the school.

Um they also reached out to us with real um concern, just asking if we have um safety transportation, basically is what they were asking for.

Um, and at the time, because of capacity, you know, once upon a time, our outreach workers would transport youth that were on their caseload.

But right now we're down to two full-time, that neither of them were able to.

I think he has to get to school at 7:30.

Neither of our outreach workers are available at that time.

So this is why that's a particular case.

We're trying to be a little bit more creative.

Got it.

Thank you.

I um if you don't mind, um, I can either get your contact from Director Jones or vice versa.

I'd like to know a little bit more about the specifics around the situation, just to make sure that our team is appropriately looked in and see if there's any additional support we can provide.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Dr.

Moore, welcome to Providence.

My name is Robert Bailey.

I'm a member of this council.

You mentioned that um Oakland was able to secure some grant funding for those programs that you mentioned that are probably in the electricity.

I think you said, could you share with us the source of those grants?

Yeah, I want to say it was from the National Council of Juvenile NCJI.

Um, but I what I can do is I can um I can go back through my records or reach out to a colleague to um get the specific source of funding.

As you probably know, I mean, things have changed significantly at the federal level, and so I don't know the extensive availability of that funding, but I can I can check into it and give it to you.

Thank you.

Um, another question I have is what role, if any, did local law enforcement play in terms of funding any of those programs.

Was that even um uh an approach on on y'all's part?

Yeah, um, so our um local traditional law enforcement in terms of the police department um did not fund um any of those programs.

However, um the both the chief of the police and the chief of violence prevention both um reported up to the mayor.

And so there was kind of a shared commitment to being collaboration around information sharing kind of protocols or response, et cetera.

The city, however, invested um initially um to support a rollout of the program.

And so I mentioned we did this at six schools.

Initially, um, we were splitting um the teams across two schools.

So each team of three had essentially a caseload of two schools.

So they were doing two and a half days at one school and two and a half days at another school until we were able to get the federal funding to make them whole, where then we were able to essentially double up and have each school have its own dedicated team, as you can imagine, right?

Like there's no splitting that work, it's full-time work that requires full-time attention.

And so um, yeah, we were able to get the federal funding for it, but just the city coffers were very limited in terms of what they could provide outside of that initial seed money to get the um initial program started.

Thank you.

The reason I asked is because one of the discussions that we've had since we've been meeting is um accessing this we've identified this as a and I'm sure everyone agrees as a public safety and health issue.

Yeah.

Um I mean, you know, our um uh the law enforcement building of the city is named the public safety complex.

So one of the things that we we're discussing is you know um, you know, the idea of approaching to a proposal of some kind, developing a uh writing of a program, developing a proposal, and perhaps um approaching local state law enforcement to support that effort.

So that's the reason I asked.

I was curious to know if you if you all know that had that in um clearly you really did.

And I'm talking strictly funding, you know, not so much bodies because you know, province police have already offered and have plenty of law enforcement in terms of bodies involved in this work, but um, in terms of funding, I mean it's clearly a public health and safety issue.

And uh, yeah, so that's why I was going in that direction.

Yeah, and then so I'm following the funding would lead to more bodies to do the community ground-based prevention, credible messenger interruption work.

Right.

Yeah, and I mean, you know, the it'll it would be a uh a real help for local community uh-based organizations to be funded.

Because we're on the ground working every day with these children because families.

We're in the schools, um, we're in all of the recreation centers, all of the spaces where these folks are.

So that's that's that's our that's our thought.

Right.

I mean, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, that that sounds right.

And if there's anything we can do from the school department to be thought partners around that, um certainly happy to we definitely recognize in Oakland that as a school district and as educators, like that's outside of our scope of expertise and also proximity.

And so we relied heavily on CBOs and you know, trying to get the funding directly to them to do the work that they were best positioned to do.

Right.

Very good.

Yeah, no, thank you, uh Dr.

Moore.

This is uh councilman Sanchez speaking.

Um we've been briefly in finance and definitely gratitude for for your work um and you know being available to speak with us.

I think um some of your background, especially uh around the work you did in Oakland will definitely be uh super um helpful to this committee.

I don't know how much uh co-chair Jones mentioned, but essentially this is uh a committee that was formed in the last year or so.

Um and there's obviously me as a council member and then um left 12 other uh folks on here.

Uh we have representatives from the police department, uh obviously uh Lisa, who is the executive director of the um uh non bisons into the place.

Um we have uh Corey here from DLT.

Uh we have Mike Hogan who works at the state police grants administration.

Um we have folks from the mayor's uh policy office here as well.

Um and really the idea uh was to try to uh power map and strategize uh where community advice intervention policies can be implemented.

Um unfortunately, given current events, we we have kind of uh shifted a little bit more to uh try to identify funding sources um a little bit more uh given the the current uh climate at the federal level, that's a big challenge.

A lot of knowledge and and awareness is around this table of what is needed.

Um so we don't want to duplicate efforts, we wanna kind of uplift and expand the existing programs and obviously if there's certain gaps, try to fulfill that.

Um so yeah, I don't think this will be our last conversation over here.

We really appreciate your your time and definitely pick your brain out at some point.

Um you're always welcome uh we usually meet on uh a monthly basis, uh some Wednesday towards the end of the month uh around 1 p.m.

So I'll definitely make sure that Corey keeps you in the loop.

Um does anyone else have anything they want to share with Dr.

Moore.

Thank you, Councilmember Sanchez.

Looking forward to the uh thing at the table.

Thank you, Doctor.

Um, so with that uh being said, uh we'll move on to item number two, which is very similar conversation.

Everything that I said uh at the beginning of the meeting uh applies to item number two in terms of uh funding.

Uh we have uh honor of being joined by representative Boylan.

Um and I think Corey uh is gonna share kind of the the background around this um item.

Yeah, so um just keep an eye on what other states were doing.

Um I think Connecticut was the latest California um did it as well.

Uh California, they called it the School Safety Something Act.

Um, and basically what it was was uh tax on guns and ammunition that went into funding CBI work.

Um here in Rhode Island, I went and did my research.

Gina Wamundo actually introduced this in a budget um in 2019.

If you're familiar with 2019, we had a totally different speaker, we had totally different um you know kind of geopolitics in the island.

Um and she did not get it through the budget through the finance committee.

Um, but her projection was that it was gonna think it was like a six or eight percent tax and it would bring like 1.2 million.

Um, it was also on gun ranges and you know, some other odd things like that.

Um, but you know, I think in California, what they did was like they it didn't pass a few years, so they kind of brought everyone to the table and gave everybody a slice, um, which is more difficult for us because we have such, you know, their money is so much more than what um ours would bring.

Um, but they you know, felt that you know, when they tied it into schools, when they tied it into all these other things that people cared about CBO funding, um, they were able to get the bill passed through and um they were able to get you know this type of uh legislation through.

So um as Jennifer Boylan and I talked, you know, this is something that sometimes takes multiple years to get through.

Um, but you know, with the you know, energy at this table, if folks are um bought into you know making this happen, that could be a possible source of revenue um for this kind of work.

So with that being said, I'll let Jennifer Boyle introduce herself and talk about the bills that you know she passed um thus far, and um then I guess we can kind of have an open discussion about you know what this would take, um, you know, when uh you know, as far as legislative um, you know, effort, right?

And you know, realistically what it would take from us uh to to support Jennifer.

We wouldn't want to give her a bill like this and then disappear, right?

Um, you know, this is something that she would be gracious enough to carry through um for us, uh, you know, we would have to be full force behind her and making sure that funding happens because at the end of the day, we fund these programs that we're all talking about.

So with that, Jennifer, you want to do uh introduction?

Yeah, thank you so much.

I appreciate being here and um really impressed by the work that this committee is doing, just having joined you for the last 30 minutes.

Wow, and thank you for all the work that you are doing.

Um my name's Jennifer Boylan.

I am the state representative for House District 66, which is half of Barrington and most of Riverside uh City of East Providence.

Um I have been in office for only three years now.

I'm in my second term.

Um my background though is that I was um a gun violence prevention activist, primarily with mom's demand action, um, ever since the Sandy Hook shooting.

So I've been involved in legislative efforts um around gun safety for many, many years.

Um, and so I do recall when Governor Ramondo put her vision for taxing guns and ammo and whatnot um several years ago into her budget.

And I do I do I I don't the the details of what happened with that.

I know it it was um a non-starter with the gun committee, the pro-gun community.

Um there was also no um lawmakers carrying the bills.

There was no discussion among the advocates around gun violence prevention about prioritizing it at the time.

I don't remember what our legislative priorities were for that particular year, but there have been so many for so long.

I mean, we think we've passed about 10 or or maybe we're up to 11 gun safety bills over the past decade.

Um, so it's just it there just didn't seem to be a lot of um interest in the bill at the time.

And so when I think or or in the in that budgetary item at the time.

I think um I think that there is a path forward for something like this.

Um, but I you know, using a model like California, what California has done.

Um, but I do have a lot of um things that I'm thinking about that would need to be in place to push something like this forward.

I mean, I would like to know really um a fleshed out plan for how much money is needed and what it would be used for, a fleshed out plan um for the tax itself, um, and justifying the tax and matching it to the needs, the funding needs.

Um, I think it would mean going to the governor very soon to see if the governor's office would support it, also the AG's office.

And then the main um like bringing together a coalition of groups like the non with the nonviolence institute um be a lead, a lead advocacy organ, you know, a lead in the advocacy world to advocate for this, or is that is it would they be more of a background supporter?

Like who would take the lead in the advocates and could we build a coalition among um relevant organizations and stakeholders to really um make noise about this and get it on everyone's radar to to put push it through?

Um that those are some of the things that I'm thinking about.

coalition among um relevant organizations and stakeholders to really um make noise about this and get it on everyone's radar to to put push it through um that that those are some of the things that i'm thinking about what whether it would whether it could be embraced by the governor early enough so that he prioritizes it um so that we're we're working on something that has his support right from the get-go um and then enlisting bill sponsors in the house and the senate to independently put in bills that would go through the finance committee um to to push the uh the concept through and float it to the top so it would so it'd be passed as part of the budget is that helpful information yeah absolutely thank you uh so much representative uh boyland for for being here with us and for all your work around this issue uh for the past few years and obviously your your long history of advocacy around it is very um important and we sincerely uh appreciate you for that um and definitely thank you for raising some of like the questions and then and the uh concerns you could say uh around this going forward uh there's definitely stuff that needs to be flushed out um but given you know our I I keep saying going back to our federal government um and as a local elected official I I try to stay away from uh what was going on at the federal uh delegation level while I I speak in local meetings but it has such a direct impact that it's it's impossible to not acknowledge it and try to uh work um around uh some of those issues um what what this some of my biggest like question or or you could say concern around this is that something like this uh just turns into uh a revenue tax for like the state you know general fund and obviously that that's kind of gonna be the conversation for the next couple years unfortunately is the state is in need of money and they're gonna lunch in different places and that's kind of what happened with the proposed uh parking uh law tax that uh came out of city hall you know we we proposed that uh the council office and the mayor's office to try to bring revenue to the city um the state uh took it and ran with it and those funds are going to the state general fund um so I want to be very intentional and that's not I think what most folks want uh out of this is that we see a very clear uh concern and problem which is not having sustainable funding sources to be programs uh like the one uh Dr.

Moore was mentioning uh long lasting uh to have uh a serious uh impact on uh the said community where where that program is running uh by not having sustainable funding source and that I think that's what's really uh pleasing uh of something like this that it doesn't matter who uh is at the federal level this is uh an alternative funding source uh that the Rhode Island as a whole obviously specific to providence community can rely on for years to come um so yeah like who would uh be in charge of like administrating the that that money and putting RFPs out like I think those are some more of like the questionings um PJ box from the attorney general's office is part of this committee um he unfortunately couldn't make it but I I didn't hear him how and his thoughts uh what would be important uh on the development of this possible proposal yeah I'd say EJ would probably say the AG should I mean he has that he would be the one that um would be best suited to kind of manage this funding.

I think Mike Hogan also thinks uh the public safety grant administrative office would be best asked to um execute this funding I know that there's um maybe it was like the Center for Health and Justice was that the maybe the LightSpan nonprofit that um it was uh Heather Gados and somebody else uh worked there but I know that they uh had presented to the governor's office a couple years ago that the public safety grant administrative office be kind of reconfigured to be like the um violence uh you know are of the entire state government uh so I know there's a few different ideas out there um on how to actually execute that I'm kind of agnostic right it's just like whatever is gonna be best and get it to the people who need it the most right or who has those relationships already I think maybe would be best any thoughts on that well uh um can I go back to the a question about money funds going into the general fund as opposed to being you know allocated to um really going to community violence intervention or the right place so that they're not just disappearing into into the general fund.

Well, uh can I go back to the a question about money funds going into the general fund as opposed to being you know allocated to really going to community violence intervention or the right place so that they're not just disappearing into the general fund?

I think I think they can be specified um for where those funds will go.

And I think having a fully fleshed out detailed plan would be critical.

Um, I will say my colleague representative Tansi sends her regrets.

She was, I know you you we wanted her on this call.

She had a conflict and could not extract herself to get here.

Um it was every her every intention to be here, and she apologized.

I'm apologizing for her.

She is on our finance committee and has extensive experience on that committee.

She's been on it long term, and she can um, I think bring a lot to help us navigate um some of the finance questions for um thinking of creative solutions and to make sure the money goes to the right place and that we position it well.

So she's gonna be a good um ally in as we develop this plan.

Um the you know, I'm taking a lot of notes.

These are these are interesting and good questions.

Um one thing that I think might help our case is to understand in detail what is the state spending to address violence that we think um, you know, say this state spends this much in a year to address let's just say general gun violence.

Um what would that amount be?

And uh could we project a reduction in that amount if we put the the the um efforts into reducing gun violence more holistically?

Can we make that argument?

Yeah, that's a great point.

That we would we we're already spending this much money every year, guys.

I mean, I don't know what that number is, or maybe it's over a decade, or maybe it's annually fluctuating.

And um, we're now going to prevent us from having to spend so much because we are doing the right thing with these other funds over here to prevent violence.

So, like trying to make a fiscal case for it is probably a good idea to see if we can get our arms around those numbers and understand what they are.

I mean, there's lots of reasons to end gun violence.

One of them could be purely fiscal.

It's not at the top of my list, but it's a factor that we could potentially quantify because it's got to be part of the conversation.

I don't know if that's helpful.

Very functional.

Uh does anyone else from the committee have anything they want to share or send to their class?

Um any general thoughts around this.

No, I just want to say hi, Jennifer.

Nice to see your face, even though my back doesn't see in your face.

Nice to see you too.

And nice to see you, Diana.

Nice to see some friendly faces there that I know.

Yeah.

Um anyway, I'm here.

Um, if you need if you have questions, let's keep this conversation going.

Now's the time to really get it in gear so that we can um have bills filed.

Um, you know, the governor will give his state of the state.

Now's the time to reach out to the governor um and find out if there's an appetite for this.

And we'll have like a mid to late February bill filing deadline.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you so much for your time, uh, representative.

And we'll definitely, you know, follow up with kind of next steps and definitely keep this uh conversation going.

Definitely appreciate um Z.

Thank you so much for having me.

And thank you again for all the work you're doing.

Okay.

I think the biggest challenge is going to be figuring out how we split up that you know, small amount of funding and in a way that is going to satisfy the coalition.

We need to build on that.

Because think that like a million and a half dollars, and we'll pull three million, that goes really quickly, right?

So it's like how do you take it?

Yeah.

I mean, that's like the thing is that like it's you know, in the greater scheme of like the budget, it's not a huge number, but like when you look at like local available grants like right now, like that would definitely provide a huge influx.

Yeah.

So how do we do that?

I know.

Um what does the city do with their didn't they have did some money to different violence orgs?

Yes, we did um so every year in the mayor's budget, there was funding for non-violet to the balance institute this year.

It was just merchant RFP to work on unbalance related initiatives, and we had an open bidding process with a few bidders and unbalanced institute received that funding.

How much 237?

Yeah, it changes every year.

So who controls pro strings at um public police in terms of no?

I'm serious.

I think they say correctly from alone, they see grants for some of the public safety work they do.

Yeah, right.

So it's it it it in my lens tells me that what we do with this group and what we do with Providence Police is we sit down and we say, okay, this is a public safety health issue.

When you submit your next grant for public safety stuff, let's wrap us into that for CVI work.

Yeah, so heal us all.

I'll just to the I'm sorry, right?

Yeah, to the limited ability that I can speak for the province police department.

I will say that before looking into moving money around.

I would take a good look at we've had one homicide this year.

That's that's unheard of.

Yeah, so the width of the losing the grants that we have with the CRT, with all the different initiatives that we have that province appear to be working right now.

It's not obviously one is too many.

Um, and obviously we still have other issues with gun violence in the city.

Um, but the numbers have been on a steady decline.

So prior to maybe thinking about ripping it from something where it might be working, I would maybe evaluate that really well.

But with the same goals for you, right?

With all due respect, it is it team effort.

It's yes.

Well, no, that's not what I was gonna say.

What I was gonna say I don't want to take credit when we're doing good and then not take credit when we're doing bad, right?

So what I want to say is that um I know we know at NBI that a lot of the what we would call heavy hitters or shooters are incarcerated right now.

So I'm also concerned with one.

There's many things here, right?

When we think of systemically, is that the answer, right?

Is that really resolving our issues, right?

But then we think about also what happens when those people are released, right?

Like we know people aren't incarcerated for the rest of their lives.

I mean, in some cases, yes, but not in all, right?

And then we also know the fact again.

There are a lot of guns in our community, and I I kudos to PPD for taking many many what is the number now?

Do you know the number of how many guns?

It's really high of how many gates how many firearms have been confiscated from our community, but we know, right?

That there's an influx, we know that they keep coming, right?

So I think that we just really have to look at what are the efforts, right?

Because we can't get complacent.

We can't just say, okay, that's what's working, and we can't, you know, everything else can just fall to the wayside, right?

Like we have to make sure that we have um even when it comes to programming for youth, we know that our youth needs need more programming, right?

So I think it's many things, but I agree.

We don't take away from what's already happening, but we have to figure out um can I just add um and I think that's kind of like what we've discussed in the past, is you know, let's be honest, there's a lot of you know uh priorities, you know, when it comes to funds, a lot of um you know, specific things that certain departments need to do at the end of the day for their own department.

Um, you know, police sheeva, I think is always trying to hit his best and doing what he can with his resources across the board, every department.

Um there's a valid case for limited resources needing more.

Um yeah, I think this kind of goes back to the conversations of creating or or seeing uh specific person, and that's where like I have a hard time too sometimes where like I'm like, I don't know if creating a whole new department is needed.

I don't want to create more uh bureaucracy and and hurdles.

Uh but some type of person that works for the city uh in terms of uh specific department that addresses community violence intervention funds, grants, coordination, uh something of that nature that can complement the the work and work alongside and not necessarily you know take a specific grants because I know a lot of the grants, you know, are around specific staffing or or specific programs.

There's a uh a grant for the uh lifetime center that there that the police department has that you know there's specific, you know, details in those grants where it might be hard to you know even try to execute for some of the the work that we're trying to do.

Um but I know that's why PJ brought up last time of you know, just straight up create in a small department and it will only take one or two employees.

And if that's like a uh a priority, then you know we can definitely do that most likely in the next budget season, uh have uh an office.

You know, what we're seeing, what I'm hearing too, more and more often uh the more I speak around this work and learn is a lot of major cities have a specific department of you know gun violence prevention or community violence intervention.

And I think we were getting to the point where that might be needed.

Uh that no matter you know who the mayor or who the council is that this work is happening year round 24-7, doesn't matter how the the numbers are are looking.

Um because yeah, you know, when when you put in a specific, you know, either council led or or mayor led department, you know, you add the politics of everything and budget, you know, finances, it's it's all politics, and then there's people's priorities, you know, the council has our own priorities, the man has their own priorities, and we try to overlap as much as possible.

Uh, but the more you intertwine money and finances, it gets more difficult.

You know, as just being as honest as possible.

And that's what I've always appreciated about this committee is we're always willing to, you know, hold each other accountable and dig deep and acknowledge some of the things that the city isn't doing well at times.

But that's kind of where I'm at.

I mean, I think this kind of really leads into that question that has come up a couple of times in the past.

And this committee is uh specific department uh needed to kind of have oversight and coordination among city resources around this place, or as uh suppressing.

So I'm I'm not in any way implying that you know um you should go take money from this that you already got it.

But let's develop some new strategies and some new funding stage.

For specific um a specific program you've planned and propose not to take away from what you're already doing.

That one homicide, kudos to that.

But community the violence issues, not just about the homicide, it's about everything else that goes around the domestic violence, uh, the the school stuff, getting kids, you know, stabbing.

It's it's it's all of that.

But um so yeah, you know, uh, I'm not implying any way that they should take money from you know the the 20 billion that they already got, you know, that they get a hand with anything.

Yeah, you can just say billion.

That's alright, you know, some of them.

No, no, but I think we all get it.

Well, I wasn't saying detective is looking really sharp.

Yeah, it's like fresh shirts and everything.

I think no, no, but but I think we all understand what the law enforcement is got tons of weekend money and access.

I mean, because you know, uh our federal government believes it funding law enforcement, right?

Now's the time.

Um again, not to be the contrary, but I will say that we're a lot lower on resources than people think due to advents like the Eurotime Crime Center.

It might not look like it because we're we're doing a really good job with a very little bit of resources right now.

We're short that every single department that exists within the department, youth service bureau, short, detective, adult detective is short.

BCI uh is short.

We have when I got on, we had something like 20 school resource officers.

We had five right now.

Well, that's impressive, but all of that short just because crime is down.

So I'm saying it's not a lot a lot of it is thanks to technology, and a lot of it is thanks to the ingenuity of a lot of the orphan, a lot a lot of young guys that we have now are real crafty with with how they look into things and how they can they can figure things out and get things done, and that's helping a lot.

So you know what's the thing about that is that that is the one of the keys to CPI, right?

And a lot of times in CBI work, they say that that shouldn't be with the police, it should be with like the health department.

So, like in Georgia, in Atlanta, Georgia, they have the Department of Health runs a social network analysis program where they basically are looking at social media, they're looking at uh family relations, right?

And they're able to then say, okay, this have an immediate kind of need that we need to report to the police because the safety concern, or do we need to have a health you know concern addressed, right?

And should we call the nonviolence institute?

Should we call you know just it?

Should we call you know one of these other CBOs that are specializing in helping this individual, right?

And and maybe it's a both, right?

Maybe it's to have police on standby while non violence institute tries to interact first and then police responds, right?

But you know, I think um in my like policy classes, they would say, you know, it's best to have that triage model because if you give a hammer, you know, the total toolkit, right?

Everything's a nail, yeah, right.

But then if you're able to, you know, say, okay, you know, here's the hammer, this is a nail clearly, right?

But then this is you know, need to be stapled or need to you know need something else, um, is helpful, right?

So back to the you know, having a center, you know, agency at the city level, I think the number one thing that that thing would do is one coordination and then two data, right?

It's like that person would need to be doing asset mapping.

What is all the CBOs?

What are they doing?

Who's doing what?

How should they be, you know, Lisa?

This person's you know got funding to do this.

They're in your turf now.

I just want to let you know, right?

You need to call Lisa, right?

And then um also decide, okay, we need to escalate this, right?

Um, and usually they use hospital data, right?

So 50% of crime is unreported, right?

And the hospitals know if someone got stabbed, they can't report the name of that person, but they can report the area, right?

So then they train the nurses to be able to capture this extra information that provide it to that coordinated you know, entity in the city who would then distribute, you know, based on, hey, there's some activity happening here you might not know about.

We want to have you know these people respond depending on the kind of levels.

Well, we we also find just not to throw a monkey wrench into what you're saying, but when a victim goes to the hospital, if there was some type of illegal activity, they're not gonna tell you the truth.

They're not gonna tell you what it really happened.

Many times when we respond, even with us, even if I know the victim, they tell us I'm I don't know where it happened.

I can't remember, you know, so we don't always get it could have happened in taunt and yeah, and they drove home and went to the emergency room, right?

Yeah, and more times than not, they're actually gonna tell you something.

Uh if it happened in talking, they're gonna tell you it happens somewhere on the street.

Yeah, yeah, right, because they don't want to go find the scene and talk right today.

Where they're doing a transaction and can get in trouble.

Right, right.

And I think there's you know, because I know that sometimes like they might hunt down their social media, figure out where they're hanging at, right?

Or where did the response come from?

Where did the first phone call happen, right?

So sometimes um it's a puzzle still, right?

And you need like a team that's gonna try to put the pieces together, the puzzle, right, and then alert um, you know, a CBO, right?

But maybe there's some collaborative work that could happen with the center of you know, the kind of real-time intelligence that can be giving, you know, making some type of MOU to provide some type of information to CBOs, uh, or create protocols, right?

Where it's like if it doesn't have this level of risk, there should be a consider a good fixed consideration to pass that out to uh to a CBO.

We kind of have that kind of what we already do.

Yeah, you know, um, I think what happens is sometimes we have to tighten it up, right?

I think what happens with policing specifically, there's so much changeover, yeah.

You know, turnover.

You know, so we already know there's a trust issue, right?

A new detective or no, they I don't know Lisa Pina Warren.

I'm not I'm not gonna tell her this information.

I can't give her this information where me and David could talk and he could say, Lisa, I know that you know this kid, I think you should go and help him, right?

So that's kind of what happens, and it's always like trying to find our niche again and trying to figure out how do we communicate and share information and what can we share and what can't we share, you know.

But I mean, that's how the model is supposed to work.

Yeah.

Any thoughts on that detective?

Like I think the model works fairly well for for what it is.

I think there's obvious limitations.

Our our mission is as much as we're heading in the same direction, it's not always meant for the same role.

If I know that someone so committed a crime and I'm investigating that crime, right, I may also want to prevent something that's coming forward.

So there's only so much that I can tell Lisa, yeah, to try to prevent something else that may happen without ruining the investigation or whatever litigation or or you know what's gonna come after we make the arrest.

Yeah.

So as much as we can, I think we work together as much as as much as we can.

Obviously, I think both that the institute and the police department could use more resources to get more of what we're doing right.

Right.

Um, and obviously we could be more collaborative, but I think it might actually end up hurting the institute.

Our reputation and our relationships in the because they have to be able to be in places where we're not allowed.

Right.

What I will say is we communicate more mostly when there is a victim.

Yeah, which unfortunately the it the person was victimized, that happened already.

We we didn't prevent it, right?

But that is where the greatest communication comes in, you know, making sure that the victim has support, making sure that also to one of our goals is to gather the information around what happened, right?

So sometimes there is information shared, right?

Like if we know it's two different clues or you know, so that we can try to intervene, try to gather more information, get connected to those that we do know on both sides, but um again, it's not the preventative piece, it's the reactive piece.

Yeah, yeah.

And I know I know that folks have talked about the kind of rocky history with the tollins, which are you know, more kind of on the preventative side.

Um I'm sorry, what are the phones?

Like when they like call in and visual, tell them this is we know you've been doing ABC, I'm running an investigation.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

And then you know, I'm gonna give you a chance.

We're gonna either, you know, we'll walk away, and you know, I won't touch this investigation unless you do something else, and I'll let you go to Lisa that she's telling me you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, you're going to your job training, you're checking in with the mentor, right?

Um I'm gonna be hands off.

If I find out you're back in that life, then I'm gonna throw everything I can at you.

Right.

Um, and that's you know, I know that's been an effective strategy in other places.

Um, I remember that they said when uh the call ones were done here, it was kind of like they brought them into the station rather than a fault call.

Um, and I know there's been a couple different type of models where people will have a teacher call, have Lisa call that detective from self-calls, right?

And depending on the individual and kind of the city, it's you know what's right for the city and the individual, really is like, you know, can't just look at best practice, right?

Yeah, I think it's definitely um case by case scenarios, you know.

I don't think everyone should be offered that same opportunity, you know.

So yeah, you know, this lady mentioned uh something about the what was that?

The center for yeah, what's that intelligence crime center?

Yeah, another word.

It's it's I'm gonna destroy my explanation for this.

It's big brother is watching basically cameras every yeah.

It's basically uh it's digital intelligence, it's our department has uh a unit uh that's specializes in that now.

It helps it's basically it's pretty hard to digital.

It is so it's ever responsible because we have to see both what they have.

Um I want to clarify on this.

So this is the police department and the mayor's doing yeah, yeah.

There's absolutely like there is, you know, there's there's a lot of like there's a lot of research and data that shows you know how effective it has been in other parts of the country, but any time we add surveillance to to anything, you know, there should be some type of like rails in place, yeah.

Um my biggest concern with it is you know, just no proactive, just keeping eyes on our community just to keep eyes on.

Obviously, obviously, if there's certain crimes, you know, sorry, incidents and incidents, uh, you know, obviously use of the technology that we have.

Um, a lot of this technology uh is shared, and uh the data is shared.

Um a bunch of us counselors have always brought up concerns regarding the flood cameras because there's certain agreements with other municipalities.

Uh, you know, I think our current agreement has uh municipalities in Texas like a C are our data.

So obviously, you know, what's going on at the federal level, there's certain concerns and questions.

You know, I I think most of us at least speaking for myself, um, you know, understands that we got a move in the way that technology is moving.

But to what degree and to what cost, uh that's where I always have questions, concerns uh about um, but you definitely are gonna get a little more uh interested in and dig a little deeper on this technology and how you know helping or in some cases not helping certain residents.

Um, I'm saying anything, there's benefits to it, and there's also probably some cons and we need to be transparent about those cons.

To what cost uh is this technology valuable to the city?

And you know, at the end of it, it maybe we don't do anything, but at least for the information that I have, I think there should be a little bit more uh guardrails and just clear written out policies, uh procedures of how this technology is used.

My personal opinion.

I I can tell you again from my limited ability to speak to these things.

We I just want to say we really appreciate it.

Yeah, especially I know it might seem like uncomfortable.

No, I know it's a system.

I was designed to there is there are certainly uh a ton of barrails in place.

We're not it's not an ability to surveil, just to surveil.

It is related to incidents taking place, and we don't have drones in the air.

The drones will go up when something I'll give you an example.

Uh there was an incident that took place during one of the festivals where a drone came in came in handy with a gunfall, and the person was caught in the gun receipts.

Uh, and that was an incident where there was there was something else that was that was potentially gonna happen, had that not taken place, and that was a matter of minutes, you know, something happened, the person's over here, okay.

They would track it and able to make the arrest and see and seize the gun.

So it's it's not uh it's it's audited, um, all of it is audited to boot flop is audited, and anytime you search something in that system, it's it's followed up on.

It's it's audited by the FBI.

We can't just I can't just say, I want to let me see where Coral's been and punch your plate in.

And you know, I we would all have to answer to that.

So it's not it's not just the wild wild west, and it's not just big brother everywhere.

It is uh carefully managed and audited approach or whatever ease that gives anybody funding from.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely crazy times.

Uh we're currently in, and it's only gonna get crazier when it comes to technology and AI and of course a lot of uh thoughts on planter expertise, like technology spectrum.

Yeah, they're in obviously uh administration is using um data and AI to basically predict where immigrants are moving, like where they're about to work, and you know, use that to try to um intercept them.

Yeah, so it's it's got to the point where you can literally use social media and you know um cameras and then literally predict routes of different people and predict behaviors, you know, and then use that to basically predict that they're gonna commit a crime and then treat them like a criminal beforehand, right?

Um, and I think that's where it becomes challenging, right?

So I think I'm a big fan of AI and you know, technology, but I think that um where it's housed determines you know the mission that is behind it, right?

This house for the department of health, the mission is to heal people, right?

Um if it's you know, health in the police department, the mission is to arrest criminals, right?

Um, and I think that all of that needs to happen, but I think it needs to happen in some type of coordinated effort that um have a balanced approach.

That example sounds like it was preventative as well.

Correct.

It's definitely as you more proactive than we ever had.

Uh it's it's preventative as much as as much as it is used to go after that uh that's great.

Yeah, that's great.

Technology, right?

Yeah I will I would say just in response to several times you've you've made it almost like a here or there thing, and I don't think that that needs to be the approach with any of what we're doing.

I think there's Lisa and the and the institute can do a lot of the same and do a lot of the same thing that we're doing.

DCYF can do a lot of the same things that we're doing.

We can do a lot of the things that they're doing.

I think anything that works should be duplicated.

Yeah.

And I don't think we need to have an approach where only like I want I want to say the police department's doing this, but I want that done here.

Yeah if you want it done somewhere else, duplicate it so that it can be and then work together so that we can duplicate it, hopefully successfully, or you know, upgrade the process, make it better, whatever the case may be.

But I don't think we need to look at anything that that the institute is doing successfully.

I don't want to look at it and say, all right, let's take that from them.

Let's also use that approach.

But so a rebuttal on that is the problem with that is is that you named the Garbros, right?

But those are Garbros that makes sense for police.

Yeah, so the Gardener of that makes sense for Lisa.

Maybe maybe she should have more discretion to look at something, you know, more preemptively than you would, right?

And so that's where it becomes the issue is that you know everybody is gonna use that data differently, is gonna have different kinds of prompts that's gonna lead them to use that or what to do with that.

Um, and there might be different systems set up for each entity and how they use that data, right?

Um, so I I don't I think you guys should be able to use it exactly the way you're using it, but I think that at the same time she should be able to use it and have different guardrails, right?

Yeah, she uses as well.

Um that might be different than yours, right?

That's that's exactly what I mean, as opposed to saying she should use it.

Right.

So we want that scenario to have it still, right?

If someone has a gun in a crowd and they're about to commit an act of violence, we want you to be able to stop, right?

I think I speak very funny when I say um that could be a tragedy really quickly, right?

Um so yeah.

Well, even where the bulk of the guns are being distributed, sold in ported, you know, how to get it here.

Right, you know, make it so maybe I mean ghost guns are huge.

We had a 16-year-old arrested uh two weeks ago at a school in his backpack.

Wow, yeah.

And he was one of our kids that we worked with for a while.

It was a kid in our backyard.

Well, he lives directly near our back.

We could actually hear him saying, I'm gonna do it like this and do it like that, and I have a well ought to just crazy.

I think that can make them scary thing.

All right, all right.

Um respect everyone's time.

Uh we'll start wrapping this meeting up.

Um, does anyone have any last quick thoughts, questions, comments before we open it up with public comments.

Uh anyone from the public want to speak.

Jim, thank you so much for being there.

Oh, okay.

Everyone, since you've been mentioning the article now this morning in Providence, I an article I helped write with Douglas and Corman uh was published.

Oh, and it's called Why can Meet To Know about gun crime and community violence intervention in Providence?

And it mentions this committee and some agencies here, some people here, and uh we tried to uh it's based heavily off his uh Douglas's um his research that he uh told us all about back in June.

And uh trying to introduce the general public to uh community violence and your agencies so that they would happily pressure uh the government to fund CBI and providence and uh the editors at the Providence I would just a volunteer organization, Deb Scheinberg and Phil Pyle are real allies of CBI how tremendously included links to Saver Communities for justice and links to NBI.

And hopefully this is just an introduction and maybe some like other articles about CBI can be published and they and so if you maybe can take a look at it and let me know what you think.

Yeah, that's so awesome, Jean.

Thank you so much.

Um Isabella, can we get that email to all the committee members that are focused?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Good stuff.

Um with that being said, I was gonna have a discussion maybe around uh people's availability, but we can do that by email.

I really sincerely appreciate you guys all our folks that came in.

I think this was a really productive conversation and kind of gives us ideas of where to go next.

Um definitely you know why thank the police department for all the work that they've been doing.

Um definitely in the right direction for sure.

Um, for communities, of course, thank you to all the partner orgs uh that have been doing uh tremendous work uh for years now.

Our clerk's office, our uh city solicitor's office.

Thank you so much for being here.

Um that being said, I'll entertain uh I'm gonna adjourn the meeting.