Actually, it is in the building.

That's a long walk right now.

I'm the Province Councilman joining Morgan.

Welcome to the committee of the finance regular meeting.

Chairman Ryan present.

Present.

We have four present and one accent.

madam clerk if you I may read the role chairman right present vice chairman tailor is absent counselor any bottom present council mcraves present council present we have four present and one absent we have a five okay on item one ordinance for the ordinance 2019 55 as a fixed before approved december 13 2019 as amended in an ordinance number 2022 72 number 429 having taken a fact on december 21st 2022 entitled an ordinance establishing a tax stabilization agreement for 8000 real tea llc located on assessors plat 113 glass 23233 234 and 235 541 thank you madam clerk i'm actually going to ask my um members of the committee to combine items one and two wave the reading and substitute i have a substitution for item two directing uh title uh from 2021 52 to 2021 50 that i have the document case answer so may i have that motion so motion made by council one and end of our second by council and sample is all in favor aye they closed size have it motion carries okay so we have one and two together we've already kind of read one i'm not going to make you read two however on it is my uh uh understanding and belief that these matters are not ready to move forward uh that's why i was waiting for the city solicitor to join us on i asked both for quick review today to affirm that so we need a little bit more time on these and unless you have discerned something else and find that wisdom on this so the as far as i can understand nobody in the law department has reviewed these drafts that it doesn't necessarily mean that they're addressed that I could go ahead and just nobody has reviewed them in my left someone's been asked to review them fair enough um let's uh um at that uh um with that uh information i'd like to make uh a request for a motion to continue both of these items for additional work and they'll come before us as soon as we possibly can have that motion motion made by councilman and as well second uh councilman san for as well favor any opposed size have it motion cars item two or one has two are uh continue and thank you very much solicitor i know i've brought your attention to that and uh late today okay uh madam court for the time we read item three into the record communication from his honor the mayor dated october 25th 2025 informing the honorable members of the city council that assailant to section 302b of the final formal inside of 1980 as amended in public laws chapter 45 through 50 sections one through 31 passed in 1987 appointing Eugene McRae of 116 Bayard Street Province Rhode Island open 906 as a member of the Providence Public Building Authority for a term to expire on January 31st 2028 and respectfully submits a C or approval Mr.

McRae replaces Mr McLaughlin whose term expired please join us um right and simple much like the other side but that's a good side um madam clerk to read over can you sound the front reporter yes and maybe said your name is set up for the record Eugene McGrain two thank you first Madam Clerk um we just noticed my uh colleagues uh just noticed there's no resumes on these food you they submitted no okay that's probably I see uh okay do you have a resume your resume with you uh I do not have it with me I just I have submitted it in the city okay um I can give it to you and um Mr.

Shunan are you in the room yeah do you have a resume that you could absolutely it was submitted with the first why it wasn't okay I have one copy I can go make copies if you want would you mind yeah um okay on the do we have resumes for the other other appointment oh it's a bit of a okay if you could find the don't don't run too fast no trip we've already had it um just say we're gonna recess right now um to give the my colleagues went off into an image of to review your resume sure it's stunning and want to see I would expect nothing less than board three

Do I need to enter this?

No, no.

Okay.

It just wasn't populated for us.

Okay.

Um Mr.

McCrain.

You guys comfortable with the resume?

You want just another second?

Yeah.

Okay.

One should take another second.

You good?

Yeah.

Everybody good?

Okay.

Council McGraise, are you good?

You need another minute?

Are you okay?

No, I'm just oh formulate my questions.

I know.

Okay.

Um, all right.

We're coming on a recess, and we we have a wonderful candidate in front of us that has been appointed to the Providence Public Building Authority.

Uh Eugene McCray, you've been smorn in.

Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

And now that we have your resume before us, we have uh more information about you.

Sure.

But share with us who you are on you know what you've done in the past and and uh why you would like to serve on this board, very important board uh the city.

Sure.

Um well I I've been a commercial real estate broker um for almost 20 years.

Um my wife and I and our three children moved to Providence full-time in 2021.

Uh she's from here.

Her dad's one of fourteen brothers because she's at all in Rhode Island.

Um, so we had owned the house uh right next to Mary and across the street from my parents on 7th Street.

Uh for a number of years of she can come back and see them.

Uh and then during the pandemic, uh, she wasn't able to get back here and she wanted to for a long time move back here.

So we moved in right in the local different puppy and three small children.

Um and we were able to find a house close by in that neighborhood, and we've been living there since I work basically across the country in commercial real estate.

Um all sorts of different projects are working.

Um work on behalf of municipalities, I've worked on behalf of uh hospital authorities, work on behalf of uh data centers and um just all sorts of people, doctors, lawyers, engineers, um, and their commercial real estate.

So I have experience with um like a setup for public hospital authority in today, which was the safety net hospital system uh on their computer uh foundation board for 10 years.

I work with the CEO there uh for 15 uh three or three different CEOs, so they have the same kind of responsibilities as the authority.

So this seemed like a very good fit.

Like I said, I live here.

This was a very pleasant surprise to be offered this this position.

It's something I care about.

I live here, and it's something I read about lease in.

Any questions?

Any thoughts?

One, thank you so much.

This is amazing.

So Melissa, I live on Fifth City.

Yes.

Sorry, that has no problem.

Well, the dear neighbors they are actually asking about the same staff sign today.

How did you find out about this opportunity?

So I've um, you know, I've been a little bit active in his campaign.

Um, like I said, I moved here full time and was interested in the city.

And so uh Matt Jimmy was uh kind of to contact me with this.

I was on capital center commission.

Yeah.

Uh the first my first meeting uh was the meeting we decided that we were gonna disband that session.

So I had some free time.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Do you have I'm sorry, Pastor?

What do you envision this job to be?

Um, you know, it's within the scope of what the authority's charter is, and so um my understanding is that we're shouldn't have to Shepherd and the Lord which staff uh for the resources that are provided by the city buildings that the city is responsible for and make sure that their money is used wisely and well.

And what do you see?

Because I see Oakland and California, what a what are you bringing to the table from because they have very different landscapes?

You know, it's interesting.

Like I said, I've lived here now five years.

Um, but I've owned property in the city and plus.

Um they're not the different as you would think.

They're both they're both cities that were very significant Ford cities that had significant industry that moved away.

Um, and while they retain kind of their geographic and cultural significance, you start to look at the content of the problems and things that they're trying to resolve, both have free waves that look right through them that caused all sorts of light and trouble for the people that were there.

Um so you know, I think part of it is a perspective, you know.

Um another part is experience.

I've worked in commercial real estate with buildings with government budgets, with mandates, with an understanding of what things are supposed to do, what they're supposed to cost, how they're supposed to be a bought.

So those are the things that I would think that I will determine.

But yeah, perspective.

And then I might send two of my kids to classical high school.

I hear all the time.

I you know, I would love if we didn't have 95 running right through the right for the downtown.

I think getting 195 or moved was something that's been transformative for the city.

So maybe I don't know.

Hopefully, my opinions are good.

And well, what is this?

Well, we're we're kind of cash for um how was it there in your city or where you where were you coming from?

Um yeah, I mean I grew up in San Francisco in the 80s and 90s, yeah.

And that was not, I mean, they didn't shoot dirt the area because it's Joe, you know, you know, those are places to transform.

Um, when I worked for and was involved with the health system, that's a safety net health system.

You know, it's patient mixes, 90% of people that are on government health insurance.

And you know, there's there's a movie about that that health system.

Uh so cash and and the proper shepherding of resources is an incredibly important part of it.

So I mean, yeah, constraints are important.

Sure.

Um you said you've worked kind of forced to live for the record.

Since this is a public meeting, really good.

I never said anything like that.

No, he didn't need a city.

As long as the city attorney agrees with me on that.

The record will show that records are fun.

Um very long time.

I don't just go into the next one.

It really does.

Yeah.

You drank the water, you guessed that.

But um I think what what I my last little question is we are uh really going through a little bit of a struggle now, like a lot of places and um the housing and uh is really in dye streets in the market is right now we've been becoming proud of that one of the worst times ever.

Um there's no housing, and we have people desperately in need of housing, and um I know this is not really your focus, but what what do you see that how do you see us getting trying to get out of this?

And like I said, this is not your folks like this is a general yeah, me know.

So we got married in 2007, and so I met like mothers, my wife's grandmother both months fall off and uh I was approved in 2005, which kind of and I saw the progress of the city as it went through.

And I also you know, I remember watching TV and seeing you know, ads for Hundays of like 39 bucks a month as a lease field.

You know, we were in the heart of every session.

And I think you know, the the problem is when you're in it, you don't see the positives.

And so yeah, there's an incredible housing crunch.

And one of the reasons we moved here was to be in a place where it was affordable for our kids to potentially live.

And that's been a challenge, and they are the town in San Francisco where I threw up where when I grew up, it was you know, a nice neighborhood with doctors and daughters and a grocery keeper, you know, could send their kids to the same school that you know.

I went to I went to what essentially is the class full attention, and uh you know there were there were a lot of ideas about how to solve that problem, and the challenge is we constrained ourselves so much that there's a completeness in the middle of housing, and so it means that people can't build two three-minute houses, yeah.

Which are affordable building.

So there was a line that I heard once um from the California uh housing build builders association, uh that office.

And they they said something like you know, it's not the typical obvious you would think of this pro wisdom, but they said it shouldn't be affordable housing.

That's what branding is the wrong thing.

Everybody deserves a house that they even afford to live in.

So we build housing that we call horrible, we're not solving problems because there's not one place for people to live.

So I you know that the positive thing is when you go to West Indian City, which has been kind of forgotten a lot of ways economically, you start to see places that weren't well that weren't didn't have any economic activity on that have new buildings going up that are housing that are significant housing.

I think the problem is that we go backwards to solve it, and we don't see things in the wrong one that we're currently solving.

So I I it's a tremendous problem.

It's been a problem any metro where we can all live.

The solution is to build more housing and to empower people to build, at least in my reading, and I understand.

So I don't know how I personally can do that, but I I think there should be a place for everybody.

Good.

Okay.

Anyone else?

Councilman Sandish, any questions?

Um, no questions.

I just thank you for for your willingness to serve this as uh an authority that we have um taken a lot of interest in.

I would say in the past like years so um nothing to do with Kurt O'cause I think we're all really excited, uh especially the new chairperson.

Um there has been issues that have happened in the past um that were rising, uh that are rising up to the service level now in terms of record keeping some ethical questions.

Um, but I'm excited, you know, with your addition.

Um I think we're definitely moving in the right direction as a city.

Very fine.

Yeah.

Well, I think that you're a wonderful pick.

I commend the administration for identifying uh someone with that that has the depth of knowledge and skills that you have.

Um I think we're very fortunate to have someone like you on a very very important uh authority.

So as my colleagues have stated, um, it's important.

Those those buildings are critical.

We've got the housing crisis.

We're gonna look to make sure all of those buildings buildings are finding their weight, if you will.

Um and I'm I'm excited to have someone like you in a in that role that so you can assist us as far as California's concern.

I've spent my entire uh career uh decades in lending, mortgage lending, real estate lending, and we always look to California because they did it before we did.

So we're expecting that you're gonna bring some pearls of wisdom to your now home town.

Um may I have a motion.

I think you're wonderful to support motion to approve May by the agreement on board three, Councillor and Antigo, seconded by four sense, ward six and counsel and sanchez on okay.

New board twelve board 12, I think is a party second as well.

Um, all in favor, aye, any opposed, eyes have it, motion carries.

Um you are approved by the finance committee.

You'll go before the full council on wherein you'll present yourself to everyone uh for a full vote.

Um we need make it to we will make it to the December fourth meeting.

So feel free to contact council people on.

I know you have a favorite council person, you have more three council person, but um feel free to you know engage other council people and introduce yourself to them.

Um we I'm sure we'd like to be able to work with you as a partner in making sure our buildings are um serving our city as best they can.

Sure.

As long as everybody understands I was non-braged here with the very much okay, Madam Clerk Cunningham four into the record.

We have patient from reading chair one in project external review, SRA until we're excited to 2025 with the city of Providence ordinance chapter 18 and a half, section two, voted unanimously to recommend a reappointment of Mr.

Wright Harley Spire as an executive director at HIRA for an additional two years, and so it makes the same for your approval by the city concept.

Please join us at the table.

Can you spare uh sure?

I think we have a fit of food and lower nothing.

Yes, can you still be a name title of the record?

Thank you.

Good evening, everybody.

Good evening.

Okay.

So you are uh here on for reappointment to the as executive director of CARA.

Uh and it's a it's uh two years uh and the council uh has before it a formal letter uh from the from Peril uh from the vice chair, oh excuse me, from the chair, Susan DeRita, who is here with us today.

Did you want to speak today, Mr.

Rita?

No, I think um all that uh everything you want to say is in this letter.

Yeah, everything is from the entire life.

Okay.

So do we need to enter this as an exhibit?

It can be interesting.

Yeah, so may I have first a motion?

We have uh in front of us all, I believe, yes, a uh letter uh to the uh chairwoman and Ryan and Finance Committee members, each of you uh dated November 24, 2025, uh signed by Susan DeRita, chairwoman on vice chair um ranking on and members are all signing this.

So it's a unanimous um recommendation, if you will.

Let's call this item 4A.

Um by Councilman Sanchez, I can advise Councilwoman uh Graves all in favor, aye.

Any opposed, I have so we have this wonderful letter before us.

Um it's pretty comprehensive and it's quite impressive.

Um so I would just like to ask you to speak about what you've accomplished on where you see on your leadership going the next two years on what your needs might be and what your challenges and how you're going to solve them more important than thank you.

And I I want to thank all of you for being here two nights before Thanksgiving.

I'm sure everybody's got a lot of work to do to for the holidays.

So I don't take that lightly.

I know some of those smaller funds.

Especially those of you that are posting and having lots of family feed.

Um so it's been my honor and pleasure to be the executive director of PAR for uh almost four years now.

And we have really if you've been there from before I got there, not that I'm taking credit, but just showing the difference.

Um was not really functioning, and it certainly wasn't in a state where the community um that knew of this existence really trusted it to do uh any of the war against it's mandated to do.

And so I think my my greatest um joy or pride comes from the fact that we've been able to stand para up to be a respected and at least um more uh uh relied upon resource for the community.

Be that bridge between police and the community and accountability and transparency and then issues with the police department.

So not just dealing with misconduct complaints, but also serving as an access to the community when they have questions about the policies and procedures that the police department uses, and then we can make recommendations about changing those and utilize the information we get back from the complaints and look at the patterns and practice and issues that we can then suggest back to the police department that maybe there's a policy issue that they should change to affect the outcomes.

Um, so we've most recently interfaced uh pretty publicly with that ice um investigation that I think brought a lot of eyes and attention to what para can serve the city as a resource and a sense of transparency, and especially I think those are the issues that where we shine most in the sense that when the police department doesn't agree or doesn't isn't completely uh clear about the way they're handling something, and there's a disconnect with what we see and what what they're doing, parrot can serve as that objective um body that reviews it and then gives an honest external take on on what's happened and provide that transparency to the community.

That otherwise, you know, like I think that's a good example because that was something where the police department did not assume responsibility for their actions in the sense that they didn't agree that they were in violation of the ordinance.

They didn't agree that they'd done anything wrong.

Um, and after an objective investigation, you know, we were able to publicly come out and just give a different what we believe fair and objective view based on our investigation and let the public know about that disagreement on policy.

And that led to this body uh taking action and actually changing the ordinance to make any inconsistency or ambiguity about what the proper action by the police department is a little bit clearer.

And so while that's not necessarily a uh a perfect fix going forward, it makes the next time that happens, it makes the process easier for everyone to call balls and shrink, so to speak, and if para gets involved again, you know, we'll have more clear guidance to to give that feedback.

Um most importantly, I believe that we've made a significant impact on the police department having to deal with complaints publicly and changing the way that they deal with criticism.

Um without our ability to publicly speak about these complaints and to publish our reports and have that transparency portal where we let the community know like the outcomes of these complaints and the decisions that our board comes to, they wouldn't know about any of the outcomes of the internal police complaints other than whether they're sustained or not sustained.

The facts don't come out, the details don't come out, and then what happens is that if the department reviews something and clears it, you just have to take on faith that you know there was no no actual issue there, and and what we can do is actually shine a light on the issues that would the to this date to date, I should say we we have a record number of complaints this year, 40 complaints, which more than doubles what we've had in the past, and that has to do with the public utilizing our service and knowing that we exist and us raising uh awareness.

Um, but on top of that, it's allowed us to look at because every complaint we review, uh, we give it to the police department, and then we audit and review their investigation.

And so when there's a disconnect of what their take is and versus our take, I think that's where the real healthy conversation happens because having been a police officer and having been in that same role internally, I think what happens is that you have like rose-colored glasses when you're when you're assessing a situation from the perspective of being in the police department.

And so even if it's not intentionally trying to obfuscate the truth or alter the outcome, sometimes you can't see things the way an external source can see it.

And there that's why there's a lot of pushback of having external people look at it.

And so I think you know, that's one of the things that um we've been most successful at is having those tough conversations with the police department um and bringing those issues to light so that we can get improvement.

And we've seen that in that case that they had with the uh forgetting the street name, but with the uh the loud noise complaint parking, right?

Where in the past uh we had a we had a similar complaint that we brought up with the police department and gone over the issues that basically mirrored what that next complaint was.

Um they didn't find any fault in the police officers' actions on that internal complaint.

Well, we we disagreed, we were very public about it, we had a lot of conversation about the proper way to handle those types of complaints.

And then we saw that even though in that initial complaint, they they didn't choose to change their approach to that initial complaint beyond issuing um additional training, uh de-escalation training.

When it happened again, they saw that there was a pattern and there was an issue with the way that they had the up and dealt with the officers and dealt with that situation, and they were a little bit more stringent in the uh discipline that they met it out to the office and admitted publicly to one of the few times that they've ever had that they did something wrong.

And and that's in no small part to our interventions, right?

And so, you know, I could talk forever, that's what lawyers do.

And I and I don't want to, but I just I think those are some of the most important things that you know we've accomplished, and I look forward.

There's a lot more work to be done.

That's the bottom line.

I mean, this this year, especially um our operations have been somewhat hindered by the budget cuts, but we know budgets are tight, and um we took a significant hit which precluded us from hiring some additional personnel that were on our authorized hiring list that I think are really important for us moving forward, you know, community liaison, uh, an additional investigator, uh policy person.

These were these were the things on track.

And the reason we didn't hire right off the bat was because you have to build up to a level of like it's irresponsible to hire people when you don't have a use for them yet, and it's waste of taxpayers' money, which are very concerned about and make sure that we are very specifically responsible, which we have been.

We've been under budget every year in operation since I've I've been in operation.

Um, but having the right people in place is a key component to success.

And so right now we have a complement of three people.

Uh that is not enough, right?

And going forward, we're gonna we're gonna need an additional nest gender, we need a community outreach liaison.

Uh, we do community training, we do a lot of outreach for groups.

We've been in the colleges, uh, we've got something planned coming up to go to the med school.

We've we've been doing a lot of outreach on not just what we do as an organization, but to give people information as to how to interact with the police to avoid um issues, right?

So First Amendment training, fourth amendment training, how to do a more how to act in a motor vehicle staff, what your rights are when you get stopped by the police, whether you're in a uh walking as a pedestrian or if you're in a car, there's a difference, and explain it to people the way that they should interact in those and what rights they have, and then if those rights they feel are violated, how to behave to not escalate the situation and then how to come to us to happens to the police.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

No, so we don't we don't do joint training with the police department.

Um not that we're opposed to it.

Uh, I've I've reached out to Colonel Perez a couple of times.

We'd like to get it to the police academy.

I think it's we'd like to do a training block there.

Um, I know that they have a tight schedule, but I think it would be helpful for new officers to hear from us and to hear like what some of the most common complaints we get are and ways for them to avoid that as well.

Because you know, the my goal has been, and Paris goal has always been not to be adversarial to the police department, but collaborative, right?

It's one of those things where we actually compliment each other.

If they get it wrong, and we point it out, it's not for the point of an I gotcha moment, it's for the point of improving police services for the community.

And if they get it right, we acknowledge that, and that increases their credibility in the community.

So when they do something correct, and we get a complaint, and we exonerate off, which most of the complaints through that way if you're looking at percentages.

That's a good thing for that.

It just bolstered the fact that they're doing things correctly.

But when they get it wrong, it doesn't, it hurts more to cover it up or be, you know, say you didn't do it right or you did it right when you did it because that hurts the trust that we're the community, and that is one of those things where you know, how do we trust you going forward again, right?

When you when you're telling us you did nothing wrong.

That's why the ICE situation I think was super problematic, and we're working hard to try to mend that fence, so to speak, going forward, you know, just from a policy perspective, because uh that's a super sensitive issue, and it's something that the police department, I think is better served by acknowledging when they didn't get it perfect, and how to how they're gonna do it better next time than trying to just stick your heels in the ground and say, you know, we did it perfectly and there's nothing to change here.

But that's the whole point of collaborative, right?

Does that we're not always going to agree, but we've constantly continued to press and press and press that relationship and continue um, you know, for two years we're gonna get responses for our recommendations from the police department.

And with effort and time, they couple months ago did a dump of where they responded to all the open recommendations that we had, which is another huge step in the right direction.

It just shows that they're acknowledging not only our um existence, but the validity of the comments that we make.

Even if you disagree, it's good to have it on paper so that we understand how they're thinking and how we can move forward to get better service, police service to the community.

And we're not always going to agree on what that looks like, but the idea is having a conversation, tough conversation is important.

And um, you know, I have a very experienced investigator that we brought on to Parad, which you know, combined with my experience and his experience in the policing.

You know, we have close to 40 plus years of police experience.

So it's very hard to tell us.

We don't know what we're talking about when it comes to reviewing police process and procedure.

Um, and so I think that also runs credibility that didn't exist there with their willingness to work with us, you know, when we do give them comments about what they're doing.

What do we need to improve going forward, right?

You know, bottom line up front is um support and resources, right?

The there's a push, you know.

We have a we have an office space, we have it, we we've established ourselves as a professional entity.

We'd like to keep those kinds of resources so the public, it's an independent place from the city, it's not in the police department, it's not somewhere where people are intimidated when they some of you have been there and seen the office.

Um, you know, it's not the rich, but it's it's professional and it's something that allows people uh that comfort of being a civilian organization that's dealing with these situations.

Um, and the funding hopefully we know has available so that we can add those bodies and do more outreach, right?

But when you when we do outreach, it requires some money.

If you're doing advertising, if you're doing pamphlets, if you're when doing trainings and we want to hand stuff out to people, little cards and things doesn't sound like much, but having the ability to print those things and having just some money there, and then most importantly is for hearings.

So when we want to do hearings, we need to have the ability to provide counsel, uh, as the ordinance requires us to that to people who are not represented.

That requires funding.

They don't there's not a lot of pro bono uh in that sense to be able to provide that counseling uh for those those parties and just to be able to have the staff to meet the increasing need.

And that's it.

Well, I'm very impressed, but I was impressed with you when I first met him many years ago.

Um, I knew that you had the right temperament that uh scales administrator uh to make sure Tara was successful.

I I've watched you for the years and you haven't let me down.

Um I would love for you to talk a little bit about the um just a little bit because we are, you know, we you've spoken a lot and I don't want to get the many opportunity to ask questions, but please talk about the implementation of the public portal.

I think that's really an important component of what you are trying to accomplish.

And um, I'm wondering if that can't be enhanced.

Um I see that it allows people to file a complaint uh uh make a recommendation, assess data points and leave the status of complaints.

It seems like an open end to me.

And I'm wondering, you know, you talked about money to create on you know postings or outcomes or talk about outcomes.

I mean, I'm wondering if that site could also be used on kind of button up the project, like what came out of the radiate on you know, you talked about the um interaction with I'm just wondering if we can somehow document that to that portal so that people see things coming in, but also kind of resolved action steps for you know what needs to be done full.

So you know, kind of a lot there, but please enlighten us.

Yeah, so the implementation of the portal is a big advancement in terms of just being able to centrally collect the data and being able to hopefully use it for longer term projects, right?

So the immediate benefit is it's an easy way for people to make and what used to happen was they had to go find it on the website, and then they basically just sent an X like uh an email with with information on a fillable form, right?

And there's no database to collect that information, it's all manual.

And so the establishment of this portal through an outside um company is called civil, it's oversight by civil.

It's it's a software that's designed for civilian oversight.

And so what it does is it allows people to make those complaints compliments as well, right?

So if you have something good to say, we want to hear that too, and we share that uh on the portal.

Recommendations on the policies, uh, any requests for audits of completed internal investigations that you had, and you're not trying to make a new complaint, but you weren't satisfied with what the police department did.

There's an opportunity to do that through our portal.

And we're gonna add uh additional functionality in terms of uh gang appeal, gang list appeals directly through our portal.

So, you know, as we're aware that the PCQRA gives Para the ability to serve as an appeal appellate body for people who want to challenge your inclusion on the gang database list that the police department has.

And so to streamline that process, you know, we create some forms and some um ability for people to help them with that process go over the police department.

Um we're gonna create a form on that portal as well where they can just file every plan directly through there so we can add that data to our data collection as well.

As far as integrating the things that you were talking about, it's not really possible with that uh software just because the software manufacturer doesn't provide that functionality.

But what we do already and what we uh continue to do is on our city website, we have we've improved the website dramatically, and we've created not only uh a place for people to be able to get to that portal through the website easily, but also post all of our reports and our outcomes and all of our um recommendation letters and everything that's physically is posted publicly there so that as soon as this body gets it and the our board approves it.

We once it becomes a public document, we can put that on there, including the police department's responses.

So when we get something from them, that goes on as well so that people can just read the text directly.

We don't put yet more information about the specific complaints because the way the ordinance is currently written precludes that.

We're hoping that to get some more leniency, and so we can have more transparency with the new with the amendments that are proposed that for us maybe coming from soon.

So that is an opportunity for us to be able to provide more detail on publicly.

You know, if you look at other states like Massachusetts, they have a very robust public portal when it comes to police oversight where this the state handles it from the post and they put the names of the officers, the allocations, and all of the outcomes of the internal investigations on a public website that is searchable by anybody.

And so you know, the obviously the bar loves that, right?

Defense bar especially, but it allows also for other agencies, so if an officer leaves one department and goes to another department, they can very easily see they have a disciplinary history there, and they're much more open about sharing that information.

Rhode Island is not so open, and so you know, we have some improvements to make that.

And so you know we have some improvements to make that but um that's something that we're working towards and I've I've I think I've spoken with some council members about bigger picture items that we're also working on in power in terms of legislation.

I've been working with some uh legislators about drafting some potential changes to the state by legislation post-legislation about trying to emulate some of those advancements that Massachusetts has made um that would impact everyone on the state though.

Because I think you know you're aware power is the only civilian oversight agency in the state where I and it's has the potential to serve as a model of how it can be done for the state.

And that's really one of my my big goals as being successful here is I think this needs to happen on a bigger scale and as usual Providence is leading the way and being the experimental place to try it out.

It hasn't been super successful in the past and and that's why I was super excited about this challenge.

We've made significant progress and there's a lot more to make and that's you know we're the testing round and I want it to be successful because I want legislators to be excited about the idea of implementing this on a wider scale because nobody with that much authority should be self-regulated.

Yeah it just it just doesn't make sense right and so but for people to want to adopt it and spend money on it and believe in it that they have to see it work somewhere here it works in other places right but that's not necessarily like is it gonna work here and I I think that we're we're pushing pretty strongly towards that end that we're making it much more successful and I I see us getting to a place where we can't be denied.

Right now there's still pushback but you know I want the mayor's office I want the chiefs department I want everyone to like 100% be on board with it because they they see the value in it as well and and that's where we're headed.

Wonderful so first let uh the uh first would you please uh recognize that uh councilman the shadow has shown using uh in committee members do you have any questions concerns please choose and thank you thank you for being here you pre-answered almost all my questions I think I said two very minor ones um I think you had mentioned that there's changes to the ordinance that you're looking to make and I know I've heard in one of my constituents asking me to support those changes and uh do we have those like have you where are those at yeah so they're they're currently in committee and ordinances okay so they've been introduced we're just waiting for the public hearing yes I I I've met with many of you on it back yeah we talked like two years ago right and it hasn't really changed much because a little we know how it goes the language changes yeah yeah yeah people just the same things we just we just um and then my last one can I just add on that has there been a hearing and ordinance on it or is it waiting to be heard?

It's waiting to be heard.

Okay.

And so January is the proposed supposedly kind of come up in January.

Oh okay.

And then my other one if you might comment under bullet point um too about the um sharing information through newsletter um we just ask like if you have things that we should be sharing in the council newsletter or some of us have our own newsletters that go out to our constituents it might as well 2000 people which is more than 400 plus um I'd be happy to share that around I think the council office when they do their monthly newsletter if there's resources you'd like us to be sharing with the community that would be great to also get those on council as well not just through the MCCS.

Yeah on say you don't do you share with information like that with the council now or now that all um newsletter information or well usually just go through like city resources and and just have it like add our brochure to the you know the one puts it on the web their the mail outlets.

So Councilwoman Anlar brings up a great point and we all have first of all the office communicates for all of us globally we have a monthly newsletter and then but each council person has their own newsletters um so I would suggest that if you want anything communicated on whatever that might be to share it with our chief staff and ask for distribution through the council outlets because we can help and have sure pairs of body created by the council so we're intimately familiar with the work and intimately invested in real work.

So we would be willing to help in that regard um so please recognize that as a as a benefit or a call for you.

Like the comments you said at the at the beginning earlier that I should always have shared and had a lot of respect or have had a lot of and continue to have respect for uh director.

I thought you said I mean I think you you know you described in your testimony exactly not easy job, and you know, there's sometimes uh the perception of a friction, but I think you know, knowing you in a type of you know uh attention you bring to every conversation, um, you know, something that we should continue to invest in.

Um just putting out front for the record.

I think the community liaison's opposition, I think, would definitely take you uh to another level in terms of uh just community relations and getting you guys out there uh more about you came to one of my community at one point, um, but even having like a designated person to you know go to different places and interact in different community spaces would uh continue to build that trust.

Um because yeah, you know, the this is you know what we all want and support as you know, transparency and accountability and yeah, anything that we can do to support those ethnic stuff.

We just uh let us know, but thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

And I've already made a notation that it's uh that you're looking for a budget support, budgetary support.

So as we walk into the next budget, we'll keep that at the forefront of our budgeting process.

And you'll mean my chief, our chief over there.

Um else, do you have uh council member shot?

Thank you.

Um to see you say uh always been uh a fan of uh your work and also uh um you came out to uh one of the community meetings in in the district.

Um you said uh you've been out to other community members, both uh city council members uh community meetings to talk about your organization.

I know that uh going into the uh the last couple of years, the outreach of the community uh was sort of questionable.

And and my question to you is um have you increased that community engagement besides just the uh city council members?

Um then the other question is uh I got three, and I would just put them out there right away.

Um are you I know the chairwoman just mentioned about adding some budgetary um increases or what will that means if if it's uh for another personnel or just uh just to complement um more experienced investigators or staff.

Are you fully um uh staffed right now, uh including your your um experienced investigators are still on board?

Yeah, we have we have one investigator right now, yeah.

And and then administrators executive.

So just so we are for our comp like don't we authorize like under our we're not for the staff at all, right?

We're authorized and a compliment of a lead investigator and two um investigators, a community outreach liaison, uh a policy advisor, none of none of those positions they were taken away from uh a budget.

So um we understand that budgeting was tight this year and the school uh funding and everything.

And so we're not complaining.

We may do when we have, but to do better and to do more.

Right now, once in our focus, my my investigators have involved the investigations.

Um I obviously have to review all that, plus all the administrative work, plus the outreach, plus all the other stuff.

So some help is super low, and would definitely go a long way.

So your first question, we significantly increase our outreach, especially in the sense of trying to reach out to some of the younger population and place it where we can get large numbers of people to not just talk about what parent does, but useful information as well, besides hey, they exist and you can come with us if there's a problem, but we also try to take you back out to those meetings, uh, information about educational components about how to how to deal with the car stuff, how to deal with the direction amendment uh check, how to deal with four, fourth amendment violation, or dealing with the police in many steps, ways for people to be successful when they have police encounters, and if they have questions about something that happens to them during the police encounter and appropriately deal with it on the scene, so as that not to escalate the situation and then turn it into something that we're definitely gonna have to remove.

A lot of times these things can just be resolved by people keeping a full head.

Um, but if you don't know your rights or way to deal with it, leads problems.

Okay, so we do a big education.

We did have Rick, we made up um Roger William, the Johnson of Wales.

You know, we integrated with some of the athletic directors there, so that we can get a lot of the sports people, the sports uh because they have space in their curriculum for us for people to go and speak, but those are larger groups of people that uh often college kids are partying.

We saw a big PC issue, right?

Where like there was a big presence of people out and about and uh you know police, but not necessarily a lot of things interaction in that event, but that's a different story.

But um, yeah, then I get all of it.

Oh can I open more?

Okay.

Yeah.

Um in your summary here, you also recommended uh matrix and and some supplemental amendments or at least to the province police uh as a suggestion or recommendation.

Did they have they um um adopted them or just more recommendation and was there any follow-through with that from the police department?

So what has been that rate of so the matrix?

The matrix is required by the ordinance.

And so we we've provided them with um it's like a working document, right?

We provide them with our recommendation of what the matrix should be, and then say explain a little bit how that came to be is we we looked at there's a lot of other municipalities like NYMP, you know, Colorado, Chicago.

They have these, they have these disciplinary matrix that they utilize, which are pretty extensive documents, and they do and the police department itself utilizes them to have a standard with guidelines so that the officers themselves understand that if they commit this type of offense, level offense, they're very likely to have this as the general outcome of discipline if you're if it's sustained, if the complaint is sustained.

And so there's the standard discipline, the mitigated with mitigating factors and the aggravated and aggregating factors, which is what makes it a matrix, right?

There's a range.

Province police doesn't do that, they don't have that even internally.

They just have a policy that's very basic that says that they utilize progressive discipline model, and it doesn't give any real guidance as to what a discipline would be.

And so the ordinance requires them to enter into a matrix with paradigm so that when we make recommendations about discipline for cases that we sustain, that it's based on a model that they've already pre-accepted because they had a say in what is reasonable uh discipline guidelines.

So it was one of the first things I developed when I got here with obviously our board.

Uh, when I say I, I'm not taking credit for it.

The board does the bulk of the heavy lifting on these things, and you know, we we put it before them, and I want to make sure that it's clear that credit is going to where it belongs.

But you know, we developed that matrix um with Hugh Clements, and then we retired.

And we started over with uh um cheap press and uh did not get a response for you know nearly two years on that with constant reminders about hey, we need to have this matrix for us to be able to give you.

We can we're still gonna go forward and operate and make recommendations because we have no choice, but then they have the ability to say, well, it's not in order to the matrix and we develop together, but they're the ones that haven't agreed to yet.

And so um we're going on four years now with no accepted matrix.

We have a model that we based off of New York model that was significantly pared down from the 106-page document that New York has to be tailored to what para the type of complaints that para you uh would use.

Yeah, and it's like it's like a two-page three-page matrix, right?

So it's simple and it's accessible and it's still in window.

But they that's so to that part, yes.

And then all the recommendations um that we've made, we've gotten responses from the police department.

They have not agreed to those recommendations in their official response.

I doesn't mean that I don't hold out hope that we're gonna continue them in Congress and eventually get agreement.

We've had we've had two policies where they agreed on some of the recommendations and did implement my minor changes, and that's progress, right?

I mean, that's an acceptance of like some feedback and and change, we'll build them.

We'll build them.

You know, as we build that trust that we see, and there's more public outcry and push back on them to cooperate and collaborate with us more.

Um I know that we'll continue to make progress there.

I know the union is very difficult about you know, whenever anyone's critical of them.

Um, but we're not trying to be critical, we're just trying to be objective.

It's constructive criticism, it's not negative criticism.

Um the last one is uh you reference in terms of perhaps uh recommending or filing legislation at the state level.

Uh through that process, do you will the agency get some type of uh uh with um the city or the city council or comes through the legislative um committee here before actually gets admitted to the to the state that process of the way we absolutely absolutely go to the loan or no no one at all?

So I I've I've been working with um Aaron quite a bit and June.

So we I everything that we do in terms of um policy and process, we're we're working with uh council staff.

So nothing is like independent.

I've I've had conversations with counsel with um legislators who have reached out to me because they know I'm in this space and they have questions about these things, like e-borne and things like that.

So that's that's different as far as like people asking my opinion about something they're talking about.

But as far as official, um nothing has been submitted anywhere, it's all in the draft stage and basically the idea stage because we're still working on making this model work better.

And so before it could serve as a template, you know, we have to concentrate on getting it to a higher level of success here.

That's my pay focus.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Councilbridge.

Are there particular is there a particular yeah, yeah, or yeah, so we get the most complaints?

And if so, models offices being shifted out of those areas and into any other areas, and are you still getting complaints once they get shipped?

Right.

So if you're are you asking, I don't I don't I'm not asking for a particular name.

No, you're asking like geographic areas.

Okay, yeah.

So we don't have enough data to at this point to be able to make like pattern um practices.

I would say that we have had some officers whose names have come across more than once, right?

Um, but that's not sufficient to say it's a geographical area, it's more an individual operator person, you know, individual officer issue.

I think that when we talk about long-term goals is being able to have enough data points over time to be able to more accurately answer that question with certain you need more data to make the kinds of determinations that you know, for example, this year we've had 40 complaints to date this far.

We have 450 something police officers with uh thousands of interactions in in the community.

It's not sufficient data with 40 complaints to be able to say there's a clear pattern in this geographic area, that geographic area.

We're we're at the infancy stage with the data analysis because we just haven't collected enough data yet.

Over time, we will have more and more data, and then we'll be able to statistically say there's a pattern and practice issue.

One thing I can tell you um with fair certainty about pattern and practice issues and body one camera policy violations.

Um, every single body camera that we've reviewed, we've identified violations of the policy.

Every single case.

And I have yet to see one body cam that completely adheres to the policy, right?

And they're not all egregious violations, but they're still violation of the policy, such as when they're muted, the officer is required to say the reason for muting and then announcing when they're putting it back on.

I've never seen that, not once.

It's in the policy, no one does.

So the practice is very different than the policy.

And so this is something that we're trying to address with the police department.

I mean, it's it's every case, and it's not I don't need a hundred thousand data points to know that this is a problem.

When the ordinance hopefully changes and we have direct access to the records management systems, we'll be able to do a more detailed dive because we can audit existing information that's already there that we haven't collected.

So that will open a treasure trove of information for us from view purposes, and we'll be able to have better answers to those types of questions because that question that you bring up.

I do more of data dive when I'm being able to look at the department's actual information as opposed to just what we've collected since we stood stood up our database if that makes sense.

We know you know crime.

Um the complaints of uh coming into the we've we've continued to have more replays every year.

Last year we had about 20.

This year we're already at 40.

So but that doesn't necessarily mean that there's more complaints overall, it just means that people know para exists and are trusting to use our services more.

So I can't say that means it's more incidents of alleged misconduct over time because again, it's a data issue, right?

I need to be able to see trends over time, and we have that variable of power not having been a functioning organization for years, and now people are seeing and using it more.

So it's it's hard to make the correlation.

Is it more misconduct or is it just more usage of our system first going to the police fund?

And one last question.

Okay, please.

How when the people get called in, they're not getting trapped per se, right?

Who is oh the people when they're calling in?

Um, if I'm calling, I'm being protected, right?

Do you make a complaint?

Do you make a complaint?

Yes, they're allowed to be completely anonymous.

So there's an online portal, they have the choice of giving us their contact information, which is preferred because it's easier to follow up with but if they choose to just give us a fully anonymous complaint, it's still reviewed, and no, they're not being tracked unless they provide the information to this.

Okay, exactly.

Well, Steph, thank you very much.

Are you all set?

You're yeah, before we take a vote, I would like to ask the members on um our para the board members to stand up, please and identify themselves for the record.

Uh, and any employees on that support the work of this gentleman.

Please identify yourself with a record.

I multiply more voting.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um, thank you very much.

Uh, on behalf of the department city council, I want to thank you for your hard work.

You're not sitting at the table, but your work is certainly extremely important, and your work supports this gentleman right here, and we're all very grateful for that.

So, thank you for your unanimous decision.

The board members are here, and to the employees.

So, thank you for your with that.

I'd like to ask for a motion, motion to motion made to improve by antiblock, motion second and by pass one uh grade to all in favor.

Any opposed, eyes have it, once in carries matter passes.

They're all set by thank you for your time.

So people cancel for vote, and I'm thinking now we're gonna just say on if you um have changes to legislation at a state level or ordinances at the MSI level.

I think it's wonderful you're working with staff, but I would encourage you to continue working with council clear and state officials directly.

It's always good for us to hear directly what the asks are, what you're trying to solve, what the problems are and I think that uh it will help us all make sure we're collaborating, you're working together.

Um so just two sets.

Motion to adjourn is made by Mr.

Defensions all in favor I need closed.

I have a certain thank you so much.