A few more minutes.

And we'll get going with the meeting.

Prior to that, I I want to make a general statement.

The administrator and I, we met with the safety council on Monday to give our uh quarterly report.

That that report is online.

Uh if someone wants to be able to read that report.

Um, and then um what has disturbed me was there was an article written uh by one of the uh the papers, and the title reads, Syracuse Police Watchdog Board missed 57 cases, and the numbers could be higher.

First of all, I want to make sure that everyone understand that this board is not a police watch watchdog board.

We are an oversight body, and from this point on, I think everyone should be addressing this board as an oversight body, not as a watchdog.

It has a negative connotation.

The other thing about the missed 57 cases, which is misleading, uh, we have not missed 57 cases.

There were 57 cases that actually expire prior to us um taking on the organization.

So it's not a matter of missing cases, it's just a matter of those cases never um were able to be heard because they didn't fall within the jurisdiction of the 18 months.

So we want to make sure that um that information out there to the public because we don't want uh the public thinking that we in fact uh are lacking our responsibility and not looking at cases.

All the cases that are pending and still within that 18 month certification, we will have those done by the time they reach that point.

So we're not letting anything slide through the cracks.

So I just want to make that clear to everyone that uh from this point on, if you can make sure that uh we have the data out there correct, we would appreciate that.

So can we expect that the date is gonna be corrected?

Um I mean I understand you guys are addressing me.

I uh personally will say that I don't really think that's any justification.

The first line or the fourth line for the wrap of the uh uh 57 cases all expired under the previous administration.

Um yeah, I honestly don't really, you know, I personally really believe in you guys and want you to succeed in the reality is in my opinion that you were thinking out of a hole a little bit.

And uh you know, we hope to report on the successes go forward.

Well, yeah, well, one of the things is is that um for me the first thing when I saw that Syracuse Police Watchdog missed 57 cases before even got through the rest of the uh the rest of the article, it had left a negative connotation with me.

So um, you know, if if we can uh make sure that we get that data correct, uh that'll be great.

So with that, um I'd like to open up the meeting.

Um the December 4th CRB official meeting is now open.

Um we all do the um the roll call.

Excuse me.

Both with the roll call.

Um at least Baker.

Okay, not here.

Uh Linda.

Okay.

Um Ada.

Don Johnson, here.

Mike Kern?

Here.

Harry?

Here.

Peggy Chase?

Here.

Samyia.

Not here.

Octavia?

Yeah.

Desire?

Yeah.

Okay.

So we do have a quorum.

Um, so we can proceed with the um with the um the meeting.

Uh okay.

Here we go.

Okay.

Oh, go ahead.

I was gonna say, Dan, I was gonna piggyback on your comments just before you took a ten minutes.

Okay.

My questions are in uh they are directed at the reporter, but I don't expect them to answer.

Um my first question is who wrote the headline?

And did the reporter write it or an editor?

Uh because the headline is misleading.

Secondly, there's no reflection in this article about uh was any attempt made to interview the f inner interview the uh the terminator or the the the previous director who under whose watch all these things happened.

There's no reflection that that person was sought out for comment.

Third thing, there's no reflection that the reason the board uh wasn't full is because the elected officials of the Cameron Council didn't appoint anybody to fill those spots.

How could the board properly function when the common council I I think the focus of the report is completely misdirected?

Okay, and the people that are responsible for putting us in the situation that we're in should have been interviewed that should have been reflected in it, and that would have been a thorough and comprehensive report where we are versus what is a headline uh that's supposed to grab your attention as if um somebody missed them, they were in a box in a closet or something like that.

I just think it's uh it's lousy reporting.

I don't care whether they retract it, fix it, or do anything, it's just a lousy report.

And and I do appreciate those comments.

Um so hopefully going forth uh we'll have a better working relationship with uh any of the media um that um they report things as the way they are, and we'll go from there.

So uh first thing on the agenda is the uh approval of the no member November meetings.

Uh has everyone had an opportunity to look at those uh minutes.

Okay.

Can we get a motion on the floor to approve the uh November meeting?

Make a motion to approve the minutes.

Okay, can we go?

Okay, it's been moved and second.

All those in favor.

Well, oh, any discussion.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, those abstending.

Motion carries the November report will be entered into the records and will be filed online.

Okay.

Um the chair report.

Um the update uh on staffing.

Oh okay, Elise is here now, so we'll make that an adjustment that Elise uh Baker is here.

Okay.

Okay.

Um on the updating on staff on the citizen um review of office.

Um right now we're um at the point where we still need to hire an investigator.

Um we had a candidate that was supposed to start last Monday.

Um, the prior Friday at 3 40, we got an email stating that he no longer wanted to wanted the position.

So that reopened up the position.

So we're in the process of looking at some different options on how to take care of that uh vacant position until we either get someone hired or we come up with a solution on how we can better handle that.

In the meantime, uh what is happening is that the administrator is doing all the investigating, and I'm also uh assisting in that process of reviewing those cases and making sure that um nothing falls through the cracks.

Um that's an update on the staffing.

Um we did board uh um case and uh training and investigating training um Saturday the 15th and went very well.

We had an opportunity to look at a mock case um so everyone understood exactly how to review a case.

Um we had a template on things to look for in those cases that you can uh lock down.

So we try to make this more efficient when we go into executive session when we're reviewing cases that um everyone has the same format to make sure that those things uh flow the way they're supposed to flow.

Um just this week uh Monday, the administrator and my and myself met with the council um for a quarterly review.

As I said in the beginning, those that quarterly review is online now.

Um if anyone wants to look at that the that um review is online for your uh visit uh your uh um responses.

Um so and that's pretty much all it all that I have.

The next thing uh we're gonna cover is the administrator report.

Good evening, everyone.

Um Don has said quite a bit of what everybody has been doing.

So I will just say that November has been pretty steady and busy for the CRB.

We kicked it off with a our monthly meeting with or our quarterly meeting with the chief and the Syracuse PD staff.

In attendance were Adonia, myself, board members were Linda, Elise, and Michael.

During this meeting, questions from the Center of Community Alternatives were presented to the to Chief CISO to aid the community and moving forward.

A suggestion arose this discussion to hold a civilian training for the general community as well as a separate civilian training, especially for the CRB, a special one just for the CRB and the board members themselves.

So we are definitely working on those to have a civilian training so we know we're more aware of what the police is doing, how they operate.

And we have, if we have questions ourselves, then we can ask them questions that we wouldn't normally get a chance to ask them.

We have our weekly staff meetings that are held every Friday.

We're the where the staff we come together and that gives them an opportunity to present their upcoming events.

We plan for them, they voice their opinions and ideas, and we ask for help and support among all of us that are there.

And also we discuss some cases and things like that.

I always get their input and get someone else's eyes on what I'm watching as well, just in case I might miss something.

So the training and professional development.

The training covered several crucial topics, such as how to access video footage, the process of reviewing cases, what is expected when reviewing the case, the importance of non-biased observation and confidentiality.

Those are the things that we covered during the training.

Also on the 18th of November of November, I attended the LexIPO training titled Readiness is a Mindset, not a Moment.

The training included six seminars.

The first one was confronting the leadership crisis, safety culture, five warnings, sign and personal behavior, trends in law and policy for public safety leaders, and the mission involved, so must we.

So that was a pretty good training itself.

It was long, but it was very, very, very informational.

The neighborhood outreach and education for CRB staff and board members prioritize attending neighborhood and educational events to inform residents about the CRB's function and resources, which we're out there doing quite a bit now.

Adonia and Don and Octavia attended the North Side Tomorrow's Neighborhood, which is called TNT, that meeting.

Adonia and myself also attended uh Roberts Middle School Building Men program where we handed out brochures and the cards that we have for them that says what to do if you're stopped by police and we gave them informational cards and it's called respect.

Um Adonia came up with this um how do I want to say this campaign?

There you go.

Informational materials.

So and each each letter represents something different, which I thought was a very, very, very good idea, especially with dealing with the age group that we were dealing with.

Um we've also did a tour of the 911 center.

That was uh brought up in our chief's meeting, and Adonia successfully arranged that um on the 19th for us, and in attendance was um, of course, the CRB staff, and from the board was Octavia and Desire.

We got a chance to learn what 911 does.

We walked the premises to see how calls are dispatched, how they are handled.

Um it was very, very interesting on how they are trained, and I would recommend any of us, if we get an opportunity to go up to the 911 Center, please take that tour.

You will understand how stressful it is to be in their position and in and holding uh other people's lives in your hand when answering these phone calls and having to be able to dish dispatch police officers to places and making sure that they get there safely.

Um so I will recommend that everyone, if you ever get an opportunity to do that tour, please do that tour for the 911 Center.

Um a major administrative accomplishment, I will say this month, I will say came from Julie.

We discovered that the CRB was not receiving complaints that were submitted online.

She confirmed with IT that these online submissions were being routed to an email address of the previous administrator to resolve this issue.

Um forms be directed to the general CRB email address with copies sent to myself and her.

Um that will ensure that we as staff can monitor the complaints that are coming in.

God forbid I'm not there, Julie is not there.

Then it goes directly to the general CRB.

My question is when did you find this out?

November around November 3rd.

Was this when you went before the counter council?

Did you present them with this information?

And and so this report, well, he's gone now.

Apparently he hurt his his feelings were hurt.

Um there.

Yeah, that is a a crucial element of uh the article about the board, what you just stated, completely missing.

And uh another example of just a what a lousy report there was.

Well, you know, and and here's the thing with with that snafu and and then um the online uh forms was that we're always checking to make sure the forms are in, and luckily someone called and said, I submitted a uh uh complaint.

I got a letter saying that because the system will automatically generate a letter, when you send in the complaint, it'll send a letter back to them saying that we received your complaint, and they said, but we haven't heard anything from the CRB.

And so that's when Julie took uh upon herself to start looking into their finding out that when people were submitting things online, they were not coming to us.

So we had no uh visibility of those uh forms.

So once we um got with the IT staff, then we uh closed that gap up and uh so now we have a uh process in place where um there's always a backup system if something goes down and goes wrong.

So where were the emails going?

They're just going in the hyperspace.

So when so if you if you went online, so they're going to the prior ministry.

Yeah, they were going to the prior minister.

Prior administrator email email was uh it was eliminated when she was.

Yeah, it was uh taken offline.

So it was just in essence, it's going in the hyperspace.

So but because the system would go would generate a letter back to the complainant saying that we received your complaint, and then they never heard anything back.

Because we always whenever we get a plant complaint, um the staff at the board at the office will uh usually reply to them with the letter saying that we got your complaint.

This is the status of that complaint.

So they know that we know that they have a complaint out there and we're looking at that.

So it didn't send a reply saying this wasn't successful email.

Right.

Yeah, it was it was send back, should come back.

So what happens is because it's going to an email address, it still sends them, generates them a letter that says, Hey, we got your complaint.

It's just the automatic thing, just like it didn't bounce back and then bounce back.

Email the email address wasn't wasn't good anymore.

Correct because the way the form is it goes to the CRB form.

So when it hits there, then it sends a letter to the administrator who was the prior administrator, and then they sent a letter back there.

So the the recipient would never see that email saying that it never did um hit the uh the email applicant.

So that's been going on all year.

The email address wasn't closed out.

That's the point.

That's okay.

I could send I can send an email now to a county attorney who's no longer working there, it'll kick it back and say yeah, no longer available.

Nobody invalidated that email address.

Right.

So that email was still live though.

Yeah, email's still alive.

Was still alive.

No, no.

Because we offwarded them.

So the cases that were sent prior to whatever, as far as as far as a year back, where are they at?

In hybrid space too?

No, we have everything.

We got all that's my next my next part is uh there was a hundred and there was a hundred and thirty-two backlog complaints.

Out of the 132, some of them were dating back to 2022.

Um as Julie went through them, we realized that 38 of the files were within the 18 month statute of limitation.

Um, and so they were set up as new intakes and submitted.

Um, and we are working on them now.

Out of a hundred and thirty-two, only thirty-eight of them needed to be addressed, and we've addressed them already.

And one of the things I need to point out is that those 38 emails, it doesn't change the 18 month window.

Correct.

That's because that's under the legislation.

We we have still have to follow those rules and regulations.

But they're in they're in a at a point that we're able to to address those 38.

Um because we caught those in time to do that.

So the other 90 or whatever it is, 90 months.

Some of them some of them were duplicates because even though they submitted them online, because there wasn't a response, they submitted them to the office as well.

So we've we've went a lot all of that up taking care of that.

Yep.

We can put that in a data file.

Let's show all of that with all of this.

Already done.

Okay.

Okay.

Good job, Julie.

Julie in data analysis, all of them.

Good job.

I know it was a team effort, right?

Good job.

Um also with Julie being busy doing going through all of the files.

Um, she's also drafted and mailed 14 letters to clients.

Um, met with three in person.

Of course, she made and received several phone calls in regards to cases.

Um substantial, some not so substantial.

But she's weeded through all of them, and uh we've we have a pretty good working team at CRV.

Everybody is working really well together and helping each other come along to do what we need to do.

Um also uh we introduced Chris to you guys on the last meeting, and I will say Chris has been doing a phenomenal job since he's been with us, uh literally hit the ground running, and he started making charts and recreating brochures and compiling data, making sure that we had charts whenever we went out.

We had charts when we presented um during our public safety uh meeting um to show what we have done.

He's even dug back into data that he wasn't even here for, but yet he has compiled it together to make sure that the CRB is looking good and it looks like we know what we're doing.

So kudos to Chris, thank you very much.

And I just look forward to um the staff working together uh so that we can serve our community better.

That's my report.

So one of the things uh we had talked about the last time that we probably need to uh revisit this time is um meeting dates.

Um Thursday seems to be um uh a busy date for a lot of people.

Um so we're looking at maybe changing the meeting date from Thursday to a Tuesday, um depending on how the board feels about that.

Um first Tuesday would be yeah, it would be the first Tuesday of the month.

So local law that it's supposed to be on a Thursday?

Um I'm not sure.

No Connor, is there is there any legislation that says that we have to meet on a Thursday?

We gotta sign up from the House, in other words, if there's certain settings for Tuesdays or something that's appointed for that date.

And uh we checked on there in the uh first Tuesday of the month is available, so every month every month.

So the second, it's only the second Tuesday where there is a well meeting for our so any Tuesday but the second Tuesday is great.

So um one of the things just to uh may mention because um the new year falls that first Thursday falls right after um New Year's Day.

Um that move that meeting has been moved to the 8th of January, so everyone can put that on their calendar that we're gonna move that meeting to the 8th of January.

But we also need to talk about this uh migrating from a Thursday to a Tuesday, and I don't know if we need to make a motion on that or um how do we put that into play, Connor?

Okay.

Okay.

So what we'll do, I'll wait to hear back from you.

Once I hear back from you, I'll send out uh notification to the board to let them know that the first Tuesday of the month is available.

Um and if everyone we get a majority of people who um want to go with that, um, then we'll be moving the meetings from the first Thursday to the first Tuesday of the month.

So uh I'm gonna put it on hold for a second.

I need to talk to Connor about an issue I need to uh get a ruling on before I uh bring it up.

That would be great for me.

Do you know what I told you I do on Tuesday nights?

Right.

Sounds like he does what?

Bag play practice.

Did you read it?

I didn't do those.

I didn't say that.

Did you read it?

Absolutely.

Okay, yes, yeah.

Well, obviously.

Obviously.

So it came out on Tuesday.

What's that?

In the post-standard.

I still have I still I believe so, yeah.

This week.

I'll have to read the paper.

I didn't know.

I never read Surec.com.

Other than obituary, so I'm not kidding.

Because I'm not sure.

Sometimes things don't make it my wife uh sent me the code.

She works it up in her her.

Or they might put it online.

Yeah.

Whatever.

She said, Tuesday and today's paper.

How did you miss?

I mean, her comments.

How did you miss so many things?

Okay.

She just put her thing.

How did you miss it?

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

Um we're gonna get a ruling on that that issue that I needed to discuss with the board.

Umce I get um counsel that gives uh an okay on that, then I'll bring that up to the rest of the board on what's gone.

So you're gonna get public notice that you're changing that prior also?

Um not sure after what uh because it's open meetings law and all that.

Right.

You would have to, so if if we vote and say yes, then it definitely has to be put on the CRB website, the media, our media pages, things like that.

Also the CNY, everything will be posted to show that the meeting date has changed.

Is it like 30 days at least prior to all that stuff?

Yeah, so that's once uh we get uh uh ruling on that, I'll let you know.

Dan, you said that the uh first meeting is January 8th, right?

Right, first meeting is January 8th by you.

That's a Thursday, correct?

That's a Thursday.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So okay, I have a few comments I want to make.

So uh following the 911 core tour.

Uh first of all, I want to appreciate Adonia and Noread for for organizing that incredible tour.

Uh it was really educative and very informative.

So after the VIST, I shared the contacts of Regina.

She is the one in charge of the training.

So I shared the contacts to the new American Forum board member and and the president Hassina, she's called Hassina, and I re I requested her to set up a training, an additional training to train uh new American population refugees, because when they are resettled in this country, they are usually given like a basic training about how to call the police.

And I I I hope if they can get an additional training, that can be very, very helpful.

I also personally learned a lot because most of people like they complain about calling 911 and they don't get response in time.

And I saw how the work is done and how tough it is.

So it I would also go and educate people and tell them, hey, it's not easy like you think, it's understaffed.

People receive a lot of calls, so I just wanted to share that.

Then also another thing I want to share is uh Dan Jameson requested us to have meetings in our constituencies, and I talked to Mark Cassie, and I couldn't think of any other press to host you guys other than Northside Learning Center.

So I talked to Mark Cassie, he he gave me the space in February.

I'm waiting to host you guys there.

Okay.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

So those are my comments.

Okay.

And uh once you get the date, if you can get that over to Adonia, that'll be great.

And then we can put it on our calendar on things to do.

So all right.

Okay.

Anyone else has any comments?

It's been moved and second.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

I those opposed those extend ascending.

Motion carried.

Um my training.

For uh taking the time out to be here.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Oh boy, another corner, huh?

And the other thing I want to say since uh this is our last meeting in uh twenty twenty five.

I want to thank everybody for uh sticking in there, and I want to wish everybody a happy holiday.

Oh yeah, the other thing we're twelve.

January thirteenth.

And who will it?

Yes, but we come up with some.

So we I think we need to meet before so we can come up with our agenda.

Our committee.

We can do it on Zoom, we can do it on anything.

Yeah.

I want to make sure.

We gotta reconstruct.

Oh, yeah, right.

We need a motion to adjourn.

I make a motion.

All uh all in favor?

I mean uh or motion carry.

We're back in session.

Now we need a motion to adjourn.

It's been motioned, then second.

Um all those in favor?

I was opposed.