Umise acre.

She's been excused.

Um, Linda Back.

Here.

Anna.

Here.

Mike Kerwin.

Here.

Pray.

Uh Samia.

Absolutely.

And Actavia on her way.

I have reached out to the council about adding the additional two members that were missing from the board now.

I have been assured that hopefully by next meeting, those two individuals will be on board.

Um I think they're just waiting for the approval from the council.

And then they'll we'll do the interview, and we'll have them on board by the next meeting.

I'll move it.

Okay, there's been a motion on the floor to adopt the June minutes.

Any discussion.

Okay, we'll take it to the floor for a vote.

All in favor?

Aye.

Those opposed.

Ayes have it.

The minutes for June meeting has been approved.

Next on the agenda is the chairman's report.

And I'll turn that over to Nolita.

Oh, that means I'm sorry.

On my report, uh, there's nothing to report other than we're still in the process of trying to uh figure out what's going on with the hearing and things.

So next thing on the agenda is the administrator report.

That's uh Nolida.

Good evening.

Okay.

Good evening, everyone.

Uh the report follows for the June meeting.

Um, during the June monthly meeting, the Citizens Review Board addressed community concerns regarding the current pause and suspension of the CRB's investigative powers.

As part of our commitment to the public oversight and transparency, the CRB provided a detailed presentation on the facts of the ongoing legal case and its direct implications for CRB operation.

Um, despite the temporary investigative limitation, the CRB remains a vital resource for the community.

During this period, the CRB has demonstrated alternative ways to provide assistance, including serving as a bridge between the public and the city leaderships, providing procedural guidance to complaints and maintaining active presence at the community events to ensure residents' voices are heard and also documented.

Our engagements for the month of June, June 6th.

CRB was present at the forced community outreach day.

June 8th, we were at CNY United meeting.

June 9th, Sun meeting, June 11th, we were at Jazz in the City at the Boys and Girls Club.

June 18th, we were at the flag raising ceremony.

June 30th, we met virtually with the National Abolition Hall of Fame.

We've also tabled out in the community to make sure that we remained out in the public.

And also make sure that we continue to maintain awareness of our services and what's provided, and also a status update on what's going on within the CRB.

Staff and board members establish and strengthen connections with local organizations.

During these events that we are tabling at, the CRB takes the time to explain what the CRB status is, specifically addressing the investigative limitations while highlighting the CRB's ongoing role in the community as an um as an oversight committee.

Our interagency collaborations.

And we also are still doing our community meetings with the Syracuse Police Department, our quarterly meetings.

June 23rd, we did an interagency communication regarding the right to know report.

Chris myself met with Chief Russin to brief him on the right to know.

This meeting uh served as a vital effort to facilitate transparency and ensure compliance with local ordinance, also to maintain open lines of communications between the police department and the CRB.

Also on the 23rd, we had a city leadership meet and greet where we went and supported the mayor and the chiefs meet and greet where they're talking to the community.

We were present to show that support.

June 29th, we uh had a meeting again with Chief Russ and myself and Adonia.

We met with Chief Russin to coordinate um a community-hosted event that we are trying to target towards um autism and families who have children that are on the spectrum, also the adults that are on the spectrum, where we're trying to get an event together to make the community to also inform the community that we're still here and also to make sure that our our children or and adults that are on the spectrum are also being heard and communicate well.

Um secretarial operations uh for the month of June, she's been focusing um making sure that we have these papers that we have in front of us now, the agenda, making sure things are typed up.

Um she's handled uh seven phone calls on how to file a complaint, being that we do have the investigative uh pause at this moment, but we're still taking in complaints, and we're just making sure that people still know that they can file with us, and so she's handling those calls.

Um she also finalized the draft meetings, the draft minutes for our meeting.

Um we are still moving forward.

So that is my report for the month of June that we are still busy.

I think we're we're doing very well with being in the community and being seen in the community, also in doing the events, despite the pause on the investigation, we are still doing the work.

Okay.

Thank you, Nolita, for that report.

Um we have no business to discuss.

Um there are a couple of things that are upcoming in the city event for the CRB that we have to get nailed down and confirmation on.

So those will be up on our calendar.

Uh, for anyone who needs to know what we're doing.

We usually post all our events on our calendars, so you can go to the website um Syracuse CRB.gov, and then you can see all the information that we have out there.

Um right now we're still in the process of uh formulating committees, so we have no committee to report on as of such.

Um and then the next thing on the agenda is from our data analytics person, Chris.

Chris is going to be giving a presentation on the right to know data.

Um so Chris, you have it.

Good evening, members of the board and of the public.

Eight months ago at this very spot.

I told you all that my mission here at the CRB was to use data in a new way to help aid the mission of the CRB.

Recently, Chairman Johnson directed me to look at public data releases from the Syracuse Police Department and see what, if anything comes to light.

I decided I would see if there were any public dating aspects of the police reform that followed former Mayor Walsh's executive order number one.

That is when I came across the right to no data releases and the fact that Syracuse Police Department has not released right to no data since the end of 2024.

Following this revelation, I began to analyze the releases that were available to see what other findings could be made from the data.

The following are my findings.

Data releases from quarter three and of quarter four show a rapid rise in missing data across all variables.

The spike in missing data in the later half of 2022 led Syracuse Police Department to change the form that is used to generate the right to know data to require all non-demographic fields to be input, which essentially led to no missing data from non-demographic variables in all following quarterly data releases.

In the right to know data, between three and eight percent of use of force incidents are accounting for.

This is likely being driven by the fact that the right to know legislation does not mandate tracking of incidents that are most likely to generate use of force incidents.

However, the data on all use of force instance and incidents would be required to say for sure what is driving this disparity.

From these findings, the CRB offers the following recommendations to the Syracuse Police Department.

First, restart right to know data releases.

Uh, as the administrator mentioned, uh, we met with Chief Russin and I brought this fact up to him, and uh he told us that this was an oversight and has begun the process to release the uh data backlog that is still available on their servers.

Two, maintain the current format of data releases.

The current releases are easy to work with from a data analytics perspective and done at an individual encounter level.

This allows data to be used for purposes outside of reporting summary statistics of encounters.

Expand or remove character limit from the reason field.

Currently, if the reason exceeds 50 characters, this is cut off and leads to some entries that end in commas, which imply that reasons are being missed in the official right to know data.

Provide shapefiles for the geographic regions mentioned and the right to know data, or use some standard geographic unit when reporting location.

Uh currently uh the districts are divided into north, southeast, southwest, and the airport.

And it is unclear to me at this time what boundaries uh those geographic dimensions represent.

So I'm unable to do any geospatial analysis with that data.

And finally, make demographic fields required when uh submitting uh the form as well as non-demographic entries.

This allows us to uh fully get all the information in the data.

And uh while they did decline in the immediate aftermath of changing the form in the most recent data releases in 2024, missing data rates for demographic information has begun to rise to pre-spike levels, and in some cases uh surpassing it.

Thank you.

So that in that uh report that Chris is talking about is the right to know document.

You can find it on our website.

It has all the graphs and all the data and the information that he covered, so you can go through page by page and understand.

I should clarify that the uh it will be released on our website tomorrow.

Okay.

So it'll be up on the on the web tomorrow, so okay.

So next on the agenda is the uh next thing on the agenda is the public comment section.

Um, because we have a lot of people here tonight, we're gonna try to limit it to uh five minutes per person.

So the mic is open.

Hi, Barry Gwanter from the City of Syracuse.

Um I would appreciate if the data report was posted on the website, and also if a copy in writing was provided to the public.

It's very hard to follow when it's only proof presented verbally.

Secondly, I was watching the city council meeting on Monday online live, and they did approve a member of the refugee community to replace desire on the board.

So that was approved.

I don't see why it can't move forward.

Um I can't look up the name of the person right now, but that person was approved.

And I oh, Barry, I haven't got a uh response from the council on there yet, so that's the reason why I announce that, but thanks for bringing that up.

Ms.

Tannehill, I heard you said that you made a detailed presentation on the status of the investigation power or some other aspect of the impact of Locus 2, but it didn't quite hear who you made the presentation to.

So I'd love to know who that was.

Um the NYCLU put a letter to the editor in the paper.

I hope you all see saw it.

One of the things they said at the end of the letter was we can't let city leaders use a misreading of the law or a flimsy excuse to effectively get rid of the citizen review board and end the important work its members have done for 30 years.

I couldn't agree more.

And what I might add to that statement is that we shouldn't allow the PBA to accomplish by just the suggestion that they might sue what they would have preferred to have done over the past 30 years, which is hamstring and eviscerate the CRB's power.

Um I was alerted to a posting on your Facebook page of a letter from Miss Tannehill.

I think responding to some of the public comment at the last meeting.

Ms.

Tannehill, I'd make a respectful suggestion.

Please date such things when you put it on, because there was no indication of the date, and the public should know when it was posted when it was written.

That said the Citizen Review Board temporary suspension of investigation.

And there's about seven slides here.

That this was going to be posted in the voice of the CRB.

And it says setting the record straight in a document that was provided in the back.

And that document pretty much tracks what was put on the website.

The content of this states legal opinions.

The document that was placed in the back says that it was by Don Johnson.

In addition to the other things that I asked answers for, it is not appropriate for this body to state a legal opinion unless it is stated by an attorney, and a knowledgeable attorney.

In addition, this document makes legal conclusions about the impact of Locus 2 that the NYCLU is clearly said, are not legally authoritative.

Locus 2, as we've said before, applies only to a body such as the police accountability board in Rochester that was given a direct role in discipline.

When your enabling legislation was passed 30 years ago, a compromise was made to take that kind of power away from what was envisioned by the advocates and to make your powers advisory.

Accordingly, Locus 2 does not apply.

Now, at best, there is a legal dispute about that.

It is irresponsible for this board to present legal arguments when there is a legal dispute.

And this seems to be an attempt to squash any other legal opinions or opinions from the public about what should be happening.

I sympathize with you that you've been told that you won't get individual representation if there is litigation that names you as individuals.

I think the city has put you in an incredibly unfair and irresponsible position because they have a duty of representation.

You're an appointed board.

That being said, you're making the problem worse by putting something out like this that essentially states the corporation council's position.

You are an independent board.

There is no responsibility for you to parrot what one attorney within the city says, especially when there is a dispute.

And I would ask you additionally.

On the last page, it talks about how the public can help, but it doesn't give any concrete advice except to go to your state representative.

What would that do in this situation?

This does not have anything to do with the people in Albany.

It has to do with the mayor and the council right here.

So please don't deflect public attention by telling them that they can help by doing things that will make absolutely no difference.

I do not understand why you would handicap yourself and argue against your own legitimate powers.

I would suggest you take a stronger position about the applicability of your own powers if you feel that you are able to, given the potential liability.

Finally, have you looked into directors and officers insurance?

Have you seen if you can utilize monies in your own budget or reallocate them to purchase directors and officers' insurance?

And if not, have you gone to the council to request money to purchase it?

We talked about that.

It was mentioned at the last meeting.

I'd like an update on where you are on that, because with DNO insurance, you may feel more empowered to say our legislation has not been amended, it's not been taken away.

We should be able to do what we've been empowered to do.

Thank you.

Thank you, Barry.

And let me go through and answer each of those one by one.

Um I just we did this last time.

Um you can correct me if I'm wrong.

Can you speak off as a public meeting?

Excuse me.

Yeah, I I see the microphone.

If you'd be polite and be respectful, I'll honor your request.

Okay, instead of yelling at me, okay?

Not coming here to be yelled at.

Here's the microphone.

You happy now?

This is uh public comments.

It's not a debate.

People are allowed to come to the microphone and say whatever they want.

I don't think we as a board should be responding point by point to everything everyone says.

Five minutes public comment, it's recorded and it's there.

I just think it's an endless and circular argument when you continue to do that.

That's my suggestion.

I support that, Michael.

Does the rest of the board support that?

Yes.

Yes, okay.

Yeah.

Hi.

Um, can everyone hear me?

Yes.

Um, and I'll just say, as someone who has some hearing disabilities, I do appreciate when folks use the mic.

I know things are tense in the room, but it is an accessibility issue, and so I do appreciate it.

My name is Erie Solomon.

I live in the city of Syracuse.

I I hear the desire not to get into a circular debate.

I do have a couple questions and then I'll reflect some concerns.

I think in regards to the various posts and and I'll also start by saying that I will take in good faith that everyone here shares a core set of values and concerns, and that this has been hard for everyone.

I am not here to attack anyone personally, but I do think these concerns warrant public address in question.

The first question I have is in regards to the various communications that have gone out.

The um what Barry referred to as the slideshow are the series of images that purported to summarize the locust decisions was posted, I believe on June 10th.

Um two days after that on June 12th was when the administration was when the post signed by the CRB administrator was posted, was posted saying that contrary to reporting, the CRB does not in fact support the suspension of investigatory powers.

And then tonight we received this piece of paper, which again summarizes and purports to sort of they seem to support the locust decision, and that is signed or claimed by the chairman.

And so I do think there is, you know, from those communications, a concern of sort of at the very least that there may not be a unanimous opinion among the board, and that there's not clarity on where the board stands on the issue.

I understand it is difficult when you are part of a board to manage these communications, but I think it is important for the sake of these conversations, these discussions for public advocacy, regardless as to where you stand, for us to know where the board stands.

Um and so I think there's concern about sort of the way in which some communications may have conflicted.

And I will just state a concern that I think you know, I am not an attorney, and so I'm not going to take a position on what the locust decision does or does not do.

But I think it is clear that there is a dispute over what the locust decision does or does not do.

Ultimately, that will have to be decided by the courts.

My concern is that the questions that we really have as a community, and that I think the board should really have us if the locust decision applies specifically to the Syracuse Syracuse case in in light of the differences in legislation, are not going to be solved without in some way the involvement of the city of Syracuse or the board, right?

Because right now the court is not being asked does this does this case apply to Syracuse, right?

Either it be through litigation involving Syracuse through a Micus briefs, through some kind of engagement with the court, the the court is not being asked questions that will ultimately resolve this concern.

I know the board does not control the city.

Um but I do think you know, unfortunately, for those questions to be resolved, there has to be a advocacy in defense of the legislation as it stands.

Um and I haven't seen, and I think many people in the community are concerned that we haven't seen a willingness to commit to that defense.

Right.

Oftentimes when legislation in a city or municipality or state or whatever level is challenged, um, the city-state, whatever level it might be, defends that legislation and works these questions out through the courts.

Um again, my name is Yuri Solomon.

I live in the city of Syracuse, and I think the two biggest questions I hold tonight in this meeting are one kind of questions about the con the what could perceive to be conflicts of position in the various communications, or at the very least inconsistencies and a desire to have real clarity as to where the board stands either way.

Um so that as advocates as community members, and also for you as a board, we know where this conversation stands and where we need to go from here in that in that process.

And also just on a broader concern, both with the board and beyond the board that this is legislation that Syracuse passed.

Um, and you know, through that has a commitment to and is not taking the steps necessary to, you know, if not defend at the very least, resolve the questions that ultimately we need answers to in order to move forward.

Um I am concerned about an approach that preemptively concedes that this case applies to our board without challenging that in the first place and forcing the courts to take that position explicitly.

Um thank you very much.

Okay, I I just want to make a a general statement here, real quick.

We have been getting an lithony of comments from attorneys, from non-atterne from non-attorneys to the general population about what should be, what shouldn't be.

Let us all understand the final decision lies with the court.

And we have to wait for the court to make that decision.

So everyone can weigh in, everyone has a right to weigh in on their uh their opinion, what should and should not happen, what the board should or should not be doing, but we have to follow what the law tells us to do, period.

Thank you.

Peter.

Thank you.

Peter McCarthy of a CRB chair from 2017 to 2020.

Um I'll be brief.

I I agree with the concerns that have been expressed so far.

Uh I just want to make a couple other points.

In 1993, when the CRB statute was first enacted, the original version that was proposed proposed that the CRB would have the power to discipline officers.

The corporation council at the time objected to that, and it was removed from the final version that Charles Anderson brought to the to the common council that was passed in 93.

So that power has never been part of the CRB.

In fact, it was decided that for the same reasons why the recent court in the locust case said they could not enforce discipline.

Um the corporation corporate counsel in Syracuse at the time said you can't put that in the statute.

So they took it out.

I was informed when I started on the CRB that we did not have this power to discipline officers for that reason.

So the controversy is not whether that court has jurisdiction over this because of the geography, or uh whether the CRB can issue binding disciplines.

We agree it can't.

There are other issues here.

My concern is if the appeal upholds the Rochester decision, Syracuse is going to take that as applying here.

And it doesn't because the CRB is very different.

And that's a statement that's been made by different lawyers, including Aylan Rosenthal, including the NYCLU lawyers.

And the letter from the administrator, it says, We're asking for the community support and advocating for the restoration of the CRB's investigative powers.

Everything that Don put on the website and in that page that's on the back table says the court's right, we're done, we can't investigate, we can't do anything.

So shut up.

Don't appreciate being treated that way.

We're trying to support you in doing the work that the law says you're supposed to do.

Thank you.

All right, hello everyone.

Um, so I'm hearing, oh, Kevin from Syracuse.

Uh so I'm hearing about um your hands are kind of tied, you gotta wait on the court decision.

I think the issue that I want to bring up is how this has been presented to the public.

So I'm reading the setting the record straight.

And I feel like the um it's very misleading.

Um, specifically the myth part about the Rochester ruling has no effect on the Syracuse CRB because our board is different.

So this presumes that the concerns by the community are on the basis of this idea that the that they're not all um that the court the court jurisdiction doesn't apply to in to either to both of them.

But that's not really what the public is saying.

The public is saying that one violated the legislation, and that's being or potentially violated it by having the disciplinary component, whereas the CRB here didn't violate it because it didn't do the disciplinary component, it just remained in the investigator investigatory component.

Um so it's misleading in a lot of ways.

It's like I was thinking about this sitting there, but it's basically saying that person A steals something from a store, person B goes into the store and then shops, doesn't steal anything, person B gets banned from the store and temporarily investigated because they both fall under the same criminal law, and then person B says, hey, I didn't actually break the law, and then the store says, well, you fall under the same criminal legislation, and your complaint is asking to be beyond criminal law, but that's not the case.

The case is that the criminal law, yes, applies to both of them, but one is violating it potentially, and that's being determined in the courts, whereas the CRB here is not violating it.

So I just find it misleading to frame it this way.

Um public opinion this way.

We've been here, you've read op eds, you've heard our comments, a lot of comments, and this is very um what would be the word like insulting, I guess, just to frame it this way and then come at it uh with this response.

So even on your end, the way that it's being presented to the public, again, is so misleading that it has me lose a lot of faith in in you all in terms of um presenting this to the public.

So that's all I had to say.

Um I get the idea that you can't respond to all the questions, but then we have to think of a mechanism to what questions do you respond to, what do you not respond to?

I know Barry asked a bunch of questions.

Um so because there's a list of questions, does that make none of them able to respond to them?

So that's uh second thing.

Are there any other speakers that want to come up?

Sorry.

It was said by a representative of the board that you have to wait for the final decision of the court.

The court does not have a question in front of it as to whether or not the locus two decision applies anywhere else but to the Rochester PAB.

With any respect that is due here, the question needs to be presented to the court, or you won't have an answer.

And you will just have more of the city insisting that their legal interpretation is correct and pressuring the council to amend the law to take away the powers that were enacted and acted on, acted upon for 30 years.

The question needs to be presented to the court.

Does this apply anywhere else?

And if that question is not presented to the court and they do not opine about it, then you don't have an answer.

So you'll be waiting in vain and putting off the public's ability to have an independent investigation of their complaint.

Please don't do that.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Okay.

If we don't have any other questions, we have nothing for executive session.

Um I'll need to get a motion to resign.

Do um close the meeting.

I make a motion.

Okay.

There's been a motion on the floor to close the meeting.

Um discussion.

Okay, we'll take the vote.

All in favor.

Aye.

Any of anyone who's opposed?

Ayes carry.

Motion for the meeting to uh close is passed.

Thank everyone for coming.

And you guys all have a nice evening.