September 10, 2020 | All Minutes
1. Attendance.
● Terry Johnson – Volunteer Committee Member
● Jennifer Bliss – Volunteer Committee Member, Chair
● Ted Dixon – Volunteer Committee Member, Vice Chair
● Josh Baron – Volunteer Committee Member, Secretary
● Jessieca McNabb – Volunteer Committee Member
● Marc Cassidy – Volunteer Committee Member, left at 6:58
● Chief Scott Schaffrick – Chief of Police, Rosendale Police Department
● Councilman Matt Igoe – Rosendale Town Council Member (non-voting member, Police Commission liaison)
● Councilwoman Carrie Wykoff – Rosendale Town Council Member (non-voting member, Town Council liaison), needed to leave at 6:48 pm
● Dana Blackmon – Assistant District Attorney (non-voting member, District Attorney liaison), joined at 5:43 pm and left at 6:45 pm
2. Ratify last week’s meeting minutes.
List of members of the Work Plan Sub-Committee were corrected. Committee discussed issues related to keeping records of our meeting. Secretary Baron made a motion to approve the minutes, Committee Member McNabb seconded. There were no objections, minutes were approved.
ADA Blackmon joined the meeting and was introduced.
3. Update from Ted on meeting with Rosendale Accountability Committee.
Vice Chair Dixon updated the committee on his meeting with the Rosendale Accountability Committee (RAC), of which he has been a member. One other member of the RAC participated and provided feedback. T. Dixon noted that the conversation reinforced the need to engage the community more broadly. J. Bliss suggested that T. Dixon remains in contact with RAC.
The Committee discussed a range of options and issues related to engaging the community within the context of COVID and health and safety concerns. J. Baron will develop a communication plan that will initially focus on: an online survey, call in number for residents to leave comments and a public Zoom meeting.
4. Update from Matt, Terry, and Marc on Work Plan Sub-Committee updates.
Committee Member Cassidy provided an overview of the Work Plan developed by the sub-committee. There was a discussion of the timeline and which documents needed public comment and when. Preliminary assessment is that the Work Plan should be released for public comment sometime in October. The Work Plan Sub-Committee will take on the responsibility of updating the Work Plan over time.
5. Update from Jen and Rich on meeting with Clayton Van Kleeck (Town of Ulster Police Reform Committee)
J. Bliss had previously briefed the group on how the Town of Ulster committee had organized itself and their approach for public input. There were no additional questions or discussions.
6. Survey: are we doing it, finalize what it will look like, give ourselves a deadline to get it out.
Based on email discussions and feedback, J. Baron will work to shorten the U.S. DOJ survey that the Committee reviewed and focus it more on key issues. The draft survey will be reviewed and approved at the next meeting.
7. Sub-committee assignments and goals: if the Committee agrees to divide/conquer, decide on the issues for sub-committees and assignments.
The Committee discussed how to best organize into sub-committees based on key topics and issues. J. Bliss, T. Dixon and Councilman Igoe agreed to develop a “scope of work” for each sub-committee to better define each of them with the goal of forming the sub-committees at the next meeting.
8. Press release: last meeting we agreed we should do one, we need to get the required information to Carrie – who is providing a quote, what do we want our blurb to be about the Committee, where do we direct people to go if they want more information about the Committee, should we set up a Committee e-mail address to be included in the release / any other contact info?
While issuing a press release is a priority of the Committee, there is interest in having ways for the public to engage with the Committee defined so that they can be included. T. Dixon agreed to write an initial draft for review.
9. Any other business?
J. Baron noted the benefits of working in Google Docs rather than Word documents.
10. Next meeting date.
Next Thursday at 5:30 pm
11. Adjourn.
We adjourned at 6:59 pm