Bangor equity committee elects leadership, approves 2025 annual report

[1:54] Katie Brydon: My whole life, thank you. Okay, hello everyone, and welcome to the January meeting of the racial equity, inclusion, and human rights committee. My name is Katie Bryden, and we have quite a few things to kick us off today for our first meeting of 2026. I'm getting just our notes ready to go for today, but let's begin first by saying that with our new, well, on our new ordinance this fall, the committee passed an ordinance to track attendance, and with that comes a roll vote that we start every single meeting with. We do not have anyone joining us on Zoom this evening, so if we did, I would have to call your name and you would have to give a present, but tonight we'll go around, we will ourselves by name, and then we'll go through the first couple orders of business, and then we will come to our new members to introduce themselves before we get too deep into some of the committee work. So let's go ahead and go around the room. I, for the purposes of tonight's meeting, will keep role until we officially elect a secretary, which is one of the items on our to do list. So, Mr. Boyes, would you like to please begin by stating your name so that we can have for the record that you are present? [3:26] Shane Boyes: Shane Boyes: Yes. Hello. I'm Shane Boyes. I am present. [3:31] Katie Brydon: Sharon Weber: Great. Not bad. [3:33] Speaker C (unidentified): Nguyen: Hi, I'm Nguyen and I'm present. [3:36] Mark Roth: Sharon Weber: Thank you. Mark Roth: And I'm Mark Roth and I'm present. [3:40] Sharon Weber: Sharon Weber: I am Sharon Weber and I am here. Great. Thank [3:43] Katie Brydon: you, thank you, Theresa Fallon. Wonderful, thank you, Atherin Robinson, Raylon Burke. Wonderful, thanks everyone, and we are also, and like I said before, my name is Katie Bryden, and we also are joined this evening by our city council liaison Michael Beck, and our behind the curtain individual running tonight's video and sound is our city solicitor Grace Innes, who will also be leading us in a FOA training later on. So now that we have to order and done our roll call, the first thing that we have to do as a group is select this year's chair, vice chair, and secretary, and that can happen in a number of different ways. We can have nominations, people can nominate themselves, people can be nominated. Once we have those positions established, that will obviously inform who runs the rest of the meeting. I kicked us off because I was last year's chair, but if we choose a different chair this evening, then that individual will have the opportunity to run the rest of the meeting, and even if you're new here, you're welcome to nominate, share, and obviously participate in this process. So let's begin. Do we have any nominations for chair? [5:13] Shane Boyes: I nominate Katie Brydon for chair. [5:16] Teresa Fallon: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Can we second that? [5:19] Katie Brydon: We can get a second. And then are there any other individuals that would like to nominate anyone or themselves? [5:27] Speaker G (unidentified): May I nominate myself for secretary? [5:29] Katie Brydon: Oh yes, we're gonna go one by one. So you can 100% do that in a second. No, I'm so glad that I know that 's coming. All right, so for the good of the order we will have, we have a motion and a second for Katie Bryden to serve as chair of the Racial Equity, Inclusion and Human Rights Advisory Committee. Can we have a, you can raise your hand to vote yes. All those in favor. Great. Thank you. All those opposed. All right. So that is voted in. Thank you very much. I'm happy to serve on this committee again in this capacity. [6:16] Speaker H (unidentified): Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [6:18] Katie Brydon: I'm going to take your tape parade after. Now, nominations for Vice Chair. [6:23] Mark Roth: I nominate Shane Boise. [6:26] Suzette Holly Furrow: Oh, I... Who, me? [6:30] Katie Brydon: Everyone's so modest on this committee. All right, can I have a, so we've been moved and seconded. All those in favor as Shane Boies for vice chair. [6:39] Sharon Weber: Were you vice chair last time? Yeah. Great. [6:42] Katie Brydon: Wonderful. Great, thank you. Passed unanimously. And now for the interest of secretary, I would like to nominate, I'm so thoughtful, Braylon Burke as secretary. Gary. Surprise. Can I get a second? Great seconded by. Mark all those in favor for having raised serve. Wonderful. Passed unanimously. Congratulations. Wonderful. Thank you all for that. The next piece on our agenda is our public comment. So our public comment is at is limited to 15 minutes at the beginning of each meeting we start every meeting with public comment if there are so many individuals that they need to go longer than 15 minutes we can either take that in stride or open it up for comment again at the end of the meeting unlike city council we have all of our public comment happen at the beginning of each meeting we don't wait for it to appear on the agenda so we would like to welcome anyone who would want to speak on Any city business that's relevant to our committee and our work, to obviously please be welcome to participate in the public comment. Obviously just keeping in mind that we want this to be a respectful, thoughtful opportunity and for speakers to be as concise as possible so that we can hear as many voices as possible. I also want to note that tonight we do have a citizen initiative to discuss a resolution, and if you are here to talk about that resolution, I will be opening it for public comment at that time so that we could have more of an engaged conversation with the individual presenting that or individuals presenting that. So if you are here for that resolution specifically, I'm going to table that until we get to that piece of the agenda. But if there is anything else that any individuals, again, I don't see any online, but any in person would like to present, we welcome you to come to the podium at this time. Tricked us all right, all right, then seeing none, we'll move on to the approval of our minutes. We have the minutes from November 25th, our November meeting, and our December meeting. They were both included in the, it I would like to make a motion for those to be voted on together. I'd also note that new members that weren't here can abstain from voting since you were not here to actually approve if that happened or not. So you can abstain from those. But for the members that were present on that in for the November and December meetings or on, you know, the committee at that time and read them, I will move to approve those minutes. Can I get a second? [9:37] Speaker H (unidentified): Can I make an edit first? How does that work? So that will work that a [9:41] Katie Brydon: motion to approve seconded and now we open it for conversation and edit. Okay [9:46] Speaker H (unidentified): please so it's super simple under the November 25th. Yeah, when I read through it says that I was here and also not present. All right, well I will then make [10:02] Katie Brydon: an amendment to update those minutes with the changes before they're archived to note Katie Robinson was actually present as originally stated for the November minutes. Okay, so with that amendment in mind, is there anything else? Katie, no thank you. With that amendment in mind, can I please have a vote to approve the minutes? All in favor, great. All opposed, wonderful, great, thank you very much. And now we get to move on to the exciting things, which is our committee business. We like I said, we have three New members joining us this evening, which I'm very excited about, and I would love to, before we talk about our expectations and onboarding, I'd love to give you all an opportunity, if there's anything that you feel relevant that you'd like to share about yourself so that we can get to know you better, we'd love to have you introduce yourselves. Do [11:08] Teresa Fallon: you want to start? Sure. I get pretty nervous, I'm not usually, though, once I get to know you, sure, and I just made direct eye contact with you, I know. Yeah, I'm Teresa Fallon, I work at Wabanaki Health and Wellness, I'm a case manager there for adults. I don't know, I would, I'm not really quite sure what to say, but I'll just say whatever. I have three children, I'm beginning, I'm in the very beginning stages of kind of working with the NAACP regarding like racial bullying and such. I'll actually be, I was able to do a new segment for New Center Main, it'll air tomorrow on that subject. I just have a deep desire to do more to make a better community, the world, whatever I can do. I feel like I'm right now making small changes doing case management primarily with like the Native American population, but I'd like to do more, so here I am. Thank you. [12:03] Katie Brydon: Yeah, that's wonderful, thank you for sharing. Thanks so much. Susan, would you like to go? [12:08] Suzette Holly Furrow: Suzette Furrow, I'm a certified tutor for dyslexic students and I live in Bangor, I've lived here over 20 years and I grew up Brewer, but I went to school in Bangor, so, and a little bit of myself by the advocate for children and elderly and disabled. Thank you so much, Suzette, I appreciate [12:30] Sharon Weber: that. Sharon Weber, my longtime resident of Bangor, Maine, and I was a troubled youth, we won't get into that, but go on, in long-term recovery, I just celebrated 27 years now, I'm 27 years and 14 days. Oh, congratulations. Oh, that's awesome. Well, Spring, I've worked there a number of years, I work at the detox center, I love what I do, it makes a big difference to be able to go to work and feel like almost like you're excited to go to work and say who do we have today, are we helping, you know. Yeah, I feel like I am called to serve my community in many different ways and like her I'm always looking for another way that I can make a difference. If I just make a difference in one person's life every day I've done what I was asked to do that day. A higher calling you know it means we I think that people have there's a stigma where people automatically assume well if you're a homeless or a drug addict and it's just not they're not facts it's just I could go on and on I care very much about the human and population and somewhere along the line we just stop treating people like people and yeah it just it breaks my heart it crushes me every day. So doing something like this where there might be a chance to have a say or you know just thank you so much for sharing. Yeah really appreciate [14:21] Katie Brydon: all of you thank you so much for your for yeah that very unguided prompt so I really appreciate what you all had to share thank you. We do for those of you that again it was in the pocket but it does exist it is an ever-changing document that we are consistently looking to improve which is an onboarding document which was originally developed as a way to say these are this is why our committee was created this is how we operate and really we were hoping to give some sort of direction to folks that were joining the committee to know what do we do how do we get involved what is our purview what is interesting and helpful to us that we can move forward with. So I think that for the sort of the specifics that you should know for the onboarding document is that while there is a calendar that exists and that like each month has different topics that we can make sure that we're touching on because there's always some population to be honored and celebrate and attention brought to we don't necessarily stick to that calendar. A lot of the work that we do is based on what is happening in real time in our city how we can really support and that a lot of times comes from our council liaison who comes with these nice papers to help us give us information on what's happening at a city level so that we, more than anything, are working in tandem with the city council to support the work that is going to reach as many citizens of Bangor as possible in meaningful ways. And so that's why the work that we do with, unfortunately, she's not here tonight, our assistant city manager is typically here to give us information from a city level. Counselor Beck is also here. We're very grateful that Grace is standing in tonight to support the work. But beyond just, I guess, paying attention as much as you can, I know this is a volunteer position, to decisions that are being made by the city council so that we can support and give additional feedback from our subject matter expertise that we all bring to the table. We recently changed our ordinance, which is why we take a detailed roll call every time, because we do want people who are taking the seats at this table to be here and be as present as possible. Life happens. The only thing that we ask is that if you are going to miss a meeting that you tell either myself as the chair or the assistant city manager Courtney before the meeting there's no penalty for missing it 's when we've had in the past some folks that have moved on in different ways without there being sort of a that loop closed and so the ability to fill their position became challenging because we didn't know if they had moved on literally or if they were busy and getting a hold of them so we just want that open line of communication. As long as you let one of us know before the meeting, it can even be 15 minutes before, that then we know what to expect and we can move on in a meeting full way with a really full question. Yes, so let's [17:43] Sharon Weber: say that I do get out of work like really late. Yeah, would I be able to hop [17:48] Katie Brydon: on Zoom? Yeah, I wasn't able. Okay, absolutely, great question. We do offer Zoom meetings and try to be obviously as amenable as possible, because making the [17:58] Sharon Weber: these meetings accessible. Would I reach out to for [18:03] Katie Brydon: something? Yeah, you can. Yeah. Happy to share my cell phone number with each of you, so that you can just let us know. And then when we're here, we can pull you up on Zoom and [18:14] Sharon Weber: make sure you have that. Okay. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah, great. [18:18] Katie Brydon: Thank you. If you have not had a chance to go through the onboarding document, and you are, you know, riveted by that document later on and have any changes or recommendations, you can always, you know, reach out to me at a later date as well to say, you know, it would, I would have preferred to know this, I would have liked to know this, because it is an ever evolving document and it is meant to help you, to help all of us, so we remember the rules and expectations of our participation in this committee, are there. Any questions or thoughts? All right, thank you very much. Now we move on to the FOA training part, which is required for all committees that serve on any city appointed committee or city council or school board, all of them obviously have to be trained to make sure that what we're doing is representative of ourselves and we don't get the city in trouble. Officer, they can do a much better job at explaining all that. Thank you. Great, some handouts. [19:23] Suzette Holly Furrow: I'm Grace Innis, I'm an assistant city solicitor, so I'm one of the city's attorneys, and part of my role as the city's attorney is to deal with follow requests, so that's the Freedom of Access Act, so I will do a quick training on that for you guys, and then a quick training just on the code of ethics, which you guys are bound by as members of the city's boards. So I'll wait until everyone gets here. Yeah, thank you very much, and feel free to stop me or ask questions or whatever, and if anything comes up. After the meeting, feel free to reach out to me anytime. So the Freedom of Access Act, we call it FOA. It's a state statute that was passed by the Maine legislature, and its purpose is that actions of public bodies be taken openly and that records of its actions be open to public inspection. So there are two prongs to the FOA law. One prong is the public records provision of it, and then one prong is the public meetings provision. So public records is any communications, documents, any records in possession of the city will be public, pretty much. There are obviously several exceptions to this rule, but generally we view all of our communications and documents as public, and so you guys should all know as members of one of the city's boards, your communications might be forward, and that's if they're about what's happening, about. Boards business, obviously someone can't just like get their hands on all of your private communication. But we do recommend that you create an email that you use solely for your board communications, just so that your personal communications don't get wrapped up in it. Then it's super easy, like let's say I get a request and you can just select all the emails from that and forward them to me rather than having to sort through your personal email. And so it's safe to assume that any documents or written communications created or received by a public official involving the business of the city is a public record. You know, that sounds scary, but it's really not. Just, you know, be professional in your communications and realize that they might be front page of the news someday. [21:59] Katie Brydon: Don't be scared of that. [22:00] Suzette Holly Furrow: No,. No. So the other prong is public meetings. So this here is a public meeting. As you can see, we're on Zoom, we have members of the public in here. So the other goal of FOA is to allow the public to attend meetings and public bodies. And as such, meetings of public bodies must be advertised and open to the public. This ex parte communications doesn't really apply to you guys quite as much. This would be like if you were a decision-making board and you had an applicant in front of you and you were having a communication with that applicant, but that doesn't really apply to you guys. This was just kind of a general handout that we made for all of our boards. Executive sessions do close public meetings, so the public body may consider confidential matters, but these executive sessions are advertised as executive sessions and there has to be a reason for you to enter executive session. One of those reasons is to consult your attorney on the duties of your board, so that's one that we use sometimes. And executive sessions may be called only by a public recorded roll call vote of three-fifths of the public. Questions right now about FOA? It [23:21] Katie Brydon: might be in the rest of [23:23] Suzette Holly Furrow: this, so I'm going to move on to the code of ethics, and this is straight from the city's code of ethics, which can be found in the code of ordinances, and I just kind of went through and picked out the ones that would be most applicable to our boards. So confidential information is the first one. If you receive confidential information for your position as a board member, you should not share that confidential information, and you can't use it to advance your own personal gain and things like that, but You will be informed if something that is sent to you is confidential, so don't worry that you'll get something and share it and then find out that it's confidential. We will tell you that it's not. Use of social media. Members of public bodies are required by our code to include a qualifying statement that basically says the views that I express on this site are my own and they're not the views of the City of Bangor. I have that in my bio on social media, so I don't have to put it under every single post, but then everybody knows. Just because I'm the assistant city solicitor doesn't mean that I'm speaking on behalf of Bangor with every single one of my posts. Yes, can I ask a quick question? [24:40] Sharon Weber: Yes. So I don't post hardly anything on social media. The my posts, if you look, are pretty much all [24:47] Suzette Holly Furrow: Wellspring. Yeah. So is that something that I would have to? We do recommend that you do. You could maybe say like the views that I express on this site are my own, and you don't have to go into the whole and not the City of Banglores, you know, so you could just put a really short just these are my own views, but yeah, we do, we do recommend it just so that nobody gets confused [25:09] Katie Brydon: used about. Okay, all right. I'm just, yes, no, I get it. And so [25:17] Suzette Holly Furrow: moving on to gifts and favors. You are as a board that isn't decision making, it's not as applicable, but basically can't accept gifts and favors in exchange for making a certain decision. So basically, no bribery does prohibit you from accessing gifts or favors from your immediate family, but can't accept gifts in exchange for something and representing third-party interests before city agencies. So you can appear before any public bodies of the city on behalf of your own personal interests, but you can't deliberate or vote on a matter on which you've represented your own personal interest. This kind of goes to the next two, conflicts of interest and uses of titles and disclaimers. So conflicts of interest, again, you guys not being a decision-making board, it's not probably as big of a deal, but you can't participate in the deliberation or vote on any agenda item before your collective body in which you or a member of your immediate family has a financial or special interest other than an interest held by the public generally. early. So here I have the two definitions of financial and special interests. But again, this one isn't as applicable to you as you're not decision making board. And then uses of titles and disclaimers. So disclaimers are required when there could be ambiguity regarding the capacity in which you're communicating. It's your duty to ensure that there is no ambiguity. So should you appear before the city council making public comment before the planning board, something like that, you do need to include a disclaimer before you begin your public comment by saying, you know, I am a member of this committee. However, these are my own personal remarks, or I make these in my own personal capacity. There are a couple of different things in the ordinance itself a different ways that you can say that. So if you want a script or something, they're in the ordinance. If you guys have any [27:28] Katie Brydon: questions I did remember my question it's the reply all I feel like that I that happens right you know we'll get information shared by the assistant city manager this is you know something and then we'll all start replying back in questions can you say a little bit about like what makes it a public meeting or [27:51] Suzette Holly Furrow: it doesn't does that apply to this group yeah so we do advise that you don't reply all just because when you get to a quorum of members then that is a meeting and it needs to be advertised to the public however I don't know if that applies to your committee actually because you are an advisory committee so it's not the rules are a little bit yeah I do know that Courtney does not [28:17] Katie Brydon: like him on weird people just you know she has told them not to do it yeah so it's better to [28:26] Suzette Holly Furrow: just have your discussions in this room where everybody can be here hearing it okay thank you grace is there more like two or three members this might be what you're just saying but like if three members get together is that considered a meeting once you guys reach your quorum i don't know, five. So once there are five, then that's considered a meeting. I have a quick question. [28:55] Teresa Fallon: With the use of social media, I've been kind of louder on social media as a recent, like for advocacy, but also have very strong beliefs. So my question is, and I'm not asking this because I'm mean on social media. I'm not. I remain professional. professional but I feel like writing does not reflect any view or position the city of Bangor could open a can of worms for like if someone disagrees they'll contact the city of Bangor does that make sense yeah so you think I could write like make it a little bit smaller [29:31] Suzette Holly Furrow: Yeah, the views I express on this site are my own, period, and that's fine. Yeah, okay, you said you put it where I put it in the bio, I like that. Yeah, so that you don't have to put it [29:44] Teresa Fallon: on each message. Yes, yeah, it's not sneaky or just, yeah, it's it's clear. They have many friends or [29:53] Suzette Holly Furrow: following, but I still try. I think it's fine if somebody clicks on your page, then they can. Okay, yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, anything else? Thank you, Grace. Well, yeah, just a clarifying [30:06] Michael Beck: question myself. Sometimes this body will make recommendation of the council, they will show up to public comment for council to talk about it. I'm assuming if the board or the committee voted on whatever they're going to present, they [30:19] Suzette Holly Furrow: don't have to do the disclaimer. Yeah, that's correct. Then you can just say that you're representing the committee in front of the city of count the City [30:26] Katie Brydon: Council, and that's a good point, counselor. Thank you, because we have done that before, but before anyone goes up to speak on behalf of this advisory committee, we make sure everyone has access to the document and can change it. And I do think now that I'm saying that out loud, that is where we got in trouble with the reply-alls, because we shared it and if you had feedback, we wanted to make sure that we were hearing the feedback, and replying all makes it so that we're deciding on what the document's gonna say without it being a public meeting. And that's what we can do. Because that is pertinent to the work of our committee. [30:59] Sharon Weber: Committee. You're sending out a message for or less. [31:05] Katie Brydon: Just respond to the person. For instance, when we have done this in the past, I'll say here is the document that we're going to present. You know, obviously there's, we vote on it. I should say this too. We have it, but we vote on the final piece. It's not done in a vacuum. It's not done with individual emails back and forth. We don't ever read anything thing as the advisory committee without being final and everybody has approved it, but up until that point if people have feedback and do want something to share with all has to be agreed upon [31:35] Sharon Weber: and that's where we can't email about it, advisory committee for the state of Maine, but I guess it's not public because we never have to, and it's annoying when people hit reply all because it's [31:46] Suzette Holly Furrow: Like 2,000 people, it's like seriously, yeah, it's annoying. Okay, so a great first to clarify again, so like on the city council, like I know three camp counselors can't get together, right? This is not the same for an advisory committee. Well, it's it's it's a quorum, so with the council, because they have their committees, their committees have a quorum of three, and so that's why we say three. Okay, right, for this committee it's five, and so that's why it's five for this [32:18] Katie Brydon: committee. Okay, thanks. Isn't it always one more than half? Usually, I think it's usually outlined the ordinance, because I feel like every committee I'm on, I'm like, how many, what's the number, and but trying to figure it out. Yeah, right, any other questions? Thank you so much. [32:39] Suzette Holly Furrow: Very much appreciate that. Think of anything, please feel free to email or call. Thank you, thank [32:45] Katie Brydon: you. Okay, the next piece on our agenda is the annual report, so that was also in the, and the annual report is something that every committee that under the city council has to present every single February, and the goal of that is to so that every the City Council can see as a whole what each committee has been up to and what they have been doing, and so every year we sort of put together almost like a little overview of what our committee has achieved, and there's no right or wrong way to submit an annual report. There's no template, it just needs to for our purposes ensure that it covers what we want the city to be made aware of in terms of what we feel like we accomplished or worked towards. So in this year's, or rather the 2025 annual report, which we will need to approve tonight and vote on, once we vote on that, we will then go to the GovOps meeting on February 2nd and tell them in GovOps, hey, this is what our committee has been up to, you have the full report, do you have any questions? They will approve to send that to council, and then council will approve it and archive it, so that there's always a record every single year of what each committee does. So this year we broke it out so that it talks about obviously what the purpose of our committee is, and then it goes into we've had a lot of iterations in our committee, right, where we had subcommittees and we had large group conversations. And so this gives an update of how that might have changed. This is the first year that we actually changed the ordinance to have a secretary and have voted in as a key member of the leadership role. It's the first year that we have attendance and had expectations around participation. And so we gave those updates about the ordinance changes. We talked about our participation in community events and public input. Every year we have, you know, for instance, a table at Pride. We're trying to get involved in more community events just so that we are a very recognizable committee in the city. If there are people who have concerns, questions, feedback, they know that this is a committee who is looking towards racial equity, inclusion, and human rights to be able to present that to council. And so being able to collect data and share that with some of the individuals at the city level of what people wanna see in Bangor and what they want out of Bangor in terms of a city of belonging. So that's where I gave an update on that because we did share that with the city's community development officer. That feedback that we collected, and we had a little report and a little slideshow about what we learned. And then it also talks about the policy and formal recommendations that we made to council this year. We had a few different ordinances and policy changes that we recommended to council just to demonstrate again our goal to take city feedback and citizen feedback and present it as you know as is in our title an advisory committee to advise the city council on things that we are hearing from the general public and how they might best enact these changes so we had a couple of different policies and legislative directives that we brought to the city that talked about the city's participation with the with ice and with 287g agreements, which is basically an agreement that a city enters into with ICE that says their law enforcement will help ICE. We brought up a policy that we wanted the city to enact that said they would never enter into a 287 agreement. It turned out that we had so many good conversations. It led to a lot of great conversations with our city law enforcement and their feedback and the chief of police with our city solicitor and our city manager in terms of finding the right balance on how the city could really ensure what they were presenting and saying out loud was actually reflective of the work and care that they have for every citizen. Additionally, we put forward a legislative policy directive right as the encampment of unhoused individuals on the railroad in December was closed, just with feedback on ways that we could address that differently to present more options to folks. When we do present a policy or an ordinance change, it's something that is discussed and developed together and then presented separately to the city committee and then on to council, if the Council chooses to move forward with it. So we included that in the report and then our just ongoing goals and the impact that we hope to be able to demonstrate as work that we continue to do. There are little updates in here, you know, in terms of meeting with our Director of Public Health to better understand, you know, what that HIV outbreak looked like when it first started and, you know, what resources and support were needed. It we as an advisory committee are subject matter experts at this table and so having city staff come in like our Director of Public Health our Parks and Rec Department individuals that already have obviously a lot of expertise in that specific area just to say things almost like out loud and hear from the general public given their insight and experience how we might be able to better you know make recommendations or provide more guidance and that is what we hope to continue to do obviously moving forward is really create this ongoing dialogue not only between city council and our committee but also with city staff so that they also see us as an additional resource. So we put that in our report and then this what I'm hoping is that unless there is any feedback about changes that should be made or questions that you have then we can approve this tonight and then we can move this on you know we can be present at the gov ops meeting next Monday and present this to them so I'd like to first open it up are there questions or feedback I just want to make a couple [39:35] Mark Roth: Of comments, yeah, for the new folks who are on the committee, yeah, one of the things that we spent a lot of time talking about was the whole issue of homelessness. And as a matter of fact, Katie mentioned very early on that we don't always complete the agenda. And I think the last meeting was a perfect example of that, because we spent a lot of time just kind of discussing issues related to homelessness, specifically related to the December 19th limit that was put on the folks who were on the railroad property. And we spent a lot of time doing that, and I think that really is reflective of what our committee does. I think that we got input from various people, and I think that it was very valuable. Sometimes it's, it's valuable to, discuss something to its completion and not stick directly to the agenda. Yeah, and in fact that's what happened last week. Yeah, yes, that has [40:43] Katie Brydon: been very a common occurrence lately. Thank you for bringing that up, because I do want this to be, you know, obviously as formal and professional as this work is, it's also very important to move in real time and be a flexible when those topics come up, so thanks for bringing that up. Are there any other pieces of feedback, questions that you might have, or for those of you that have been on the committee, things where we might be missing before we vote to submit this? Does anybody have a copy [41:15] Teresa Fallon: that I could look at? I'm so sorry, I didn't print on my iPad. You can look at mine if you want. [41:22] Suzette Holly Furrow: Are we voting? [41:27] Sharon Weber: Yes, you are. Yes you are. I know I could read through this. What was the outcome of the ICE agreement? Did they vote it down? So we took this work that [41:44] Katie Brydon: that piece that again we have city feedback, feel right, brought it to govops. Sometimes govops says this is not for us, this is not the direction we're going in right now, and it dies there. And sometimes they say let's bring it to the full council and have a conversation. That one did go to the full council, but in the end it did not, so I think it was, I forget the number, five three, so the city of Bangor does not want to work with, so the city of Bangor chose not to say out loud that they would require their officers to publicly state they won't work with ICE. [42:22] Teresa Fallon: They did not want to say that they would work with us. This is a lot of things, I've read it and [42:27] Michael Beck: I was confused. Can you sure the way I understood it, the result was this is there's a lot of conversations that came up about 287g agreements and about how would the city engage in one if asked to. At this point the city has never been asked to and not been considered ever to get into one. So what this resolve would do is say this is if it was ever to be on the table, this is the process it would go through, these are the departments that would be involved, these are this is the decision-making process. The idea of the resolve was to say to the public it won't be a surprise, like you just will wake up one day and say we've got this agreement now. So there'll be an opportunity to see where it goes through meetings and everything else. It was just taking all of the different pieces of the conversation that was allowed and put it in writing and that's [43:14] Speaker C (unidentified): what was presented to council and they did not pass that right then. Didn't Doug Governor Mills [43:21] Katie Brydon: then wrote one for the state so yes so the 286 so like as counselor back said 287g agreements has have been an option for law enforcement to participate in since I think like right and Bangor never has but then it started to trickle up that like Wells did and like all these other cities had it on the table and we were like hey everybody's scared why don't we just say out loud we're never going to do this that was the expectation that said they never have they say publicly you know that 's not something that they're ever going to like use law enforcement for. The reason that we pushed it forward is because it was voted on at the congressional level at the state house and then it went to Janet Mill's desk and then they went into a recess for the fall and so there wasn't, it was just sitting there and we said yeah this might 100 become law in January or it might not, but like why wait, why not just say as a city this isn't something that we're interested in doing. The counselors decided to because they never have participated in the 287 agreement, that this was just a, this step wasn't necessary to say out loud because they weren't ever going to do it. And then to Katie's point, that legislation did pass in January, or Janet Mills, it became law. And she sat on her desk until January, and then it became a law, or is in the process of becoming a law but passed so law enforcement will work with will not will not okay thank you for explaining yes yeah that would be it was complicated because it's like an agreement but the agreement is not what we wanted them to do which feels weird to be like don't agree we kind [45:14] Teresa Fallon: of wanted them to just publicly say like we're not going to work with them and they didn't want [45:19] Katie Brydon: to publicly say that well yeah they just were like why invoke the ire of all of these nefarious groups when we don't have to because we're not we have never done it and we're not gonna do it i get it and yes i think that's like that thing is sure that i understand that but there's also a lot of people that to mike's point don't want to wake up tomorrow and be like [45:41] Teresa Fallon: wait how did this happen yeah the assurance was yeah correct me if i'm wrong i recall that [45:51] Mark Roth: that one of the issues that was raised was that because of the political climate, that there was reluctance to adopt a position running the risk of perhaps losing some federal monies. So that was one of the factors. [46:11] Sharon Weber: What's more important, people or money? We need money. [46:15] Teresa Fallon: I agree with you. I know, it's- We need the money. [46:19] Sharon Weber: money I mean if it comes down to it your relationships and people are far more important in the end than money you're not going to take money with you so this is where it was really [46:28] Speaker H (unidentified): beneficial when gov ops came and actually spoke to us about all of the different things that are happening behind closed doors that we don't know about as a committee we were able to discuss this resolve as a team-based approach and learned about what would happen if the funding was cut up what would happen to Bangor if the funding was cut so it is as much as I agree with you that is a huge factor to think about as well you know we have a homeless crisis it would just get worse we have a substance abuse problem like there's there's there's this domino effect so exactly so the beautiful thing about this committee is the ability for us to say we have this on our minds. Can we meet with council? Can we meet with the lobby? Can we meet with the chief? You have to look at the bigger picture. Who was here to meet with us. [47:18] Katie Brydon: And we learned a lot. We learned a lot. [47:21] Speaker H (unidentified): There's a lot that happens. [47:23] Katie Brydon: And I think probably the biggest takeaway that we all took from it was like, okay, there is so much that happens behind closed doors, and not because it's trying to be done in a vacuum or it's trying to be a secret. It's just because this is a huge machine running a city. So like, are there ways that then we can be a better vessel for what's happening? So much, yeah, so much to learn. And then having these conversations with people that are scared, you know, instead of being like, oh, the city voted it down, you can be like, actually, this is the policy that's already in place and you are safe because of this, because they were able to give us that information, and that's what we want to be able to do. If we see something, bringing it to the council and either them saying, yeah, 100, let's bring this up the chain, or say, actually, there already is something like that exists, let us tell you about it so that you can go out into your different networks and continue to spread that word. Because, you know, we've talked about it a million times, like, should we do a newsletter? Like, people don't read newsletters, they barely read the posts. Like, what are better ways than besides like word of mouth and communication in community? So having those conversations, I think, is really [48:29] Mark Roth: important. Yeah, it's our responsibility as a community to take these positions and to, in writing, and then it's up to the city council to determine which direction they want to go. But it's important for us to, I think, in good conscience, to take the positions that are [48:49] Katie Brydon: the most helpful to people. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so do, does anyone have any, thank you for those questions, any other feedback or changes they recommend? Hey, [49:06] Shane Boyes: no feedback or changes, but I just wanted to thank Katie for all of the hard work that she did on this. Like, this is all her, and it is incredible, and I really appreciate the amount of time and effort that you put into [49:23] Sharon Weber: this, to include all the details. Thank you. I paid him to say that. [49:32] Teresa Fallon: Thank you, that's very nice. It seems like you all did a lot in the last year. Yeah, and I'm excited to be part of this with you guys. We're really excited to have folks like, [49:43] Katie Brydon: it's been a small group, so this is the biggest table we've had in a number of years, so we're very grateful for the group here and the work that's going to be done. So we can only go up from here. Next year it'll be five pages you have to read. All right, so last call for questions, comments. Okay, can I have a motion to approve as is to send to GovOps? So moved. Can I get a second? A second. Great, wonderful. All in favor of moving as is to GovOps? Great, thank you. All opposed? All right, then we will present this. We'll make sure that it gets to Courtney for the packet and look forward to that meeting with Gov Ops next week. All right, the next piece of our agenda comes from a citizen initiative. We're excited to hear about. I would, if you're comfortable, welcome you to pull up a chair just as Grace did if you want to share with us. I do want this to be an opportunity to hear what you have to say and then questions and comments if that serves [50:59] Speaker K (unidentified): Okay, so I printed out about four copies of the resolutions and a few outlines if you guys would [51:04] Katie Brydon: like to speak. Yeah, I have some over here. And okay, so the site is good that explains how it [51:13] Speaker K (unidentified): it lines up with a state law. How it lines up with [51:22] Suzette Holly Furrow: two different things. Yeah. Okay. Okay. [51:38] Speaker K (unidentified): So hello, I am here to present a proposed resolution declaring the city of Bangor sanctuary for transgender and gender diverse people and to explain what it does in their terms. Maine's LD 227 already protects patients, families, and providers from out-of-state enforcement related to gender-affirming care as legal in Maine. This resolution ensures Bangor applies those protections consistently at the city level. It formally declares Bangor a safe and welcoming city. It directs city departments not to assist investigations or enforcements targeting lawful gender-affirming care or gender identity expression. It also restricts the use of city resources for those purposes unless required by a valid Maine court order. The resolution affirms non-discrimination and access to city services for prior staff training assesses all gender restroom access in city facilities where feasible and establishes transparency through annual reporting. It also states that the city will involuntary voluntarily enforce out-of-state custody orders that interfere with parental rights based solely on support for a child's gender identity or lawful care in Maine. This proposal aligns Bangor with the existing Maine law provides clarity for city employees and protects residents acting lawfully. Thank you. And your name is Jaden? Okay, sorry, no, I'm sorry, I was stepping like skipping a step [53:20] Katie Brydon: Though, oh yeah, well yeah, we when we received this and had your name attached, but I just wanted to make sure that you were actually jaded and not like speaking on behalf, so thank you so much for this. So do you mind, Jaden, do you mind telling us a little bit about why, I mean obviously you just shared with the LD2s 27 and I think a lot of us here can sort of discern why this is incredibly important, but do you mind sharing a little bit from your own perspective of why you would want this for Bangor? And with like why this is important to happen, well. [53:57] Speaker K (unidentified): I think with the present political climate more protection is necessary to protect transgender and gender diverse individuals in the city of Bangor. I think that especially when it comes to out-of-state orders and making equality equal access to like restrooms available and personally I have a transgender relative who struggled in the past and I just wanted to yeah make it a safer place for them. Thank you, thank you so much for this, I do want [54:30] Katie Brydon: to open it up to questions that the committee might have on this. Oh before I do that though, I'm so sorry counselor, but can you speak to once we sort of have our information and feedback, is the council looking for a recommendation on whether or not to advance this to the city council for a full vote, are they looking for a sponsor, or do you envision this being something that we say thanks Jaden, you know we'll take this up the pike, or is this just are you going to take this and then Jaden goes and has this whole conversation with the counselor, how can we support that, can you talk a little bit about what you envision for the next batch? [55:17] Michael Beck: Sure, I mean with just like the other resolves, I mean is this necessary would be the first question, is this in your view is this something, you know a question I had that I shared the email is if there already is le227 does the city need to put in the additional effort, you know what would be the benefit, those guys that's what you know council would want discerned because one of the things that came out of the previous resolves was the fact that you know there's some counselors who want to make Sure we're not governing by resolve and so now if this one gets put in front of them is that part kind of the same issue of well here's another one and to one end because I know what the results too is if the idea is to provide guidance you know to staff about how this law works you know is this the right vehicle for that would be another question to answer or is there another way to make sure staff is aware of compliance with 227 so those are some of the issues that would need to be worked Through and you know council would need to be advised of if they're going to consider this [56:28] Katie Brydon: Or something like this thank you okay thanks for that sort of framework in terms of how [56:39] Sharon Weber: We can support that questions from so Maine LV227 there's already a sanctuary city somewhere [56:51] Speaker K (unidentified): Where well that's the that's the for the entire state of Maine there is other sanctuary cities in like Massachusetts and Portland I thought okay yeah so it is something that's [57:04] Speaker H (unidentified): Happened yes so clarify question I pulled up the state of Maine LD 227 I was just reading as we're going through so essentially what you're asking is that is this and I'm gonna mess up these terms is this a resolution or resolve a resolve okay I know we go back so we're asking for this resolve presented to take LD227 and reframe it into now a sanctuary is that the [57:35] Speaker K (unidentified): Key piece of asking for change well it sort of extends 227 to basically to city level essentially so it gives direction on how to handle this new this new ordinance like on the city level essentially got it got it got it so it's two that doesn't make sense no [57:58] Katie Brydon: You make sense yeah and that's helping us understand this and I will just for those of you that are new that we historically have pushed forward resolves because we want the city to be able to say things out loud that it means and we want to champion that but it gets to the point where it's like is this the best vehicle for us to actually enact change personally like I think when you said that more protections are necessary like to me that's a human rights issue like this is something that's Absolutely within our purview I think our work now is to determine like yeah, is this for, is this going to be, how will the city receive this? How will it actually work in the city? What are we trying to do besides just say things out loud? What actions do we wanna see? And is, does this capture that? And is it something that we think the city does need to have? So I just wanna say, even though we get caught up on things like resolutions and revolves and policies and ordinances, that's just because we've had to flex a lot. And I don't want us to get to a point where we say, yeah, this is great. And then we go to city council and it's like, what is this actually asking us to do? So we think drilling down on that clarity just helps us have more information to support because I really appreciate you bringing this to the conversation and being patient throughout the whole meeting to get here. Thank you, Jaden. [59:34] Michael Beck: In counselor, I was gonna offer this feedback because this involves guidance for the city. I'm wondering if maybe one of the next steps would be to talk to the city manager and see what she thinks as far as what guidance may be needed to comply with 327, right, if it's necessary, because she might be able to give insight as to where to go with this. You know, is there guidance? Because really, if she knows what to do with it, you know, that may not be necessary. It would just be in some cases where she needs counsel's guidance on things. Is this one of them? That's a good point. [1:00:09] Speaker C (unidentified): I would like to have her input as well, or because I will say that did happen with our [1:00:15] Katie Brydon: last resolve, that it ended up just being that we gave the resolve to the sitting manager and she was able to walk us through and walk staff through how to implement that. That's, I don't want to take away from saying out loud that this is really important work. And so what [1:00:34] Speaker H (unidentified): does that look like? I 100 agree. My clarifications and questions is just as how can we best utilize our time and our team to do what we need to do to be effective with what brought forward to us. So I like the idea of a city manager to look it over to, because you, is to your point that there needs to be more protections. I would love to hear from the city manager. Has that already been talked about? What more protections, like what are the concrete pieces that could be put down that is being asked for that could be implemented and who would do that? 's my question. Yeah. [1:01:13] Suzette Holly Furrow: Great, those are great questions. I just, I follow the City Council a little regularly, and I just, I know about the resolve that was found about welcoming all, so I just think that covers pretty much everything, so I don't really think this is, you know, necessary, because that was pretty much covered, pretty broad scope, you [1:01:44] Speaker G (unidentified): know, welcoming. [1:01:46] Katie Brydon: Yeah, and thank you for that, Susan, because that is the feedback, right, is that we do have a resolve that has created a welcoming space. I think what we, I would love to hear from you, Jayden, is beyond just being welcoming, does, is this about the actual actions of individuals, you know, that work for the city of Maine, how to actually meaningfully protect individuals that, you know, yeah, maybe targeted because, you know, at a medical office or at a restaurant or in a school, how that, how it's different from like, how does this, because that's, you're exactly right, Susan, like, that is absolutely true, and that's what the city's gonna say, right, that we already have a result that says this, so like, how is it different, and I would love to hear from you in terms of how this might go further, or what that, besides just being a resolve to be welcoming. [1:02:53] Speaker K (unidentified): Yeah, let me go, resolve number six, yeah, it affirms to implement where feasible designation of all gender restrooms and city-owned facilities and inclusive signage policies. Okay, it also, it also assures for, training for city staff, wherever it's in, I'm sure people, the resolution type language. And, the city shall publish an annual report on the progress of implementing this resolution, including community feedback, departmental updates and policy improvements. [1:03:35] Katie Brydon: And so can you say a little bit more about the public petition initiative too? Do, how many signatures, or what that looks like, last I looked we got about [1:03:52] Michael Beck: counselor, sure, now I go for this feedback as well as far as the results go, so for example, you know, we had the welcoming results which really covered hate speech extensively, yeah, but there was a triggering event, and so the council went back and did another resolve about hate speech specifically, so I would say that would be, if there's a triggering event or something, you know, whether it be LD27 or whatever it is, would that also be something that the community sees as needing to resolve, so that's also something to consider. Thank you. Oh, I had [1:04:33] Suzette Holly Furrow: yeah, oh, I'm so sorry, yes, the 800 signatures, is that in Bangor, or the majority is from that [1:04:40] Speaker K (unidentified): region but it is like is like an online like change.org so people from outside the state also signed the majority comes from the Bangor and Bangor surrounding areas though [1:04:52] Katie Brydon: yeah wonderful thank you I just have another question does anybody else have any [1:05:03] Suzette Holly Furrow: other thoughts or feedback I'm [1:05:08] Katie Brydon: so bummed I lost my question it's come and gone several times so I'm sure I'm sure it will come back [1:05:19] Speaker G (unidentified): counselor Beck you mentioned the welcoming resolution being more so focused on hate speech and well that was one part [1:05:28] Michael Beck: of it yeah widespread but there was yeah he's featured [1:05:33] Speaker G (unidentified): a piece of it okay I'm not familiar I need to familiarize myself with that but it seems as though your resolution is more specific and so I think that even if not brought forward via a resolution [1:05:49] Suzette Holly Furrow: it's still worth testing in with the manager about what is in place and if there's any gaps or if anything can be evolved I agree I'd also like to know [1:06:07] Katie Brydon: know more about it being a sanctuary and what that means. I mean, obviously, it says in here, there are specific protections and non-discrimination. And I think what we've heard about a lot this past year from the council has been, what can we do to get Bangor to be a place where people want to live? Commercially, economically, socially, community, there's so many different pieces that really come through the communities that we all are in every day that we can say these are the things that would make more of my community want to move to Bangor this is more of what would make my community want to move to Bangor and finding a great sort of balance between certain communities that create a sense of belonging and you know balancing it with the City Council's work I think that's the that is the iron we have to strike I guess it's the idiom right like how do we make sure that we're actually addressing these real key things that the city needs that the city needs all we ever hear is people leave Bangor and so when something when I see something that's like Oh sanctuary means safety means more individuals that are looking for a place to feel safe and a place to feel welcome will want to come here. And I think our challenge is how do we get, I guess the challenge is how do we get that to be something that we can create in terms of safety and belonging, but that the city sees as a benefit, right, to them outside of just it being a space of belonging since we already have that resolved and we've already said it okay then let's how is that going to address our numbers economically right if we are a sanctuary city what do those numbers look like if these other cities that you know in Northampton and in Portland have created and enacted these sanctuary protections like how did that change the numbers in the city and what is the positive outcomes from like an economic or commercial standpoint because I do know that the city does have the job of making this place viable outside of just being a really loving and positive community. I want it to be both. And I think that this is one way to get it to be both a loving and welcoming and safe space for all and also have an economic and commercial benefit and help more people see Bangor as a place to live. live. And so I think that in talking to I think, for me, what I would like to see is the next step is definitely meeting with the city manager to ask how this is already looking. And then also digging into like, what does this mean for a city to become, you know, a sanctuary in terms of creating a more welcoming space that's not just performative and saying it but it's actually demonstrating these are the things that we are doing to make you feel safe here because I think that again especially in this political climate people that don't feel safe in their communities are looking for a place to move and live that is very open about protecting its community and I feel Like that's in line with how the city looks to be more of a destination right like if we can check all these boxes for how to get Bangor to be the destination that we say we want it to be and we want young people to stay here like right now young trans people are not like I can't wait to live here for the rest of my life it's like I can't wait to go to Portland or Northampton where there are people who want me there and make me feel safe and you know I just think that doing whatever we can to Support that for all groups, right, will just give us more of a balance of ways that we can be seen as that destination that we hope to be. So if we were to meet with the city manager, I don't know if that's a counselor question or if there's, you know, other feedback on what that meeting would look like. But also, Jaden, I would love for you, if you were able to, bring numbers of like this is how those cities changed in population and what that hour, I'm sure there are a thousand testimonies from folks yeah that are like i wanted to move my family somewhere safe and this is how because even if we're not able to get this put into our resolution i think that being able to say out loud like these are the ways that we can create this space you know what does that look like from a city perspective what does that look like in terms of addressing some of those needs that are important to people running the city like money i'm just kidding what do people think what 's the general thought [1:11:16] Shane Boyes: I agree, yes, my thought just as I'm reading this, there are a lot of things in this resolve that are kind of restating what the city is already doing. So like number four affirms non-discrimination, commits the city to equal access to city services, education, housing, employment, and health care. The city already has as part of our code a non-discrimination statement which does include sexual orientation and gender identity. So that's already, and I'm just anticipating the pushback from Council would be We already have it in writing, why do we have to do it again? Because that's what we always hear. But there certainly are pieces that are in here that are not like written down in policy anyway, right, like more all gender restrooms or more transparent policies about evaluating our, you know, what we're doing as a city to make things more welcoming. I do think that we would be able to make better progress just by going directly to the city manager and would love for you to join as well and sit with her And say here are some things that we're looking for, what can you tell us about what's already being done or what's easy enough to change to meet these requirements? That's going to be way more impactful, sorry, than taking it to speak council, not to say that you know city council doesn't do anything, but I just, that's the feedback we would get on this. We've already got so much of this in writing, why do we need this? And it would at that point just be not to say a waste of time, but a waste of our time to go to you know two three four separate meetings when we could just go to the city manager in one meeting and say let's talk through this and that often will be enough to initiate the conversation in the background for her and her staff to be able to look through and kind of see like what are we doing well what are we not doing well i think sometimes just a gentle on lunch is really all it takes meeting with her might keep that yes yeah and i do think too [1:13:23] Katie Brydon: The city manager obviously works based on the recommendations of council, so I would love to meet with her and obviously you as the subject matter expert here to be able to say like, are there things that aren't happening in the city, and if we were to make any changes, what obviously recommendations would we need from City Council, right? Because there's, she can't move independently, but she can with the City Council's recommendation and knowing what's already happening in the city, knowing where the gaps are might help us to better create a more direct channel for this to be received and say like, actually these things, these specific things are not happening in the city, and this is what we can commit you, because again our job is to sort of pull all of the people together to make meaningful progress, and I think that again we've, we have learned a lot, and I think a lot of that learning has been either, "Hey guys, this is already happening, let me tell you about it," or, "This is what I need the city council to tell me to do if we're going to make this change," and that'll just give us more information as to how to engage in that conversation so that we can get that feedback and so that it is like a meaningful directive, either by saying, "Yeah, we already do this," or, "Yes, that's something my staff can do," or, "I need that to you to come to city council and ask for these things if those gaps exist." Does that sound right? Like you're, your council liaison, right? Like there would need to be specific recommendations. [1:15:06] Michael Beck: Yeah, I mean, what I can offer is, you know, I do a report to the rest of the Council and I could, you know, ask to have it added to an agenda to see what the appetite is, and as far as from Council's concerned, if that would be helpful. [1:15:26] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah. Katherine? Well, when everyone's done, I have another thing to say. I don't want to interrupt. You look like you're on a... [1:15:33] Katie Brydon: Well, I was just, I thought that you were, I think that is a good avenue to take after we see what gaps exist, because I do want it to be specific in that way. I do want what the count, if the council hears it for the first time, for it to not appear as though it's repeating a resolve we already have, but instead is filling the gaps that exist, and I think only the city manager can give us that on a whole. Thank you for that recommendation. [1:16:04] Speaker H (unidentified): Say something a little bit out of character. I absolutely appreciate so much you bringing this forward as the medical professional on this team. I actually almost wonder if as a committee we can put out, because we're saying to see what the council may say, I'm almost like, you know what, I'm reading this, say, and it's saying 27 states have enacted bans on gender affirming care for minors. There have been 920 bills targeting transgender rights and access to care. And as someone who is intimately involved in access to care, I do see this daily. And I do think that this population is being targeted, and it is a human rights issue and a violation. And I do think as an advisory committee, we might want to take a little bit more of a stronger approach and say to the council, I understand that we want them to take a look at it, but almost say this is a human's right issue, and we are strongly encouraging you to take a look at this, because we see that this is a severe issue for this population right now. And yes, we need to talk to the city councilor, but just, I don't know the right language, because that's not my cup of tea, but just acknowledging that I don't think just figuring out, oh, will they address this or not, is going to be enough. I think they should address it. And we should be also talking to our healthcare teams about how is the access to care being affected right now, and especially for our minors. Yeah, I [1:17:40] Suzette Holly Furrow: guess 14 minutes left. I'm sorry, I'm just thinking that this is beyond, like if a minor, there's lawsuits not throughout the country of people that weren't you e-transition that decided to transition where they are minors, so I just think it's kind of a slippery slope about being involved with parental rights and minors, and because there is a big, a lot of lawsuits coming throughout the country for people wanting to transition, so I think we're getting a [1:18:09] Speaker H (unidentified): little bit too much into the weeds with that. This is more talking about making sure that those that are in the city of Bangor feel safe to be who them, who they are themselves. So I don't think it's about whether they want to transition or not transition. I think it's truly whether or not they feel safe, which is a human's, a human right situation. And I would love to see the data that states how many in the state of or the city of Bangor don't feel safe and how is that affecting education, academics, health care, the safety of the neighborhoods, etc. [1:18:46] Mark Roth: Vice Mark, and then I think that what might be helpful here is to take what you just said, Catherine, and to include kind of a preamble to this. Why? Why is this resolution being offered? What's the purpose of it? What's the background? Why do we need to consider this? I think that would, that would be, that would strengthen it. [1:19:13] Speaker K (unidentified): So like more specific where as statements towards the city of Bangor specifically? [1:19:22] Katie Brydon: I'm going to put a pin in that because I think that we can address that, but Suzette. [1:19:26] Suzette Holly Furrow: So with the language for this, did you come up with this or did you base it off of, you know, some other city or is there some kind of other? [1:19:38] Speaker K (unidentified): Yeah, so I did take inspiration from the Northampton one and the one from Portland, but some of it is a phrase myself. But yeah, it's a language, it is in the same format as the other resolutions were. [1:19:55] Katie Brydon: Thank you for that. I think that in the essence of like how to, I mean, I really do feel like we need all the right people at the table for this conversation, and I'm wondering if it might be in our best interest to at our next, I hate, I hate like the length of time in between our meetings, but at our next meeting to actually have a more robust conversation about this with some of the data that you're able to provide in terms of what Katherine had suggested of what are the outcomes, what is that, what are the numbers look like, what are we seeing, and then having the city manager sort of hear and prepare to talk about, you know, what those areas might be, so that we could more definitively create meaningful, a meaningful avenue for this. Great, do you think that would be okay if we organize like our next meeting to have, again, I don't wanna take up so much of your time, Jayden, but like to come back with some of this data and information and have the city manager, we could connect with her to prepare for addressing where this could go and how that might look? [1:21:08] Suzette Holly Furrow: Yeah, absolutely, I think that Courtney would be a good person to connect with as well, since she is the HR director's group, so she can speak to like staff training and stuff like that as well. [1:21:20] Speaker K (unidentified): Yeah, that's a good idea, that makes a lot of sense, and is there any results that you think I should eliminate or me I should add was editing Katie? [1:21:32] Katie Brydon: Can you say again the when you were talking about like understanding what the access of care looks like and how that might directly affect you know number safety schooling education all of that, I think those specific settings, is that it, I think you got everything, yeah, I think that if we were able to identify maybe at a whereas, that's more specific to, whereas the city of Bangor has, I don't know, obviously, that's the other difficult thing about trans healthcare is that a lot of people don't feel safe to report. So the numbers, getting data about trans individuals is incredibly difficult, because there is a lot of feelings around reporting. But I'm just wondering if I also have a contact that is a subject matter expert in policy for gentrification there, I could see if they have any data that would be helpful to share, yeah, and maybe they could help identify how to make this maybe not so much a resolution but like what are we asking the city to do and how might we implement it in a more [1:22:45] Speaker H (unidentified): meaningful way, I think that makes more sense, because I think this I understand what you meant by what you created, but i what you're saying may be a little bit more of a more meaningful strategic approach, yeah, so [1:23:04] Speaker K (unidentified): are you saying go towards a ordinance direction or just make the resolution more specific or like more meaningful, and that's i think [1:23:14] Katie Brydon: what I would like to do for our February meeting is if you could, and I will also commit to trying to find some more Bangor specific, some more Bangor specific data to put in here so that we can speak directly to how, you know, schools and hospitals and areas need more protections, again it's not going to be a thing we have this many individuals you know in the city of Bangor, I know that, but if there's ways that and then that and then having the HR director and our city assistant manager here and being able to say you know this is what we can actually do to make a change and this is what you should actually have in this resolve that says like this is what we can do because some of the same I'd already be [1:24:10] Speaker H (unidentified): doing so exactly like when we met with gov ops they're like oh we already did that so i think we just also have to learn more about this and then we could put that into like a new version of [1:24:21] Katie Brydon: this and go from there yeah it sounds good yeah thank you so much for bringing your this to us and your expertise and your work on this we really appreciate it you did a really great job yeah great job presenting yeah and we'll follow up with an email and work with our assistant and city manager to have us on there thank you so much thank you thank you again in the essence of time and being flexible in real time i'm just going to pivot to the last piece of our agenda which is too many papers now our update from the city council we use them i would love for you to share with us anything that is pertinent and what we might need to be looking [1:25:09] Michael Beck: forward to yeah so the list i gave was a comprehensive list but i think would be most interest to this committee and then if there's questions you have about other items and by only to ask them but regarding the closure of the encampment it's you know you may remember a council had originally voted to delay the closure however the railroad was not bound by that vote so it exercised its authority as a property owner and they proceeded with their end of the clearance but it's also been reported that the residents that were there had already moved out voluntarily prior to the cleanup so no one was actually physically moved away against the will is my understanding the city public health staff had reached out or did outreach rather in advance of that clearance some of the things they offered was transportation shelters replacement tents storage bins cell phones pet boarding counselors also received some feedback regarding the displaced residents some felt separated from their community some felt they lacked adequate transportation assistance others had lost belongings during the cleanup process moving on to the safe outdoor spaces which that was the order that was recommended to the government govops you know as i think noted in the annual report that was not moved forward the majority consensus seemed to me that we're going to wait for the housing and homelessness committee that's currently being talked about and being formed and get their input to see if that's that this is Something feasible or not that the city might undertake regarding that committee. We did vote to move forward towards creating a permanent housing and homeless committee. That was a decision that was made, so it was not going to be a short-term task force. It will be a standing committee. Staff's going to bring to us the actual structure for us to look at in a future meeting for us to discuss and approve on council. The intent of the committee is going to be to develop a coordinated long-term strategy for housing offices. We want to avoid one-off or reactive processes and responses, and we're going to provide a standing venue. This committee will provide a standing venue for proposals related to homelessness, so that way it's always something that's in front of us and we're working towards it. Also, the city hired a new homeless coordinator, which is big. Bruce Hughes, she's begun to work, and all the reports I've gotten is he's just a fantastic hire, and the community just loves him. Yeah, just what a great get for the city. Yeah, I'm sorry, counselor, to interrupt you. [1:28:06] Katie Brydon: Can you just quickly share for that housing and homelessness committee, did you say how individuals to be identified? Is it a nomination? Is it so that doesn't mean quite the idea, but [1:28:15] Michael Beck: they are going to bring that back. One of the feedback, we are, one of the biggest pieces of feedback we're getting from the community is that they want to see lived experience on that one. I think the proposal I had put through included two, the one that the public health director had won, but people are saying even more. My thinking is that if there's a way further to be overlap, or if people have lived experience but also tick off one of the other boxes, like harm reduction, or you know, developing or whatever they're, you know, working double up, or you can use their expertise in the field but also the living experience, that's more bang for our buck. But again, that's something for the council to decide as a whole. Okay, thank you. Yep, winter shelters. So the city continued funding the only warming center beds in two locations. It's 110 overnight beds involved there. We also accepted an appropriate grant funding for a community paramedicine program, which is going to grant more access to health care. I Think it's being run on the St. Joe's. It will be the base of operations for that, so it's exciting to see. And it's a pilot program, so this may be something that grant funding may continue to pay for, depending on how it works out. Also, overdose response receives some grant funding as well as public health technical assistance. BCAT, this is exciting news. So they've been operating on fumes from one of the two people. Like, they've been doing a great job with just two, but it was designed for four and familiar with BCAT. Yeah, and so there's a lot of work for just two people. And for what Chief was telling us, that, you know, they're pretty sure they've already got a third person going, but possibly a fourth. It'll be the first time in the program's history, yeah, that it'll be fully staffed. So I'm excited and he's excited and [1:29:58] Speaker C (unidentified): and everyone's excited about that and seeing what it'll do. [1:30:02] Michael Beck: We had some workshops. One was related towards our homeless response system. We had another one that elaborated on what our current camping ordinances are, but where it's legal or not. And we took a look at some strategic planning models used in other municipalities across the United States. We also met with our state legislators to talk about housing shortages, mental health infrastructure gaps, but also a way for us according the opportunity to coordinate more with our state partners on some of these big issues. And I think those were the big highlights I thought here, but if you've got questions about the other stuff on that list, happy to talk about it. That's [1:30:48] Speaker G (unidentified): a good update. Yeah. That's a lot. [1:30:50] Michael Beck: We were busy. The council was very busy. Very busy. [1:30:54] Katie Brydon: This is wonderful. Now, what is this airport fuel farm design? Yeah. [1:31:00] Michael Beck: So the fuel farm, I guess it's the original infrastructure since when we got it as what it used to be Dow Air Force Base. So it's been a long time coming in and updated. So they wanted to take the, for the fuel farm, they want to design, redesign it and redesign it and get it constructed and updated because I think it goes back to like 1950 something. We just, you know, last year we just approved a replacement for one of the trucks that was from 1958. So it's, it's been a long time coming. That's great, but we do sell a lot of fuel [1:31:37] Speaker C (unidentified): a lot of our work, so that's yes piece of the infrastructure there and this is for [1:31:43] Katie Brydon: for pursued 7 million does that just mean you gave approval just for the grant writing okay that's great that's hopeful wonderful any other questions all right i know that i said that would be our last thing but katie do you mind just giving like a one minute update on your participation in the martin luther king breakfast that was hosted by the ndlacp again katie was also [1:32:10] Speaker H (unidentified): lot, but yes, I attended with my entire family and I was so honored that I got to be a part of that event. The keynote speaker was Darmita Wilson, she as the vice president at Northern Light Health in the medical education research, and she gave a phenomenal speech about her grandmother, mother, and her family living in the south and was part of a lot of that went that happened, and she shared a lot of first-person experiences which was great to hear. But they also at the very end, my favorite part was when they allowed the last 15 minutes anyone to come up to the microphone and to speak, and it was all walks of life and it was such a beautiful connection of everyone from everywhere coming together to speak about the day and, you know, remembering, you know, Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy. And we talked about John Lewis and, you know, tough times, but you get through it. [1:33:14] Katie Brydon: Yeah, and I thank you so much, Katie. That is, it was really- It was very moving. And I think like the biggest takeaway that I had that I would love to like have us all think about is like Katie said, her grandmother and her mother and her aunts were all so present and so active you know marching in salmon participating in the montgomery bus boycotts and playing the organ at emmett tell's funeral and she said that they were so prepared to participate in this really meaningful hard work because they had they're they were so proactive they were always thinking about what training do we need where do we go who do we connect with what's community and i think that 's our job right is to like be with our community make sure that we're thinking ahead being as proactive as possible that was my big takeaway of not waiting to be surprised by this ever-changing climate and being overwhelmed by it but instead having the trainings having the resources knowing the right people and that's our job on this committee is to bring the right people to the table to have the right Conversation so that nobody is surprised or feels harm or fear in the city that we all love deeply. So thank you for that update. I was honored to go. Yeah, and I definitely, it was a last minute, you know, reminder this year, and I do apologize for that. Next year, you know, as we continue to work in any sort of partnership as we stand with the NAACP, making sure there's more participation and time for [1:34:40] Teresa Fallon: that would be really fantastic. I got a ticket and got the flu. I was so loud. That was really [1:34:46] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah, I recommend everyone go next year if they do it. Absolutely. It was, it was me. Yeah, it's good for [1:34:55] Teresa Fallon: kids too. That's good to know. Yeah, I wasn't sure. I'd like to get them more involved, but they're saying it was packed and there were a lot of families there. That's really great. Yeah, I have [1:35:07] Shane Boyes: a quick fun fact. I know we're like out of time, but quick fun fact, did you know that MLK's I Have a Dream speech was partly improvised, and the part that was improvised, that was not actually written down, was the I have a dream sequence. It was not part of the original script for the speech, and he was on stage and he was speaking, and someone behind him said, tell him about your dream, Martin, and he said, I have a dream, and that whole part was improvised. I really think that [1:35:39] Katie Brydon: person that's been found by your dream. Well, thank you. Thanks for that, everyone, I know, and thank you for your participation today. As always, we have lots more to discuss moving forward, but may I, or first, is there any further comments, questions, the committee being done? Can I have a motion to adjourn? Can I get a second? All in favor? None opposed.