November 18, 2025 – HRDEI Committee – Video & Transcript

November 18, 2025 - HRDEI Committee

Autoscroll:

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. This is the Human Rights, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee in Wayland. We are starting our meeting at 6.01 p.m. I'm Karen Blumenfeld, the chair. It's Tuesday, November 18, 2025. So let's start with a roll call vote, and I'm going to do it a little different. Tonight, we can usually do a kind of read from the list of names, and if you can, please say yes, and if you're not here, who's Rosma? Well, that's okay. I guess we'll get to the script. If you're not here, well, no, you're not here. There is Rosma, right? No. Hello. Rosma here? Yeah. Where? Oh, right there. Okay. Okay. Great. Hello. Okay. So I'm going to read names and say if you're here, please. Heather. Filipino, present. Asma. Present. Yawu. Yawu's here. Maya. I'm here. Mariam. I'm not here yet. So let's take note, Asma, when she comes. Sarah. Mariam. Here. Thank you. Denise. Present. Kevin. Here. Hello. Hello. Here. Mariam. Here. And Sophie. Here. Thank you. And Karen here. All right. So I think Mariam is coming. So we'll just notice when she comes. Yawu, would you be willing to read the point we're played and the length of knowledge? Sure. Thank you. This may be, this meeting may be recorded, which will be made available to the public. We can, as soon as, after the meeting, as practical items in our agenda may not be discussed in the order, lest the hour or the special time estimate. Times are approximate. All topics may be subject to deliberations and the vote. When required by law or allowed by the law, the person wishes to provide the public comments or otherwise participating in the meeting may do so in by in-person attendance on all by according to the meeting. Remotely, we request the public comments be limited to the two minutes per person in indigenous land acknowledgement. Today, today we are, today we begin, we would like to acknowledge the following indigenous people on whose traditional homelands we live, work and are gathered today. The Massachusetts, the Nepal, North and the Portugal, we acknowledge that access assistance, particularly
Qaddu of the Massachusetts tribe, who was the steward of the matril of the land, now encompassing Sabri and Wayland, when European settlers arrived to colonize this place in 1638. We seek to understand, acknowledge, and remember the painful ongoing historic war in genocide and forced the removal of indigenous people by European settlers, and we offer a living celebrations of the indigenous communities who are not just part of the past, but who continue to live and make new history here today. May we all commit to deepening our relationship with indigenous communities and to bring, to be their allies in working for justice. Thank you so much. Robby, is there any public comment? No public comment. So let's move to agenda item number three, and then I'm going to make a little change in the order of the agenda. Can you all online hear me okay? Okay. Well, just give a holler if you can't hear us. We have a harder time because of the sand. Okay. Well, they're nice and loud, but I don't know how loud we are. Okay. So discussion item, agenda item number three, discussion and possible vote to approve the October 21st, 2025 meeting minutes. Does anybody have any comments on the meeting minutes? Yeah. Can I make a motion that we approve the October, October 21st, 2025 meeting minutes? Thank you. So Kevin made the motion to approve minutes. Is that so moved? Okay. Let's take a blow. I'm just going to do it the same way I did before. Oh, and Mariam joined us at 6.05. Thank you, Mariam. Sorry. Was that Denise who seconded? Yes. Thank you. I'm just going to call out names. For a hybrid meeting, it's just easier for me to call out the name. So forgive me for the way of doing it. Okay. Heather. Yes. Asma. Yes. Yahoo. Yes. Maya. Yes. Okay. Mariam. Yes. Sarah. Sarah, can you hear us? Can you hear me? Yeah. No, I didn't hear you say yes. Well, I didn't. Yep. Yes. Thank you. Denise. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Donno. Yes. Mariam. Yes. Sophie. Yes. And Karen. Yes. And in case you're wondering about the order, I'm reading these and it's not alphabetical. It's just the order from the website that all of our names appear. Thank you. So unanimous vote to approve the October 21st, 2025 mini minutes. Thank you, everybody. Uh, I'm going to make a little switch in the agenda order, uh, because, uh, people's scheduling needs. Um, so what I'd like to do is move up agenda item number six and take that out of order right now and talk about the human rights day event. And then we'll move to four or five, along with the regular order. Um, so the human rights day event, we have about 15 minutes since you can't see the schedule right now, 15 minutes to talk about that. Love to know how those of you who are working on it, how's it going? What do you need? Asma, you want to start? Sure. Um, um, so we have human rights day that's planned for December 10th. Um, we have it approved Marianne at the new council of aging building. Um, and so we have, um, Jamil, I'm sorry if I'm, I'm forgetting his last name. Um, Adams, Adams, thank you. The, uh, the founder of the freedom team. So he will be speaking at the event. Um, and we were planning on doing what we did last year of reading the articles from the, um, the, the declaration and then, and having different, um, volunteers read each article and then, um, we are going to break out in smaller groups talking about actionable items. And then, um, we'll reconvene with Jamil, just giving us some pointers on how to, um, take those items into, into our community setting. Marianne, if you wanted to add anything else. Sure. Yeah. Um, um, I'd like to say that, uh, the village bank has given us $400 for food and supplies or whatever we would need for our event. Very nice of them. Um, so we'll recognize them on the flyer as was working on a flyer. Um, we need readers. So, um, and yeah, we haven't, we haven't notified last year's readers, but we're about to do that. We just really solidified the COA wanted to at least to people where they could come. So, um, that will be going out in the next day or so, um, to, uh, uh, get readers. Um, so it's really an introduction of the freedom team. We're hoping that the freedom team will be there. Um, that, you know, we have a good showing of the number of freedom team members and, um, it will um, it will be an opportunity to introduce what the freedom team is and what it's here to do and what it can do for the community. And, um, Jamil, um, was invited because he is a founder and has had such a wonderful way of speaking about the, um, the intent of the group. And, um, so we hope you'll be there. Um, hope you'll consider being a reader. We want, we love translate, you know, readings in different languages, um, and, uh, and advertising. Um, so when we send out, when we finish the flyer, we'll send it out to everyone. So if you could disseminate it within your world, um, I think, um, Karen, you've had a distribution list, so we're going to, we'll send it through the distribution list. But, you know, personal invites are always nice. And, uh, I think it's a very important time to recognize human rights. And, um, it was a very well received last year, um, and a really meaningful, um, event. So, um, I hope you all be there. Any other thoughts? Karen has a question. Um, I don't have a question, but I know it was a grant that was put in for the Human Rights Day on the Cultural Council. Did Pavla? Yeah, we haven't reached out to you yet. No, but Mariam, can you speak to the Cultural Council, um, situation? Yes. Uh, so the Cultural Council has some discretionary funds that, um, they voted on giving away to, uh, different groups, and they, uh, are initially, like, in agreement to give some of it to this event, uh, if we reach out with a specific ask, with a specific amount, before their next meeting. And when is their next meeting? Uh, I believe, yeah, next month. I think, I think it's December 10th, isn't it? Oh, that's the state of this event. Yes, I know. So who, uh, do we know, do I, so I can send a letter, but can someone who's working on the program draft it? What letter? A letter to the Cultural Council asking, requesting funds. I don't think we need any money. We're getting $400. You know, I, we have to use that $400. We can't, you know, and we can't be making money. Sure, sure. So, um, so that's the issue. They were asking, uh, uh, the Cultural Council was asking, uh, was asking if the Human Rights Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee had a budget. I'm like, I don't think they do, but I, I will double check. Yeah. Right now, the $400, um, we're planning on using half of it for printing of flyers or any posters and then the other half on, on food. So just like snacks and beverages to have at the event. I don't think that we would need more than $400. Yeah, that's more than that just for the printing, actually.
Denise is saying, do you feel that that will cover the printing costs, or is it possible it would be more expensive? I mean, it's, I, you know, we're only going to do flyers. Um, I, I mean, that would be $200 for fly, for, in fact, even $200 for food. That's a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we were going to offer, um, the Speaker a stipend, but Marianne, you said that he wasn't, he didn't indicate that he wanted a stipend, but we should pay him. Yes. Um, but I'm not even sure we couldn't take it out of the $400, though. Yeah. Can you take it out of $400? Because I think we should advance. What's a reasonable amount? Well, I do. He didn't offer one, and I, you know, because I actually kind of said that, and I was hoping he'd get back with a thought. I know, $500? Thank you. Well, you said that he's coming from the South Shore, right? So I think $100.
He's not from native? No. He used to live in native. Yeah. So, so here's a question. Would you use any funds from the Cultural Council? Like, they already voted, it sounds like. So the question is, could you use a portion of that, or do we go back to the Cultural Council and say, we don't need it for this, but we have another idea that we would love money for, of maybe some of the things we'll talk about? Well, I think, I think that, Mariam, wasn't the, wasn't the Cultural Council grant set up specifically for the event that's happening on the Human Rights Day thing on, on the 10th, I think? Wasn't that one of them? I think so. I think so, right, Mariam? Because at that time, we had asked Mariam, and I think Mariam had made the ask to the Cultural Council. And what we didn't know at that time was that Mariam was going to be able to get money from another organization. Exactly. So my question is, do you think you could use a portion of it to pay, or do you feel like with the 400, you can cover a stipend and the food and the flyers, and then potentially we can go back to the Cultural Council and say, thank you so much. We're so grateful. Could we possibly have you vote to redirect the money to something different to be, I don't know what that would be at this moment. But the only thing is on the 400, you've got three things going on. You've got food, you've got a stipend, and you have what else? And buyers. Okay. I'm not sure. I mean, that might cover a portion of one or the other, may not cover all of it. So you might want to go to the Cultural Council and say, hey, can we have, you know, I know there's a grant out there for this, but find out how much the grant is for, and then say, hey, can we have a portion? Can we have a portion, like a couple of hundred bucks to pay the stipend? Yeah, something like that. I think they would prefer if we have a specific amount asked, and we send that, and we say, this is a, we need this much for a stipend. Okay. Well, when, I mean, I know what a stipend is, but how much would you think for a stipend? It's keeping so short. Right. So there's travel time, and then there's professional time. Yeah. And it's a couple hour, for how long is the, what time is the program? 6.30 to a quarter of eight, an hour and 15 minutes. Can we, yeah, I mean, at least 200 is what I'm thinking. Okay. So I think, that's off the top. I think what you could do is go to the Cultural Council and ask them, and I mean, if you could have $200 from the grant that was set up for this event on December 10th. And that, you would probably have to, I, you might have to talk to Huawei about it, but whoever else is handling this. Um, and I'll, I'll ask Jeanneau, because she, being part of the festival, you might have some thoughts about how you end up paying someone, because I would feel like we have to give it to him that night, not, you know, wait to pay him later. So that means a deal, but we'd have to find out how the process works. I don't know. Yes. Can you, um, well, if the money comes through our account with the town, um, and probably if it goes through any other pass through that we might be able to use at any time, generally need to ask for a W9 from the person. Yeah. Yeah. If it's a town. Is, is the Cultural Council a town group? Yes. It's a, it's a, it's not a 501c3 on its own. I don't. It's a town entity. But even, even for the festival Arts Weyland, we, Arts Weyland wanted a W9. Could the donation from the village bank be used to work as stipends and then use the, um, the flyer and snacks for refreshments be out of the others. So we don't have to do, he doesn't have to do the W9 and wait. So we'll have the village bank when it comes to Weyland. Yeah. Yeah. We can solve that offline. I don't think we need to. We'll talk about that later. Miriam and, uh, Kevin, thank you so much. You know, we don't, we don't want to look, Osman, I don't want to look ungrateful. We just want to make sure that we, you know, spend the money that we've been given. Um, maybe you can go back and really do some math and figure out what, you know, in the next few days, like really what will the food costs be? What will the flyers be? And so that we can have a better idea of what we really need to do. Okay. I think just based off of last year, we're definitely going to be less than 400. It's just a matter of, um, how much we're wanting to pay the speaker. Well, and gussy up the event.
Yeah, we can talk about offline, Miriam. I don't know that we need to take a vote. I, my instinct is to say, let's figure out what you actually need and then decide, you know, with Mariam, what you, what we want to do. And, and Denise can talk to Kelsey about how to get him paid the night of, regardless of where it comes, you know, which fund it comes from, he still has to get paid by the town. And so you can find out, well, I'm sure they need a WL, but can you give them a check that night? Mm-hmm. That would be the question. So. Most likely no, because of the process. Because usually it has to. It has to get approved by the select board, unless there's something different than how we did it before. By the select board, or by us? Well, by us, we need a, like, um, we vote to approve the expenditure. And then Kelsey puts it all in as part of the select board packet to approve payments of things, I believe. Okay. Which is why we always had the delay with the festival. Yes, since they don't just, but. So check and see it may, maybe there's something different they can do. So we won't be able to, I mean, we do have funding in here, but we don't specifically have an agenda item that says vote for a stipend for a particular individual. And we can't do that till the next meeting, which will be after the fact. So we're not going to be able to give him a check unless we're allowed to pay it out of pocket and get reimbursed. But I don't think that's probably. I don't think that's probably allowed, but.
It is allowed. You'd have to, I would clear it first, um, you know, with the, uh, with the town office. But you want to consider giving him a nice thank you note, naming the amount. And, um, and if you don't get in touch with him ahead of time about the W-9, just make the instructions for how to receive the honorarium, um, clear, simple in a thank you note. Okay. So Denise will help. We'll figure out the options. Can we pay him and get reimbursed or do we need to go through the whole process? And, um, and if you guys can do a, a budget to really get a sense of what do you need from the cultural council to add to this event so that we can get back to them. Um, cause so we'll get food costs, even for little things. Yeah, whatever I'll have really going up. If you're doing Sudbury farms, catering, or are you just buying stuff like this? You know, it kind of forces you to have to figure that out sooner than you otherwise would, because we need to know. Well, it's one, you know, what's more convenient about those things is that we can float that money. Um, um, but you know, not with the, you know, the stipend that's just awkward. So, uh, okay. You're not to work with. Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, we will work on the dollar amount. Will you include on the flyer, um, the multilingual piece, because I think that would be really powerful for people to know on the flyer that we're looking for people to like celebrate the diversity of our community. And, um, that's not, did you hear that? She's working on the flyer. That's a great idea. And for publicity, you'll get it in the way. Oh, tell us like there's that place where you, yeah, it's, um, because of the holiday, it won't go until the six, which is right before the event. So, but you should put it in right away. And then, yeah, I know. I'm just saying it's not going to come out. The 14th just happened and the 28th isn't going to happen. And also the town newsletter, you've got all that on the list that I forgot. And then, I think the Lailon Post, the next edition that comes out after, would, would normally come out on the 28th, or would it be Thanksgiving weekend? They said the publication being finale. Yes. December 5th, I think you might remember correctly. Yeah. But we have, yeah, we can talk about other publicity venues. Oh, how interesting that we have too much money to, to run our event. We'll sell it. Try to think, think big, um, especially about publicity. Not that that costs money. Yeah, it doesn't. But I just hope that we'll also do it. The peace day. The peace day is in September. So we're really thinking of this. We're thinking about these two events. They're similar in nature. And, um, thinking about this as more of an adult event, um, that, you know, because of timing, it's really hard to, adults can't come in the afternoon necessarily, and kids can't come in the evening necessarily. So think of the peace event in September as a, an afternoon event, um, late afternoon and this event, you know, early evening. So that's kind of what we were thinking. And the, uh, so anyhow, excited about it. Well, since, um, you have been, um, offered money support from Village Bank and the Cultural Council, um, you might want to just make a, make sure that you make a special invitation ahead of time, um, because both the bank and the Cultural Council probably have a lot of different languages represented to make sure you invite them to be.
Well, actually, when we went to the bank, because they were big, they were here last year with a number of languages. And, um, so yes, they're, they're already, they've got that covered. So, but yes, we should make a special outreach and, um, and actually, um, get the Cultural Council logo on our, uh, flyer. If you're going to accept the money. We're going to be, we're going to have to send that out. So. Yeah. So that's a bit of a challenge. And then they have specific language that they want. I remember from the festival, you know, the Wayland Cultural Council is part of the Massachusetts culture. They have some very specific language they want you to put if, if you're going to use their funding. So that's a challenge too. So you probably got better figure out this budget pretty quick. Isn't that a grant? We actually don't have. Oh, this is a grant. Isn't this a grant? Or is that, oh. Oh, it's a grant for the, for use for the HRGEIC for this specific event, wasn't it? Didn't you say that, Kevin? Yeah. So maybe you're saying maybe the language doesn't have to be included. I, um, can somebody answer to that question? Well, you can go to the Mass Cultural Council website and it explains it all there. Well, the Mass Cultural Council. Oh, because they give that. The money came from the Mass Cultural Council, then the Wayland Cultural Council. I thought that, I thought that Mary was, might be able to answer that question. Yeah, I will need to confirm, but, um, this is technically not a grant. This is money that the Cultural Council voted to withhold and use. Um, so, I mean, they are granting the money, but it's not technically a grant. So I'm not sure if they still need to follow those rules. Um, I can ask and get back to the group. Yeah. Maryam, do you have a sense if, I mean, if someone came back to my organization and said we were able to get a donation to cover it and we don't need that money, we really appreciate it. Um, do you think there's a chance they would be willing to support any other, any other efforts? Or was this specifically a desire to support this one event? Because I don't want us to spend money just to spend money, because that would make sense. Oh, Karen, do you want to reach out to Barbara there? Well, I feel like since some of you were on that committee or that the Cultural Council, I feel like I can reach out to her, but you all are there. Yes, I, uh, my sense is that they would be willing to give the money for something else. I mean, if everyone agrees, depending on what event it is. Um, but the, the, the baseline of the discussion was to use that money for something that's happening now to help the town as soon as possible. So if there's something coming up with a concrete program that we can suggest, all we need to do is send an email and ask for a specific amount and speak to what it is. And then it will be voted. Okay. I mean, but we've just talked about a $200 stipend. So you're not a hundred percent sure if you need it. That's why I was saying like, figure out exactly what your budget is for food and flyers. And do you need the 200 or do you not need the 200 for this? I was answering the question too, if they would give it to another. Yeah, no, I know. I know. I'm talking to Marianne. We have a risk if we don't use the money, they just take it back. And then you have to compete for, with other programs to get the money for other use. Do you know there's a chance that happen? Because my understanding is that if the money we don't use, they go back to them. And then they just assume you don't need. Right. But if we know ahead of time, we don't need it, then, then we, we shouldn't take it. I feel like we should really be very clear about the budget and what the food is going to cost, what the flyers are going to cost. And do you need 200 more dollars for the stipend? Or can you take the 200 out of the, out of the, out of the, out of the. How about giving a flag to the speaker? I mean, like, use 40, 50 dollars to make a flag. They can put it on the wall. It does have more meaningful than a few dollars we give to them. I didn't hear that. They really give Jamil a plaque instead of a stipend. No. Yeah, I think
it might seem like a slap in the face to him though, because he's willing to come. And he doesn't need a, I, I would, it's what, what would be the plaque? I'd go with the stipend if that's for you. Absolutely. Because he, like you said, I think you said he is coming from the South Shore. Yeah. That's not exactly a hard skip and a jump. I don't think. Yeah. He's coming to speak not, um, you know, not to be honored necessarily. So that's why you know, a plaque would be the same kind of thing. Okay. So I want to wrap up this discussion and segue to the next one, because in the next discussion agenda item number four, we may come up with ideas that we would need money for. And so we can think about, um, yeah, whether we might have a different ask for the cultural council. Um, so just to wrap it up. So Marianne and Austin are going to look at the budget really carefully, start pricing out flyers and food and figure out whether you need this $200 for the stipend or not. And then through Mariam, you'll get back to the cultural council and have that conversation. And if I need to be involved, I'm absolutely happy to do anything. Like, it sounds like a letter needs to be written. Well, and Denise is going to find out from Kelsey about the mechanics of paying. And we have to reach out, you know, if he never, you know, I, I have to say, I, because he didn't respond to my question, you know, asking for a W-9, if he doesn't ever give us to that, give us that, then we will not release it. Well, if we're going to pay him, he'll give you double W. All right. Thank you. Uh, okay. So agenda item number four is to talk about the racist incident at Wayland High School. Um, Heather is going to tee us off and then we can just talk for a minute about the statement, the HRDIC statement, and then move into the community conversations that we just had, and then talk about and brainstorm about possible next steps for the HRDIC. So I just wanted to give an update. I spoke with the superintendent, um, briefly today to get a sense of where, what, what was happening in the schools at this moment. Um, and he explained to me that there's still an ongoing investigation. Um, so there are conversations that are still happening with students. Um, in addition to that, they are in the midst of planning for, um, some restorative practices to help, uh, with the healing process, as well as educational opportunities, um, for the school community. And that there would be a message and more information coming out probably in the next week, but they're in process and that's what they're working on. Educational opportunities for the school community, meaning adults too. I don't know. No, I believe that school community, meaning that students and the teachers at this point, though, I didn't ask specifically which. Thank you for that. Um, so we, you know, because of the time sensitivity of the incident and the need to respond, we, um, Heather and I worked on a statement in response to the incident. It's on our website. Um, and we put it, uh, also put it on the, uh, Facebook page. Um, I don't know if anybody wants to talk about the statement or move, move into the next thing. Are there any comments about, about the statement or? Thank you for doing it. Um, I think it was important to have a statement. Um, and, uh, I thought you did a nice job. Thank you. Yeah, I particularly appreciated that it was, um, very explicit, but not, um, elaborating, um, beyond the facts. Thank you. I, I feel like our, our role, part of our role is to not fan flames when there's a lot of flames bursting out all over the place. And so we, we tried not to fan the flames. Well, I would just like to say personally, it's, it's re it's, I know what it's, what it must've taken to write this and think through all that. So I can't thank you enough for being our leaders and, and working on this. So thank you. Thank you. And how, um, how much import it actually gives to the work of this committee that these, um, community conversations had already been planned so that, I mean, that was just serendipity. It was a gift that, um, very constructive community conversations, um, were within the timeframe of, um, being able to respond. And I think the quality of the speakers, um, bringing district attorney, Marion Ryan, and also Dr. Eden Renee Hayes, um, as facilitators and, um, conversation experts, I think we've um, we've, we've validated, um, good work of this committee in the service of the community.
I know, and Robbie, of course, just left work. Um, Denise is asking if we can lower the volume.
Um, so, oh, I was gonna say something else, but I forgot. Um, yes, we were very fortunate that we had those, those events and these upcoming events already planned. Oh, I know what I was going to say is because we issued the statement and because we had a prominent role at the DA's program, we did get some, um, emails of people thinking that we're somehow going to solve the problems in the schools and, um, or the issues in the schools. And so we had to respond to those and sort of, you know, say those, the schools are responsible for the schools and we are doing our part in the town. Yeah. I, I have some news, uh, the incident happened. There's victims. There's people responsible, responsible for, but also the victim is not only the, the side of which being threatened, also the side of this, the, the, I mean, the accuser, they will bring down the whole left side, uh, to their race. So they, they become victim too, because not all this, this could be just a single person or group people, very small group people. They act like that, but they could bring down their entire, uh, group, the race. They, they, they, all those people become victim too, because they don't mean that. So how do we, uh, take care of both sides and acknowledge that, uh, this, uh, this, um, behavior, just a small group of exceptions, not representing the, the whole group and try not to make it as a two group, uh, opposite to each other. It's really, it should be, uh, emphasized that, uh, uh, provide opportunity for both groups to have something to say. And, uh, really just to pin down the responsibility only those people who perform those acts. Well, there are legal issues that are, of course, beyond our remit here on the HRDEIC, and the legal people have to sort out the legal issues. But, but our role, I think, and you're alluding to this maybe is, you know, to help build community and to help promote healing in the community. Um, and, uh, and so that is what we want to brainstorm about, um, right now, actually, uh, is do people have ideas, uh, about programs or initiatives that we could take to help build, to help healing, to help build community, um, to help learning and, and growth and reparation and everything else that we need to be thinking about. Well, I really appreciate, um, Yahoo's highlighting concern, both for the, both for victims and perpetrators. And that, you know, we're talking about, um, young people. I mean, they're not young children, but they are children. And unfortunately, I can't, I can't really agree that it's just a small group and that it's an anomaly, um, because there's been a pattern in this community, um, over a very, very long period of time. And I think there's a problem when children are so unaware if that is the case that they could do something so hurtful. That's a big problem. Um, it's not all on the schools. It's also on families, but it's also the culture of the community. And if they are aware and they're getting a charge out of how powerful, um, that act could be, um, then how can, you know, how can we accept that young people would feel that it would be okay to do this, that they would be bold enough to try to get away with it. And I mean, all of this points to, for me, there, um, there, there are two big issues. One is I have a lot of concern for our boys. And the second is that it really does take a village. Um, I think that as a committee, we want to cultivate a sense of responsibility for all of the young people, but also for, you know, I mean, if we talk about, um, I mean, if we're serious about wanting to foster a culture of caring and belonging, then we need to be putting our arms around the perpetrators as well as the victims and, and really trying to get to the, you know, the root of the, the root of the problem. I mean, it's not enough just for us to put our arms around the perpetrators and the victims. What we want is we want a community, a school system culture in our town where kids are standing up for each other, where students would not allow other students to do something so hurtful. Um, so for the, for the issue of the boys, I've reached out to a member of Wayland Dads. Um, I said, I don't have a specific ask. I don't have ideas for solutions, but I think it would be wonderful if the Wayland Dads wanted to address this issue and to think of themselves, um, as role models, um, and to show their own courage in addressing this issue somehow that they decide on their own. Um, and engaging the, their boys, um, around the issue of racism. Um, so I'm sharing that I've made that outreach. Um, I don't know if, you know, the idea will be welcome or picked up. Um, but on the community side, I think the, the conversations that we have lined up are a good start. And I would like to see regular community conversations, um, continue beyond just the few that we had planned, because I think we create a space for people to talk about difficult issues. Thanks, Jono. Well, I don't mean to wait, wait, hold on. Can we hear from people who haven't had a chance to share yet? Well, I'll say something. Yep. Um, I think when,
and I do want to be careful because there is an investigation and I don't think that we know all of the facts yet, but when things like this happen, um, and as Janet mentioned, there's been many, um, I see the fallout sort of in kind of concentric circles. There are people who are directly, very directly, um, affected. There's members of their families, there's, there's friends, there's members of their community. Um, and then, you know, there's kind of more and more and more, and ultimately our entire community, um, is affected when things like this and other things that have happened over the last few years happen. Um, I know the focus has been on students and I think that's one part of it, but in this particular incident, more than potentially others, um,
when other, uh, specific communities were also very specifically affected by some of the conversations and the rhetoric that went on. Um, and I'm not only talking about social media, which I know is on the agenda, which we will discuss, but even in the, um, community conversation with the district attorney, there were statements made, um, that directly affect other members of our community that were uncalled for at best. Um, so, you know, this particular incident, the con a little bit of a, of a different slant than other, uh, similar incidents, I would say. And I'm happy to be more specific. Um, I don't know how many of you, you were there or watched any of the commentary from that particular session. I know, Karen, I think you were there. Um, there were some comments made by relatives of the, uh, child involved that were just, um, unnecessary at best. So I don't know what my point is, but I think the bottom line is that this affects our whole community, some more than others. And we really need to take these actions. Um, um, you know, all aspects and all sides of our, of our community, um, need to pull together instead of pinning communities or parts of our community against each other. Um, which is what I thought these statements did. They were inflammatory and I thought that they, you know, pin different members of our community against each other instead of bringing us together. Thank you. Is there anyone else who hasn't had a chance to speak that would like to? Well, I wasn't there, so I don't know any of the, what she's talking about. Okay. I want to speak up so we can hear. I said, I, I wasn't there. So I didn't, um, feel whatever you are talking about, um, where a specific, um, what was said that would be inflammatory. Was it the, the parents of the child that was, um, being the one that was hung? You know, I, I, I'd rather us not, um, I'm trying to think about how to, how to put boundaries on this conversation and I'm not really sure how to do it as well. It's public, it's public information. It's public information. It's out on the news. Um, so I just encourage you to, um, I mean, I'm, I'm happy to give more specifics. It's not a secret. It was said in a public forum. It is recorded. Um, so I just encourage you to watch it. Um, it was not said by the parents, but a relative. Well, um, I guess I would just say that, um, you know, one thing that disappointed me is that I didn't see, you know, I wanted to see standing room only at the next, um, um, uh, conversations for change and I didn't, um, actually it was, I mean, the capacity was 40. They were at capacity. They had 40 people and did it. It was more, okay. But I mean, it's a small room. It would have been nice to see 200 people. Right. It's a small room. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, I just wonder how we get, you know, uh, why, how do, how do we reach a lot? Not a lot of people because people don't necessarily want to come out and do that, um, uh, work. Um, it's, uh, you know, it's not the easiest thing. It's, uh, um, but, you know, I mean, we could do, you know, some of us just lack the history, the black history here. Um, we have actually, we have, um, we have February coming black history month. It's an opportunity to focus on some real history, um, and, uh, sharing, um, maybe more than just the history, but the effect of that history and how, um, the history still feels like it's alive and working today. So, um, um, the, uh, I mean, how do we get people talking about this around the dinner table? You know, um, I don't know how to do that to get some, to encourage people to, you know, just have interaction with themselves. You know, um, the, the library has done there's like 21 days, 21 days in, um, you know, I think we did an indigenous 21 days and, um, you know, so you do short readings and have conversation, um, you know, when it's a little bite, it's, it's not, I mean, it's the, the issue at hand is so big. Um, it, it's hard to, um, feel, I mean, as we struggle here, it's hard to talk about the whole issue when you're taking it in a really, uh, bite-sized piece, then it's sometimes easier and you end up learning more, um, whether it'd be possible to do some 21 days, um, in black history, um, and, uh, with a bunch of small groups, um, I don't know, I'm just, uh, postulating on, uh, how we get people together in neighborhoods and, um, who would be inspired to spend that time? Yeah. Anybody else online? Yes. I see. Um, it's really blurry to me, but Asma and who else? Just Asma has her hand up. Yeah. I guess for me, um, a big, uh, gap that I'm seeing is that the, I would have want as a parent, I would have wanted to hear from the athletic department in some way, shape or form. Um, and I understand them not, um, putting out a statement that the superintendent statement is kind of covers all, but I do feel like there are, there were opportunities for the athletic department to show up, um, you know, whether it was through the different events that we had or just some, something. And I feel like that is a big area where, you know, part of it is, I mean, obviously it's racism, but it's boy culture, right? That's kind of intertwined with sports culture. And so I think that piece, um, needs to be addressed. We need to work on that somehow. Right. Um, and I, it would have been nice to see parents from, you know, sports through, you know, their kids that are involved at the high school, their support at any of these events. And again, I don't have kids in high school, so I don't know, but I, I don't think that was present. Thank you. Um, and you know, I was, you know, one of the things I, I want to hear from the others who are on the screen. Um, I wondered if Mariam or Maya or Sophie would like to say anything, no pressure, only if you want to. Um, incomplete thought, but I think it would be good to explore bringing Jamila Adams to the high school in San capacity. Uh, he is a DI director at a public school. So I think his approach and presentation may be appealing to that age range. Um, I worry that as a community, we are, and this is not to downplay the incident at all. Um, but we are talking about this incident without addressing our issues as adults, things that are happening in the adult community. And honestly, sometimes it feels like people are scapegoating that incident just to not have to deal with their own stuff. Um, so yes, we do want to help some bring some programming and some help to the schools, but also town-based stuff. If there's anything that the DA event proved to me is that I think this town just needs to get together more. We need to get together and talk more. We need to recommend the side address made. We need to sit down. People need to sit down and speak to each other, understand each other's perspectives. If everyone's just in a silo, no one's going to understand the other person. And at least that, that was a start, right? People were standing up, holding the mic, saying what they wanted to say. Uh, I don't know if you can have regular stuff, uh, maybe a different structure, um, some kind of conversations that, uh, are open-ended. Um, I think that's really important. It's challenging, but it's, it's the, it's a tough work that we need to do. Thank you. Um, I see Jenna's hand is up. Um, since you've already spoken, I'm really trying to give everybody a chance. Kevin, I don't think you've spoken about this yet. Um, I think that it, um, I think it's such a large issue that it's going to be tough to solve all at once. I mean, it's, it's not going to be easy. That is true. Um, do either of the students want to share anything before? And I know this is not the easiest setting to do that in because we're being recorded, but I just want to give you an opportunity if there's anything you'd like to say. I think I'll, I agree with what, um, Asma said about how the athletic department needs to do more because I feel like there have been countless incidents throughout my high school career that I've really thought, wow, they should really speak up and do more, I guess, for the students and the athletes and also the coaches, because I feel like I don't want to downplay the incident that happened, but I think that there have been a lot more incidents that have happened before this and it's just not addressed. Yeah. Thank you. Um, so we, we can come back to you if, if you'd like to speak and if you don't, I understand completely. Uh, Jeno, go ahead and then, and then, uh, Heather. Um, I also thought Asma made a really important point and I think we learned from Caroline Hahn that, um, you know, a lot of the so-called DEI training, um, for faculty and staff in the school system is voluntary. And unfortunately, because, uh, you know, those faculty and staff who are involved in sports, they're already, you know, sort of busy and working, um, above and beyond their usual work day. So there is this kind of structural problem that they have been significantly less exposed to the, the training, which is really important. Um, and I think we should follow up on that because that was shared with us. Um, and then the other thing is, um, coming back to the, the need to be creating different kinds of spaces for people to get to know each other and to be able to engage in what we might call difficult conversations. But the thing is that those conversations, um, don't have to feel difficult. And I, I did a community conversation on race. That was sort of a speed dating. Um, I used questions from a game, um, on anti-racism and people just, you know, could not stop talking to each other. Uh, it was, you know, the making it a game, you have a short conversation, you change partners, you can turn in your questions and get new ones. Um, it was just a way of just opening a lot of very difficult conversations. And it wasn't about sharing it back to the whole group or synthesizing. It was really just to give people and everybody an opportunity to talk and to talk with people who you don't know. And I would love to do more of that. Um, whether I do it on my own, but I'm, I can offer that as a, as a methodology that is kind of anchored in the concept of race amity, um, which is bigger than black and white, but it comes out of the, um, the race problem, um, as just central to American culture. Um, we can't avoid it. We have to, we have to come to grips with it somehow. Yeah. Thank you. That sounds really interesting. Yeah. The game. Thank you. Um, Heather and then yellow. Um, I just wanted to circle back a little bit to what Sarah said. I, I hear you, Sarah. Um, and it's kind of connected to what you know, I was saying. I think that at that meeting a lot was said and a lot landed on people in different ways. And I think the work of some of the work of this community, to know, you used difficult conversations. I was going to say is how, how do we have those conversations with each other so that everybody has the opportunity to, to share and to listen and to begin to understand the impact of what we say and how it lands on other people. Um, so I, I just wanted to say that what you said is, has been resonating with me. Um, and one other thought, um, in addition to Janot's, the kind of speed dating game, as you said it with the cards is a world cafe model that we did many years ago here. Um, it's a pretty structured model and we've used it at the high school too, where you set the room up in tables of like eight, uh, with paper on the tables, you set it up like a cafe to make it be a comfortable environment. And then you have a series of intentional questions that kind of get deeper and deeper. And one person stays at the table and takes notes, but the groups keep rotating and sharing and kind of delving deeper and deeper into specific topics. So there are any, there are a number of, any number of different ways we could approach having these community conversations, but it seems like we need to figure out how to help lead the way there. Thank you. Yeah. I don't know if I'm was making clear. I don't, I hope we said when this accident happened, no matter why the blocks, we still, most people still agree with respect to each other, don't put down the other side. And then there's a small portion, maybe, or just a few, those are, so let those people be penalized, but don't expend that hatred to other white people or to the black people. So we, those people, we should provide the opportunity for all those, uh, the white, black, or to talk about the issues. And then they, they probably most of the questions are support that equal sense of respect to each other. So we can't do that part. And then we don't believe the law and the, to condemn those individuals, act like that. We don't want to assume. Or make view representing the bigger group's view and that's i think is the risk when a few people act in that way where all those put their finger with all the race they are representing that i think is a risk i'm pretty sure that is not the case not all the white or all the black have the same view as the people who committed that kind of behavior so we so we have to be how we let the people who is not agree with those act working together that's what we should do sure and and at the same time the bad apple theory also um takes um if if we only think of it as there's oh a couple of bad apples then we take our sights off of the kind of structural and systemic and cultural issues larger issues in the community and because we all you know you have to figure out how we internalize prejudice and bias and racism it's inside everyone everybody has stereotypes um it's the way our brains you know our reptilian brains are organized and so we all have to especially white people you know do need to do the work and if we just kind of say oh it's only those bad apples then we don't feel responsibility as as a white speaking as a white person for looking at ourselves um because we because we sort of put it over there on someone else and so i think that's just the the the danger of saying oh it's only a couple of bad apples oh and it also doesn't get at the impact that ripple effect of the number of people that were affected in the community we don't know how many people were involved but i would agree assume it's a small number but the impact this time and the ripple effect for many reasons has been quite huge right and one of the attic and one of the very dramatic and one of the concepts you know in anti-racism work and and other kinds of work is you know the difference between intent and impact and that you know somebody's intent could be okay but if the impact is really horrible and it's affecting the entire community we really have to look at that impact on all of us and on how each of us especially white people are accountable um for for these kinds of issues so i wanted to share i know at 7 10 and so it's time to talk about social media but what i would like to do is share if this makes sense to you heather and i did a little brainstorming do you think it's reasonable to um to share a couple ideas we had which some of which converge very nicely with some of the ideas that have already been shared here um do you want to start one you okay so this is very raw um and kind of a couple of different categories one is for all community members um and we're i think here we're really thinking about adults not so much kids but um of a program that would be called might be called something like conversations not confrontations to help wayland community members adults learn how to have conversations both online and in person that are respectful and caring um so this would be you know some kind of um uh and this speaks to what marian was saying you know just people talking to one another in a structured facilitated setting um and and that really grows out of our concern about the whaling community forum uh dialogue if you could call it a dialogue following the incident um with you know so much certainty and about you know we all know the right answer and if only everybody else could see our point of view the world would be so great um that kind of conversation on the forum was probably not all that helpful and um so just thinking about how we communicate with one another online and in person um we thought about and and you know as as two white people we wouldn't begin to know what black community members might need but we thought about possibly a listening session if that were desirable but one thing we could do um is review and report out on the community life and engagement study details specifically about black community members lived experiences in wayland because there is information about that in the report and and we could um pull that out um for white community members we had some ideas uh one of them would be a motivational some kind of a speaker a big name speaker or a panel with breakout rooms for facilitated small group conversations uh another is there's a model um that i heather knew about that the lauren don astley uh foundation used mentors and violence prevention mvp um which was training student athletes to be leaders so this is a little out of our realm because we don't you know we're not in the schools uh but we wanted to raise that and it it resonates with what asma and maya were talking about with the athletic department um there was apparently also laura done astley uh did a yellow dress initiative um the fund i should say did uh a yellow dress initiative which was a play in that instance about dating violence and intimate partner violence um and they supported the showing of that play at all different high schools um accompanied by discussions on warning signs and bystander intervention um so again you know that's just another model that laura done astley fund has used for the issue of domestic violence that maybe there's a role here um in race dealing with racism there's another idea is there's a group called true story theater which does uh comes into communities and sort of it's hard to explain but you you don't mean yeah yeah go ahead yeah you um um there are there are actors and there are a handful of actors and there's the audience and they engage the audience and asking individuals kind of to share about something that's going on that's hard and then the actors um do a skit about that to reflect it back to the audience and to that person and it's really powerful very powerful yeah we both we both checked it out to see what it was like in in person um over the summer another thought we had resonates with what jano was talking about about men um men speaking up um and getting male adults through wayland dads or any other ways to uh white this is again for white white men um talking with their white sons we talked another idea you want to talk about the next one oh we talked about well what we had talked about was how could we get small groups um thinking about over the years when there have been initiatives like um what was the initiative around drinking where we tried to have small groups get together uh with your with the adults in the lives of children so not necessarily my friend group but the adults who were friends with my kids um whose kids whose kids were friends to have conversations in small groups to learn about alcohol and drinking and what happens so with that idea of small groups in communities of people who know each other are connected somehow that some people might feel more comfortable um having conversations and learning about identity and those that work white people do to think about their positionality their roles how etc um and one of the ideas we thought was we could come up with a list potentially of people who could facilitate those types of conversations and maybe um there'd be in the school community maybe the council on aging maybe in some of our houses of worship word would organize small groups to have these ongoing conversations and we thought we might and a name could be something like the nice isn't enough challenge um to try to have ongoing conversations with more people where more people might be engaged if it was smaller groups and people that they knew i'm just gonna skip the last one for now that i threw in there at the end um and so in addition to those ideas some of which resonated with what already came up in the room i just want to reiterate some of the other the heather's world cafe idea jenno's anti-racism game idea um mariam you talked about people talking to one another um jenno you talked about teacher training um sarah you talked about and then heather you really nicely picked up on sarah's point that things land differently for different people and and i think that theme probably goes throughout all of these ideas of helping people understand intent versus impact impact all around um black history month we talked about marianne talked about the 21 day challenge and then the athletics we talked about um so you know we have a ton of ideas and um for fun you know funding is an issue always for us uh you know possible funding sources we talked about that have come up here are lydia mariah child fund lauren dunn astley fund sudbury foundation and and wayland cam um and then gossels sorry i've got the gossels excuse me the gossels fund for human dignity um and there's i'm sure others we haven't thought of cultural council and the cultural council um so i don't know i mean mariam i see your hand up and i'll ask you in one second um we're not gonna probably be able to prioritize tonight i know time is of the essence and so i think for anyone who's already starting an initiative you know keep going jenna keep going with the wayland dads and i think heather and i will keep going with the conversations not confrontations because we've already begun a little bit of work to flesh that out and if um and then we can certainly bring back in december things that we're already working on but also we can put together this list and begin prioritizing and thinking about funding um sources mario yes uh i was going to suggest possibly holding um some sort of uh structural similar to a focus group with a number of residents from different backgrounds i mean this this group does have some diversity in it but we have so many people that are not represented over here and i think it will be really good if we design programming and interventions in collaboration with people from the community i mean we don't want to do something that may actually create more harm or feel like a a too light or of an intervention that may actually cause harm to people and make them feel that not enough is being done so anything that that could be done in collaboration is is always better i totally agree i think as white people heather i felt you know more comfortable thinking about what the white people need to do but once we get beyond that um i'm sure if it's 100% okay i wanted to follow up on that um for a minute um the district attorney who was really focused on um events that happened in middle sex county put up a chart um of the incidents at least the ones that have been reported and many go unreported um and it was a bar chart and some of the cat not i forget all the categories but some of the categories were obviously based on race religion um ability um gender identity sexual orientation etc um and i think it was you karen that that started off by saying that we all have biases so um you know i reject the idea that it is white people that need to do the work we all need to do the work and i understand that we are responding to one particular incident and discussing one particular incident but maybe we can have some programming focused on the other areas as well maybe proactive before and i'm sure incidents you know are ongoing that aren't reported but before we have something major you know against a member of the lgbtq plus community um or other members of our community who might be white might not be white um but you know have a more diverse uh viewpoint of programming you know i don't i would love to do something in the faith communities which is only one group but um well it's not one group it's multiple faith communities but um it's one slice um that's definitely something on my mind i'm thinking about resources that if we hadn't funded that um to heather's point about the challenge you know would be if we could say like here's a fabulous facilitator for you know obviously the faith community we should do something but yeah yep thank you um so does it make sense to i i know we can't we can't this this conversation is not obviously there's not running down we're not going through tonight do we feel like we have enough of a brainstorm list to to um put a boundary on this conversation i think we do and move on okay do others feel okay about that or is there any last thing anybody feels they need to say i have a question on timing um we don't meet again until whenever the third week of december so pretty late december 16th do folks think we should be trying to have some event before the new year basically we have the human rights day and we have the library program i mean like one of the ones we're talking about here in addition to those or do we just bring stuff back or do we say we've got those two things happening now and we'll bring something back concrete to vote on um at the december meeting that's what i think i think thank goodness we have those things already and in play well you don't have the human rights thing you're working on but the others in place and then there's a january uh conversation of the library exactly conversation the library on there's a martin luther king luncheon in boston yes yes so great point i'm calling in boston i'll soon scare people careful yes um so do others who feel we have enough to get us through the end of this year i think we have plenty doesn't mean we're not working on on stuff um and we should all continue to have conversations with whomever we can to you know explore what what community members feel is is needed but wouldn't you like to know what was running through that kid's head that he thought this would be a great thing to do that's what the legal people are working on i'm doing now i mean this this just i have to say you know it touches on a kind of history that is so painful and is is deadly and um and there's a history of ignoring it you know the supreme court refused to stop states from lynching black people and um so it's it's very traumatic to have this happen so traumatic and and it seems like in the law intent seems to matter a lot um i'm not a lawyer but that's what i understand from reading about what constitutes a hate crime but in in our lives impact is really what we're focusing on here the impact of that act was used regardless of the intent was just yes so our justice system is also predicated on uh ignorance of the law is not an excuse and in this case ignorance of history is it's just not an excuse it's on all of us um to understand the context of our of our country thank you these issues are difficult to talk about in a recorded conversation where we can't you know roll up our sleeves and sit by the fireplace and have a you know conversation so we're doing the best we can and i really appreciate everybody's candor and um openness to this conversation um for a lighter topic social media uh although some of it isn't so light the whelan community forum was not so light uh unfortunately after the incident but i asked sarah if she would be willing to kind of talk us through the town's social media policy because we've all seen it and it's kind of one of those things the print is small and your eyes laser will put it um and so sarah if you would be willing to you know kind of help us see what the the main points are in this social media policy from the town right see what i mean the prince is so small you can hardly read it um i put it up yeah just so you all can uh yes the print is small but it's not that long so i do encourage everyone to to peruse it whenever you have time um but yes i will i guess point out a little bit of a summary um and points that i thought were important specifically for us but also just a high level summary of the policy so this policy really exists because the town recognizes that social media is here to stay and is a tool of communication with the community um so that's kind of the impetus behind it this applies to all obviously town employees but also any appointed or elected officials so that would be us interestingly not the school committee um so i don't i don't really know the history of that um and it covers both the personal use so of our own personal social media accounts as well as the official town use of social media accounts um so starting with the personal use and i can um yes there are some definitions here so social media really is anything that is on the internet so that could be a blog can be um obviously at the regular social media channels it can be a website um social media sites is more traditionally what we think of as facebook twitter etc um and then it talks a little bit about you know more definitions so you can look at those um on your own time um and then it talks about um our responsibility um as kind of what we post online so for personal use so if you are posting something online personally that is connected to the town business or the hrdeic you need to have a disclaimer so the disclaimer is basically that these use are my own and do not represent the town um you know we are in in some ways a representative of the town so we do need to be careful what it is we post this policy is not meant to take away any of our first amendment or whistleblower or any other rights that we have but if you are posting something that has to do with town business you do need to caveat it that you're not posting it um as a representation or representative of the town of the town um of course you can't use town systems or do anything on kind of town time if you're an employee um i mean i think this applies to every social media post you really should be courteous fair um you know not use inflammatory language be derogatory be you know break any laws of course um and specifically what's important for for example us is if we have kind of coordinated poster if we're talking to each other that could break for example the open meeting law so something to be um aware of
so let me just scan it and make sure most yes so the post yep so this is the disclaimer the posting on the site of my own do not represent the views positions or opinions of the town um don't violate any of the town policies obviously be consistent with federal law and the town policies um fair and courteous yes and of course with any comments there is a risk so prohibited you can't use town systems um or do anything during work time don't use our official email addresses um and the town seal um here's a little bit more about what what is inappropriate so anything that's discriminatory harassing bullying threats of violence um don't post anything that you know the town may be working on any drafts reports um anything that could violate corey or hipaa um i think that's a pretty good summary of this um section um you i guess may include your job titles and positions and information like that and then it really moves on to more official use so i don't know how pertinent that is to our committee i know we have an official website and we have an official um facebook account but basically the rules are that posts must be approved by the town the accounts must be approved by the town manager and the town manager must make official posts um of course abide by all the laws open meeting law public records law copyright conflict of interest and everything you post on facebook is public record um so you have to be careful about that um and then there's some other rules about moderators um you know that the moderate can restrict or remove content um again a list of things that should not be in official uh communications so profanity vulgar or abusive language any kind of threats advertisements of products or services sexual content or any links any sensitive information any promotion especially about campaigns or candidates all political uh promotions any content that is discriminatory against uh race color gender gender identity national origin religion ancestry age sexual orientation disability maternity leave genetic information active military service any other thing any other categories protected by law um so if there um if there is a kind of a violation or a negative comment in an official form format um then we are responsible for providing factual information being respectful and notifying the the moderator um and not kind of engage in any personal attacks or slurs threats etc um we are accountable for anything we say on our personal accounts as well as on any official um kind of forum
everything is like i said public records law if you are posting in an official capacity and there is a mistake of any kind of a mistake of any kind you can address that and you can note that this was changed due to a mistake but you can't kind of take anything off of line once it's been tack once it's been uh posted um and if you do get any outreach from media or anything that needs to be um you know addressed to the town manager let's really quick summary um you know this is much more detailed um i think the impetus behind this conversation was some of the rhetoric that was on facebook following the incident from a few weeks ago so i don't know karen if you wanted to have more conversation about that and what our role in that is um but that was kind of my high level summary of the policy thank you that that was a great summary um i really appreciate that and i wanted to add that i had asked some questions after i first read that summary and was told um because there's a section of the policy that says all social media sites must be approved by the town manager and i was told since we only post about our events and statements that the the town manager's office is okay with our page because like we don't asma am i correct we are set up so we don't take comments right on our facebook page is that true i think that we have we do have um comments on some of our um i think i saw like a couple i don't think it's disabled oh it really oh i thought it was disabled because also with like we don't respond to comments and we don't get into debates on our thing if someone had a question of like oh where at what time is that library program that would be one thing but we definitely don't want to be getting into any debates on our website at all i do see comments on our page um i guess from well from us let me see we just see like there's some lights oh white i do seem so like when you're advertising an event that kind of brings the event oh my questions about where is it or when is it or we do have comments that i'm going no not a lot of comments but they are on all right yeah well as long as we don't get into it with people because we do not want to be debating about honor or having them actually could be someone outside two people outside debating that well i don't want to be a space for that either well we you know what we put on the facebook is really kind of events and it's all and actually i mean it's a little broader than ours we only on our website only will put things that we sponsor and but on our um facebook we're willing to put on things that we see as um things that are kindred spirit kind of thing that our events um we actually don't you know for commentary on you know turning off comments can you still like because you're right that helps generate it makes things pop up if you get more lights or one of them you you posted a comment which sort of makes it pop up on people's screen like you just referred to the original thing about how great it was it was just a positive thing but that causes it to jump up again but we really can't be in the position of having like the commentary back and forth i think you can still like oh so should we disable comments but keep the but people still have the ability to like or dislike why do we want to disable comments i don't know we because only because we we don't want to get so not only are we not going to respond to um get you know getting into arguments about things but we don't want other people arguing on our facebook page either well and do we have some i i i feel like we have some sort of responsibility to moderate it if we allow comments to be checking it and um i mean not not i'm worried so far it hasn't been an issue but
and it's sure all you need are two people that jump onto the site exactly we don't want that sparring with each other but but i still don't i mean it is something we need to handle but i don't agree in closing any line of communication or shutting people expressing what they want to express if something crosses a red line we can delete that we don't necessarily have to respond but it will give us input into what people are thinking to the stuff we're putting out i think the hard part is i we actually can't delete it if it's made i believe my understanding is it becomes part of public record just as if someone came to our meeting and made a comment they can say anything they want absolutely everybody has a right to do that but because it's the wayland hrdeic part i i think as sarah did i understand that correctly yeah i think you just said we we can't delete it becomes part of public record posts our but like if we make a mistake on our post we're not supposed to replace it we're supposed to i don't think we can delete well i don't know sarah can we i don't think we can delete comments but please correct me if i misunderstood not sure it could directly um addresses comments but i think um moderating comments is beyond the scope of committee i don't know who would do that um but you know if as evidenced by the will and community forum and especially the anonymous posting that's a lot allowed there it can get really out of hand and as soon as you're monitoring and managing then you know that's first amendment that's you know other types of i mean i would not want to be the moderator of that we may be able to disable the anonymous function and keep the rest i guess i wonder if we could talk about what the purpose of our facebook page is then is it a place to encourage conversation or is it a place to just to for us to share out things that are happening like more information that's the point behind it yeah mariam i really would like people to talk to us face to face if they have something to say i'd like them to tell us in person let's have coffee let's have a conversation not on media or right to us or right yes yeah this does say you know handling negative comments so our role is to provide accurate information in the spirit of being helpful remain respectful and notify the moderator to address the matter prior to any escalation and i mean the moderator i would think for i mean our town site is whoever moderates the town you know website but on the faces facebook but right but on facebook i mean we don't have a moderator and we and we can't risk um you know people posting things that are defamatory or vulgar or whatever um it i mean that's not what we want to encourage and it it's a significant risk mariam what you want to answer that yes i just want to acknowledge that i do see these obstacles that everyone's mentioning but i would still want to deal with them versus not engage on social media because if you just reflect on the da's meeting uh the people who showed up for um the conversations for change we have a complete generational you know there's a whole generation missing and you don't get to them except using social media i mean yes we do want people to speak face to face but this is how things are done and if you want to get to the younger generations in town not specifically only the youth i'm talking i know portion of millennials as well social media is the way to be honest i think it's a really good point but i think we should check with the town manager's office um just to see whether we can do it and what would be the requirement it may be that we need to um have a rotating moderator or something i think i i'm thinking of that book accountable um and if it's not moderated or if we allow things to be said um does it put the town in a potentially problematic situation if if things are being allowed to be said that are for example hopefully nothing like that would happen but the level of discourse that was happening on the wayland community forum if that were to happen here i i don't i i'm just not sure so i guess yes you're right that's a good idea to ask the town because it might not even be up to us to decide maybe we maybe yeah i mean that is a question mariam i totally hear you and i i absolutely am speaking from the vantage point of someone who does not like social media and um so i i i hear you that i know that's where younger people live adults as well as kids um but also i mean they live on it and we're not moderating it on a minute to minute basis so how long would it take before us to find that comment that that comment the the that dialogue that is destructive and that the town would be unhappy that was happening on a facebook page that what's the complicity if you allow something to continue to happen yeah i don't know and i agree i it's a it's a great question because you're right we are not reaching a lot of people yeah in the community and by not having tons of likes or however all these algorithms work people don't know about us because we're not out there in big time and social media um awesome did you want to say anything sorry no i uh i i would not want to moderate so i am for disabling comments but i get your perspective mariam um i just think it would be very hard if there was a conversation to have to moderate putting out fires not what i want to do okay let me let me get some guidance on this um thank you for that so um i know it's getting late and then we kind of i don't i don't want to keep us here till 8 30. uh so do we need to sign this i mean there's a signature blue box but i said so yeah i can just sign it and send it back okay did they send it to us yeah i sent it to y'all a long time when i got it over whenever it was i sent it to everyone and but i send you a lot of stuff so you know that's one of those things you just look at and go i don't know if i signed it if it was that long ago because i would imagine that oh but you know what the commissioners i mean i'm sure we would have okay been told so here's the thing we have had problems where our hrdeic i've got to solve this our hrdeic email listserv group doesn't have everybody on it now it has me on it now it has you on it now i'm not sure if everybody's no but oh we just lost everybody hello i'm here something are you guys there yeah we're still it's going to can't see you one second but but and it might just um oh it's going to auto power off okay i can't put the um uh 36 35 34 33 33 31 30 28 27 25 24 23 22 take something and touch my body i don't know because the cursor doesn't go it's left for continuing automatically saving energy we're going to be touching everywhere trying to we're here and we're still a little better well we're gonna oh no it might we will lose
oh guys oh for god's sake wait they're still there you're still here oh you know what i think just a tv it's the tv it's the tv it's the one that's the cuter that we said oh should we have at least just can you hear us now uh now i think we can hear you again oh good put me around it all right there we go um unfortunately we can't get you on the big screen can you see us still yes we see you okay and you and you hear us from back here you hear me okay cool well that was such a annoying disruption that maybe we should just um wind it up for tonight you'll have to just speak up and interrupt because you're on a tiny little computer screen far away from us now so just interrupt if you need to speak but we see you i i would suggest we go just move to two announcements and topics not anticipated and let's bring up um the other agenda items at the next meeting unless there's anything anybody feels um we we really should make sure to talk about i just was what i can i just ask a question on number eight yeah um asma are we in a position to be able to put up no your rights flyers like or is that something we need to spend time talking about the flyers ready to go i think we just had the wayland festival that was in between so we didn't get to going around like local town businesses to ask them to put it up in their windows um i did ask village bank when me and marianne went and they um seems like a lot of businesses just have bulletin boards that they would be willing to have it on the board rather than in their like storefront window so that's another option i think the question is is sort of who has the bandwidth to to do that work and then like of a couple of people who want to provide about what we're going to do for the right we always have things at the same time it's hard to know who might have the bandwidth to do that but know your rights flyer yeah well to different businesses what are there are there places that people know i frequent acts regularly i can ask them um oh you wanted to don't know it's very good there yeah i like to sit there and chat with me and i'm sure we're not and i'm happy well what would happen if we each took five flyers and agreed just in our trials to you know i mean the only disadvantage is them a whole bunch of people might ask the same story i guess that would be annoying i guess we need a plan so if you see nothing i can do dialings and stop and shop well stop and shop you could put it up it doesn't you know they have a flop they have a bulletin board and it's not timed you just have to ask you know this is something that's more general i would think they would support it um walgreens has a very sad looking but a bolt to board out off each door does that mean i get two you could put one and just say i'll do these two places that's actually pretty manageable probably for each it's not a huge lift yeah everyone takes two and if you take into places you go to right do we want to do that are you all online or are we prepared to kind of work so we're on agenda item number eight if each person took two flyers and made a commitment but i guess we should make our commitments here so we don't triple each other um oh i could do dungeons in jenna rose okay and heather said stop and shop at donalds marianne are you offering wall rates yeah i'll do walgreens and uh donalds are raised taken so you want to do donalds while you're there yeah
i can do cvs and then whale and house pizza who said that osmo osmo osmo cvs which cvs uh the one on boston post road um and pizza okay i can do a couple stores next to the wayland pizza there's a car clinic there's a little uh shop next to wayland's pizza there's another car clinic um yeah are you thinking state road auto body behind um the hair salon behind summer not really but i mean if i have a bunch that can if they're next to each other i can try a bunch of places well the thing is we should tell each other what we're doing so we don't have it so we don't have a bunch of us going to the same like well and white people there's some so near this strip there that's about 120 across from me okay so mariam you're going to do like across from the um cbs well even before then so state right road auto body summer bees like that area mariam there's a wayland car clinic there's a little shop next to uh wayland's pizza but i can't remember the name of veterinarian this is okay so you'll do that area um what about did you mention russell oh i i can go to russell's yeah i mean i would think they would be very and they you could bring a few there well they probably would because they and a half that would be great um we can do long fellow wayland so yeah that's great um where are we getting these flyers are we well that's what we got to figure out we got well we have to distribute them people and not everybody comes to these meetings in person well can't we just copy them from they're in color they're that's an expensive i mean it's their full color are they printed already do we have any less i don't know which like which ones are you saying the wonderful ones that are yellow it's yellow and it's a big qr code in the middle we all belong here oh oh yes yes yes okay you're right that's a lot of color it's a lot of color it's beautiful colors well it's um it's uh well do we have some left to you um for the festival i don't know i didn't look um so uh i would think we would yes one of you and i talk and let's figure out what's left okay and make some more copies and then do we bring it to the december meeting and then just deliver them to people come online and don't show you know another person oh it can't i mean you know right or we could leave some here we could leave a pile here and people could come and pick up a few that's you know so right at the through the foyer there just the front entrance we'll put a pile and because i don't think yeah i don't think that'd be a problem yeah okay did we place any in schools good idea ask schools yeah maybe maybe ask in the school department yeah it's supposed to move on folks going on schools ask at your schools
do you think they'd feel like they need to go to the superintendent i think we have to go to the superintendent i actually wanted to talk to the superintendent so i'll stop by there okay so with a pile of flyers
i can just say no so i think the next thing we discussion of language uh yes uh uh i can't remember the date sorry i think december 2nd december 2nd does that sound right uh is that right maybe yeah anyway um we have a forum coming up on affordable adus and we should get a flyer together and send it to the
to the same distribution list right i just thought i'd mentioned um the website because we've got a lot of things to put on right now we have the know your rights we have the statement for the high school incident we have native american heritage month and we have the human rights day flyer i guess that's a wonderful problem to have that we have all this important stuff we want to say but we have all this important stuff we want to say so um um i was going to us um you know so i'm just going to put one of those in the news and announcements um and then you know fortunately we can also link things um so we'll try to have everything on the page it's not perfect but um that's i think the best uh way we can do so thank you for keep appreciate that so long how nice are we we're to go after i knocked open the sound system my enemy go home oh was it was it you're tripping you're tripping ah
that was the visual and this was the audio so my apologies to everybody but we didn't but we didn't you see uh move to adjourn yes i have one more question uh and i'm sorry if i missed anything because i thought the sound is glitching so i don't think i'm hearing everything but on the topic of uh social media and the things we need to post can we just ask if the town has a meta account business account and if that's something that we can use through town it will solve a lot of the issues that we spoke about today from marriage to scheduling the posts to all that uh so it's worth asking if we if we can use something through them you mean instead of us posting on our own website are you saying that we would turn to them to do the posting on a more official website facebook page no no we would be the one managing it but if they have a meta business account that we can use um i'm not sure if anyone else in like if other bodies in town are active on social media but i know that knowing uh sorry having a business account would be helpful in managing and scheduling and all that i'm honestly saying i'm thinking long-term i know i don't i don't understand it either it's a good question to ask in town manager's office is there like a management like a board management kind of thing like uh when you're talking about scheduling and things going out notices going out yes it's like it's it's the it's the account that um businesses use to uh schedule and monitor their social media accounts and um i'm i'm not sure if it if it can have multi-users but if that's something that the town can sponsor then different committees can use it for their social media needs because i i know that you know different committees would want to censor social media differently and i don't like the use of word censor whatever is equivalent to that but um we need to realize that this is the direction things are going and having these tools will make everyone's life so much better and there's probably ai filters that you can manage yes 100 percent the police department has a facebook page so i could wonder if we have a business version great question yes please all right and would anyone like to make a motion that we adjourned okay i'll make a motion that we adjourn yes so at what time at 804 okay yeah all right denise you're setting yes okay wonderful let's vote um give me a second guys uh lost my list all right i'm going to do it this way but i just can't see you though um oh it's not no it's not there okay guys i can't see you because you're on a tiny screen so um asma yes sarah sarah will yes thank you mariam yes yes mariam yes sophie yes jono yes heather yes denise yes kevin yes mariam yes and hara yes meeting adjourned thank you so much everybody