Committee member Andrew Art read the text of the resolution at Monday’s meeting. It demands Williamstown carry out a citizens’ petition passed unanimously at its 2020 town meeting.
“The DIRE Advisory Committee strongly recommends that Williamstown boards, committees and agencies, including the select board and interim town manager, begin to take actions to implement Article 37," read Art. "And the third paragraph says, to assess progress towards the goals of Article 37, the DIRE Advisory Committee asked the interim town manager, the chair of the Select board, and the chairs of limbs, town boards, committees and commissions, commissions and bodies to respond promptly by email to direcom@williamstownma.gov to the following questions.”
The questions include asking official bodies to analyze their efforts towards making Williamstown more accessible, equitable, and better trained to address systemic racism and structures that leave marginalized groups excluded.
“And then the last question is whether they will commit to sharing quarterly reports to the DIRE committee going forward," continued Art. "So this request for information is really to try to gain some more definitive information about what has been done to implement Article 37.”
In meetings past, the DIRE committee has noted that the town has not delivered the quarterly reports mandated by the article on equity efforts.
“I want to make sure that the other boards and committees in town know that this is a part of their work and it's a part of our work, and that we hope to do this work together as a community, so that it isn't about, it's not about DIRE saying, you’re not doing a good job," said Chair Kerri Nicoll. "But really trying to understand what's happened in the past and how they're thinking about Article 37. And then how we might work together to implement it more fully.”
In a 4-0 committee vote, the resolution was accepted and will be transmitted to the town.
Committee member Jeffrey Johnson, who also sits on the select board, gave an update on DIRE’s efforts to repopulate its membership. Earlier this month, interested Williamstowners made their appeals to join the body, which has three of seven seats empty as it begins its second year.
“The select board will be voting on the candidates at the 8/30/21 select board meeting," said Johnson. "Any recommendations or thoughts on candidates are welcomed by the select board. I say this because I have emails that come to me through DIRE, I also have emails that come through me to the select board. Anything that you want to say we're always here to listen, I know I definitely am.”
Johnson also gave an update on the ongoing investigations exploring the allegations against town police of racism, sexual harassment and illegal use of a federal database.
“Once investigations are- Everything comes in, the select board, the town manager and town council received copies of the investigations, any questions we have regarding the information, we can ask those of the investigators so we're very clear," he said. "At that point, we'll be looking at it with legal counsel to determine what and when we can release the findings. And to be specific, there's privacy issues, there's HR rights and things like that. But I sit here committed to you as your select board member, especially speaking to some of the people that put me in this chair, I’m going to see the unredacted investigations, the entire select board is. Absolutely the goal is to get everything out transparently as much as possible as quickly as possible to the public. And I just say this- At this point in time, we've come a long way. We're almost there. Please be patient.”
Committee member Randy Fippinger gave an update on Williamstown’s participation in a federal program called Strengthening Police and Community Partnerships.
“It is a collaboration that Interim Chief Ziemba organized with the Department of Justice to create a committee to look at ways to improve town police relationships," he said. "We have, there's 12 members of the community that are on this panel. We just had our first meeting in August 10th, and we have our next meeting next week. The majority of the work is meant to be private and it's not subject to open meeting laws. And it's meant to- They have asked us to keep most of the work private at the moment to foster an open flow of communication. But we're going to have a number of meetings over the next few months and eventually open it up to larger community input. But it is of the very narrow focus to look for ways and offer suggestions on police, town, police and community relationships.”
Art praised the Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation for updating its maps of the community to include references to the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians.
“I hope they continue to explore ways to partner with the Stockbridge-Munsee community to highlight Mohican homelands where we are now,” he said.
The Williamstown DIRE committee meets next on September 20th, and is expected to have all seven seats filled by then.
