Earl Miller out as CRESS Director. Town Manager Offers Reassurances on Fate of Community Responder Department

Report On The Meeting of the Amherst Town Council, October 16, 2023 (part 1)

This meeting was held in hybrid format and was recorded. It can be viewed here. 

Present
In Town Hall: Lynn Griesemer (President, District 2), Cathy Schoen and Michele Miller (District 1), Jennifer Taub (District 3), Mandi Jo Hanneke and Andy Steinberg (at large), Pam Rooney and Anika Lopes (District 4), and Ana Devlin Gauthier (District 5). Participating remotely: Pat DeAngelis (District 2), Dorothy Pam (District 3), and Ellisha Walker (at large). Absent: Shalini Bahl-Milne (District 5).

Staff: Paul Bockelman (Town Manager) and Athena O’Keeffe (Clerk of the Council)

Eight members of the public attended in person, and 20 were present on Zoom.

Difficult Time for the CRESS Program
Community members have grown increasingly concerned about the CRESS (Community Responders for Equity, Safety, and Service) program since its director, Earl Miller, was placed on administrative leave in August. Miller resigned from his post this week, and Town Manager Paul Bockelman announced that the program is recruiting for a new director, who will hopefully be hired by January 1, 2024. Bockelman offered no information about what caused Miller to be placed on leave or whether he was allowed to respond to accusations, saying that this was a personnel matter. He did say that, in general, employees accused of wrongdoing are allowed to respond to the charges. In public comment Russ Vernon-Jones said he learned in a meeting with town employees that Miller had not been given a copy of the allegations against him, nor had he had an opportunity to tell his side of the story. Bockelman refused to comment on this statement when asked if it was true by Councilor Dorothy Pam (District 3).

In addition to losing Miller, three of the eight CRESS responders have resigned in the past few months. Bockelman said the town is recruiting to replace them as soon as possible. In the meantime, he has appointed an interim leadership team of DEI Director Pamela Young, Police Sergeant Janet Gilbert, Fire Chief Tim Nelson, and CRESS Implementation Director Cat Newman to serve until January, 2024. He reiterated that the town is “100% committed” to the program to make sure it is successful and serves as a model for other municipalities. 

Responders Still Not Able to Take 911 Calls
When the CRESS program was conceived by the Community Safety Working Group (CSWG), it was meant to be an alternative to the police in responding to nonviolent calls for help. Last March, Miller stated that all responders had been trained to answer 911 calls, but they  have not yet begun to do so. (The Community Safety and Social Justice Committee (CSSJC), recently charged that CRESS responders are mostly being assigned “busy work”). Several councilors asked what was holding up this crucial aspect of the program. 

Bockelman was vague in his explanations. He said that other communities have taken much longer to create their civilian responder programs than Amherst, which had the program running within a year of its creation. He also said that ongoing negotiations on the contract for the police and dispatchers have slowed the process. The contracts expired in 2021, but a new contract was only signed two weeks ago. The dispatchers’ initial concerns about CRESS have been ironed out, but now the dispatchers need to be trained in what calls can be referred to CRESS. Bockelman added that the Harvard Kennedy School cohort studying and advising community responders that CRESS belongs to is focused on 911 dispatch calls.

Citing the activities listed in Bockelman’s Town Manager Report, Jennifer Taub (District 3) said many of the CRESS responder activities seem more like camp counselor work than public safety. Mandi Jo Hanneke (at large) said she was pleased to note that there have been fewer 911 calls from the Jones Library because of the presence of CRESS responders in the building; Bockelman said that CRESS had received so many calls from the library that the responders now have an office there and can deal quickly with behavior issues among library patrons. He noted that all town departments have utilized CRESS, and it has been especially appreciated in the schools.

The most direct concerns were voiced by Councilor Ellisha Walker (at large), who had been the co-chair of the Community Safety Working Group. She wanted to know why CSWG members or those of the successor committee, the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee have not been consulted by the interim leadership team, and hoped CSSJC would have a role in advising the program in the future. She disagreed that the town moved too quickly in creating CRESS, noting that the CSWG had spent over a year gathering information to support the formation of the program, which was not modeled after those in other municipalities. She emphasized that, although the responders may enjoy making slime with children, that is not what they were hired to do—they need to be able to respond to appropriate 911 calls. She said she was not convinced that the program was being built using the recommendations of the CSWG and hoped there was a strategic plan for the hiring of a new director. 

Bockelman said he thought CRESS would start receiving a few types of 911 calls soon, and then the type of calls could be expanded over time; but the uncertainty in the department now is a barrier to expanding services. 

Ana Devlin Gauthier (District 5) said she was unsure about the role of the council regarding CRESS, since the responders and director are town staff under the Town Manager. Nevertheless, she wanted to know what the town has heard from the responders who have left regarding their reasons for leaving. Bockelman said one of the responders is now working for the schools. He stated that the Human Resources Department offers all departing staff an exit interview, but not everyone takes the opportunity.

Bockelman invited councilors who have other questions about CRESS to call him.

Public Comment 
Amy Zuckerman spoke in support of adequate funding of the CRESS program, and hoped it could deal with the many landlord/tenant issues in Amherst. Russ Vernon Jones, a CSWG member, said he was “beyond concerned” about CRESS—that most of the good work the responders were doing was halted when Earl Miller was placed on leave. He also felt the current leadership team lacks knowledge about the CSWG recommendations, which were based on the needs and experiences of Amherst’s BIPOC community. 

Allegra Clark, chair of the CSSJC, said her committee learned at its last meeting that DEI Director Pamela Young will no longer be part of the interim CRESS leadership team as of January 2. She advocated for a member of CSSJC or CSWG to be part of the leadership team.

Pat Ononibaku, also a CSWG member, said that CRESS was set up to fail because it was not fully funded. She stated, “The police did not support it, the dispatcher did not support it, nor did the Fire Department. Most of you in this room did not support CRESS, because you did not fully fund it. Our town does not support people of color in a position of power. See what is happening to Mr. Miller, and then another Black woman, Ms. Young, is set up to do the dirty job for our town government. When white administrators misbehave, you come to their rescue. In July, 2022, our former police chief refused to apologize [to youths who were harassed by the police] and some of you had private meetings with the police officers.”