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Home My WebLink About01/10/2022 �9frd Town of Southold Southold,New York 11971 e--Anti-Bias Task Force- Steering Committee Draft of Minutes from Online Zoom Meeting January 10, 2022 Members Present: Sandra Benedetto, Emily Geiger, Laura Held, Christopher North, Carolyn Peabody, David Schultz, Valerie Shelby(Co-Chair), Cynthia Smith. Members Absent/Excused: Marjorie Day, LeRoy Heyliger, Jean LePre, Eleanor Lingo, Sonia Spar(Co-Chair). b,ll� n ck pnk��f� 0 Also Present: Brian Mealy (Town Board Member, Liaison), Police Chief Martin Flatley (Liaison)was attended another meeting at this time. Guests: Jane Flinter and Randy Wade. The meeting, scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m., was not able to be opened until 10:25 a.m. As this has happened on several occasions during the past few months, we hope that the delay will be resolved soon so that future meetings can begin on time. For this meeting, Carolyn Peabody was able to access the Southold Town Zoom account and set up a new meeting platform for us to use on this day. Brian Mealy said that he would check into our Zoom connectivity issues. Agenda Items i j(n, �1. of Minutes from December 2021. As we did not have a quorum to begin the meeting, voting on the Approval of Minutes was postponed. 2. Governor Governor Hochul signs legislation 5.2987-A/A.5679 declaring racism to be a public health crisis. Valerie Shelby added this to the agenda to share this important legislation with us. https://www.govemor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-signs-package-legislation-address- discrimination-and-racial-injustice 3. Progress report on potential Zoom meeting(s) with North Fork school administrators to briefly - discuss their respective schools'history curricula regarding the post-Civil War era and how they are dealing with questions they may have received from community members regarding critical race theory. David Schultz reported that he and Sonia Spar have not been able to meet with school administrators yet but hope to arrange this engagement as soon as possible. Sandra Benedetto corrected the minutes for December by explaining that she is not a member of this sub-group. 4. Ideas about a possible January 20 Vigil to support Respect, Civility, and Anti-Racism. Or perhaps posting a letter in the paper condemning all acts of violence. 2 We discussed several options for a safe gathering to make up for the loss of our usual Dr. Martin Luther King Day activities. Sandra Benedetto offered to send some thoughts to us and Brian Mealy suggested ongoing donations to CAST. We might also want to bring this up again next month. 5. Accepting Christopher North's resignation from the Anti-Bias Task Force and wishing the best of luck with his next endeavor as he continues supporting the Town of Southold. We celebrated Christopher's service and thanked him for his years of dedication to the Anti-Bias Task Force. We are grateful that he will remain active in his continued service to Southold Town. 6. Who will volunteer to take over Christopher's roll as the minutes taker for our meetings? David Schultz and Sandra Benedetto volunteered to share this job during the coming months and will alternate in a manner that best fits their individual schedules. Reports 1. Police Department: Chief Martin Flatley was attending another meeting at this time. 2. Youth Bureau: Cynthia Smith was not able to attend the most recent Youth Bureau meeting and does not know if a new Director has been named. Several resumes are currently being reviewed. There is also a possibility of a changing role for the Youth Bureau Director. 3. Schools: Fishers Island: No Report. However, Sandra Benedetto volunteered to take on the liaison role there. She will make connection with them as soon as possible. Brian Mealy will check on his previous connection with the Fishers Island School District. Greenport: No Report Mattituck: No Report New Suffolk: No Report Oysterponds: No Report Southold: No Report. A new liaison from our committee might need to be established. New/Continuing Business 1. Beach access in Southold Town continues to be a topic of concern and discussion at our monthly meetings. We wonder if our beach regulations are biased against any particular group of people. This topic is on our meeting agenda for discussion during next month's meeting. 2. As our committee works to bring our membership to full capacity,we are discovering confusion and inconsistencies in how potential members apply for and are appointed to our committee. We are also interested in being more involved with the reviewing and recommendation of potential candidates. This process'is additionally complicated by a poorly , functioning website with an inadequate search engine. We would like to resolve these issues to properly expand our committee. While Brian Mealy offered to investigate this for us, we would 3 also like to be active participants in this process. Brian Mealy will check with.Town Clerk Denis Noncarrow regarding any Task Force committee application he may have received. 3. Our committee is experiencing a growing number of occasions where we are unable to begin our Zoom meetings on time due to technical or availability issues. We would like to get this resolved and will contact Lloyd Reisenberg,Network and Systems Administrator, for assistance. Brian Mealy has also offered to check into this for us. 4. As we were alarmed by the bias nature of the attack on the Town of Southold Zoom meeting on January 4, 2022, we sent a letter to the Town Board. As we have not heard back from them, we decided to ask for a reply. After some discussion, the following motion was made by Sandra Benedetto. Motion: The Anti-Bias Task Force requests, 1)that the Town Board provide us with an official response to the letter that we wrote regarding the incident that occurred on the Town Board Zoom meeting on 1/4/22; and 2)that we request that Chief Flatley make a formal report to the Hate Crimes Unit of Suffolk County about this incident. [Sandra Benedetto}, [Carolyn Peabody]. Unanimous approval. Sandra Benedetto and Laura Held offered to work together on the follow up letter to the Town Board. Brian Mealy said that he will be speaking with Chief Martin Flatley soon and will update us about his findings. Adjournment: Motion to adjourn at 11:45 a.m. [Carolyn Peabody], [Sandra Benedetto]. Unanimous approval. Minutes recordeo and submitted by David Schultz ��rw. 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