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Date: 9/26/2023
AMHERST — With their director still on paid, administrative leave, a temporary leadership structure for the Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Service was established and announced by Town Manager Paul Bockelman on Sept. 19.
“DEI [Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] Director Pamela Nolan Young will lead a team that includes Fire Chief Tim Nelson and Police Sergeant Janet Griffin along with Kat Newman, the CRESS Implementation Project Manager,” he wrote in the statement.
“I note that all members of the Leadership Team fully support the mission of the CRESS department and are committed to its success — as am I. Our intent is to build on the many successes of the CRESS department and learn from the experiences of the past year so we can provide better day-to-day oversight of the Department.”
Bockelman offered his thanks to DEI, the police and fire departments for their support of CRESS and stated discussions surrounding the departments activities so far and actions going forward would be taking place with department members.
The announcement of the temporary leadership was met with challenge from members of the former Community Safety Working Group who offered their response collectively in a statement forwarded by co-chair Brianna Owen following an inquiry by The Reminder:
“Our concerns are that this shift in leadership will change CRESS’s mission, create distrust within the community and those who have been engaging with CRESS, and that responders may leave the program,” the response read in part. “We would like to remind the councilors and the town manager CRESS’s purpose which is to be an alternative to the police. While we understand collaboration is necessary to exist within Amherst’s safety departments, we worry that CRESS’s mission will not be carried out by this interim leadership whose values and vision are not shared by those who created this program.”
Community Safety and Social Justice Committee Chair Allegra Clark also responded to the announcement.
“My primary concern is that CRESS is supposed to be a department completely separate from the police, and having a member of the police on the leadership team blurs that boundary. My secondary concern is that with multiple leaders, there could be role confusion,” Clark said. “I would worry that the community would put less trust in CRESS if there is the perception or reality that the police department is involved in oversight of the program.”
Bockelman made note that the new interim structure is similar to the group involved in the formation of CRESS.
“Before CRESS was CRESS, we had an implementation team that included the fire chief, the police chief and the co-chairs of the community safety working group,” Bockelman said. “We planted CRESS in the world of public safety as an independent department, so this actually mimics how we created CRESS in the first place.”
Northampton, as Bockelman noted, placed their alternative responder program under the city’s Public Health Department.
“Police are crucial because the holy grail for CRESS is accepting 911 calls, to accept 911 calls we have to work with our dispatchers, our dispatchers are located in the police department so having that strong connection between the three public safety agencies is crucial,” he said.
As Bockelman explained dispatchers determine where a call is sent for service in regard to which town department should handle the issue.
“The concern for the dispatchers is to help us understand what a CRESS call is and we’re going through a list of the types of calls and we’ve done some studies on this, what are the kinds of calls that CRESS should handle that don’t require a police presence,” he said.
The former members of the CSWG still offered objections to the shift in their response.
“We are very concerned about such a group taking over leadership. Internally, the grant manager will be in leadership at CRESS although they are not the longest standing employee in the department and do not have the expertise responders do — both through training and as long-standing Amherst community members,” the statement read.
“We are concerned the presence of a Police Sergeant and Chief of Fire may deter community members from utilizing CRESS as it was created to be an alternative safety service to those departments.”
Bockelman said the move is the right one, right now.
“We think this is the best path forward at this moment in time, it’s a temporary situation,” he said. “The advantage was having Pamela, our DEI Director taking the lead, her office is right next door to the CRESS office, so proximity mattered.”
Bockelman also pointed to the need for the public safety expertise from the police and fire departments as well as Newman’s working knowledge of the program.
CRESS Director Earl Miller remains on administrative leave while an investigation is underway, the details of which have not been made public.