Town Council Recommits to Social Justice Priorities

Report on the Special Meeting of the Town Council, November 7, 2025

This meeting was held over Zoom and was recorded.

Present:
Lynn Griesemer (President, District 2), Andy Steinberg, Mandi Jo Hanneke, and Ellisha Walker (at large), Cathy Schoen (District 1), Pat DeAngelis (District 2), George Ryan and Hala Lord (District 3), Jennifer Taub (District 4), and Ana Devlin Gauthier and Bob Hegner (District 5). Absent: Freke Ette (District 1) and Pam Rooney (District 4). Devlin Gauthier left early.

Staff: Athena O’Keeffe (Council Clerk)

The council resolved the issue left hanging at its November 3 meeting by unanimously approving Hala Lord’s motion “that the priorities set and voted on November 14, 2022 continue to be implemented and enthusiastically supported, and we support the Town Manager in getting the CRESS department to be up on dispatch by the end of December, 2025.” Discussion of the motion at the Nov. 3 ended at 11:45 p.m. when Andy Steinberg used his right under Charter Section 2.10(c) to postpone further discussion and a vote until the next meeting. This special meeting was convened to take up the motion.

Four members of the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee attended the meeting and spoke eloquently of the need to move forward on the goals presented in the 2021 report of the Community Safety Working Group. CSSJC co-chair Debora Ferreira said, “I am deeply saddened, frustrated, and angry that it was necessary to have another meeting today in order to pass a motion that would help community members in Amherst. This happened the last time we met with you in October 2022 when Councilor [Mandi Jo] Hanneke shut down discussions. It shows without a doubt that you don’t care about those on the margin, who are voiceless. Not all of you on this council believe this way, but you are a unit. I want to remind you that we are volunteers, and we stayed until the late hour to talk about these issues, but Councilor Steinberg felt he was too tired to deal with issues that impact our safety.”

She continued, “This motion needs to pass, and it needs to pass with deadlines embedded in it. Our presentation on Monday was a report card, and it showed that the council did not follow through on their own promises to put the CSWG recommendations in place and making their 2022 priorities a reality. CRESS is understaffed and underfunded. It went from 10 staff with 8 responders to 7 staff with only five responders, compared to the police who dropped from 48 to 47 officers. As the League of Women Voters report stated, BIPOC and those on the margin are the ones that use CRESS the most. Most calls are nonviolent, and CRESS needs to respond to those calls.” She added that CRESS hours need to increase, and the FY27 budget needs to include funds for a Youth Empowerment Center and a Resident Oversight Board, with the youth center being created by August 2026 and a Resident Oversight Board with investigative powers in place by June 2025. Also, the Amherst Police Department (APD) must revise its policies and develop an actively anti-racist culture.

Erica Piedade, another CSSJC member, agreed with Ferreira’s assessment of future actions, and stated, “I just want to add that there’s no faster way to erode trust in your constituents than by not fulfilling your promises and by not continuing to act justly, so please pass this motion.”

CSSJC member Lissette Paradis said that the Nov. 3 meeting was her first time before the Town Council and “I can confidently say that the turn of the events was definitely below my expectations. Falling asleep or nodding off were signals from some members of how this town perceives CSSJC and what we represent. I think it’s very important for Amherst to be Amherst. I know there’s been comments about CRESS becoming similar to the Northampton model. Even though that may be a very good program for Northampton, Northampton’s needs can’t be compared to Amherst. It is clear in the LEAP report (Law Enforcement Action Program) that CRESS would primarily handle 11 types of calls from mental health to verbal disputes to suspicious vehicles. That is not being done. CRESS would be available from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m., covering 87% of anticipated call volumes. Also, I re-read the report that the Town Manager sent to the CSSJC and Human Rights Commission on March 17, 2023, and it stated that dispatch policies are now being reviewed by the town attorney. I don’t know what happened to this.”

The fourth member of CSSJC present was Everald Henry, an immigration attorney. He said, “I want to articulate a few points starting with that supporting this [motion] automatically builds trust within our community. It builds trust with the government. It builds trust with the police, and I think everyone here would agree that when there is trust between government and the community, the community is safer, more prosperous, more productive. Prior to Monday, there were many on the Council who didn’t fully appreciate what CRESS was or what CRESS did. But as an attorney who worked in the criminal justice system, one of the things I can very much appreciate is that CRESS really does provide an appropriate response to nonviolent crises and that cannot be overstated. There are many calls for services that automatically does not warrant police response. By having an alternative response to the police automatically frees up law enforcement resources, so we’re not taking away from APD, we’re affording the opportunity for law enforcement to prioritize and focus where urgent public safety matters are needed.” He added that CRESS responders cost significantly less than police officers, and utilizing them more can offer potential savings to the town.

Henry continued, “I work with people who say ‘I called 911, however what I really wanted was for CRESS to come, but the police showed up.’ We’ve been asking for call logs and dispatch logs from APD to articulate areas where CRESS would have been more appropriate versus an armed response. In the wake of George Floyd, every community was being reactive, not proactive. This horrible thing happened and everyone had to take a very hard look to say how do we make sure this doesn’t happen in our community? But when you made that commitment, it should not have just been in that moment, but it should have been a long-term commitment. Here we are years later asking for you to honor that commitment.”

The motion also received support in public comment from Pat Ononibaku, Rani Parker, Esther Azar, Amber Cano-Martin, Russ Vernon Jones, and Martha Hanner. Parker asked, “Why is it now so difficult to reaffirm a commitment that was made on a vast, overwhelming majority vote? There seems to be a certain level of disbelief, and I’ve actually heard people say, I don’t believe this. But then there’s all this data that says this is happening, and it’s persistent, it’s consistent. So, I think it’s really time to look at what’s happening. It’s obvious a substantial portion of our population is in distress.”

Steinberg offered an explanation for his decision to postpone further discussion at the Nov. 3 meeting. He said, “First of all, I want to thank CSSJC. The report we received was truly well thought out, well presented, and very thought-provoking. We really needed the report. I also want to apologize to you. I think that it was unfortunate that you were meant to sit through a long meeting to get to your agenda item. The reason I made the request to postpone had nothing to do with my support for CRESS. I have supported CRESS throughout, and I have expressed the need to get CRESS onto the dispatch system. My concern on Monday was that we had a motion on the floor. It was not in front of us in writing. I felt that we had a responsibility as a council to be very thoughtful in our decision.”

There were no comments from other councilors, and all present voted for the motion to enable CRESS to receive calls from dispatch by the end of the year.

Ferreira thanked the council for hearing the CSSJC presentation and said, “We are vigilant. We’re going to hold you all accountable, and it’s not going to take three years for us to show up again. We are going to be showing up every two to three months, and you can’t avoid us, because these issues are critical to our town and all our residents, so we’re going to hold you all accountable.”

Henry added, “We are a resource, and we believe that we have not been utilized, so we are here, and you guys should utilize us.”