2021-03-16-HSC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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Town of Lexington Human Services Committee Tuesday 3/16/2021 @ 7 PM Conducted by Remote Participation* MINUTES Participants:Gail Fields, Leslie Zales, Doug Lucente(Select Board Liaison), Betty Borghesani(Council on Aging Liaison), Martha Kurland, Melissa Interess(staff),Anthony Serio (Staff), Kim Gruber(guest) Absent:Pamela Joshi, Kea Elkin 1. Welcome&introductions:Zoom Meeting Called to order 7:08pm 2. Review and approve minutes of February 24,2021 meeting; Identified committee member,Gail Fields,to take minutes 3. Discussion of Lexington Police Q&A from February meeting and next steps Leslie explained that the meeting would focus on what the committee hoped to accomplish at the meeting with the Select Board: Inform them of our committee's objective, receive comments, and determine where to go from there. Martha questioned if the committee planned to do research first. Leslie thought that the committee should get the feedback from the Select Board first. Doug gave feedback on the current status of the new building for the police department. Planning has paused while two Select Board Members, Doug Lucente and Joe Pato, look in to getting more insight from the community.They hope to have community sessions and wrap this process up in June. The question remains: How does social work fit in with the town of Lexington policing? Melissa mentioned that the Human Rights Committee would like to do a survey of the police practices and there was some discussion about what the best methods would be for obtaining the desired information and the possibility of our working with them. Martha mentioned that the Minute Man Newspaper(March 4 edition}had an article about police in surrounding towns having a greater increase in crisis calls but that Lexington was not included in the article. Tony reported that the Community Crisis team reported 2x's more crisis calls regarding youth and seniors during this time period. Leslie returned to the issue of the HSC having a duty to explore these issues with the Select Board. The question remains: Is there a need for a greater connection between Human Services and the police? • Gail asked Melissa about the reports that they receive from the police relative to HS needs. Melissa explained that they do get reports from Brian Savage but the follow up can be difficult. She explained that the Fire Dept has actually used their services more frequently.