On January 22, the City of Somerville community meeting on police-community relations following the “Boston Straight Pride Parade” and Counter-Protest was held to gather additional public comment. The Draft Report on Community Feedback is now available online and open for public comment on the city website here: somervillema.gov/CBIDraftReport. The city is continuing to work on a number of initiatives following these events as noted in the City Response Memo posted here, and will now begin efforts to respond to input gathered at the meeting and elsewhere.

The Draft Report on Community Feedback was prepared by the Consensus Building Institute (CBI), a Cambridge nonprofit whose mission involves helping communities and other stakeholders engage more effectively around difficult public issues. CBI staff are trained as impartial facilitators and public issue mediators.

The goal of the report is to summarize the proceedings of the January 22, 2020 forum on police-community relations in Somerville, and chronicle feedback provided by community participants in the forum as accurately and concisely as possible. The comments, ideas, and recommendations in the report come entirely from participants at the community forum. They do not reflect ideas or recommendations from CBI.

The report itself is not intended to offer a verified factual record nor an exhaustive study of all the concerns or perspectives of stakeholders generally, but rather the accounts, statements, and opinions voiced by those participants who were present during the discussion. Comments from meeting participants about any inaccuracies or omissions are welcome and should be sent to Toby Berkman at tberkman@cbi.org or via the comment form available at somervillema.gov/CBIDraftReport.