CPARB members with Brian Corr of Cambridge Consulting Services Group in the center. The Bennington Select Board, through its authority, hereby establishes a Town Board to be known as the Community Policing Advisory Review Board (CPARB), to provide meaningful involvement in safety, equity, and community policing efforts.
To contact the CPARB, please call the town offices at 802-442-1037 to leave a message, or you can contact the CPARB chair, Kelly Carroll at kcarroll@benningtonvt.org
Through the creation of the CPARB, the Town of Bennington, its Police Department and the Select Board are committed to working with the entire community to ensure safety, accountability, transparency, and trust and to move Bennington toward achieving its vision of becoming “a welcoming, engaged, inclusive, and resilient community where everyone, regardless of identity, shares in our vitality and benefits from an outstanding quality of life”.
CPARB Meetings
Monthly meetings will be on the 3rd Thursdays of each month at Fire Facility from 6 pm - 8:30 pm except as otherwise noted. The Fire Facility is located at 130 River Street in Bennington, VT 05201. The meetings are in the multi-purpose room on the third floor. Access is around the back by the parking lot. View the municipal calendar.
View Agendas and Minutes
Resources
- Police Department Traffic Stop Data
- Police Department Policies and Procedures
- Background on the creation of CPARB and Additional Resources (Safety and Equity Task Force)
Committee Members
- Marsh Hudson-Knapp 6/2024
- Will Greer 6/2024
- Robert Ebert 6/2024
- Jeff Vickers 6/2024
- Kelly Carroll 6/2025, Chair person, kcarroll@benningtonvt.org
- Scott Richmond 6/2025
Contact the CPARB
You may email the current chairperson, or you may also share your thoughts and comments using the form at the bottom of this page.
Composition and Eligibility of the CPARB
The CPARB will consist of at least five and as many as seven members from the community. Community is defined as a resident of the Town of Bennington, Old Bennington or North Bennington or someone who works or has demonstrated a significant (8 hours per week or more) commitment to volunteerism in Bennington. Members must be Vermont residents. You can learn more by reading the resolution creating the CPARB.
Open seats to the CPARB and any town board or commission are filled in June of each year. For more information on open seats and how to join visit our Get Involved page.
CPARB Goals
In partnership with the Select Board, Town of Bennington, and the Bennington Police Department (BPD), the CPARB has the following goals:
- Recommendations on police department training and community collaboration efforts
- Recommendation and review of proposed new and existing Bennington Police Department (BPD) policies and procedures
- Review of anonymized data on complaints and compliments for the purposes of identifying problems, patterns, and positive actions.
- Analysis of town-wide safety data with a focus on equity and areas of need
- Comparison of local data to other Vermont municipalities, state and national trends
- Fostering of collaborative efforts within the community to hear all voices
- Work with the Select Board and Town staff, including the BPD, to promote learning on community safety and equity issues
Activities
In collaboration with the BPD, the CPARB will:
- Review required training for the BPD and outcomes and make recommendations on additional areas for training such as de-escalation, fair and impartial policing, verbal, and non-verbal communication skills; implicit bias; and officer discretion.
- Review existing collaborations with local organizations and agencies and make recommendations on ways to strengthen and develop additional working relationships between the BPD and the community.
- Develop a database for analysis of anonymized compliments and complaints to be utilized by the CPARB for the purposes of identifying problems, patterns, and positive actions.
- Provide an annual summary of data and trends relating to police policy and training; complaints and compliments; police/community collaborations, and CPARB education activities.
- Undertake other activities consistent with the goals of the CPARB and this resolution as are authorized by law.
If you are looking for the form to file a complaint or compliment about the police department, please click here.