Minutes of the Meeting with Medical Examiner’s Office July 8, 2002
Next ME's meeting tentative for Monday, July 29th at 7pm.

The following summarizes the major points discussed at meeting:

- ME's office will now hold family tours every week and will assume scheduling for families. ME's office waiting on word/directive from Mayor's office. ME's office prefers families to meet directly at Memorial Park.

- DNA needs from family members have decreased tremendously. Less than 50 cases are outstanding due to the need for additional DNA samples.

- New dental identifications from anthropology review. ~ 7 weeks to go thru all remains for verification process. All reviewed to confirm. Positive ids - 1215. 505 from DNA. 3579 cases pieced together. Notification with all remains. Two new dental ids from another review.

- Coalition newsletter - ME's office requests copy. ME to provide monthly updates for newsletter in their "language". Need to work out deadline for ME input to be included in monthly newsletter.

- Two new processes used to reanalyze samples (that were not previously yielding usable results) from personal effects that had no yield first time - 1 case completed thru NY State Police. NY State Police extracted DNA as if forensic samples (761 reanalyzed produced 231 IDs). ME's office extracted as if from a crime scene (460 reanalyzed, 142 IDs).

- Todd Bill, Brody Project Mgr perfected new bone marrow extraction procedure. Week of 7/15 scheduled to pick up low and no parcels - ~ 7,000 pieces - expect 40% to 60% results - looking up for bad samples.

- Friday, 7/12 - SNIPs conference in DC - meet w/Gene Scrum and panel to determine if good enough to use or not. Will have NY State Department in attendance to expedite approval procedure if necessary upon determination.

- Marie Granieri of GIVE YOUR VOICE gave heads up regarding year anniversary - ME appreciated the suggestion and will put contingency plan in place anticipating family visits for that day - are waiting on something from the mayor's office.

- Family identification cards to enter Memorial Park have worked very well.

- Bill Doyle voiced concern that not all families aware of Memorial Park. ME's office received handful (~3 or 4) undeliverable letters.

- ME's office suggested changing hotline hours - after 5 pm call volume is very slow - need to work out new hours and advise - appropriate incoming voicemail to be left on hotline for calls received after hours.