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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTRC Transcript - January 20, 2022[00:00:00] [NOISE] I'm going to read the land acknowledgment. We meet today and the community of Iowa City, which now occupies the homelands of Native American nations, to whom we owe our commitment and dedication. The area of Iowa City was within the homelands of the Iowa, Milwaukee and Sauk. Because history is complex and time goes far back beyond memory, we also acknowledge the ancient connections of many other indigenous peoples here. The history of broken treaties and forced removal that dispossessed indigenous peoples of their homelands was and is an active colonization and genocide that we cannot erase. We implore the Iowa City community to commit to understanding and addressing these injustices as we work toward equity restoration and reparations. [00:01:00] [00:01:01] We can't hear anything on the Zoom. [00:01:05] Are you muted on? [00:01:06] Did you not hear me at all? [00:01:08] I heard you, but when you mute yourself, I can't hear anything. [00:01:11] Okay. There. Next is the approval of the meeting minutes from December 16th. Is there anything that anyone wants to update or change on those meeting minutes? [00:01:33] Now good. Then I'm going to make a motion to approve the meeting minutes. [00:01:41] Rivera, second. [00:01:44] Commissioner Ali? [00:01:45] Yes. [00:01:46] Commissioner, Dillard? [00:01:50] Yes. [00:01:51] Commissioner, Gathua? [00:01:53] Yes. [00:01:53] Commissioner, Johnson? [00:01:55] Yes. [00:01:57] Commissioner, Rivera? [00:01:58] Yes. [00:01:59] Commissioner Traore? [00:02:00] Yes. [00:02:01] Thank you. [00:02:04] Perfect. Next up we have public comment of items not on the agenda. TRC members shall not engage in discussion with the public concerning said items. We're going to start with members of the public that are on via Zoom. If you want to raise your hand, if you have a public comment and we'll call on you. [00:02:33] Does anyone here want to make a public comment? [NOISE] Let's move on to agenda item number 6, which is correspondence and I see that Eduardo Gonzalez is on this Zoom and the correspondence that I have on here that I included is [00:03:00] something that him and think peace wanted to invite us to and I'm going to give you the floor just talk about that really quick. [00:03:09] Thank you so much [inaudible 00:03:10] [00:03:17] Hey Eduardo, you're a little fuzzy. [00:03:19] [inaudible 00:03:19] How about now? [00:03:29] Perfect. [00:03:30] Excellent. Thank you so much, Commissioner, Ali, I'm very glad to participate in this meeting. I'm happy to see Ron Wakabayashi here. I hope I can hear his presentation, which I'm sure will be incredibly enriching for all of us. I just have a very brief comment on proposal. Of course, the commission is going to be looking for facilitation of some of [00:04:00] its key activities in the next few weeks. As you know, I was very happy to support the proposal by Karen Sunwest a few months ago. [00:04:13] Sorry, we have somebody here. Now that there will be additional proposals, we think peace, small outlet of colleagues with experience in truth commissions would like to present a small proposal to cover some of the aspects that the commission is going to work on. Namely, we would like to make a few proposals on facilitation of the public activities of the commission. We know that the commission has been thinking hard about how to organize public hearings, how to organize a public outreach of the commission, and we will position to share some of our experiences and to put the commission in touch [00:05:00] with members of other previous truth commissions that have done this already. In my case that was precisely my role in the Peruvian Truth Commission. Your organization or the public hearings and in the years that the intervene, I have been able to work with a few truth commissions on that. That would be complimentary and not competing with what other facilitators are going to propose. I know that [inaudible 00:05:24] is going to hopefully also present the proposal. We have a dearth of experience and their role will be much welcome. Hopefully, also there will be Iowa City- based practitioners who will make proposals and I really hope that the different groups and experts and friends and supporters who will present proposals will be able to work through. I think that our expertise is complimentary to each others and I [00:06:00] think that the commission really needs a lot of support from different corners. [00:06:07] Then do you want to talk about this transitional justice intensive course? [00:06:12] That's correct. Another thing that I wanted to propose is we think peace together with the truth-telling project, which is led by Dave Ragland as you know, we'll offer starting on 20th of March an intensive course on transitional justice and truth commissions. This is going to be a six-week course starting on the 20th of March, are going through end of April, and we are going to discuss all the different aspects of these that we call truth commissions and transitional justice, meaning the importance of dealing with the past, the importance of dealing with human rights violations, the importance of a complimentary approach between [00:07:00] truth-seeking and reparation. The significance of these efforts are looking into the past for racial justice, and different elements on how to ensure that the truth, reconciliation, preparation and justice process is successful. We very happy to invite all the members of a truth commission on members of the Iowa City community to participate. Yes, you want to participate too? Yes, that is what we would like to do. As you can see, I have very urgent requests here, so probably I will not be able to stay longer in the meeting, but I just wanted to make sure that our offer was heard by the members of the commission. [00:07:50] Thank you so much, Eduardo and baby. We appreciate your time. With that, I think [00:08:00] that this is a nice little transition into Ron Wakabayashi. If you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and then we can start listening to your presentation. [00:08:20] My way of introduction, I think I'm going to start with one of male favorite people, which I think gives me standing. But seriously, I'm retired from the Department of Justice Community Relations Service, where I was the Western Regional Director for some 20 years. Currently I'm working with the Ohio State folks with the divided communities project. Probably most relevant to this presentation is that I was the National Director of the Japanese American Citizens League. During the time period where [00:09:00] the organization had as its principal mission. The conduct of legislation for the federal government that called for a formal apology from the federal government and compensation for the wartime internment of Ford time incarceration of Americans of Japanese ancestry, which included most of my family. I was born, wallet camps were in operation and technically I was in the custody of federal government and excluded from the West Coast, but I do not reside in one of the concentration camps. But I did have the role of being a national director of the organization that play the principal role. In probably was America's prime example of a truth and reconciliation process. Let me start by sharing a little bit different story [00:10:00] that's somehow related. Back in that same time period in the 1980's was a period where the Japanese economy was growing. There was a great backlash against Japan and that resulted in anti-Asian actions taking place throughout the country. Related to that, The President of Sony took the documentary Eyes on the Prize on the American Civil Rights Movement. Had a Japanese language version created, and we had to distributed to all the high schools and junior high schools in Japan. Along with that, they had an essay contest to ask students to write on their observations of looking at the American Civil Rights Movement. I was one of the readers in there, and it was one of the asteroid essay, and in particularly that struck me. I wanted to pose a question to everyone thinking about that. [00:11:00] The essay that I'm thinking about was written by an eighth grade, Japanese girl who lived in rural Japan. It's a very simple living as farmers. She had not in her life had any contact with an African-American person. Only exposure was looking at this documentary on a Civil Rights Movement, Eyes on the Prize. I want you to just for a second to imagine what her first opening sentence of the paragraph of her essay is. Just give that a quick thought. If you are looking at [BACKGROUND] Eyes on the Prize, what would be your opening sentence? Her opening sentence was," I've never seen people who love their country so much." [00:11:53] That documents the civil rights struggle annually. I've had the privilege of [00:12:00] actually meeting and knowing people like CT Vivian, who is one of King's closest lieutenants who Jim Clark punched. But just before the crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. [00:12:19] CT Vivian passed away last year. But have you ever met the man you feel like you're in the presence of a saint. He's just this gentle man who push forward. I just wanted to begin with sharing that story because I think that the journey that people are taking part on has some parallels to that [NOISE] excuse me. When Japanese Americans took up the OE called Redress in that struggle. It started when I was near a male's age. I'm [00:13:00] retired now since a long time ago [NOISE] In that time period, the idea of pushing [NOISE] for reparations was a radical and outlier idea that the public and the mainstream of the Japanese American community. [00:13:20] We tried to show this up. The Japanese American Citizens League that I became the director of, [NOISE] was one of those mainstream organizations. The feedback was doing rock to boat. That's happened, it's over. We've got to make [NOISE] our place in the country. It's better to let it lie. Well, it turns out we didn't let it lie, but we also didn't know very much about what took place when we made the discovery, actually through the black civil rights movement. By asking the question, well, what about us? What was our placement was our history? When we pour [00:14:00] it into, there were only two books at the time on the incarceration. One was this real difficult reading, and the other was a popular history, but didn't have much of depth to it. You've got a general idea if you could imagine for my third generation growing up. Our experience with the camps is that we grew up post-war after the camps. As our families are remaking their lives. [00:14:33] When they run into friends and they introduce you and they say Mrs. Mr. Mrs. so-and-so they lived on this block in camp. The concept of camp for us was summer camp. It must have been something that they all enjoyed together, was now the concept of a concentration camp. We didn't talk about it and we grew up not knowing about it. When we started learning about it. It was something that [00:15:00] we had very little information about it. Now, recall that during that time period, I said that we started doing this, when I was a male's age. When the civil rights movement was taking place, it influenced us in the sense that my lens in terms of how I [BACKGROUND] viewed social justice came out of the work we did in the Vietnam War, and Civil Rights Movement. When we looked at our own parents and our parents generation, and we'd looked at people going into the camps. The initial position of Japanese American younger people, third-generation, was a sense of shame about their parents. Why didn't they stand up? Why didn't they fight back? Why did they acquiesce? Why were they quiet? In fact, at the time period that the Redress movement reaches Congress, there was a book written by Japanese American journalists and the title of the book is Nisei. Nisei [00:16:00] meaning second- generation, The Quiet American. The third American took real umbrage at the title. We don't want to be known as Quiet Americans. We want reknown differently, but we didn't know any different in the story. Now, I wanted to give that backdrop. That's the backdrop. We have a generational split in the community. This third-generation feel quite either both ignorant and in some cases very ashamed that they think their parents did not stand up. They let things happen to their first-generation parents who declared enemy aliens and I could not have standing. The average age of the second-generation when they were putting into camps was 18 years old. They became the spokespeople from the community because the first-generation their parents had no legal standing because they were in "enemy aliens". [00:16:58] The process goes forward. [00:17:00] I get recruited to do this job with the Japanese American citizens. We met with the congressional members of Congress. For artistically, we had our five members of Congress that were Japanese American. Just an unusual situation when you think about the percentage of Japanese Americans in the 1980 census, the total Asian population, not just Japanese. Total Asian population that was only 1.5% of the country. We were so small that the conventional wisdom is you don't have a chance to get as good this legislation. In fact, there's only one member of Congress who was there during the time of the internment. No one knows about what happened. Meeting with the Japanese Americans members of Congress, privately what they said to us, it's like you don't have a chance for any legislation. There's not like the political power, is not [00:18:00] the political will, is not the documentation. It doesn't exist, you can't do it. [00:18:07] At the same time, the third-generation felt quite strongly about like carrying this forward. We're going to continue with forward. Even if we might fail, that we may not get successful legislation. What we did understand is that we have a powerful opportunity to have a remarkable public education campaign. Because at that time frame and I would present for now that most of the people who hear the story of the internment, because it's been over 30 years since the Redress bill passed. Don't know what happened during the Second World War to Japanese Americans in the very bit vague sense. Let me recount to you, when the Japanese American citizens took it up and that's a mainstream organization in the community, its phase [00:19:00] 1. I just wanted to point that phase out to everyone because I think there's a parallel to what people are going through now. That first phase, I compare it to brainstorming when we talked about Redress, which is a word that means the same as reparations. When we talked about that, there were thousands of ideas of what should be redress. Given that human nature, what it is testosterone and ego and everything else becomes involved. It was a very divisive period in the community. We couldn't agree. That eventually shakes out and then to a cottage industry level where there are about three different approaches that are talked about. One is process of a direct litigation, class action suit. Another, is to go in straight with [00:20:00] a bill in Congress saying each other reparations that we demand. The third was one that was called for a commission and that was the most unpopular of the choices overall in the community. There was no group that stood up and said that we propose to support the commissioner approach. As our primary strategy, everyone was opposed to it. I want to point that out to you as well. That in the very beginning, the commission idea was rejected because people thought it was and it was not going directly to the question and getting a response to what had taken place. We didn't understand is that the commission processing initially was designed to have only subject matter experts be the primary people testimony. They can capture and create a historical record of what took place. But the community push on it is like [00:21:00] no, we would want the people in our community to tell their stories about what the internment experience was, what it was like, be uprooted from their homes, taken to barren deserts, put in barriers, and having to live there for three years, not knowing what the outcome of their lives would be from then on. [00:21:24] Going through that process of hearings, our discovery was not the generation that went through the experience. Didn't want to recall it. They didn't want to testify. They didn't want us to bring the subject matter up. I did the thing with, I had about 30 chapters in the Bay area. I got the chapter presidents, people who are used to speaking in front of public of people who had leaders in their own communities. Would you guys be willing to try this? We'll do [00:22:00] a dry run. Take a five-minute vignette about the camp experience. I'm going to get some of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the Judges in some authority figure types it play commissioners. Would you guys like just do a walk-through? Just see what because we hadn't experienced where the commission was. First guy gets up and just a few lines into his testimony, he couldn't continue. The second guy and these are all men. Committee is fairly chauvinist. He couldn't finish and the third couldn't finish and the fourth and the fifth. Thirty men that they couldn't complete a five-minute practice testimony. It scared me what's going on here? I know these people, they're not afraid of speaking in public. Don't want to be taught when we asked him to talk five-minutes on the camp experience [00:23:00] and none of them could finish. We knew we hit something that we need to be fitted to be thoughtful about that there was some deeper pain in the experience that they went through that we didn't understand. We mean that the younger generation that was pushing all this. As we went through this, the process still went forward. Many groups work with the community to help them prepare testimony. That was a process. I want to underscore this when we think about commissioned testimony. This is the storytelling that the public engagement face of it that was taking place. There were some 750 people that testified it hearings around the country. But beyond that, there was testimony going on every Sunday after temple and after church. There was testimony going on at the dinner table. Mom, dad, what [00:24:00] did you do? What happened to grandma and grandpa? I heard this story. Well, remember Mr. Mrs.So-and-so that you introduced us to that are on this block, what happened? What was it like to be in camp through that process? It was a discovery of like the experience of what the whole community went through. Not just a snapshot of one or two people, but when the whole community. Some of the things that were found in there was one of the things was that they were veterans. If you looked at the Japanese American members of Congress, the two most senior members were sender Danny nowhere in Santa sparked months and now both of those guys served in the 440 seconds. Now, the 440 second initially was suggested by Japanese American community and by the niece is saying can we have a because they wouldn't let them in service because we were [00:25:00] not to be stressed. They suggested that we have a segregated battalion composed only of Japanese Americans. They further suggested that they wouldn't be a suicide battalion to prove their loyalty. They went on to win seven presidential citations. No other union of that size and time service has ever had seven units citations. If you go through the readings and it's really quite remarkable. Remember I came through an anti-war period. I'm not particularly fond of military stories and those things. I found their stories really quite remarkable. When I read the mail that they sent to their girlfriends or wives, they would write the regular mushy dramatic stuff. But it would also write about, we know we have to be there when you have to be a major piece of showing our loyalty because that's part of the case we have to make. [00:26:00] In the World War II, if a unit to 50 percent casualty would retire. The 440 second to 350 percent casualty, meaning that the total unit had to be replaced 3.5 times. They were completely wiped out. That's a story we didn't know. All of a sudden as we knew that story. We heard that story. What happened? The community that felt ashamed of its elders had elders that they were proud of. If you listen to the testimony of the commissioners, the young people testifying at the beginning of the commission hearings. They literally said how they were ashamed of the community response. By the end of those hearings, the voice of the third-generation was talking about. We deeply appreciate [00:27:00] what the second-generation did. We're so appreciative of it and we are so glad that we had a chance to learn what took place and understand it in a way we were not able to understand it before. When I left the JCL, they let me do a victory lap with the chapters and go speak to them. [00:27:26] One of the things that I did was talk to them and asked him about look at, we got redress. It's not a huge amount of money, but $20,000 was enough to be significant where it wasn't insulting. It felt to most of the community, sufficient to be a serious statement on the part of the government. In fact, it's nowhere near what the actual costs of three, four years of incarceration would represent, but it's symbolizing enough seriousness the community [00:28:00] said, it's enough. But when you talk to the folks and say what was the most important thing about the redress effort, was it the money? I wonder around literally asking people, what are you going to do with it? They would say, I'm going to take a trip to Japan. I'm going to pay for some of my grandchildren's education. I'm going to donate it to the museum so they can capture the history or I'm going to do this and do that. Actually the best response I heard was an elderly woman, dark skin, very leathery, she came up to me in a crowd of people to say thank you, and I said [inaudible 00:28:47] "Grandma, what are you going to do?" She just looked up at me and she pointed her mouth and she said, "I get teeth." [00:29:00] I said, "that's the best one I've heard so far." But really the story that I'm trying to capture here is that for the second-generation, if you can imagine going through being incarcerated. Not just incarcerated, they didn't know what was going to happen. They were people who believe that they were going to be executed in camps. I didn't know what it's like to feel that you're going to be executed. I just have to imagine that it's terrorizing. In the camps, remember I said the 440 seconds took 350 percent casualty. When there was a male call, [00:29:44] mothers did not go out to get the male. Because on one hand they wanted to get the male, from their sons in the battlefront. On the other hand they were just terrified there was a message that they were Goldstar mother, [00:30:00] that their son was killed. They lived like that for three years. I don't understand that terror and I also know that it is not the worst terror that human beings have experienced, but this is an experience of my community. But what they got back at the very end, [00:30:21] a third-generation to the second-generation, the message is, we're sorry we were wrong. We appreciate what you folks did, we appreciate the contributions you've made, the valor, all of the stuff we didn't understand, we apologize and we thank you. For the second-generation like for those just during that [inaudible 00:30:42] time period, that's when I became a father. Being a father is just remarkable. It's the only time that I know of that you get to be God for a little while, because you're God in their eyes. I had a very prominent Japanese-American, [00:31:00] very wealthy, very successful. I picked him once at the airport. I picked him up, we we're driving, and he looked very sad and I said "Jim what's wrong?" He says "Ron, my son graduated high school. I said, "Jim, you're not like me, you can afford paying for college." He says no. He told me, "Dad you're famous and family has money, but dad you weren't there when I needed you." I knew to that point, wow, that's what I never want to hear. I never want to hear that. But in my community, a whole generation, the second- generation heard that. They got back that dignity and that respect and that affection. My approach to sharing with you the story of the Japanese-American redress [00:32:00] is really to say that we didn't know what the journey was going to be like. Initially, we were told we don't have a chance for a bill. Then as we discovered stuff and there were things that none of us knew about. There was a nice woman who went to the National Archives every day for years, every day. She had over 40 boxes of Xerox documents that she herself had collected to make the case, but what she did find was that literally the lies of General DeWitt. There were ten copies of a report done on Japanese-Americans and their risk as spies, a military review and those ten copies of that report all vindicated Japanese- Americans. Nine copies of that report were never [00:33:00] found, there were destroyed. She happened to find the one report that remained somewhere, but also that one she had, had the marginal notes that identified what the government was going to issue as an official lines to make the military necessity, [00:33:20] how they're going to make that point. It was the smoking gun, it was the lies. This one woman captured that. She became a heroin within the community. She was just probably as ordinary as you might imagine. What I'm trying to say is that, the journey is not clear. We didn't know where we were going. We thought that we didn't have a chance to get legislation that changed over time. The prize that we thought we got in the end, the money wasn't the price. That was really the price. The price was getting the respect back. I know [00:34:00] that the process that's going forward now to the extent that we've had some experience looking at TRC including Iowa city, is that, you're coming up to the phase where you're having your first I think public engagements, California is going to start theirs in February. I think that's going to be a very powerful process that takes place in the communities and it's something that you should pay attention to. One last point I want to make is like Iowa city may feel like you're not big like California or you don't have the attention that the New York City would have. But, when I talk about the redraws efforts for Japanese-Americans, when we went in with the federal legislation, we also went in with over a 100 cities that had passed statutes for wrongful termination of Japanese-Americans because of race [00:35:00] prejudice during the wartime. There was concrete evidence that there was real support out there. Not just by, Japanese-Americans, but by the cities that we lived in. Most of those ordinances and statutes were successful because there was some secretary and some office that thought it was a good idea and carried it forward. Mel she left it to me to say whatever I wanted to do, but I just wanted to just to capture that, that the process is the process. You'll learning this as it goes forward. If you practice due diligence, there's a lot of people supporting you. I know that the group that I'm working with at divided communities projects, Carl Smallwood and Bill Frolic and Terry Murphy and Nancy Rogers. [00:35:59] They're also [00:36:00] in my age core. We could be retired, but this is important in so many ways. I know that they contribute, and I know that you contribute. I don't think the path is a straight line. I think it's like we're going to discover more as we go through it. I'm suggesting that you trust the process and you work with the earnestly that I've seen. I like so much in the mail and other people I found on commission. With that, I think it's what I wanted to share about our experience. If you have any questions or comments I'm happy to hear them. [00:36:41] Thank you so much Ron. That was really, really informative and super helpful and just a really good story over all the hear. For Q&A, we're going to do it a little bit different. If there's any members of the public who have [00:37:00] questions, if you want to raise your hand, we'll start with those. [00:37:15] By the way, Amel I have no visual, I can't see anybody except myself. I don't know what the technical problem is, so you'll have to quarterback this for me, okay? [00:37:25] Yeah, no worries. I got your back forever. It doesn't look like anyone has their hands up from the participants. We'll move on to commissioners, Chastity since you're the only one on Zoom right now, you have the floor if you choose to speak. [00:37:51] I don't have anything at this time. [00:37:55] Does anyone in here have any questions? [00:38:00] [00:38:02] Look at that, Ron, you did so good. No follow-up questions or anything. [00:38:11] Do we have a follow-up documentation coming through [inaudible 00:38:15]? [00:38:17] Yeah, I could ask him if you want to. What Mohammed was asking if there was any follow-up documentation or anything that you can share with us. [00:38:29] I don't know if you saw it Amel, I sent you a video clip of some of the hearings. [00:38:35] Yes, Yeah. [00:38:38] I think that gives a good snapshot because it's real people talking. It's in this app. I think it was about 15 minutes. [00:38:43] Yeah. [00:38:44] I would suggest that I don't know that we know what's going to take place as you get public engagement. I had breakfast with a friend of mine, Dominique di Prima. Dominique [00:39:00] had worked for Stevie Wonder's station in LA for 20 years, doing the top portion of it. But she's joined Chavez Smiley, they have an Alltop black radio format. When I was saying that the testimony just go on when you're before commissions, it happens at the kitchen table, it's mum, dad, what are these stories? There's so many stories and it's complicated. Right now, you know there are questions like reparations, reparations for who? People who are drug descendants, people who were impacted in different ways. [00:39:47] There's a lot of the questions that are going to come forward. [00:39:53] The conversation is important. I don't know if people remember back there was a controversy once [00:40:00] in Jena, Louisiana. There was a tree in the high school and the white students said black kids could not be in the shade of that tree. Tom Joyner and Tavis and a bunch of people picked up that issue and 30,000 people hit Jena, a town of 3,000 to protest. I think the impact of word of mouth is really very strong. One that we don't even understand the potential of it yet. It's sitting out there. New York is in the stage where their recommendations will automatically become valid measures. That's going to be a buzz. California is going into their community engagement face. You guys are further along and Evanston and other cities are further along. You are at the front end of all of this and I think it's difficult to see where that wave is going to [00:41:00] take all of them. But I mean, do you understand you're in a historic place? [00:41:10] Thank you. It looks like we do have someone from the public who has a question or comment. Shawn Harmsen, one of our new council members and you can go ahead and speak whenever you're ready. [00:41:26] Okay, thank you. Just wanted to say, first of all, thank you to our guests for coming and sharing the story. I know some of the stuff that really jumped out at me was the inter-generational bonding that occurred through this process. At least that's one of the many things I got from that. I'd say a chuckle a little bit that you were so true when you have kids and they do look up to you for that brief window of time. I felt that. That's actually [00:42:00] a really cool thing. Now I have teenagers and so [LAUGHTER] they're quite familiar and eager to point out the lack of essence. I look forward to looking at those videos and again, thank you for taking time to share your story with this commission and with our community. Thank you. Mr. Harmsen, let me come in backing. I'm 78 now so i get that you're the elderly senior [LAUGHTER] the other generation. You get to be revered and get when you get old. [00:42:38] I mean, there's got to be some bright side to the aging process, right? [00:42:41] You get to be [LAUGHTER] wise again when you are old. [00:42:44] I look forward [OVERLAPPING] [LAUGHTER] to that. [00:42:46] Most of the rest your like while you were in that middle period. [00:42:50] Yeah. I actually remember my parents got a lot smarter when I hit 23. [00:42:55] Isn't that true? [LAUGHTER].They were geniuses I didn't know that. [LAUGHTER]. [00:42:58] But I still can't convince my son [00:43:00] yet. [00:43:01] Fingers crossed. [00:43:03] Yeah. [00:43:04] But thank you again, it was really a pleasure to hear from you on what you had to say. That is all I had to say. [00:43:13] Thank you Shawn. Next we have Megan Alter. [00:43:19] Hello, can you hear me? [00:43:22] Yes, I can. [00:43:24] I just wanted to say thank you. I was struck by so many things that you said, but probably the biggest one was the way in which the work that you've done, you'd literally embodied it as you were telling the story. The different ways in which one has to be persistent and how the work was deliberate and intensive. But it seems also like the way that this [00:44:00] came to be so successful was because it became embedded. Actually the part that I was most struck by was, the stories are being told at tables and out while walking within the community in a way that became embedded. [00:44:21] It had so many prongs of getting truth out there and I'm really struck by that. With the work that the TRC is doing now, I know that that is [00:44:37] both a goal and a tool that I think that they've been working towards and it's been hard with COVID. But I'm just so immensely grateful that you came to speak because it really put up so much into context for me and I appreciate that very much. [00:44:56] Thank you. [00:45:00] [00:45:03] Sorry and I muted myself so I wasn't [LAUGHTER]. It seems like just have stony silence after you spoke. Sorry. [00:45:10] No worries. I think you've got someone here with a question. [00:45:14] Hi Ron, I'm Commissioner Rivera or Kevin. It's very nice to have you. Thank you for joining us, for being a resource to our chair and vice-chair throughout this whole process and for joining us tonight so that we can hear from you directly. I think that there was a lot that I took from you sharing those stories in that perspective. When I have the hardest things for me I'll speak for myself only throughout this whole process was to trust the process. There's been a lot of moments that have been flash points that could have at any point really stolen my joy for being a part of this. [NOISE] Certainly, [00:46:00] there's a lot, I think, challenges that lay ahead. A lot of really tough things that we'll probably encounter that will add on to some of the tough things that we have experienced but what I appreciated about your sharing of your experience is that there will be a story that comes out of this that will really benefit us as long as we keep the hope and keep trusting the process and commit to what it is we set out to do. [00:46:34] Thank you for recognizing some of the feelings that we have in terms of being in a historic moment and trying to write our own future and history at the same time. But I also really appreciated hearing so many of your experiences echoed in mind. It helps us feel less alone in this. I hope you'll continue to be a resource [LAUGHTER] to us. I'm [00:47:00] sure we still have so many questions that we don't even know any answer and so we're so lucky to have your wisdom guide us. [00:47:10] Well, do know that I'm a male's best friend now so that will continue. I wanted to remind Mike I started it was that story about the eighth-grader in rural Japan when she saw the story of African- Americans and their struggle. I don't know that an American would have written that sentence. I have never seen people who love their country so much. They may have said other things but she saw it through fresh eyes and I wanted to share that story because there were sometimes things that we can't see because we're too close to it as there was a perspective that's missing. When someone halfway across the world looks back at it and says what they see, it may help us have a perspective on what we're [00:48:00] doing. [00:48:03] Thank you so much. Ron, you're incredible. I will be texting you and utilizing you and coming to you with all of our questions and I'll get that video that you had sent me forward it to Stephanie so that she can forward it to all of the rest of the commissioners and the counselors as well. [00:48:28] I'll keep sending you things I run into. [OVERLAPPING] [00:48:31] I love it. Thank you so much, Ron. [00:48:35] I know it's cold out there. It's what? It's zero? [00:48:38] We don't like to talk about it. Los Angeles. [00:48:41] It was 74 here today. [00:48:43] Oh my gosh. [OVERLAPPING] [00:48:44] Not all truths are good truths. [00:48:46] Not all truths are good truths, there you go. [00:48:49] I spent the morning walking on the beach. [00:48:53] Are you done now? [LAUGHTER] Thank you so much. [00:49:00] Bye, folks. [00:49:00] Bye. [00:49:06] The next few things, I'm just going to try to go through them really quickly. That way the commissioners who are here in person are able to get home at a reasonable time before it's too cold. [00:49:30] Our next agenda item is number 8, protocols for 2022. This was something that I wanted to with the advice of Stephanie and guidance wanted to talk about just because I do want our meetings to go smoother and flow and just so that we're not spending so much time being in this [00:50:00] room having discussions that could be heard either in private or at a later time. I just want these meetings to be quick and concise and to the point and then do the work that needs to be done outside of them. With 8A it says Zoom/in-person procedure for public comment and commissioner member comment. Like what we did tonight. First commissioners who are on Zoom or public commentators who are on Zoom will have the chance to speak first, followed by those who are in-person and I think that'll just help make things go much smoother. That way we don't have someone interrupting someone or getting confused on whose turn it is to be speaking. The procedure for handling commission updates that's 8B. In this my [00:51:00] example or my reasoning for wanting to change the way that we do this is because when we were working on this stuff with organizations that we want to partner with, a lot of these things or these conversations same with excluded workers funds. It would be really easy to just email Stephanie and then that way when we are getting we already have that update before the meeting and then any questions or concerns would be given at that time. For example, Commissioner Harris has been our go-to for excluded worker fund updates. If he would be able to and Stephanie you might have to correct me. I wrote 6 PM on Monday, the week of our meeting. Is that okay? [00:51:55] AM [00:51:56] Monday. If Commissioner Harris [00:52:00] had updates regarding the excluded worker funds he would need to email those updates to Stephanie by the Monday the week of our meeting and that's just so that we can all read it, be on the same page and then any questions or communication during our meeting would just be clarifying questions. Then procedure for announcements of commissioners. It's the same thing. Zoom commissioners will go first, followed by commissioners in-person, and then we want it so that you have only one opportunity to talk and that way it gives you the opportunity to plan ahead and know what you're going to say during announcements for commissioners. Does anyone have any questions? [00:53:00] Stephanie. [00:53:03] I was just going to say that [inaudible 00:53:23] [00:53:42] [NOISE] Perfect. [00:53:44] Then with that, I can switch to Number 9, update on the facilitators. Eduardo Gonzalez talked a little bit about this earlier when he was talking about correspondence, [00:54:00] how he was working with Think Peace to create a small proposal along with Kearns and West. I'm sure you guys all remember council's big thing was that they wanted someone from the community, and not just an outside entity overseeing everything. What I'm working on doing right now is connecting Kearns and West, and Think Peace with the current local facilitator proposals that we've got. My plan is to have all of them present on February 3rd, our first meeting in February, and then we would be able to do the interview process then, and vote that way, by our second meeting, we will have a decision from council whether they have approved or denied the proposal. As [00:55:00] far as details to each of the proposals, I'm not quite sure yet, it changes, and fluctuates. Eduardo's main thing was that he wanted to just have money set aside for coming, and physically being here or Dave Ragwan to physically be here, but it doesn't seem like it's going to be anywhere near the almost $200,000 mark that was before, since they are all collaborating, and working together. I'm helping them facilitate that communication, and get them connected with the local proposals, and hopefully they will be ready to present on the third. Does anyone have questions about that? [00:55:53] Just to clarify what you are proposing in terms of how we go about choosing our [00:56:00] facilitator or facilitators. It'll be Eduardo, and working with some of the folks who already were a part of the Kearns and West proposal, and so they'll all be given as part of the package, and then after that, we were going to be looking at the proposals offered by local folks to us. [00:56:27] Yeah. [00:56:27] We work together with Eduardo. [00:56:30] Yeah, in my thinking of this, which I tried to think of how I could utilize a local person, and an outside entity and the best way ever, so Mohammed and I hadn't met with Kearns, and West before Christmas. I think that Kearns and West is going to be really helpful for project planning, strategic planning, gathering all [00:57:00] of the information, and putting into recommendation form, whereas Eduardo and Dave, and Anti have so much knowledge when it comes to the in-person events and how we should communicate with people telling their truths, and what that is going to look like, stuff that probably Kearns and West doesn't have as much knowledge. That's where I see them those two pieces fitting in. Then the third local person would work with Kearns and West and see how their ideas mesh and where they can find a common meeting ground. [00:57:46] If anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to text me, I can update anyone anything on that. But that is all I have for the facilitator update, and [00:58:00] seems like the our February 3rd meeting will be a very exciting one. [00:58:05] I'll just say thank you to you for putting that frame together and I think that it's a good model for us. I hope that it's something that will be really actionable for city council and for us moving forward. Then also thank you. He's not on anymore but and tell Eduardo for also really doing so much work for us without. [00:58:34] Yeah, anything. [00:58:36] Not anything. [LAUGHTER] [00:58:37] She's taking care of his two-year-old, and it's just zooming in. [00:58:41] Yeah. [00:58:42] I'll let him know. [00:58:42] We're very lucky to have the support we are getting. [00:58:49] Sounds like we are on Agenda Item number 10. Announcements of commissioners, staff, and TRC shall [00:59:00] not engage in discussion with one another concerning said announcements. Do you have anything Stef? [00:59:08] I just want to say [inaudible 00:59:15] [00:59:28] Anyone else? I've got one thing. With the situation that happened the last time, how we canceled our meeting. I just wanted to float this idea into everyone's head, something that we can think about or put on the agenda at the next meeting. For inclement weather, thunderstorms, cold weather, things like that, if there's a procedure or something we want to put into the by-laws, if by noon. They don't [01:00:00] want you guys to be driving home if there's a severe thunderstorm warning and it's getting poured on. Just keep that in mind because with winter it gets super-duper cold and then we're going to go into the spring time where it's going to start raining and I just want to make sure that we have the best communication so that nobody's confused about whether we're having a meeting or not. That can be something that we talk about at the next meeting too, but I just wanted to plant that seed in everyone's head real quick. [01:00:31] All I can say is that I just want to thank everyone for participating from the public. I just want to remind people on the importance of good public health practices during this current moment crown search. The business of this commission is safety and taking care of our community and right now one of the best ways that we can do that is just to make sure that we're continuing [01:01:00] the same practices that we've been employing throughout this entire pandemic. There's been a lot of changes within the local hospital systems and in responding to things there's certainly been a lot of stretching and flexing. So, yes, please just keep taking care of the community in whatever way that you can by masking up. If you haven't gotten vaccinated, feel free to email me, I'd love to chat with you if you have more questions. [01:01:32] It looks like Chastity has her hand up. [01:01:37] The first thing is I was not able to hear what Stephanie said at all, if anyone can repeat that for me. The second thing is, I just wanted to say Happy New Year to everyone. I am - to reiterate. I hope everyone's staying healthy and happy for the new year. [01:01:58] Stephanie was just thanking us [01:02:00] for being understanding and working together just through the technical difficulties that with everything that's happening right now and trying to figure out how to make this work in the best way possible under these circumstances. [01:02:17] Awesome. Thank you, Stephanie. [01:02:20] Motion to adjourn. [01:02:22] I got one more, Catholic Worker. Not this weekend, but next weekend I look forward to [inaudible 01:02:30] [01:02:43] Did you guys hear that? [01:02:48] In two weeks Catholic Worker House [OVERLAPPING] will be attending ICOR boxing, families and kids, so keep an eye out for that. If [01:03:00] you want more information, you can reach out to click directly. [01:03:08] Motion to adjourn. [01:03:12] Second. [01:03:14] Cool. [01:03:15] Sweet, bye everyone.