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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTRC Transcript - June 20, 2024[00:00:00] [00:00:06] It's 7:16 and Redmond whenever you're ready, if you do roll call, please. [00:00:11] Okay. [00:00:12] We can hear. Yes. [00:00:14] We have a roll call please. [00:00:17] How should we, everyone just say their name? The microphone, please? I'm here, Chastity Dillard. [00:00:24] Lauren Merrett here. [00:00:27] Cliff Johnson here. [00:00:28] Lou Tassinary here. Kiche here. [00:00:31] Lubna Mohamed here. Kiche. [00:00:37] Go ahead online, please. [00:00:42] Wangui Gathua. [00:00:45] Okay. Thank you. [00:00:47] Thank you. [00:00:48] Next, I'm going to ask our vice chair to read the Native American land acknowledgment. [00:00:57] We meet today in the community of Iowa City, which now [00:01:00] 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, Mesquaki 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 dispossess indigenous people and of their homeland was and is an act of 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. [00:01:44] Thank you, Vice Chair. I'm going to move to public comment, but there's no one in the room, so we'll move on to the next agenda item. I'd like to jump to move past actually, agenda item number four. Approval of the meeting minutes from May 16, [00:02:00] 2024. Is there a motion to approve? [00:02:04] So moved? [00:02:05] A second, please? [00:02:06] Seconded. [00:02:08] Then, Redmond, do you say, all those in favor. Say aye. [00:02:14] Oh. All those in favor. [00:02:16] Aye. [00:02:17] Aye. [00:02:17] Aye. [00:02:18] Thank you. [00:02:19] Passes. [00:02:20] Move to the motion and who seconded? [00:02:21] The motion was approved by Lou Tassinary - Commissioner Tassinary, and seconded by Commissioner Johnson. I'd like to skip agenda item five because I think we need to talk about agenda item seven to inform agenda item number five. Is that okay with everyone? [00:02:40] Yes. [00:02:40] Yes. [00:02:41] Thank you very much. We can move on to agenda item number six, and which is reflection on City Council work session held on May 21st in the request for additional funds. Since we didn't meet on the 7th, we weren't able to discuss how that went. I know some people have had individual conversations, but we can talk overall. [00:03:00] I'll start off by saying, thank you for those of you that were able to make it. It was a very short turnaround, and I know it's during the workday, so I appreciate all of us that were there in spirits and in person. We did our best to do a presentation of our future to the City Council. It was met with lots of questions and concerns which outside of this. Some of us have had further conversations with with other council members. But I will see the consensus was not right now. We need more information. This is based on our request for 250,000, which was never going to be voted on on that day, just for clarification. But we wanted to get an idea of what their thoughts were in that while we were presenting our plans for the future. I will invite Commissioner Kitche, [00:04:00] if you wanted to add to what we spoke on that day. [00:04:05] If I can remember, I think chair stressed on the need for funding and the concerns that the commission was having especially when we didn't have resources that we were actually lagging behind. And that was a big drawback. Mitch I reiterated to the council the importance of looking at the budget and the difficulty we have been put into, especially when there is no proper mechanism of budgeting on the things that we want to do. I indicated that we probably drag ourselves also if we strict ourselves to the business budget style. That was not in the agreement that we had or agreement with them on how we propose our budgets. That's something I stressed [00:05:00] to them, and I also stressed on the fact that we do not have any facilitator. We are going to face problems with writing our thoughts and what has been said across and holding events. I think that's what I can remember. [00:05:20] Thank you. [00:05:23] I think we all tried to do our best and make the issues clear to the City Council, but they weren't convinced and so we left, I think, a bit less than satisfied, but understanding that they were not going to explicitly acknowledge that we needed a commitment for additional funds? They wanted to see more before they would do that. [00:05:56] Right. That is basically everything [00:06:00] that was discussed in a nutshell that was almost over a month ago since we were able to go have that conversation. Does anyone have any questions or thoughts? [00:06:12] I have a quick question. When you made a comment that they were not going to be voting on it that day way, was that because we didn't get three to be on board ahead of time - okay. [00:06:23] Yes. There was a bit of confusion on how we were going to make it all work. But thank you, Redmond, for getting us on the agenda, just for that presentation. We felt it was important to make sure that we at least show our face as soon as possible. It's summertime, it's a little bit harder to get on the agenda for a voting or something with votes, and we learned during our May meeting that we need the mayor's approval or three of the council people to approve something being put on the agenda for a vote. Yes, so we [00:07:00] learned that, but luckily, we were able to still go present. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Does anyone else have any other questions about that or any other thoughts? [00:07:12] I do have another question. I'm sorry. [00:07:14] That's okay. [00:07:15] I was not around. They want to see more before committing to the funds we're requesting. But were there any thoughts or do they make any comments about allowing us some money so that we can do something to do more so that they can make a decision on the larger amount of funds? [00:07:39] I would say, and Redmond can always correct me, it felt a little ambiguous. If I remember correctly, Jeff was there, and there are some things that he can approve that are smaller, but any bigger item ideas, like a housing conference that might cost, $ 10, 20,000, it's going to need approval from [00:08:00] City Council. But if we like, for instance, last Friday, we tabled at the Juneteenth event. Stephanie went ahead and bought us some stuff for the table, so that seems to be an appropriate thing that we're able to do those smaller one offs. It doesn't really answer completely our question, but if you just look at those one off things. [00:08:21] If that's the case, then what is the range again that we can get approval from Jeff, is it Jeff? [00:08:31] Jeff, yes. But like that range has it just depends, right Redmond? Because we are a special commission, like, I believe that that Jeff has been uncomfortable approving certain things that he might be more comfortable in other commissions. Am I saying that right? [00:08:50] I think you are, yes. I think the rule of thumb that we had been using before, which was during the facilitation piece [00:09:00] was anything under $10,000. But that was really during that present during the facilitation. I would go I haven't been told anything different. I would assume that that would probably be the number. But I think that going back to the chairs point, I think if you just make that request, and then you'll get more guidance from whatever you're requesting. [00:09:26] I guess in my idea, before we plan something, I would like to hear at least from Jeff, a number. What can because we could be planning something and have something, and then go to him, and then he's like, oh, that's not going to work. I'd rather have at least general idea. If it's the $10,000, that's the mark. [00:09:54] I think your frustration was felt by all of us, and I think that's what the disconnect was is we just wanted to know, like, how much [00:10:00] can we spend. Because I think it was Commissioner Taser he said, whether it's 10,000, 50,000, 200,000, that depends on how we plan. But that's not how we were met with the City Council. I don't think any of them from my view was like, we don't want you to succeed. They're thinking about it from a more. [00:10:23] I didn't understand point. I can understand the City Council. [00:10:24] But they won't give us the number. The City Council is the one that's giving us a number, not Jeff. [00:10:30] But Jeff does have some power to approve certain things that you don't have to go through the City Council for. [00:10:40] But Lauren. I can just jump in. City Council was pretty clear that we were not going to get a number and Jeff was pretty clear that he wasn't comfortable pre approving anything. [00:10:54] Yes. [00:10:55] But I think way found out. [00:10:57] I think what we can say is, I'm just going to [00:11:00] throw out something. Like Chastity said, if we're going to table somewhere and we need some swag, that's not a problem. However, anything other than that, we can put forth a proposal, and Jeff is going to run it by City Council to be sure they're okay with it. [00:11:22] If that's the case, then what turnaround are we talking about? If we have a proposal, we have to give to Jeff, that Jeff's got to go through the City Council, that City Council has to decide and get back to us, what is the time frame that we have to work? Cause we're going to have to know that before we can even put in a proposal together. [00:11:43] Well, first, let me say, I wasn't at the meeting, so and this has been a fluent process. Things have been going based on conversations, not necessarily set policy so I can't just [00:12:00] decide. [00:12:01] Usual things that when something goes to Jeff's table, that he has to go to City Council for approval and come back, what is the usual turnaround? Because does it go to, like the City Council for their work session, that they do like, what's it on Thursday? Then they vote at the council meeting and then gets back. That's the usual turnaround thing that we would need to know that is the general practice for the city. [00:12:27] Yeah. Well, the council meets twice a month. Typically, In July, they won't be. But typically, they meet twice a month. If I use a rule of thumb, I guess two weeks, if that's helpful to you. I'm not 100% sure because it almost seems like it depends on what you're requesting. Because obviously, if it's 250,000, we all know two weeks is not. [00:12:55] Were you know that it's not going to be that. But if the city needs to see something from us, [00:13:00] which we obviously know it's going to have to be something smaller than what we originally had planned, I don't know if you want to want to bring somebody in or those things. It's a small scale event. There's things that happen throughout the summer in Iowa City that we might want to get a table and maybe have somebody special in to talk to or event that we want to schedule with one of the community groups. Those things, we need to know what turnaround to propose. Is this okay from the city? Are they going to approve this event so we can provide them the information that they're asking from us? We need to know how the city works with that to know how to put together a proposal. Since we don't have facilitators, is just us doing this, the city needs to give us some guidelines or Jeff give us guidelines as, when do we need to get you a proposal [00:14:00] so that you can go through the city to get the aye or nay and get back to us so then we can go ahead with what we plan? [00:14:09] My assumption from what I understand of it I think it is just basically we're going to have to time it with when City Council meets, and then try to immediately when we get an idea, get it to Jeff and put a little pressure if we have to. Say, look, we need to find this out, and then as soon as City Council is about to meet, that's the only thing I can. [00:14:29] Then the City Council need that work session before the meeting, is that? [00:14:35] I'm not sure the item that you're going to request needs to be a work session item because there's a list that you have to get on to be a work session. Usually, those are for bigger type of policy decisions, $250,000 plan might be work session worthy bringing in a guest speaker. [00:14:58] May not, I wouldn't think that [00:15:00] would be a work session, but that might be something that Jeff, I don't know, if you're bringing in Eric Dyson and that costs $15,000. I'm sure that's going to have to have something brought to council to see if that's going to be okay. If you're bringing in me, then you can get me for $500. You won't need that. There's a big difference between me and Eric Dyson. You're just asking me. It's hard for me to say, this is going to be the process because it really depends on case by case. [00:15:38] I understand. It's a dilemma that. [00:15:41] It's like the chicken and the egg, I don't know what to tell you. [00:15:44] Exactly [00:15:45] It is frustrating. I think you're asking great questions. When we get to the next steps, I believe that Amos, Lou and Cliff and I would love to talk about something that we talked about that maybe answer your questions. But I certainly [00:16:00] agree and understand the questions that you have. [00:16:05] I just find it hard to believe that, I understand not wanting to commit to something because I know how government works in that case, but they can give. [00:16:14] Parameters. [00:16:14] They can give parameters that and certain. [00:16:19] I think parameters are that we have to go to city council. [00:16:24] But we just found out a month ago, what it even took to get something like that voted. We just found that out a month ago. That was something that was known in policy for however long. That's the information that I feel that has not been presented to us in a way that we can function. [00:16:46] I think we all know this has been a frustrating journey, and we have less than six months to try to come up with something to show for it in the way that city council and the community would [00:17:00] like for us to show for it. But we're still going to try to figure something out. But Redmond, do you have any other insights that we may not know? I'm thinking it's the third Tuesday that they're going to have their meeting in July? [00:17:15] Yes. [00:17:16] The 16th July? Let's say we decide we want to put together a budget and submit it to them. What would you suggest we do? When by? [00:17:30] If you have a budget that you want to submit, I think we're using that as an example, the Thursday before the city council meeting is when you want to have that on, you would probably need to at least have a phone call or something to say, hi, we're working on this budget, and we're going to be submitting that, so we can get prepared to potentially have it on the council agenda. Now, the challenge is what we ran into before is the three council members, since this budget can be [00:18:00] somewhat controversial, since obviously, they didn't support it before when, we would probably have to talk to the mayor or to three council members and say, hi, there's a budget prepared. Are you ready to discuss that? If we get three, it's on the agenda. [00:18:21] We'd have to have those three by the 11th for them to talk about it to be discussed on the 16th? [00:18:29] Well, your budget actually needs to be by the 11th. We should say, if you're going to be working on it and it's going to actually be ready, probably give us a heads up so that we can start getting feedback from council. If there's going to be three that wants to talk about it or if the mayor is going to want to have it on the agenda. [00:18:47] How many days before the 11th do we have to? [00:18:50] You don't have to have the final product. I'm just saying if that's what you're working on, let us know so we can then start saying to the council, hi, this is coming. [00:19:00] My next question is, so our next meeting is supposed to be July 4th, I was planning on canceling that meeting. The city is closed that day, correct? That means we don't have a meeting until after that third Tuesday meeting? What could we do in this meeting to move forward? If I move that we have a select committee create a budget up to I'll say 15,000, would that be sufficient enough for me to put that together and submit to city council, or would we have to meet to approve that budget before anything goes before city council? Am I making sense? [00:19:42] I'm looking at the agenda to look at the topics. [00:19:47] I would do it under the next steps. [00:19:51] The next steps. [00:19:53] You talk about origin? [00:19:54] I guess you could have that deliver. You can talk that through. [00:20:00] There's no action item. It's not going to require a vote. But you can say, we want to have a budget, if we want to do that, maybe even have some sub committee assignments. You can do those things. [00:20:14] But if we vote today that everyone approves myself and three other members to work in a subcommittee to create a budget that would be presented on July 16th, and we vote yes. Is that sufficient enough to move forward? Or would we have to have a special meeting cause we're not going to meet on July 4th. [00:20:36] That's from Phase 3 and 4. [00:20:43] I see where you're going. I'm not 100% sure if that's specific enough for that type of, it was going to be reflected in the minutes and you want it to be reflected correctly. Maybe that [00:21:00] works that Stephanie's still online. Maybe she might be able to give some guidance on that. [00:21:05] We have a hand up. [00:21:07] Lubna, did you want to unmute? [00:21:10] Yes. [00:21:10] Question? [00:21:14] From last meeting with the city council, they just kept asking, we need to prove what you doing so we can give the money. Now, you said, we're going to do a budget for 15,000. [00:21:31] That was just an example. [00:21:33] But how we're going to prove to them, we're going to use this 15,000 for something that they satisfy them. How? [00:21:43] That was just an example. We haven't talked about what we would use it for. That was a fake number that I just threw out there. But if we were to do that, we would have to talk about it and agree to it. Then I was suggesting we use a subcommittee outside of this meeting to lay out all the details, [00:22:00] the finite, the fine tune details after we talk about the big picture items. Thank you for asking that. [00:22:08] I agree. Thank you. [00:22:11] I was just looking again at the way that this is, it would have been a lot clearer if the budget was specifically stated, and then that had been really easy to do. But I think you could probably under next steps, you can say, putting together a budget and the committee is going to be working on that as one of the next steps. [00:22:34] That's what I was wondering. [00:22:35] It's going to be other next steps, probably announce those as well, and then the minutes can then reflect all the different next steps. [00:22:43] Yes. [00:22:43] You don't have to then go through any more detail or votes on those individual next steps, that those are consensus. Those are the next steps. Then the work of the commission outside of this meeting can work on those next steps. [00:23:00] The minutes will reflect that appropriately. [00:23:03] Then when we get to that part, if I mess up, you'll correct what I'm saying. Thank you. [00:23:11] Whatever that gets presented to the city to look at on the 11th, is that something that's on an agenda that's posted ahead of time? On the city one of that session on the Thursday before the meeting, are those things posted publicly? [00:23:33] There's something called the information packet. I think that's what you're talking about. That is public. [00:23:43] If we're talking about something that we're going to potentially put it best together for the city to look at that's going to be on the 11th. I wanted to know if whatever the subcommittee that we have that put something together, that there's something that it's public for people to see with [00:24:00] the city and one of the things that we're talking about because it's not. [00:24:06] The minutes of this meeting will be public in the information packet. In many cases, the city council can look at information that's in the information packet and put it on the agenda amongst themselves if they have three. What I think you're talking about is my earlier comment about the 11th on a particular agenda item. That's a separate process cause we're trying to get something placed on the agenda without the city council per se. [00:24:41] I know. I was saying since we didn't have a specific item on our agenda right now that we're going to vote on. [00:24:50] No, that's okay. [00:24:51] He's already said it's okay. [00:24:54] You don't need to have, it's going to be reflected in the minutes that these next steps are going to include [00:25:00] work on a budget and other items that you're still going to deliberate over. [BACKGROUND] The council is going to know that the commission is working on these things. Then if this work is going well, you're going to give city manager's office some heads up and say, hi, we're pretty far along on this. We believe it could be ready. Do you mind polling or checking with council, and see if that is going to be something that they're willing to put on the agenda, or the mayor, which can also put it on the agenda. [00:25:40] If there's no. [00:25:40] There's a couple of ways. [00:25:41] Sorry. [00:25:42] One, they can look at this in the minutes and say, this is a item, I want to be on the agenda. We know that it hasn't happened yet. What we're also saying is work with the city manager's office saying that we will have something ready by this time, see if the council is willing to make it up. [00:26:00] [00:26:01] Awesome. If there's no other further discussion on this, I'd love to move on to agenda Item number 7. Is that okay? Does anyone have anything else to say about City Council work session held last month? Great. I'm going to open up to any public comment. Welcome to the room, Annie. Did you have anything you'd like to say? Thank you. I don't believe there's anyone online. We will move on to next steps for Phase 3, and 4, I will again open it up to public comment. Would you like to say anything? No one. Picking up the same conversation. As I mentioned, we've had some discussion offline about next steps, especially after our meeting on May 21st. Lou, do you mind if I pick on you to talk a little bit about your concept that you brought to a couple of us the other day? [00:26:57] Sure. [00:27:00] The general idea I had that I was proposing is that we need to regroup and be much more realistic about what we can accomplish in the next six months, given the reaction or the reception that we had with city council and given the reality of all our schedules. What I was trying to work on was suggesting an outline for how do we close off our work and set the stage for what's going to happen after December. I looked back at our charge, and I thought about what we've been doing and I was thinking that we need to propose to City Council, what will happen in the next phase, which is post December. That's not trivial to try to work something out. [00:28:00] The way I was working on that was thinking about the two components that have dominated a lot of our thoughts and work have been truth telling or witnessing and systemic racism. They work together, but they also are clearly independent. The notion was thinking about reconfiguring how this will continue post December would be either a subcommittee or a contract with a third party to focus on creating a routine structure for collecting information and witnessing from the community. Second piece, working with experts, [00:29:00] whether it's at the university or somewhere else, to focus like a laser specifically on Iowa City to figure out what policies, procedures are examples of either intentionally or otherwise systemic racism. What are the consequences of some of these policies? That our Commission becomes a oversight of the collecting that information on a quarterly basis from these two separate groups, collating it, synthesizing it, and presenting it to city council publicly on a quarterly basis to say, this is the information that's coming back from the community. These are the witnesses that are telling us they're perceived realities on the ground. Another group that's coming back and is telling us, the particular way in which X policy is implemented with respect to the police with respect to housing, whatever [00:30:00] seems to be having a profound differential impact with communities of color. [00:30:07] Now, at City Council, we want you to address this, and they can decide how they want to address it or not. The third little piece of it is that one thing we would present to City council in December, as well as this structure is going back to one of the charges, which is suggesting names for public places or monuments that are acknowledging the origins of this commission, which has to do with the Black Lives Matter movement and the killing of George Floyd. That's front and center, so that's the general idea. [00:30:54] Thank you. Commissioner Johnson or Kiche, if you want to add anything from our conversation? [00:31:00] [00:31:01] Yes, I just want to add that in the spirit of that conclusion of having that institution or a gathering in which what we are doing is not getting lost and the new things that are going to come, we realize that the City's Human Rights Commission does completely different things from our aspirations here as the Ad Hoc Commission. We discussed that fully and realize that actually, they are dealing with issues that probably we can't deal with. Some of the issues are legal and other things and so it takes somebody a lot of pain to be able to go to that commission to present their cases because they tend to be legal. They want problems to be redressed. We as the commission, [00:32:00] we see ourselves as collecting these complaints in the community. They could be true, they could not be true, but it is our job also to verify that those complaints are realistic and document them in a way that they can be formulated back into policy. That could involve training. It doesn't mean somebody has been hurt, but we are also interested in prevention, education, and reconciliation. We're looking into other things more than what the Human Rights Commission does. We are not saying that there are areas where we have commonalities, we intersect on but that's an important thing that we were starting to think of as a commission that we are going to be working on that really seriously as a recommendation. That touches on to the continuity of our commission in a different tangent a little bit. [00:32:57] I think our conversation definitely [00:33:00] led into better plans. We have a bit more of a direction of where we want to go and how we can organize. I feel like the way we have it set up right now, we will have something that we'll be able to present to the city that will be very easily digestible, and it'll show exactly how and why we need to have certain funds. I feel we're getting in the right path. It takes a little bit of stumbling to get on your feet the right way, and I feel like we are on the right pathway right now. I've been thinking about this. This is beyond the conversation that we have here, but it's also really not too far off from what I've been believing for a long time. I almost believe at a certain point in time, our commission should be a permanent thing that's a paid position, because it takes a lot of work. It's going to take a lot of effort, and it's something that's ongoing period and it's only going to help our community tremendously. They'll always have a voice, they'll always have people and [00:34:00] of multiple different parts of our community able to come to and make sure their voice is heard and just make our community in general a more comfortable environment and that's what our goal is. Anyway, that's the reason why we were brought here in the first place. I think right now we're on the right path. I think we have organized enough to at least start making certain moves that I believe the city will back up. [00:34:29] Do you mind sharing from your perspective what the right moves are for people that weren't there? [00:34:34] Basically, having small groups that all we are going to represent, we'll have each group, let's say A, B, C, and D group. Same way I discussed it before. We would like to say everybody that's in the A category is going to discuss things with a certain group, everybody in the B category, so on and so forth. You'll have one voice [00:35:00] that will easily be able to help out a certain group of people, but at the same time, all those who are on that A, B, C, and D chart, our goal is to make sure that we all come together and then bring that to the city and make it easy digestible plan. That's the simplest way I can put it. [00:35:24] Thank you, Commissioner Johnson. Unfortunately, we can't meet unless we all at once, if we're in quorum. I just want to get Commissioners, Lubna, Wangui, and Lauren on the same page, and just make sure we all are in agreement. But some of the things that we've been discussing is, especially since we don't have a guaranteed amount of dollars that hinders our ability to really plan hard core. We were talking about, let's really focus on commune engagements. Correct me if I'm wrong. Also [00:36:00] we were given an immense task to try to support everyone in this community almost. How do we bring it back down to how this started, and that lies within the Black community. Not saying that we want to leave out any community. We just want to find a way to model and do it right so that we can showcase to Iowa City that this works and allow other groups if they would like to replicate it or work hand in hand in the future. We only have let's say five months now and it's really four or maybe three months because we will still need to put everything together and present it. I'm sure we don't want to present it in December. Our time is running out unless we talk about extending, which we've all talked in some capacity. I think a lot of us agree that this is in some form, this commission needs to be permanent, but in [00:37:00] some way, we learned a lot with our facilitators. We learned what we want to do in different capacities. Some people might like a certain area more than others, and we learned a lot about what we don't want to do. We learned how a Truth and Reconciliation Commission can look in Iowa City and how it looks around the whole world and so our task is to figure out what's best for this community. We want to go out with a positive bang. But, I shouldn't say go out because we don't want it to fizzle and die. We want it to live on. How can we best showcase to a city council in this community that this is so needed? And that's what Cliff was saying, splitting into groups and really outreaching, going to the churches, as many of us have been saying, going to mosque, going to where people that we want to talk to are really gathering, talking to them about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and showcasing what we've learned [00:38:00] and how they can be involved. A few of us were at the Juneteenth event on Friday and had a number of people come up and want to learn more and do more with us, which is exactly what we want and need. This movement shouldn't start and end with us. It should be connected to the whole community. I mean, we've been talking about this for four years loosely, but I think it's time for us to regroup and just learn from our wins and our mistakes and move forward. I know Lubna, you're just now joining us. We welcome you so much, and hope and I look forward to your input and Wangui and everyone else online, how we can move forward, Lauren. Just we know that over the last six months, we talked about a certain model, and I think we all [00:39:00] got on board on it. But I think what we talked about is we don't really have time to really complete that model. But we do have time to do the witnessing and community engagement. Let's do it right, and let's get as many people on board as possible. Am I saying that correctly? [00:39:16] Yes, I said the model can still be used, but that's why we need time. But we have right now something that can actually start moving in that direction to get that still done. Everything that we've done it's in a process, but this is a long process that we started from scratch. [00:39:34] It's a long process, we started from scratch. I want to also recognize that all of us are busy and what we're talking about, we're not asking everyone to commit to 100% because you can't if you don't have time, but we really want to work. I mean, I would love us to work with people in the community, our volunteers, the people connected with us over the last ten months that would like to help perpetuate what we're trying to do. It doesn't have [00:40:00] to be one or two or all of us really engaged. But I'm going to let Commissioner Gaff go ahead and speak. Welcome. [00:40:08] Hi, everyone. This is Wangui. Can you hear me? [00:40:13] Yes. [00:40:14] Yes. [00:40:14] Yes, we can hear you. [00:40:16] I want to respond to Commissioner Johnson and Dillard. Commissioner Dillard, I still I'm not clear on the connection between the witnessing in the community activities and our charge. I would really appreciate some help to still see that and then the other thing to Commissioner Johnson when he said, yes, it was a lot of work to get approval on the budget, on the money that we've already used from the city. Yes, we broke out in committees. [00:41:00] But one of the things that happened, we had somebody, one of the commissioners who was very good at budgeting because after I don't know how many times we went to the council and were sent back. Before we really got it, that we had to be very clear and specific and with clarifying details on what we are doing. Then the other thing on every dollar, what exactly we were going to do with it before they finally passed that. As somebody who was part of that, I'm seeing that task being ahead of us of really being very clear on whatever we are doing to ourselves first before we go before council, and with the final details and [00:42:00] also putting that and the timeline, too, of what are we doing when? There's those three aspects to make clear. And it was a lot of work putting in a lot of work, a lot of extra work, not just the two hour meetings, which sometimes would go on until I don't know when and then in between meetings. I'll stop there. I just wanted to respond to those two things. Thank you. [00:42:27] Thank you so much. That's a good question, and I left out a key part that we talked about, as we are reaching the end of this commission in its Ad Hoc form, I think we were really talking about finding a way to create a budget that would live on, not something that we would completely use all the funds for right now. We were talking about doing what we can with little to no budget, which would be just going out and just talking to people, educating people, and not really [00:43:00] doing any big events or anything unless something got passed, really not relying on the city council to pass a budget before we do anything. Really relying on using whatever budget we come up with to pass moving forward because one of the recommendations we all agreed upon is that this commission should live moving forward. Am I explaining that correct? [00:43:27] Absolutely. I agree. [00:43:29] Then to your question, for me, about witnessing, I think in our charges, you know, truth telling is witnessing, and that's what we're going off of just giving people an opportunity to speak about their truth in regards to anything related to racial injustice. Taking what we've learned so far, adapting it to the ways we can, not necessarily holding any public meetings like [00:44:00] we did in March, but just, you know, having a safe space. I mean, we've done a lot of different things. I will admit that what we're talking about is moving away from the set in stone land that we were initially wanting to do because we don't believe we have time to follow that, and just really purely grass roots, talking to as many people as possible is what we were suggesting. But open to all perspectives. [00:44:32] Okay, I have a question for what? [00:44:36] I want to make sure that Wangui, did you want to respond to anything that I said or did you need to hear more? [00:44:42] What basically is going on is I'm trying to place it in fact finding, truth telling, reconciliation, and recommendations that come at the end of the Ad Hoc Commission. [00:44:59] What we're saying [00:45:00] is that we want there to be more, but we don't have time to complete. [00:45:05] We've done some of those tests. I think we've hit all of those tests. Have we done it the way that we want to do it? No. But we believe that there needs to be and I'm saying we, this is how I'm imagining it. Everyone might not agree with me. We believe that there's more that needs to be done after this commission and moving forward. What can we do now? Almost bare minimum to, you know, help push that forward and our recommendation to city council is that you need to continue this work and add all this other stuff that would fit if we don't have the capacity for real fact finding or formal true telling the way that we learned about it, and then reconciliation and recommendations go hand in hand, I'm sorry. [00:45:57] I just wanted to be clear on myself that [00:46:00] if, because anyway I am part of this commission collectively, such that whatever activity we undertake, if I'm asked the question, where does that fit in in your charge? I'm able to be able to answer that question to myself and to anybody else. [00:46:21] Thank you for your questions. [00:46:27] When you were talking about, the Group A, B, C and D? [00:46:30] Yes. [00:46:32] In my mind, I'm thinking they're probably going to be consistent to the categories we talked about. We were setting up the model of the different areas. Then but we know that we can't do the full model because there's not enough time. If we have the subcommittees that we're talking about in these areas, [00:47:00] and then we're going through, we want to reach out to these groups, get some testimonies, people talking to us. Basically, we're going to be filling the information in the four categories, which basically fills beginning parts of the model. [00:47:20] Absolutely. [00:47:21] Then if because we already have an idea what the whole model is going to be. If we can't do all the model, then we're going to get as much information in the beginning parts in all the areas, having all that information that we can ultimately present to the city is like, well, this is what we've gotten. [00:47:41] The real. [00:47:41] Here's your information. This is what we've gotten from the community in these areas that they say, this is what's happened to them. This is what their testimonies, whatever else and now it's time for the city to figure out with our model that we presented in the first place and how to go through to fix it. Here it is. [00:48:00] This is where why we're asking for whatever money and for a permanent group, permanent committee to go forward to fix the things that we in this short amount of time have gotten from the committee. Is that in sense what we're thinking about? [00:48:18] Yes, I would say that we are going to go to the specific leaders of different groups and find out exactly what their truths are and then from there, I think you said that quite well. Find out what their truths are. Try to come up with their thought pattern mindset on how we can fix it, hone that, and then take it back, discuss it amongst our group, and then take that to the city. Yes, we're going to do the hard work, the groundwork and show why I personally believe that this should be a permanent thing, and it works. This is how it can work. [00:49:00] All we have to do is make sure that we have these different groups that we can speak with. We can gather their information, hear their truths, and then show you what we can do to fix it. Give everybody a little taste of harmony if we can. [00:49:11] Because it's basically going to be we know it's going to be the tip of the iceberg in these areas. [00:49:17] Very tip. But it is [OVERLAPPING] a strong base. [00:49:20] Having concrete information that we're going to be getting from this to set up beginnings of the models for all the areas that we were talking about. [00:49:27] Absolutely. We're doing it for free right now. [00:49:31] I just want to make sure because I'm understanding it the same way as everyone. I think everyone should ask as many questions as possible. We're flipping it on our head. We were trying to start with, like, very siloed, like, housing, police brutality. But instead, we're talking about going to specific groups and saying, how are you affected by racial injustice and just take that information from them? If it comes out into a category or a pattern, then we have something to report on. [00:50:00] Fill in those blanks. [00:50:02] I think that's more human. I think some people in the past might have said, why don't we do it a certain way, and we learned that we wanted move in a different way, which we're allowed to. Does that make sense? [00:50:16] Yeah just Commissioners. Somehow have been working on a model topic wise, and we see limitations. Sometimes it is also not to the spirit of the community because it means that we are telling them, choosing these topics for them. We are not very sure that they go in that rank to them out there. We thought that probably is a weakness of the model. We are thinking of why don't we learn from the people when we go to them. We have experimented or worked with the model where they come to us, and [00:51:00] we know the results and the implications. We are thinking by the charter, we have the freedom to tweak and do as we wish as a commission collectively. Hopefully, the majority if they like that, if the vote is needed, we can go to that, but I believe that we will persuade ourselves that probably majority of us are thinking that way, that we go to those groups where they are very comfortable. Other than telling them to come here or a specific place where they don't want to go to. This is what we were thinking we propose maybe in the next agenda or is going to part of the discussion that probably can help us a little bit. In those groups the topics are still there. The way an immigrant talks about housing [00:52:00] is completely different from the way somebody who's been here for a long time talks about house. The problems are different. It's the house, the house is there, but the issues regarding getting that house or what's happening once you got that house, those are very different. Some groups might not be willing to talk to us about those details. Because those details is the process of fact finding. We do not have those experts, who are doing fact finding for us. Now we are like researchers like them, what they were used to do, what Ans and West was doing. We are doing it ourselves. We have to elevate ourselves to that level, whether we like it or not. Otherwise, we're going to do a very bad job. I have to be willing to talk to somebody in housing or the homeless shelter. I have to go there myself, convince them. Can we meet somewhere? Can you bring us a few guys to talk to us about this? Yeah? That was not really the initial part of me as a commissioner. Someone was supposed [00:53:00] to be collecting there and then they bringing to us, and then we're discussing the master group. But now I have to go to the field. That's what we thought probably can help us move ahead. We thought that there could be a little money for Sodas, snacks, and things like that, so that if any group out there is willing to meet with us, maybe after church in the afternoon, they want to have tea and talk to us in a somber way. We should be able to accommodate that request at that place at that time and not make them go without even drinking water. They will say we are very bad people. That's all thanks. [00:53:44] I think of this as us, we've had a period of learning and education. Now it's our time to just do and see what happens. There probably will be some wins and some failures and a lot of learning. That's [00:54:00] what we were, asked to do as commissioners. I want to also reiterate that I understand that everyone is super busy and can totally understand if this doesn't work for people's schedules or the time. I want you to get in where you fit in. I also really believe that we need to really work on our connection to people who are already connected to here so that we can work and partner with other people in this community that want to work on this. We most of us have been trained as truth teller listeners, or I don't know the right terms for it, but we can work with the community to try to move forward. There's some other things that we probably want to bring up, other partnerships that we've worked on. But as far as what we can do, I think this is our best bet. We can certainly, [00:55:00] like, as Commissioner Kitche said, if we're asking for anything, budgetary next month, ask how to facilitate, like the food and the space, if we need a space, or if we just want to make sure when we're coming to meet with a group of people who are not coming empty handed, things like that, I think is best utilized for whatever budget. It's really community engagement. This is what we were thinking, Lubna, Lauren, Wangui. What do you think about this? [00:55:37] Yes. I agree, you know, I like to do something in real life. [00:55:46] Thank you and Lubna, I definitely want to talk to you more [OVERLAPPING] [00:55:53] Yes. I'm going to email you. [00:55:58] Great. Commissioner Gathua? [00:56:00] [00:56:01] Yeah. What I've understood is this community engagement is listening to truth tellers from various BIPOC groups. [00:56:20] Exactly. [00:56:22] Meet them on their own ground on our own terms. [00:56:25] I imagine once we meet with multiple people or hear from multiple people, we will be able to see if we ever decide to do a public hearing. I think this is the right person to have in public. I think this piece is what we were missing from March, which is what made it so difficult is, those relationships. [00:56:50] Grass roots. Very, very grass. [00:56:52] Knowledge in the community of what's going on. [00:57:00] [00:57:01] We'll put it down on our because we'll have to put this down what we're doing and the when and the expense. Are we doing community engagement, I guess that's what we will. I'm still trying to write whatever we're taking to the council in my head on what we put it down as. [00:57:33] You're talking about next month? Or your recommendation. [00:57:36] This about what we're doing with the community. What we we'll call it when we put it down. But I'm going to the details now of sitting down and putting it together on what we'll present to the council. I just want to be sure in my head that that I'm still within the charge, [00:58:00] and I'm understanding the assignment and those activities where they fit in. That's what I was checking with you that it sounds like we are listening to truth tellers in our BIPOC communities, various groups. [00:58:17] Right. I think you are understanding correctly. How about I'm going to just share what I hope our end goals by the end of October. We have all of us, including community members have come together to have various small, let's say, medium sized gatherings, whether it's at with an organization, nonprofit organization that we've identified beforehand or friends or families or community members. We've just sat, like you said, and listened to what they believe has been racial injustice for them. I'm hoping that we've gathered hundreds [00:59:00] of those like, stories. Whether it's someone had written it out in their own language or however, taken a survey, we've sat and listened to them. Maybe they've even agreed to let us record their story. We're just compiling. That's how I'm envisioning it. When we look at our charges, I believe that's what people are thinking. I really believe the power of committee engagement is once you give people an opportunity to speak, then they're going to come to us and say, you know, I enjoyed that, or that was hard, but I think we need to do more. How can we continue to get engaged? And they'll give us ideas, as Commissioner Kitche has been saying of what we should do next. I mean, this is a model for my daytime work. [00:59:51] Each person who is going to represent each community. We're getting people from their specific community, and like, our immigrant [01:00:00] community, we'll have someone who is from the immigrant community and go out and make sure you let everybody know. Look, this person has our best interests. [01:00:10] That makes sense. [01:00:14] Yes. I think we have been worried about comfort, and sometimes somebody having a perception of being misplaced for political and other reasons and cultural reasons. We are just trying to use that process of community engagement. We are not the first ones to use it. It is powerful. It is being used everywhere now. Everywhere you go, it works. We think we can borrow from that a little bit and help us in one in the area Commissioner Wangui has talked about in implementing a budget. It helps us think carefully, how many churches do [01:01:00] I want to go to in immigrant community? How many leaders are willing to talk to us, give us a freedom on that day. Then that helps me put a budget. Another group maybe, there are so many black life matter groups. There are many groups, even business groups and alliances, we can talk to them. Even Iowa City Chamber of Commerce, we can talk to them about what's going on there with us. We might want to talk to them. That will help out with the budget. I think the community engagement aspect, that language is not there in our chat. I think I've read that thing many times. But it doesn't have to be spelled directly, and the events that they're talking about are all what we always call community processes and engagement and civic participation. [01:01:58] I'm going to make just a suggestion [01:02:00] with respect to the budget that given the short timeline before the presentation, that we should be very realistic and say, okay, if we're going to be focused on these various meetings, and if they're small to medium size, then there's a number we associate with that in terms of it's $100 for food, or it's $150 for food. Then it's $50 for swag, or whatever it is. Then we say, realistically, we can go to 20 groups over the course of two months for so many people, and that's the number we present to city council. All we're asking for is pre approval to do these things with an estimated total budget of X. I think that should fly, I can't imagine them saying no to that. [01:02:56] That's a good one because the city is always business [01:03:00] oriented. They are interested in statistics. Well, how many people from this area, from this culture did you guys see? We've had that question several times, and sometimes you don't have the answer. I think I can assure you that the approach we're using, if you add up the five people or seven people meeting different groups will be far much better than call one meeting and expect all these guys to come. [01:03:26] Yes. [01:03:28] That is usually our goal in a way. I tend to trust it, I'm wondering why we didn't think like that before, but I think the Commission must have thought about it, and only that the Commission has been weighing options and models. [01:03:43] It's trial and error. We've been going through a lot of figure it out as you go. Honestly, having the mark that we had even at our Juneteenth table, having a set up right there with the same equipment, [01:04:00] that's a set budget. Easy digestible, easy for them to understand how much we need, and then food wise, we can have that all set up and easily be able to hit a lot of places. This is one of the easiest pathways to go, and we already have a lot of information backing us up, so, I'm right back. [01:04:17] Commissioner Gathua. [01:04:18] I just wanted to respond to Commissioner Tassinary that having gone through our laying down our budget for hiring a facilitator and the facilitators their proposals. Going to the council, we were very specific on the timeline. We learned that because we kept on being sent back with a timeline and clear activities of what we're doing, and the [01:05:00] expenditure on what we're doing. Just that, I just wanted to say that, again. [01:05:15] I think Commissioner Amos, I think that's very powerful. I learned from the commissioners that they're interested in the proposals, but they also want to see that the things that we have done, how comes they can't see. I remember feeling bad. One of the counsel person asking, you say you have all this data you've been picking from different places. We can't even see a glimpse of it anywhere to give us hope, and that means that we have to pull up our socks a little bit, be able to do more than we just coming here and talking, do a little bit more in terms of facilitation and [01:06:00] writing. I wanted to talk about that. I don't if it's the right time that, the $6 question is, who is doing the writing? Who was supposed to be doing the writting? Was it the facilitators? Were they supposed to help us with the writing? We were not trained even on writing. Now these things were. We have to go through the woods and work out this. It doesn't mean that we can't write. All of us in here, I believe, all the commissioners can write. But we will have to organize ourselves to be willing to take a pen and a paper, so that it is not just the mouth. We have to be willing to write our experiences, put them together at some stage until we are assured by the city that we have this facilitator. His or he job is to collect your ideas, and he is a professional [01:07:00] in writing. We don't have that. We have never been assured of that, yet. We'll use our crude things we learn in schools of writing, maybe a research paper or a story. We have journalists here, we have all kinds of people here. Theater persons, Commissioner Johnson has been doing theater. You can't do theater if you don't write, if you don't read. He can tell a story in a theater form. I think we will just have to trust ourselves that we have the abilities and the capacities to do these things, even though we might need a little help. I think that's an area, something we'll have to talk about. I don't know whether this is the time to talk about or a different time, but it could be one of those tangential things that we'll be hunting us here very soon. [01:07:51] A summary, just basically a summary of each place that we go to, and make sure that we can get it out to him. I agree. I think that's good. [01:07:58] I don't think it's out of the question [01:08:00] in this budget that we create to identify that we need a writer. If we all agree to it, I don't know how much a writer would cost, I think we need a little bit more parameters. I'm not sure if there's someone in the Stephanie's department that could help with this. If not, if there's a way for the department to help us find an intern or someone at the university that could really work with us on that, I think you're right, most of us, I think all of us are probably more than capable, but it's not about capabilities. It's about time. Finding someone dedicated to that would be in our best thoughts, our best for everything. I'm not sure, Redmond, if that's something that you could help us look into. [01:08:53] Sure. [01:08:53] Thank you very much. [01:08:54] I will support with the documentary. The more we get involved in on that, [01:09:00] writers are all going to come from the university with that, I think that can work out really well. [01:09:08] That is another thing. We paid for a videographer, I believe we've already spent $10,000, is that correct? [01:09:16] Just over ten. [01:09:18] Wasn't it, $10,000 he was given up front? So we definitely need to sit down. Well, being a documentarian doesn't necessarily mean you're a writer. [01:09:32] It's a lot of information that we can take and digest kind of put it all together. [01:09:36] But I think documenting our journey, whether you start at beginning or wherever you came in, and everyone surrounding this is very important, and I guarantee of at least having a legacy of what did or did not happen for this commission. [01:09:57] Something else. [01:09:58] Yes. [01:10:00] It took us, is it about two years to get our budget, the facilitators and ours passed? Also, that aspect of time going back and forth, working on it and taking it to the council. There's also that aspect so how are we also thinking about, how are we going to speed this up so that we don't take as long as we took. [01:10:25] I understand that. That's what I was saying, whatever we're planning on doing, we should make sure we're not tied to a budget. Bare minimum, we can go to city, we can go to churches, we won't have anything, but we can tell them why we don't have anything while we're telling them what we're trying to do. [01:10:43] [inaudible 01:10:43]. [01:10:45] I don't want that to be a barrier. But I mean, again, as Redmond said, there are some discretionary things that we can ask for, some smaller things, and what we can ask and just see what we're told. [01:10:57] The shirts and everything are something that we could manage, [01:11:00] correct? From the sounds of it. [01:11:02] Food and a venue. [01:11:03] That's not that expensive. [01:11:06] If we wanted to have a venue, would that need to go to city council, in your opinion. I know that you don't know. It's like $500 to go rent this space. [01:11:15] I think that's something you would take to the City Manager, and he would not necessarily have to go to city council. [01:11:23] Most of the stuff we're talking about probably is fine. Maybe if we put together a budget, you guys will look over it and say, hey, we don't really even need to go to City Council for some of it. [01:11:31] Certainly possible. [01:11:35] Maybe hiring someone is something that might need to go. The stuff that we need in the interim. Maybe we can do a little bit faster. [01:11:45] Getting out there to people, getting our shirts out there, talking to people one on one, it's not going to cost us a lot, but it will show results, and that's what they're really looking for at the end of the day. Then if we show results, they'll be more encouraged to, if we have this, we can do even [01:12:00] better. That's what I mean, we have a plan, it's on it's way, we just got to get it done now. [01:12:05] I think we've heard some good things from the budget. Has anyone have any other other things they think should be part of the budget? [01:12:12] I was just going to suggest that, I thought the last offline meeting we had was really successful and helpful. Maybe there needs to be an offline meeting of a group of people to get this budget together as quickly as possible. A subset of people have to be willing to say, let's just meet in two or three days or sometime this weekend or something to do that. If that's amenable to everybody. [01:12:39] I'm okay with that. [01:12:41] Me as well. [01:12:43] I wanted to add, if we already don't have a timeline and the activities we're doing as we plan the budget and also having a timeline for ourselves. If we already have [01:13:00] a clear one. [01:13:02] Is your question, what is our timeline or do we have one already? [01:13:07] Do we have one on what we are doing when? [01:13:11] I don't think we have a timeline. I think this is going to be more of individual commissioners or commissioners going twos and threes on a Sunday morning or wherever people are gathering. I don't know what that looks like completely. I think we need to sit down. That's a great question, Wangui, thank you for asking that. My suggestion was, people that are willing to meet, under quorum, let's meet. People that don't have the capacity, and you have ideas, send an e-mail to Stephanie, so she can share with all of us, or to me. If more than a quorum wants to meet, then we can split in half and go from there and really tackle what [01:14:00] we think is realistic. I don't know if it makes sense to really decide all the different events we're going to do in this meeting just because I don't know all the different ones, and I don't want to give an arbitrary number either. Lubna? [01:14:17] Yes. I want to make sure what the meeting is going to be about? [01:14:25] When I'm talking about meeting, we're talking, like abstractly, like big picture of what we want to do next steps. But let's say that Lubna, you are a part of the Sunes community, correct? We want to definitely engage the Sunes community, and we would love to sit down and talk to you or whoever is involved about what events or what people we need to talk to and sit down with so that we can talk more about all the stuff we've been talking about. That's what the meeting would be like, really focused on how we can [01:15:00] really talk to the right groups of people and who needs to be heard. [01:15:05] Does that make sense? [01:15:06] When is going to be - when? [01:15:08] When is the meeting? [01:15:10] I don't have any set dates, but I can email afterwards and we can see when people are most available. [01:15:17] Not this weekend, I'm busy. [01:15:20] I'm busy too. We can always follow up via email. Like I said, it can't be all of us. It can be only up to four of us, and it can be two. Everyone can find a partner, a buddy, and go from there. I'm not saying everyone needs to do a certain quota. If you do one meeting with a group of people in the next month, that's an amazing win. That's more than we did last month. Just moving forward. [01:15:59] Perfect. [01:15:59] I [01:16:00] didn't want to cut you off. Commissioner Gaea, did I answer your question or did you have more questions? [01:16:06] You did answer my question. [01:16:10] Thank you. [01:16:11] Thank you. [01:16:13] As I said, I will make sure to email, but I usually email Stephanie, so she can email everyone. I'll email Redmond, see if he can pass it along, so we don't mess up quorum rules. I don't email everyone, and then we can follow through and see what people are most interested in. I will be sure to share what Commissioner Taser put together with Stephanie and with all of us. We can move forward with what the plan is. Our two other commissioners weren't able to meet today. I'd still like to open up if anyone has any questions, concerns, thoughts. Do we need a vote on moving forward on a budget? We don't have to. We're going to put a subcommittee together [01:17:00] to put together a budget and submit it to city council by 11th of July to see if they'll put it on their July 16th agenda. [01:17:10] I personally think text messages are quick easy ways that we can all stay in contact and find easy ways to meet up and get out there. [01:17:21] It's just difficult because you can't put everyone in one text. [01:17:25] Sure. [01:17:27] I think that makes a lot of sense. We'll figure out, and as always, just think about what your capacity is, and no hard feelings if you can't do as much right now or later, if there's no other go ahead. [01:17:49] I just had a comment or a thought. Just thinking about events, whatever else. [01:18:00] The county fair is coming up. I didn't know. [01:18:03] When is that? Is it in August? [01:18:07] No, I think it's in July. [01:18:11] Let's put all the events together and see what's possible. We're not going to make all the events. I think we should go to the Farmers' market on Saturdays. Let's definitely talk about that. That's a good idea. There's no other thoughts on this agenda item. I'm going to move on if that's okay. [01:18:30] Sounds good. [01:18:31] Is there any public comment? Feel free to come to the microphone. We are on number 7 next steps for Phase 3 and 4. If you want to state your name? [01:18:50] Annie Tucker, Iowa City. I just want to say, as a community member, I'm really grateful for all you're doing on the conversations you're having [01:19:00] and shaping our own process and connecting with the community. I just really appreciate it. Thank you. [01:19:08] Thank you, Annie. [01:19:08] Thank you. [01:19:10] I'm going to take us back to agenda Item number 5, which was changing meeting schedule to once a month. This was a suggestion from one of our commissioners, and I think it's something that's been on the table every few months. I wanted to see what people were thinking, if it makes sense to move to just meeting once a month and then really relying on those off meetings, like subcommittee meetings. We could definitely move to that. July, we'll only have one meeting, and then we can really move forward in August. But what does everyone think? Should we stick with our two meetings or should we move to one meeting a month? [01:19:58] My only worry with one meeting a month [01:20:00] is if we miss that month, we are missing out on a lot. [01:20:04] If a meeting is canceled for any reason, we can always reschedule. [01:20:10] I was thinking instead of making it just once a month, I think we should leave the option of having our two times a month and always cancel one if that's what we need to do. I think having the two a month at least gives us flexibility. Let's say looking at August, it's August 1st and August 15th instead of getting ahead of time. Let's keep the 15th and not do the first or vice versa. I like maybe having the flexibility because we can always cancel, but we can't add. [01:20:53] Commissioner Muhammed. [01:20:56] Can we just plan to do once [01:21:00] a month in September. We're going to see how we're going to do in July and August? [01:21:07] Just keep with our two times in August then just revisit the conversation? What does anyone else think? [01:21:20] I think that's a good idea. [01:21:22] I'm indifferent. I want to do what's best for our commission, so I will listen to what you all think. [01:21:28] I'm not sure. Can you come again? I didn't get you very clearly. I'm sorry, Commissioner. [01:21:35] Commissioner. [01:21:36] On the schedule of meetings. [01:21:38] Are you talking about Commissioner Muhammed? [01:21:40] Muhammed, yes. [01:21:42] Yes. [01:21:45] My question is, can you say again your proposal? [01:21:51] I said we can keep August two times a month. We're going to see how we are doing, and we can suggest [01:22:00] it to start it in September. [01:22:06] Thank you. [01:22:07] You're welcome Cliff, do you care about this? [01:22:13] I still stand by what I said. I feel like if we miss one, it might be a problem. So far from what you guys are saying, I agree. We'll table it, we give it a little bit of time, see how it works, and we'll talk again later. [01:22:30] Is everyone okay with canceling the July 4th meeting? It would be rescheduled to a different day, but just doing one meeting next month. [01:22:39] Yes. [01:22:41] Okay. [01:22:43] This is my opinion. [01:22:46] Say it again. I'm sorry. [01:22:47] This is my opinion. We may cancel one meeting in a month, but we should be able to substitute that with other forms of either workshops or otherwise we [01:23:00] will be in trouble. We have to be engaged. Sometimes the work that we do here when we sit here might not look like we have achieved anything. At this time, in the next forefront coming, we need to be in the field much more and having this committee, two, three people meeting different times, according to our convenience. We come here to resolve an issue that probably requires voting, an agenda that is burning, that requires that maybe there's a conflict among ourselves in our groups and other things. Somebody doesn't like something, and we are subjected to come and face it here in the public, and the public is informed. But if it is operational things, then I think we are in the operations phase, a very bad one where if I come here, we talk for three hours, too much, sometimes repeating the things that we know, we go home and sometimes I feel like, what did I get there? How did I move [01:24:00] ahead today? I'm hesitant that on the two meetings per month of the platform that the styles remains the same. But if we can have one and use other forms of meetings, two people, three people committees, and other things in different formats, that allows you to explore. Now there are some arguments, I can't make calculations. I don't want to bother the public with all that. Every organization has a back people staff doing things behind them before they present that and that is what we are now being subjected to. We should, as a commission, without violating the laws of Iowa state laws, be able to have those meetings. When that time comes in September, like the commissioner suggests, I won't have any problem. [01:24:56] I agree with you. It is concerning. As I said, we all get busy, [01:25:00] and it's really easy to let 30 days go by. Blago, I haven't had time to do anything. In the emails, I'm going to make suggestions of subcommittee groups and ask one or two of you to be the lead. Just making sure that we're meeting and at least meeting once a month, probably we'll need to meet more than that. But just checking in and making sure there's action items is the best that we can do, and Redmond said that he would look in to see if there's any additional help that he can figure out, because there's a lot of questions, but you're right. We want to make sure that we're moving along and not coming to this meeting trying to figure out what's going on. [01:25:48] Does Stephanie ever end up? [01:25:50] I think that's just the mouse. [01:25:52] It's just the mouse sand. [01:25:56] It seems like we're going to rediscuss this at our [01:26:00] last August meeting, and we won't have a July 4th meeting, and we'll meet again. Is it on the 18th? 16th. [01:26:07] The 16th. No. [01:26:10] It's 18th, Thursday. [01:26:11] The 18th. [01:26:15] I was looking at the calendar, 18th. [01:26:17] The 18th. Any other thoughts on this agenda item? Otherwise, I'm going to move on to announcements. [01:26:26] Excuse me. [01:26:27] Yes. [01:26:28] With respect to the target date of 16th, you were thinking of presenting something. Do you think we have to be summoned once or twice before to discuss that budget among ourselves? [01:26:45] I thought that we agreed in the last agenda item that we would allow a subcommittee to set the budget because we've already said what we want to be in the budget. [01:26:55] We will be able to resolve that within the committee level not here. [01:26:59] That's good to hear. [01:26:59] I [01:27:00] don't know if that's fine. [01:27:01] That's what Redmond and Ray agreed to. [01:27:04] Good. Thank you. [01:27:06] It can be shared. [01:27:08] We can always share that budget. Stephanie can share to everyone, and if anyone has any issues with it, they can say something. Great. If there's no other thoughts, I'm going to move on. Well, I'm going to offer any public comments. There's no one else on the Zoom. [01:27:34] C4, but I think that's counting. [01:27:38] It looks like there's something in the chat. [01:27:46] Correct. [01:27:47] I think it's Stephanie. I'm going to move on to public comment. Andy, did you have anything else you wanted to add? Great. Are there any Commissioner or staff announcements? [01:28:00] Commissioner, announcements first. Staff announcements. [01:28:07] About Commissioner announcements. [01:28:08] I'm so sorry. Go ahead. [01:28:11] I just want us to prepare the African immigrants who are here, we'll be having an African festival in September. I'll bring the date when the right time comes, and I will encourage everyone to come. It will be full of different types of foods and music all the way maybe up to evening, night-time. That's coming soon. I think something to do with 25th of September, something like that. I'm not sure 25th or 20th. The way we had the June meeting. [01:28:47] I will just say that I hope everyone was able to have some reflection time for Juneteenth and the meaning of Juneteenth. I've just have [01:29:00] been thinking a lot about what it means to be Black in America, what it means to be a part of this commission, and how important it is, especially around this time. I've had amazing discussions and I've had some disappointments just with people's reaction to this holiday. I hope everyone had a good time, and we can work our little piece in it to help educate more people in this community. [01:29:25] It was a very nice event, and we had people willing to volunteer. We have a list somewhere of some people for anything we want to help with. We even had some sentiments from the community and they were somehow telling us they're sorry for us, but we never wanted to accept that. We were saying we're working for the community. There are people who were watching us, but they don't show up here. But there are very many people out there who we are watching what we're doing, so I just want to put that out there. [01:29:58] Thank you, everyone. If there's no [01:30:00] staff updates, motion to adjourn. [01:30:03] Second. [01:30:05] First and second.