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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTRC 20210513 auto transcriptcalling this meeting to order and with that stephanie can we please get a roll call sure oh wait hold up she sorry i apologize she just joined okay there we are all right and yeah we please get roll call okay uh commissioner ali present commissioner daniel present commissioner dillard president commissioner gathua president commissioner harris president commissioner johnson president commissioner nobis present uh commissioner rivera president commissioner ray president thanks all right and with that we can move on to agenda item number two approval of the april 29th 2021 meeting minutes uh before we do any motions on this does anyone have any questions on the meeting minutes of april 29th or any changes they'd like to make all right i just need a motion to approve the meeting minutes then in that case so moved second stephanie can we please get roll call okay um commissioner ali yes commissioner daniel yes commissioner dillard yes commissioner gathawa yes commissioner harris yes commissioner johnson yes commissioner yes commissioner rivera yes commissioner treyore yes okay passes nine zero thank you all right and then we have agenda item number three the staff follow up on trc questions yeah so at the last um meeting there were some questions that i said that i would do follow-up and report back to the entire commission so um one of the the first things that was asked at the last meeting was um who could testify and so based upon conversations with the city attorney um anybody who voluntarily wishes to to testify or to give testimony or to be a part of your proceedings um could do that regardless of age of course the trc does not have the ability to compel anyone to um to participate so it's on a volunteer basis the trc also does not have the ability to make anything confidential so anything that somebody reported talked about or spoke on would be considered a public record there was also a question on where the information would be stored and so the information would be stored on the city website that would include any written documents audio video currently the plan is to just archive or to place all of that information on the trc the trcs link on the city's website however depending on um how filled up that gets it may be um a link that is available on the trc's link that then links somebody to the actual documents in terms of any assistance that you need that you feel that current city staff cannot fulfill um i think last time you had mentioned the possibility of americorps or interns that is something that would go in the budget request to the city council the whether they were americorps or whether they were interns they would be um overseen by the office of equity and human rights so so we would supervise them um on a day-to-day basis but if you had specific projects that um you thought that an intern or an americorps would be beneficial on when we advertised or wrote or wrote those job descriptions we would include that in the duties of that particular person in terms of the trc it was asked or mentioned whether the trc could could be paid for their service so again that would be something that would be part of the budget submission or proposal that you provide to the city council my understanding from the city attorney is that it would be it would be considered more of a stipend versus a paycheck as if you were city employees it would be more of a stipend and so you would just need to decide as a group kind of what you feel that stipend should look like whether it should be per meeting or kind of how you want to determine what should be allocated for that in your request to the city council in terms of the ability of transit to assist with getting members of the community to trc events the transit department would have limited flexibility just because they have routes that are scheduled that they're fulfilled to fulfilled um to meet requirements and so um the the best plan and moving forward in terms of making sure that your meetings or your programs or events are accessible is to make sure that they are on a on a city um bus route the city also has um a certain amount of bands that that we could use city staff that could supplement and assist people who may need a ride in a ride home to a trc event program or a meeting there was also mention of social media so again social media because this is a case of first impression i don't believe any other border commission has social media that would also be something that would need to be requested to the city council if approved then you would just have to make sure that that it follows the policies and procedures of the city's communications department it would be a public document so if there was an unfavorable comment or something that was posted that maybe some of you felt was inaccurate that particular comment cannot be edited removed it would always have to stay there and be archived as part of that social media site and then finally child care if you are looking for professional assistance in terms of providing child care at your events programs or meetings again that should be part of the budget proposal that would go to the city council filed care in and of itself implies a professional um i guess in my in my opinion it assumes that the person has some type of certification or or professional pedigree in providing child care if you're looking at volunteers then that's probably a little different but i think by using the world child care there's a certain assumption to the public that the person who would be watching um children would would be certified or have some professional pedigree to watch children so i think i have hit everything but if anybody has any follow-up questions for me i'm certainly available to answer those at this time does anyone have any questions or any clarifications okay uh in that case actually sorry i do have a clarification question let's say um in a circumstance where we invited folks from the public to um come into any of our subcommittee meetings where we don't have a quorum of commissioners um and a member of the public did want to say something in convent confidence there [Music] could we possibly um sort of make mention and report to the commission that a member of the public in a subcommittee meeting had had said something to the effect of dot dot dot without um uh breaking their confidentiality i i don't think so what what the subcommittee is is it um allows commissioners to meet to handle commission business without having to call a full meeting it does not show the subcommittee doesn't shield the commission from the duty of open meetings and public records and so any documentation notes um text emails that were a result of that meeting would still be public record and so there would still be no confidentiality to somebody who spoke at a subcommittee does that make sense okay i guess my the discrepancy is like someone speaking um at a sub committee meeting versus what's um written not written documentation well i i guess if it's not memorialized then there there wouldn't be a public record but if somebody is taking notes on what somebody said um i mean anything that would be a part of that subcommittee would still be subject to to public records okay thank you um a question on uh our community forums or events in relation to social media um so in addition to using communicating through you communicating the events can we also communicate through our own communication systems including social media yeah so you're saying for example if you had a facebook page and you wanted to share an upcoming um yes you can certainly do that yes okay any other questions or clarifications i think this is more as we continue listening and even at the public forum and some of the things we hear maybe to some of us the in inner opinion it might be needing it would be ethical to [Music] pay attention and follow up i'm wondering how do we do that how or do we just listen and wait until we make our final recommendations i i think just from a staff point of view at this time if you're considering having any conversations whether it's in a subcommittee or part of the larger group just making sure that when it's advertised before people participate that they understand that you know there's no confidentiality and that it's subject to to public records so that everybody understands what they're participating in before they actually speak or talk about an experience that they want to share with the trc do we have anyone else all right in that case uh we will move on to agenda item number four public comment of items not on the agenda this reminder uh commentators shall address the commission for no more than five minutes and commissioners shall not engage in discussion with public concerning said items if there's anyone from the public that has anything that they would like to speak up on or address the commission on if you could please raise your hand and we will be sure to call on you and give you up to five minutes all right so we have annie tucker and stuck through the floor is yours cool thank you um first i wanted to actually thank you all for what you're doing this is really powerful work and i really appreciate the thoughtfulness you're bringing to it and it's kind of amazing that we can be here with you so um so i wanted to say i know that you're that you've expressed an interest in transform transformative justice and restorative justice and what i wanted to let you know is that in the last three weeks i've had maybe three entities or four express an interest in using restorative justice in the areas that they're responsible for which is really really exciting i think to feel like parts different parts of the community and decision makers or people who are working with decision makers uh want to have people's voices heard want to have processes that where each person involved is heard and i guess i want to say um a few things um part of my background is i work for a local non-profit services of eastern iowa that oversees a couple of core connected mediation programs and started a restorative justice program for juveniles who are referred and has been doing that and also got a grant and offered circle training to teachers um and this is like about four years ago so three different three-day trainings um teachers and people who work with kids and adults and um in the community and community members so um i guess one what i want to acknowledge is maybe i don't know if you can see me can you see me i ca i can see you but maybe you can't see me i'm like an older white woman maybe maybe you guessed um and um so what i i want to acknowledge that i also want to acknowledge that the reason that white people on this continent know about circles is that in the yukon um people and first nations folks uh their communities and families were being really devastated by the court system and the legal system up there really tearing families and communities apart so they realized they wanted to share their process circles with white people so that that was the process that their community members were part of and that wasn't part of the destructive processes that those uh institutions had so um here's my current vision my current vision is working with uh diverse group of folks from this community including age like i love that you guys were asking can minors come and speak here like i would like i would like there to be training that we bring in somebody actually to do their training even though there are people here who are trained if we can get money we'll do that otherwise we can do a home-grown process but where there's a diverse group pool of folks who together provide rj uh processes for folks in different situations as well as circles like laura gray y'all know laura gray she and i went to chicago um maybe four years ago and spent it was oh it was right after the election the previous election what was that that was 2016 when you didn't know if there was a place that you wanted to be on the planet or in this country and yet we went to the south side of chicago and sat in circles for four days and it was the right place to be and we came back and did circles that were open to the community and diverse folks sat and talked about things kind of really across their silos here it was kind of powerful so anyway um given given the stated interest about restorative justice in kind of different corners of this county i just want to let you know that that's something i'd like to do and i'd um i more accurately i'd like to be part of and help make happen and have it be informed by a variety of folks in the community like it's not my vision it should really organically come from all of us because this could make a difference in lives it could make a difference in how this community feels and operates let alone how the institutions operate and how different professionals see their roles as well as um as well as help people feel connection what i realized you know the premise of i'm almost done right i didn't check my my what my phone where i'm gonna let you cont what you're saying i feel like is important so just you can continue please continue okay but uh thank you i sorry for not paying attention and i'll wrap it up here's the deal here's two deals um restorative justice um my understanding is that that indigenous communities said when somebody causes harm the answer is not to send them away the answer is for them to know that they matter they are here and then we need to talk and they need to be part of the conversation about hearing and saying what happened hearing and saying how they were affected being part of resolving and fixing what happened okay but what i realized in working with the young people was that and so it's like restores them to the community right restorative justice but what i noticed was the young people that i was working with didn't seem to already have felt like they were part of the community and needed to be restored to it they didn't feel part of it they didn't already or or or at one time feel part of it so that's that's that's something that circles can work on because everyone feels connected circles actually i'll come another time and talk about how they intervene on trauma on the effects of trauma in two really simple ways how powerful is that also the most important part of the triangle you can't see me make the triangle with my hands right anyway the the the lower the third it's in three parts like there's the pointy part there's the middle part and there's the bigger lower part you can almost picture that right raise your hand if you can sort of picture that okay good um so the base is building community so if you're going to like start using rj in a school which is what they're trying to do and i'm part of the team that's working on that um the main the starting place is to have kids sit and circle and be heard and connect with each other relationship building and then above that the smaller things is dealing with misunderstandings or conflict but that's also i just want to offer that as an idea as you guys are thinking what are we doing with circles okay done sorry anyway thank you very much for what you're doing um i'll be in touch thank you do we have anyone else from the community that would like to address the commission uh you now have your chance to raise your hand and we will give you your time looks like we don't have any other hands raised at the moment all right we'll move on to agenda item number five update on land and labor acknowledgement i'll hand the floor to commissioners cicaos and kevo i don't have any updates to provide i haven't gotten a chance to touch base with sakais before this meeting i have a quick update i finally did hear back from uh lance uh foster um i had missed an email from him actually so it's it's actually my fault that i didn't see it uh but um i resent it to him and hopefully uh we can hear back very soon um about his thoughts on it and once we get that that will be great and um i think i really appreciate the work that kevo uh put into it our commissioner rivera excuse me uh put into it and the changes that reflect some of the thoughts that i had at the last meeting uh and so i should have something sent out to the group very soon appreciate that warm handoff the baton of the of the acknowledgment so i'm glad to hear that it's making progress so thank you so much for following up on that do we have uh anything else on that then in that case all right um so we'll now move on to the discussion and the vote on the facilitator hiring process and before we begin our discussion on this once again to give community the opportunity to address the commission on this agenda item if anyone would like raise your hand at this time and we'll be sure to give you some time to speak all right so we can now move on to our discussion and vote on the facilitator hiring process so uh i know that um commissioners ali and daniel have been working on this the most uh so i'll just hand the floor over to them too um so really quick before um daphne presents her findings i wanted to make a vote on how to do this just because um when the trc originally started uh there was no really concrete or clear discussion on how we were gonna go about this people just put up names um and then we voted so um jeff has talked about um and feel free to interject whenever stephanie um it's an rpf process which to my understanding is just like a job application yeah a request for proposals would be where the um the trc um basically comes up with what i would say is the equipment of a job description i mean what you're looking for in a facilitator what skills you want them to have on what experience you may want them to have and so working with staff um both in the office of equity and human rights and with the um the purchasing department to come up with the rfp that um states what you're looking for in a candidate their qualifications their skills background what they can bring to to the table um getting that formatted and having said that that you know being that you only meet every other week it you know would probably be something that would take a few meetings to to get shared agreement on in terms of what you're looking for in terms of the job description or the facilitator description but once you have that um agreed upon then um we would um put it out there to to basically the the community the the state the region um the country and solicit of folks who feel that they meet that skill level um to submit proposals to the truth and reconciliation once you get those proposals back you as a group would would need to go through and have some type of rubric or some way to evaluate or score each potential proposal that you receive and then based upon that coming up with a candidate or a slate of candidates that you know you want to interview or have a conversation with to to get to know more or to have more in-depth conversations about what work they could assist the trc with and you making very clear what your specifications are and then from there you know moving forward towards a a group decision on who you feel should be selected for that process so all in all i mean you're probably looking at um two months just between getting the proposal yet you know um in a manner that everybody agrees with and then to to be fair and to to get the best outreach you're probably looking at another at least three and a half maybe four weeks to advertise it and get it out there and allow people to apply um so that is the rfp process um so i i think that that's probably the best way to go about it um if someone do you guys want to talk about it or are we okay to make a motion on it i just have a quick thought about it it just sounds like a really long process that sounds like it's three months and i feel like um as it's been mentioned beforehand we're already kind of behind on our current deadline so i i'm not saying i don't agree with it i just wonder if there's any way to speed that up and i move i'm done there's not really a way to speed up the rfp process but um if you if if commissioners have somebody in mind who you think would be a great candidate um that you want to uh reach out to and have them submit proposals so that you're selecting from a more limited list and not advertising it um in the manner that you would maybe like a job posting you you could certainly do that um which may shorten the process because then you don't have the the lag for for getting the word out and giving people time to to apply but um so it's kind of just a matter of how each of you want to proceed what if what if we end up really liking whatever uh commissioner daniels has come up with um and we have a discussion on that together and then i don't know if you guys are okay with discussing this and maybe we could um decide if uh her suggestions are i mean i don't want to say good enough for a lack of a better term um to kind of continue with the process if that's okay with you guys okay so um oh before you begin just want to make it clear for me minutes sake so we will be coming back to agenda item number six to do the vote on the hiring process but first we will be moving on to agenda item number seven for the presentation of commissioner daniel's findings yes okay um i actually don't have like a full-on presentation because i think uh heart to heart was kind of like open talk was necessary um the one thing i noticed throughout my search for what the role of a facilitator is were rfps and the rfp process does take long and i think there's no way around it if we want to have a fair and transparent process and so we need to reach out reach out far see if we can get the best to help us meet our goals and i don't think this is something that one commissioner should really be researching i think maybe have one of the subcommittees kind of get together and work on this because i have my opinions on what i think is most important in the role of a facilitator but not everyone is going to have that opinion and i don't want the facilitator to be like my facilitator or like the person that meets up meets the what i what i picture in a facilitator they're going to be the facilitator for the entire commission we also need to consider if we're going to have the facilitator just work with us um or work with the community i think they're supposed to be in between but throughout my research there were different roles that facilitators played i also looked up um strategic the difference between strategic managers and project managers and what role each would play in an organization and i was way over my head um i think this is definitely that's definitely something for our chair and co-chair to kind of look into because there's their strategic managers project managers program managers strategic project managers and they all have very nuanced differences and depending on what our goal is in having a project manager or any type of blank manager will will determine what we're looking for and so if we as a commission are looking for someone to help us in our long term meeting our long-term goals which means beyond the report if we want this to turn into something that's more longer lasting i think that could be where a strategic manager would be helpful if we are looking for someone to help us with this project like just getting to the point where we can submit the report to city council then i think a project manager that's more that's more the role of a project manager but really i i cannot make that call because i don't really know how our leadership sees sees us moving forward and once again i think this might be something where more than just one person uh looks into this what i have determined is that these excuse me these two hires are probably going to be to the most important things we get done in the next couple of months and so i call on all of you to kind of provide your input thank you i yield thank you um in that case we'll be moving back up to agenda item number six for just uh more of a discussion and i'll let you begin oh yeah yeah sorry um so one of the things that uh commissioner daniel has said towards the end was um finding someone who like fits our vision um and i i really think it would be beneficial for us to at least look for someone long-term because um i think that's there is still kind of confusion within like the community and things like that of what a truth and reconciliation commission does um and i think that um i don't want to forget about the part where we're documenting these truths and keeping them in a place where people can see and um or read or whatever that may be like i think a show or a play or um all of that stuff but i don't remember who said this during one of the subcommittee meetings someone said like legacy kind of change or something like that like something that people will you know they'll say iowa city oh they had that really powerful documentary where all those african-americans indigenous folks and they spoke about their experiences living in that city um so i think it would be really beneficial to look for someone with strategic planning for a long-term goal because i think that's a better bang for our buck if if that for a lack of a better term so yeah i'm gonna yield to the floor with that and let nice chat about it yeah and i do have information that i gather during um my research i it's just so much that it would probably take up the whole meeting just trying to explain the difference between all these different types of managers um and then there was also the difference between a facilitator and a coordinator that i i i think i'll i won't want to go down that road um just because we know what it says in the resolution so i can share that with everyone what my findings are if that'll be helpful after after the meeting thank you um in terms of input on the process i just know one thing i'm worried of as well is the person we're bringing in if it's going to also be long term we also want to ensure that they are willing to be committed to living in the area this i mean it can't be something at least i think that it can be something where they'd be just living here for part of the time and just moving around otherwise because we'll need to actually be integrated into the community to be able to connect with people um and also uh we'll probably have to clarify with the city as well if any hires that we recommend or make are just for the duration of the commission or if uh we're allowed to write in to our actual budget recommendation that that position would extend after the commission ends and for whatever reason if they don't allow that then that would have to be an explicit recommendation that we would have to make in our final report um oh yeah good yeah commissioner dana yeah i thought you were okay so i don't are we talking about the facilitator just the clarify uh just that more likes to treat the strategic planner role if we're going to look into having something like that as well like any hires we also just need to ensure that that wouldn't be something that have to be a final recommendation that the position is extended rather than if we can just write it in operational budget at this time that we would like the position to extend past the commission x amount of time because it all affect future city budgets as well so so you would have to put that as a recommendation because the whether they're a facilitator or strategic planner they that's a little different because per the resolution they work for the trc and so they're not they're not city staff and so their duration in fact uh would end when i believe i think it's two-thirds of you feel like um they're no longer needed so so that would be true whether it's a facilitator or strategic planner or coordinator or or some of the other um variations that commissioner daniel has mentioned thank you stephanie and then another thing i was thinking about as well is um what amelia said about the documentation aspect um i do know that um some people from england theater uh are very interested in helping with uh that aspect of it uh this is uh guy um unisys alexis i hope i didn't butcher your name sorry uh yeah he's a he's greek and gotten the chance to speak to him a little bit and get him get to know him uh pretty well but the englert staff themselves have actually been working on some ways to increase diversity not only in their um scheduling and the shows they're bringing in but also their staff so uh it just seems like they're highly interested in helping with this again this would be something that the rest of you would have to be in on a discussion for but i just believe that them being local to the community and also having experience with uh putting on productions and making productions and also having a space where uh you know any event could go on would probably be highly beneficial to us um but again this is just something that would have to be presented to all of us and to be voted on and just wanted to make that known going back to the facilitator position [Music] i am more familiar with facilitators who facilitate malfunction for example i was having in mind as somebody who facilitates our meeting which already we have the chair and device doing that already so that's what i had in mind coming in and i also i think i also formed and because that's my understanding of facilitation and also i guess also the kind of facilitation i'm trained and i trained on and travel in this commissioner ravella i'm thinking in terms of facilitating groups so uh usually that's what i'm used to of course there's also what goes on backstage to prepare the what the facilitator is doing in preparation for facilitating so but from the discussions we've been having uh this position it's a it seems to be wider than that okay um the i wonder um if it would be possible for um commissioners to review uh the application or contract that uh former facilitator um jesse case was um going to sign um that might help fill in some of the gaps in understanding or at least get us on the same page of what i guess um chair and vice chair are saying when we're using the term facilitator and then we can decide if that's the direction that we want the facilitation to take or if we want to redefine the role of the facilitator yeah i do still have that document saved and i can uh send it back out to uh get redistributed uh right after this meeting um but yeah there are just some aspects of it that would need to be changed uh there's a long section in there about being involved with the way the bylaws are written and done um and we just need to ensure that everyone here also just sees the fact that there are some sections in there that seem a little bit more as facilitator having direct control over some aspects of how the commission runs and in my opinion we would need a little bit more autonomy than that um but when it comes to the kind of filling in that role in the meantime um i know we don't have someone directly on staff of course but i'm more than comfortable along with anyone else that's interested just continuing to just reach out to people in the community to try to just tell them more about the commission and to to see if they're interested in participating in either subcommittee meetings or as well if they're just interested in having any presentations with us as well uh cliff and uh daphne have also just told me uh about how we have the johnson county interfaith coalition and also um yes kaos has told me about this as well and the iowa catholic worker house they're very interested in not only doing a presentation but also being very involved in the process so they do have a lot of hispanic immigrants that are part of their group and they're also highly interested in getting something together where we have people of different faith backgrounds also connecting within the community and the importance of that so i would like to have iowa catholic worker house um come in to a meeting and give a presentation at some point in the next meeting or two just whenever everyone feels that we do have enough time for that on the agenda and it would also allow us to get more of that voice of hispanic people and other immigrants of all backgrounds and people from the faith community as well um to get back kind of to the job description and facilitator thing i just want to sorry i just wanted to point out that um in the google drive and let me see if i can share this really quick i put in this document sorry um there's this document that says job descriptions for future hires related to the trc um i had just put this down because i'm just a person that likes to jot down stuff as i think about it um so this was where i had my first thoughts after um steph and i had steph daphne and i had talked kind of and um so i don't know if anyone has looked through this and it's i'm not saying that all of these points are going to be specific to the you know strategic planner or facilitator or anything like that but if you do have any ideas for um job descriptions or things like that uh this would be a good place i think for all of us to gather our thoughts um just wanted to put that out there just because i did there was a couple of them that i took from um the former uh facilitators document but yeah i ask a clarification question vice chair yeah this is commissioner rivera um uh so we've talked about um like future hires within the office of equity and human rights we've talked about a facilitator and then um commissioner daniel also mentioned like the strategic planner or the project manager are we thinking about all of those as separate roles um or are we thinking that there is overlap or that one person can serve multiple roles um i think i'm getting a little bit lost when we're like there's multiple people that we could potentially be hiring i guess that now um and i don't know who we're talking about at any given time um so so i'm gonna clarify from my understanding um when i had spoken to stephanie um anybody that we hired through like americorps or things like that which um i envisioned for like for example if i wanted someone as a part of their job description let's say to um read the 88 points that for the restructuring the icpd and you know give an analysis of that not that i would make someone you know read all 8 of them but um that would be in the job description and then that person be if it's through americorps or anything like that would be hired through stephanie's office and um it would be if any interns or things like that um because they have to they would have to report directly to stephanie and in their job description is where we would put specific things we wanted them to do for the trc but um the facilitator or strategic planner or both would be a job that it comes is directly related to the trc they would report to us um their specialty is like strategic planning or like that is what you know they're good at and um or mediation or negotiating or things like that and that would be the person who um we would pay out of i believe our budget um and that would come that they would not be a person that worked for the city does that make sense so what you're kind of describing in those two examples i know that there might be more um kind of roles for that former position that you're describing but what you're kind of describing was like a research intern or something where we can task this individual under um the office of equity and human rights to go and research documents as it relates as things that sort of could benefit and educate our commission on um in with topics to related to restorative justice transitional justice policy things like that and then you know that can be their job to look into all those things and then come to our commission meetings and educate us or come to our sub committee meetings and educate us on those things so that would be one role and you're considering the facilitator as more of that sort of mediator between us and the community and and acting sort of the mandate that we are set out to do in our fact-finding process and our truth-telling process and so the beginnings of our reconciliation process is that somewhat of a good um sort of overview yes you out you worded it way better than i could have ever articulated it so yes you loosened the jar and i finished it for you here we go thank you um and i invite commissioner and daniel to also provide any clarification if they had any different idea oh i guess so excited when you ask that question because i was like okay um so essentially one person could play it could have the role as the strategic manager the the facilitators like that just theoretically this could happen um in practice that wouldn't be ideal however as i looked at different roles um there is such a thing as a strategic project manager and so we could just have one person who helps up who helps us with strategic planning and project management the facilitator there was also if you if you look at the previous facilitators documentation i don't know if that role is was purely what you consider a facilitator's world there was a lot of oversight um they were they were given and so i think getting that paperwork would be would be great so we kind of know what we may not want in a facilitator yeah that's it it sounds to me still that yeah we would need at least that one person hired through stephanie's office and um right now just needing a strategic planner uh more that bigger national search of that for experts either strategic planner or strategic project manager and then someone separate from that that's more of a facilitator um so it ended up being a total of three positions one reporting the stephanie to reporting to us um so at this time i don't know i just kind of want to make sure we clarify that and if we decide that we need to make any votes on whether we're going to look at it as three separate positions or two separate positions before we then move on or if we want to just move that vote to the next meeting i don't want to close this discussion right now but i as we're moving forward i think it would be helpful if we had an idea of what what will come after this meeting um because we're certainly not in a place where we're ready to sort of make any formal decisions or motions i don't i don't think but i would suggest that maybe we fold sort of this conversation into maybe the budget subcommittee and that can be the house for further discussion in defining and differentiating among all three of these roles that we're currently talking about so that we can have more of a concrete sort of discussion next time about what everyone would agree upon but i welcome rebuttals to that suggestion um only thing that i will say about it is that we need a person that understands what our mission is we you know that's the thing that we had a problem with before you know some people didn't agree with the facilitator that we had before we needed to have a person that understands what we're trying to get accomplished so we can't be a person i think that hasn't been through social injustice or a person who doesn't know anything about it he's just gonna come in and be a facilitator but he doesn't even know anything of social and racist injustice so that's that's my opinion but and uh steph can i ask for clarification purposes since in the agenda it does say i can't remember if it says can we make a motion or uh da let's see oh it says discuss and vote um if you i mean you can decide to vote or if you want to defer you mean you don't have to vote this evening do you guys want to differ [Music] i would want us this commissioner i eve would define because i would want us to be very clear on our definition of facilitator to be very very clear on what they want them to be doing uh other than are we going by the general one where uh from what commissioner harris is saying uh it's looking like um uh one of the one of the roles of uh in general and again i said what i'm familiar with for a facilitator that person is usually neutral and they do not add to and they do not create a lack of a better word friction so i guess i'm just giving some examples in trying to be very very clear of uh of uh who is a facilitator to us what are we wanting out of the out of that office so so so just to to clarify um commissioner ali asked me a question about whether you had to vote at this meeting or deferred and i just want to make sure i'm clear you you could have a vote this evening on going through with the rfp process for hiring a facilitator without getting into the specifics of how you want to define that facilitator so to me those are not necessarily the same thing and so if you want to vote on this particular hiring process you certainly have the ability to do that this evening if you don't want to vote at the meeting this evening on the facilitator hiring process then you don't have to but what this agenda item to me is just simply voting on to have this rfp process it's not voting on the content or the definition of what a facilitator would be or what a person who does strategic uh planning would be it would just be to go with this process so so just to clarify that okay i'll jump in again commissioner commissioner daniel and and now stephanie you give us a very clear and kind of like it looks like we need to and there's that time to be taken uh to me i'm seeing and um [Music] it makes sense to me to go with it and especially now so that i don't have to split here that now that i know it's not the definition i'm voting on yeah with what was explained by commissioner daniels and stephanie i if we if we decide to go time i would be on deciding i would vote on the process so i will i'm ready uh i just want to ensure that if you are making a motion that we just have to be sure we're explicit in what exactly um we are voting on in that motion whether it's that we're having a vote on just doing the rfp and then deciding in the in a separate meeting that we're going to talk about exact definitions or if we're voting on not doing an rfp in a separate meeting doing exact definitions just for the sake of the record all right i don't think a formal emotion has been put forward yet but i think that it would be a good idea for us to um to go ahead and vote on that portion of this at first i was like well we can just kind of wait until we have a job description but i think that if we vote now on using the rfp process then the budget subcommittee can move forward um with developing that job description so we can really uh get some gain contraction in that regard and then come back at the next meeting to discuss it further i just wanted to ask whether i don't know whether commissioner rivera was putting for the motion um so i just i just want to say if we vote on the rfp that will help with writing the job description or coming up with the job with that this is commissioner ali speaking i'm going to make a motion to move forward with the rfp hiring process for facilitator slash strategic planner or whatever can i help amend that motion vice chair um i would suggest that for right now let's just use very concrete um and clear terminology so i i would say i would amend the motion on the floor to motion to utilize the rfp process to hire the facilitator period because we don't we don't know yet what if we're dividing the facilitator role into project manager or what have you yeah so um i am going to make that motion to use the rfp process to hire a facilitator we have a second from commissioner daniel and stephanie can we please get roll call is there any further discussion before we do the roll call on this topic okay um question okay what exactly was the issue with the last facilitator what was the main problem didn't sign his contract but other than that um all i can say is there were just so there's some friction with just the actual process of the interview and just some former members didn't really approve of them very much but yeah i know the contract was never signed so okay any further discussion before i take roll call okay um commissioner ali yes commissioner daniel yes commissioner dillard yes commissioner gathawa yep commissioner harris commissioner no you're voting no okay no commissioner johnson i might have to go with no two because i'm not completely there yet okay [Music] yes uh commissioner rivera yes commissioner treyore yes okay so i have the motion passing 7-2 who currently comprises the budget committee subcommittee myself and commissioner daniel however um as well but one thing i do want to make clear with that is as long as um there are no more than four individuals in any of those subcommittee meetings then we are welcome to have another person in there but as well as there are other subcommittees where people want to be a part of the conversation any of us are also welcome to join in those and just talk to you a little bit more about what you would like to see but one thing i would like to suggest as well is that if there are some things that each commissioner would like to have in the job description or have concrete in the person that we're looking for if you could also just please send that in an email directly to stephanie so that we do have that available because that would also really help the process we want to ensure that everyone actually gets some kind of say in that and i'll um tomorrow morning i'll reach out to purchasing to get um some examples from um like climate action and parks and rec in terms of some of the rfps that they've put out just so you can kind of get an idea of what they look like so is anyone else interested in joining the budget subcommittee to assist them in this process if not i'd be happy to join at least for this time period glad to have you um after the conclusion of this meeting then we can just uh try to coordinate time within the next week to get an initial meeting together to then just discuss uh further what we're looking for in that process of the rfp and definitely want to have that presented to the rest of the commissioners in the next meeting and also i would like to have that emailed a few days ahead of time so that it can be reviewed by each commissioner before we even have the next meeting begin all right and in that case we are now on to agenda number eight review and approve bylaws um i will hand this off to amel as well all right so um it would would it be helpful for you guys if i read this all you don't have to okay all right thank you is this is this the version that was in the packet no this is not the version that was in the packet would you would you detail the changes then yeah of course so um let me go to that version that was in the packet really quick on my own personal screen okay so um in the version that is in the packet um it has the um first seven uh items on it are actually from the mandate um and or the first item is it is from the mandate sorry um and then the other ones we are kind of compiled from a few different other commissions that steph had sent me their bylaws um i just wanted to kind of keep it really really simple because we didn't discuss bylaws initially at all um so um there was a part in the packet that had said you know for motions there's a highlighted part that said staff may keep track um i remove that part because uh steph is going to be keeping track of the minutes as our staff um it didn't and she keeps track of all of that stuff um there's a part that says include a section on limitation of authority um so i i hadn't wanted that part to be in it just because there was uh just because i i didn't feel like there was a concrete idea from like a concrete understanding yet from like everyone on what kind of our end goal was um and there was a section that um had spoken about um when we're at getting the truth-telling part um and i just kind of remove i remove that part because i to my knowledge not yet do we plan to have uh people telling their truths during our public meetings um and that was actually going to be one of the things while i went through this was to um ask if you guys thought that it was necessary to have bylaws for um public meetings when like we're at a place where we're receiving um testimonies from people from my understanding um from what steph said that if nine of us are there uh during this process we have to treat it kind of how we treat um the public comment section which we would not be allowed to respond or comment to anyone that is telling their truths or giving a testimony and then you know a lot of this stuff is really just like very simple um how many absences voting um go ahead muhammad uh i just wanted to clarify on the part of the quorum i saw a difference in that part just wanted to make sure that we went on yeah so it says let me go back on the quorum two-thirds can you scroll down a little bit steph so yeah the other one says two-thirds of the nine-member commission shall constitute a quorum at any meeting um and i five is our quorum not six so that is why i changed it from the one that we have that is right five is the quorum right stuff i just want to make sure yeah that's correct okay perfect yeah um and then um so kind of so with motions we just have to discuss uh before the commission may vote um let's see i tried to be very straightforward and laid out there is there anything that people have questions on or anything that you think that we should add i used um templates from the community police review board and um the the human rights commission and um the housing and zoning commission and then there was one more um um can we clarify just the majority um so uh in a meeting where quorum is met and five commissioners are there is that a majority of those present or is it a majority of the commission members meaning five total oh that's a good question and and uh commissioner rivera i was going to bring that up too i think um that usually bylaws set a minimum number of votes instead of just the majority which would be five for purposes of the trc is there um or do you ha are you able to edit that no you're probably not able to edit that that's okay i can edit that yeah okay i have i can um i'm taking notes so it's not oh okay perfect and then just for number three i think it's implied that the chair and vice chair um set the agenda but it's it's not specific and so i don't know if that's something the commission wants to keep kind of vague or if they want that very specific um i would just like to add if we're going to make that specific i just want to ensure that we do have something in there about how um yeah that any and all input from other commissioners is also welcome on those agenda items not the reason uh in writing whether a request for an item to the agenda is denied uh should be supplied at least 24 hours prior to the meeting as well in case the person i mean this the rest of what i'm saying after the 24 hours isn't uh material to being in there but basically just in case the person would like to have that also as an extra attachment so what um we can do if you'd like is i can make those changes to the bylaws and then um we can go over it again at the next meeting or um then vote if it if we want to send it off to city council for approval you also have the option of um voting on it this evening and just accepting the the amendments or the edits so it's oh it's upset yep the last thing i just want to make sure that we do uh say for the record and clarify is that um we had mentioned about uh the process of the truth telling and that we don't have bylaws for that yet but just want everyone to note that at the bottom we do have that amendments to bylaws are possible and that we just need a majority vote for the commission and that is at least five members and that those proposed amendments must be sent to staff to forward to all members of the commission and or add to the following meeting agenda so if there are changes that need to be made or if we decide that something in here is you know cover some of the process we do have the opportunity to change that and and i just want to clarify if somebody's um giving a presentation or testimony um that would be an agenda item so the commission wouldn't be restricted in terms of you know having it some type of engagement or conversation or back and forth with them so i just want to clarify that uh do any members of the commission have any comments they'd like to make on the bylaws or um any decisions on whether we'd like to vote with the current amendments made or if we would like to push the adoption to the next meeting i would want to suggest that we vote with those amendments that one made in today's meeting this is commissioner for purposes of record just want to assure there's no further discussion on that and also just to clarify that was emotion uh commissioner gothard i you look like you're you're wanting to say something wait wait me i think it just froze sorry with someone's hand up and it looked like someone was raising their hand i apologize sorry was that emotion can i i couldn't i didn't know if that was emotion or not because she started you started the sentences off with i would like to make a suggestion so i don't know you said are yeah i'm asking yeah that was the most if yeah i i think even if i put it as a suggestion that i'm making the motion to vote on on the bylaws with the amendments that were made or during this meeting i mean yeah would anyone like to second that motion or if not then we would have further discussion or we would be having another motion to table the discussion for another meeting a second emotion in that case stephanie can we please get a roll call sure and no further discussion on this okay um commissioner ali yes commissioner daniel yes commissioner dillard yes commissioner gatherwell yes commissioner harris yes commissioner johnson yes uh commissioner sakawis yes commissioner rivera yes um and commissioner treyari yes okay passes nine zero thank you um we do now have agenda number nine which is staff and commission announcements is do any members of the commission have any announcements to make uh i did have um someone bring up to me about an event or some correspondence that we possibly had from the public okay um we did get uh some correspondence from the public that i'd like to share so this is from uh entitled letter to johnson county governments as written on may 4th 2021 it's dear johnson county board of supervisors chair pat hayden iowa city mayor bruce teague and all johnson county iowa city and county municipal elected officials our organization's right to update our april 19 2021 letter and to reiterate our full support for funding excluded low-wage and public sector workers to the american rescue act a 54 million dollar excluded workers fund will provide parity with what all others are able to access in federal stimulus and unemployment benefits together we can begin the long process of transforming our housing transportation land use and farming systems to put frontline i'll actually just share this as well to put frontline workers um sorry and bipod people first excluded workers are defined as undocumented immigrants previously incarcerated people cash economy workers the permanently unemployed and all those who have been left behind by society before and during the pandemic in addition to the 54 million dollars coming to local johnson county municipalities for direct relief the american rescue plan act will also provide millions more in funding for emergency rental and homeowner relief educational support nutrition programs on employment assistance homelessness vaccines aid to restaurants businesses and assistance from the federal emergency management agency local officials can match our community's needs with these funding streams and maximize federal dollars beyond just what we have outlined here there will be a number of additional funding sources flowing into the community through a variety of different pathways excluded workers must be prioritized now or they will continue to be left behind while everyone else gets duplicate forms of belief the federal guidelines are clear and there is no need for an immigration test the u.s treasury department has already issued guidance stating the american rescue plan funds are to be used to support families nonprofits provide premium pay to essential workers and rebuild critical infrastructure according to an attached april 26 2021 memo by the center on budget and policy priorities pandemic relief is not a recurring or long-term public benefit and does not require an immigration test there are several reasons why an immigration test does not apply to funding streams from the american rescue plan congress is providing the funds to assist the states and localities in addressing the pandemic its purpose to benefit the community as a whole states have the authority to use the funds for many different purposes applicable exemptions to an immigration test include short-term emergency disaster relief community level assistance required to protect life and safety and assistance administered by non-profits attached april 21 2021 report by the same budget policy center titled three principles for an anti-racist equitable state response to cobin 19 and stronger stronger recovery calls for targeted aid to those in need and transformative investments in black brown and indigenous immigrant and low-income communities to target aid to those in need the report's authors recommend governments provide premium pay to essential workers making less than fifteen dollars an hour unrestricted cash payments to individuals and families with limited incomes including immigrants paid family medical leave and compensation for workers who fell through the gaps in unemployment insurance coverage including immigrants so there is more attached to this as well however i just do want to state that this is going to be included in the final agenda that is uploaded for the public to see after this meeting and i do also want to let everyone know that there is um this thing called the people's town hall on the american rescue plan that will be going on via zoom on monday may 17th from 6 p.m to 7 p.m and it will be people from across the state and community in this facebook group talking about the 54 million dollar emergency funds coming to johnson county and the excluded workers coalition is extending the invite and iowa community climate action is also a part of this so there is a facebook page for this and an event registration link and i have also forwarded these documents to stephanie to include in the final version of the agenda just so everyone's aware so if you would like to attend you're more than welcome to and if you'd like to lend your voice to that project or any of that you're free to do so as well but also so the public knows and i'll yield the floor and give them a chance to speak um i just wanted to make this really super quick uh just because i know a lot of us are really interested in education um and the youth especially in this community i went to a webinar this afternoon um it was a presentation on the school to prison pipeline that i believe tammy knight and actually sent it to all of us um and i i got the recording so i'll share it with you guys i would really encourage uh you guys to watch this or try to listen to it if you can there's some really good information that's very specific to the iowa city community school district um one of the things that has still stuck with me and i've sent an email sentences that the johnson county um attorney's office is trying to be more involved and intervening when a child has lost many days of school uh it's usually the person said it was the last resort but um i they also mentioned that johnson county attorney's office wants to be more involved and if you know anything about the school-to-prison pipeline getting an attorney's office involved and that is just horrible um so i i just really would encourage you guys to please watch this um and share your thoughts and um yeah it's a really good video and it was very very informational uh before i forget i just had one final quick thing to say so next week from wednesday through friday i will be in ankeny um for a seminar entitled strategic doing it's basically a leadership uh seminar and training session so uh i was here a development group has been gracious enough to sponsor me to go to this event but just wanted to let all of you know as well that i will be taking extensive notes at these sessions and we'll be sharing them with you as well so that you can be aware of just these skills and tactics uh so we can all implement them in you know what we do in this commission and in life going forward uh but yeah i'll be gone from wednesday through friday of next week however if you do need to reach me i will still be available and that is all i have um is this a saying that we can say what we want to say because i was trying to figure out a time that i could say what i want to say um i don't know if any of you guys know what social injustice or racial injustice is about you know i'm not trying to attack anybody or say anything about nobody but like i don't know if you guys been in prison before i don't know if you guys dealt with the justice system before i don't know if you guys dealt with how that goes or how they treat black people in america um even people of color even people who are not you know they may be you know they may be the from a different community you know i didn't say the community because i can't spell it right right now lbg2 you know what what whatever it is but some like on this call i feel like that we not we we need to do more i think we need to do more because there's a lot of stuff that's going on it's going to be summertime and i'm i'm an iowa city resident and i live in the south district so if any of you guys know about the south district they bout to be shooting real soon and there's about to be a lot of it's already been stuff going on over here so i just want to let everybody know that we need to start working on the issues that we're supposed to be working on and we need to stop the raglan and haggling about who's going to be this is going to be this vice president who's going to be this who's going to be the chair we got to start working on the issues i'm telling you like it's more unknown than we even even even talking about it's a lot going on like it's been a lot of people that's been inside the house for the past year inside their house and then next thing you know they got a whole bunch of money and this is not going to be a good outcome and i i can feel the tensions in the air i can feel it so with that i'm gonna heal the floor i just had to let that out so thank you for expressing that um i i want to say that if anyone would like to speak to any of the police chiefs in the area as well or the city manager or anyone on city council to at least try to establish some kind of baseline with them because we had city council on tuesday have this meeting where they went over the restructuring plan and this commission directly came out of a meeting they had last year about reviewing all of this so i just want to say you guys know there are but um last night you know i just had a bonfire with a city councilor i'm not going to say her name and we sat down and talked you know and it's not looking good it's just not looking good she she talks to me about a whole bunch of things and i was sitting down in a bonfire with a city counselor and she just told me like it's not going good it's not going to be good stuff is not going to go good at all so and i have the ability just to be able to do that stuff you know sit down with city councillors and sit down with people that's you know important people in the community i'm not saying none of you guys are important but i sit down with an important people so i sat down with important people and they you know city councils they told me they were saying there's nothing we can do so with that i'm gonna yield the floor again have all the subcommittees met and that's not an announcement i just i i just want to know um no okay if your subcommittee has not had a chance to meet yet i would suggest you try to get an initial meeting going within the next week especially policing subcommittee there's already you know protests and things being planned for this weekend i've already been reading about and as well we all know the current laws and things going through the state government so that's another thing to be wary of and yeah just watch out for your community and as commissioner harris has said there is more that needs to be done unfortunately at this time i can't talk about some of the things um like i'm not trying to cut you off but i'm not trying to cut you off my homies i'm telling you if they go down there processing again you know what's gonna happen they're going to sacrifice them again again that's it's nothing to stop that they're going to say gas them again that's what i got from everything that i that that i heard about so does anyone have any other announcements they'd like to make uh i think uh this is this call commissioner uh this is not an announcement forward but more of a report that on thursday may 6th i attended truth and reckoning event at its park and there were four of us there and we introduced ourselves and we listened and from what i got is [Music] their listening and acting [Music] on what uh they hear the inequity or injustices that uh are going on in i in johnson county and those they were being shared what already has happened what what they have done in following up on the injustices and going to the necessary offices to seek justice for individuals and other plans i yield we have any other commission announcements prior to staff announcements you you've covered already what i was kind of want to go over a little bit when it came down to the american rescue plan so i just standing by but all right in that case it sounds like ready for staff announcements just adding that i didn't mention the other commissioner's names because i didn't think it's my place to say beyond that there was farmers there in the truth and reckoning event yeah i was definitely there uh i'll definitely speak for myself at least and i was there with him so i was not in attendance um do we have any staff announcements i don't have any thank you okay um if can i can everyone good can i do a motion to adjourn i didn't see who i'm sorry was that i'm can i'm not sure who did that this is commissioner ollie i would like to make a motion to adjourn if everyone is okay with that rivera second [Music] definitely please get a roll call sure uh commissioner ali yes daniel yes commissioner dillard yes commissioner gathawa yes commissioner harris yep commissioner uh johnson yes um commissioner uh sakawis yes commissioner rivera yes and commissioner treyary yes okay meeting as adjourned thank you everyone thanks thank you