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Home My WebLink AboutTRC 20210805 auto captions[Music] now calling this meeting to order and stephanie can we please get roll call sure uh commissioner ali present commissioner dillard president yeshua gathawa commissioner harris here johnson here here i can't hear anything um if my name is being called i'm here can you hear me now yes okay it's i think it was just where i was holding my mic sorry [Music] all right um and with that so we do have the landing acknowledgement next with agenda item number three um i just wanted to say because uh commissioners novus and commissioner rivera were the main leads on this one i would like to give either of you the honor of doing it for the first official time since last time kind of was unofficial i'd like to give that honor to commissioner rivera who started this project if that's what they would sounds prefer we meet today in the community of iowa city which now occupies the homelands of native american nations to whom we owe our commitment and dedication the area of iowa city was within the homelands of the iowa mesquaki and sac and because history is complex and time goes far beyond far back beyond memory we also acknowledge the ancient connections of many other indigenous peoples here the history of broken treaties and forced removal that dispossessed indigenous peoples of their homelands was and is an 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 thank you next we do have the approval of the meeting minutes from the july 22nd 2021 meeting date does anyone have any questions on anything in there or anything that needs to be changed all right it doesn't sound like it um in that case i would like to put forward a motion to approve the meeting minutes from the july 22nd meeting rivera second any further discussion commissioner ali yes commissioner dillard yes yes commissioner johnson yes commissioner nobis commissioner rivera yes and commissioner trey wright yes we are now on to agenda item number five which is public comment of items not on the agenda so commentators shall address trc for no more than five minutes and commissioners shall not engage in discussion with the public concerning said items we do have a member of the public here with us in the in-person meeting and we do have a few in the virtual setting as well uh let's do okay do we have anyone attending virtually that would like to make any comments if so please raise your hand and we will give you time to speak all right not seeing any hands raised at the moment so we will move on to agenda item number six which is the joint recommendation with the human rights commission to city council on the use of the land acknowledgment and um i just want to hand this off as well to communication rivera so i know you've been doing a lot of work alongside the commission before i provide some updates about where we are and make the recommendation is where i what i'd like to see move forward can i open up to public comment yes yeah if there's anyone in the public or the audience here today if they would like to make a comment regarding the land acknowledgement or a recommendation to city council please raise your hand and seeing none well i appreciate us just having opportunity to talk about this i think i attended the last human rights commission meeting and very they were very enthusiastic to see the progress that was made on the land acknowledgment and they did make the motion to approve it for their use as well and so as of the last human rights commission meeting in this we have formally adopted the landing acknowledgement as present in the packet what followed their motion to approve the land acknowledgement was um discussion about whether we as two commissions can make a joint recommendation to city council so that they use this land acknowledgment as well and also then from city council pass it along to all the other boards and commissions so that they can adopt it as well they did make that motion and voted on it and approved it and again that's pending our sort of joining in on that recommendation so all it would be would be um us making a motion um saying yes that we would like to um to recommend that to city council and then the last piece of this um before we have more discussion um would be for there to be a small working group um made up of members of both the human rights commission and the truth and reconciliation commission to explore indigenous issues further as a point of topic and so that we can really make sure that our commitment doesn't just stop with land acknowledgement and that we go much further so i welcome discussion or questions from any members of the commission before we before i'd like to make a motion i just want to say it quickly as well we do have commissioner gotham to promote uh two panelists and commissioner gathuel was at the human rights commission meeting as well so if she'd like to make any comments i'd invite her to do so all right well um first i'd like to ask a question is would anyone be willing to join a working group on indigenous issues with the human rights commission um i would be interested in doing so i would as well this is sakawa speaking if anyone else would like to volunteer at a later time we would have one more um uh that would be allowable to um which would be sub quorum so um feel free to reach out to me anytime um but i'll go ahead and make a motion um that we make a joint recommendation to city council alongside the human rights commission that they adopt our land acknowledgement and then also pass that along to other city boards and commissions can i get a second this is commissioner ali i'm going to second that motion please can we please get roll call stephanie sure commissioner ali yes commissioner dillard yes commissioner yes commissioner harris yes commissioner johnson yes and uh commissioner do you prefer for me to say commissioner no novus or commissioner cicales uh no this is fine thank you thank you um commissioner nobis yes commissioner rivera yes commissioner treyore yes motion passes eight 8-0 um stephanie i wanted to ask as well if uh so with the way that this item is written for the agenda is there room to talk about um so there came to my attention that people came to um commissioner nova's tension as well that there was a bit of a response to this or a bit of a backlash to the actual recommendation didn't you want to discuss that yes yeah i think that's fine under the agenda item okay um i want to just quickly preface this and then give commissioner nova this opportunity to speak on it a little more but apparently there is some group with the title of something like the republicans of johnson county that was upset about the language that is in um this land acknowledgment um particularly about the word on reparations and i do want to say that i remember prior to this being submitted commissioner nobis did ask me if i had any issues with that word being in there and what i said at that time was that i have zero issues with being in there and i would like for it to be in there as well um and in terms of that group they can come and speak at a commission meeting if they'd like to say anything on it we did deliberate on this for months as well so there were multiple opportunities to do so and in terms of their interpretation of preparations i mean once again unless it is said publicly unless it has said to us uh wouldn't have known about this if it hadn't been brought to the media and then brought to a member of the commission so once again i think that's very important that if people have something against anything that's done in these meetings or if they have anything to say on an agenda item it's important that it's actually said to the commission this is difficult to just be searching for these things constantly and that's not what i or i think anyone on here wants to continually be doing i'm more interested in those that are regularly participating or trying to participate or speaking to us then little outbursts to you know someone in the media and some statement without even truly trying to understand where we're coming from and with that i yield the floor yeah um i can add a little bit to it um i agree as well um everybody doesn't agree on everything and people have disagreements and um and my message is that's my own personal message you know you can show up to these meetings you can talk to us you can engage with us and you know everybody's not going to agree on everything so just the way going around and just putting stuff in the media that's not the way to have a good discussion with people about an issue that you might disagree with put that on you on the floor uh i don't know if anybody i don't even d should i res should we even talk about it i mean like is it even it's it's racist and it's ignorance and um i i don't know if it deserves our response yeah i'm not particularly interested in giving like a full written out response to it because again that just kind of sets a precedent of anything and everything that's just said out of turn is going to be responded to and don't want to just continually be searching for these things online because that's all this time taken out of our days it's more productive for it to be said to us in a meeting or if it's the person to call us or email us and let us know how they're feeling so we can actually address it and try to have that conversation try to have that deeper conversation if they're willing to do so but yeah it's going to be these off the cuff things and it doesn't really leave room for it so just kind of just ratchets up the temperature if we're looking to just do a statement every time yeah um i think if you're going to continue to discuss i mean you have to talk about it in relation to the agenda item okay which is the recommendation with the human rights commission the city council on the mayor well it is it is in relation to it because they're asking uh the mayor to uh reject the land acknowledgment okay um that's basically the request um and i'll just answer with this one statement that treaties are the supreme law of the land and every us citizen is beholden to treaty law and um every single treaty has been broken uh in the u.s therefore these treaties that they're talking about are actually there's a lot of issues with them so um that's really the only answer i have uh concerning that um and that people need to get educated um and uh the talking about reparations does not does not does not mean that people people's land are literally going to be taken out from away from them the way our land was stolen um you know we're not going to return the favor that's basically the answer i have for that [Music] i'll just add my voice this is commissioner and i just jumped in because i don't seem to have the feature today for raising my hand i just want to add my voice to commissioner nobis and a commissioner triori that we want to be responding to things that are brought directly to us and i defer to commissioner nobis because for now she is the commissioners expert on the area of land acknowledgment uh the authentic one thank you i'll leave it there and i yield the flaw [Music] commissioner um i appreciate everyone's um comments and voices and um their uh sort of defense of not only this commission but also the land acknowledgement i i'm still very enthusiastic in support of the acknowledgement as it's been written and worked on by you know numerous people um i i still am so thankful for everyone who's had their fingerprints on the acknowledgement i stand by every word and including the word reparations um i'm still as a as a person on this commission as an advocate within this community still trying to wrap my brain around what reparations would mean right for not only um indigenous people but for black people as well i hope that i continue to learn um on this um uh so that you know we're we're not as a commission as reactive towards words or concepts but that we're really just engaging with this um with this topic so that um we can move forward and make really strong ongoing recommendation recommendations to city council i'm hoping that um through the work of the working group um the commissioner nobis and commissioner troyori and commissioner lindley from the hrc have volunteered to be a part of that we can come up with examples of what reparations mean so that we can you know still respond to concerned members of our community so that we can give them a really good idea of what we mean when we talk about these words right because we don't want them to be left in the dark but again i i stand by the statement and i'm glad that it's gotten to this point thanks thank you yeah i'd really have to agree with that as well um i think that's a very good way to move forward does anyone else on the commission have anything they would like to say on this item this commissioner johnson i i i honestly i agree i feel like if we're going to discuss it let's discuss it if not then we have other things that we have to move on to that's pretty much where i'm at so and this is commission harris i just add you know just so it's known and it can just be out there um there's always a room for a public comment so yeah going to media and throwing rocks and hat in your hand you know it's not the right way to go i'm up for discussion about it anytime okay and in that case we are now on to agenda item number seven which is the discussion on submission for the trc facilitator and i just want to check um in terms of how much can we say on this stephanie in terms of you got to be a little more specific um i just want to make sure i remember there was a stipulation like if we had to have a certain number of the scores in or if we kind of have an update on what the average score is at this time before we continue i mean i think you can have a discussion amongst yourself um on the submission but ultimately each of you will have to evaluate the submission in your you know on your own independently and then if those scores are at 80 percent then it would go on to the next step which would be a presentation kind of slash interview um i just want to share one thing from when i had reviewed it um i did appreciate the amount of effort that was put into it and how well it was broken down as well as seeing the name of eduardo gonzalez on there for someone that would be advising i did notice as well how dr larry schuler or schooler i'm not sure how it's said that he has done a lot of work like this in the past and he's currently engaging with the community in elgin illinois on something such as this uh i do actually know some people in that community and some that had applied for their community task force so um did have some conversations with them to kind of ask them about their process with that and how i've been going and try to get a little more background and at this time it seems to me that if we are to end up having a good enough score to um to have that submission go to the next level i think it'd be a situation where i'd want to at least meet dr schuler dr schooler and the people involved just to get a little bit more of a baseline of what they're looking to do and also i think it's just important that we continue a little bit more the discussion on the submission in the next meeting just because of the amount that was proposed um it seems that city council with the budget and what we had actually allocated for this position that it would actually end up going over that and they're just some things the city council wanted to be i mean know a little more on in terms of how we're going to spend the money so if that's going to go over the current budget that we do have it looks like it would take the vast majority of the budget that we currently do have then it's likely something we'll want on that work session agenda this is commissioner ali speaking um i think that we should aim as the budget committee to meet with everyone within the next week to talk about this um uh facilitator proposal and then i think that we should come with an update at the next meeting i don't i'm and correct me if i'm wrong stephanie wasn't there a due date for the um for the scale rating thing the evaluation or was there not a due date for that there was an original due date of um tomorrow august 6th at the last trc meeting the group decided to move that to monday of this week at the latest um the person who [Music] you're sending the information to i know is on out of the office thursday friday but as of for from my knowledge i believe only three have been returned that i'm aware of okay um so can we aim to if you haven't turned yours in yet try to do it by the sunday i guess before this person is back would it be they'd be back on monday okay is that is that okay to do it at that date are you do you think i would say it's preferable to to have it by friday okay the original due date yeah by tomorrow so um by some point tomorrow um if the rest of us that haven't done this if we can get that done um and then we can kind of all talk about it as a group and touch base next week and then um i think the budget committee could meet via zoom or whatever and um kind of regroup and decide from there on what we should do with the budget um especially because of what muhammad said what they're asking for would put a set over the budget this is uh dilbert can you can hear me yeah um i'm just uh i was i'm feeling like we should be a little bit more urgent um it's really apparent and clear from reading um the proposal that we could really get a lot done if we get this facilitator situation figured out so i don't know if we can call it an emergency meeting or something so we can really deliberate this before the work session because that does fall before our next meeting um i just really feel like we should push this forward a little bit faster yeah i would definitely agree with the sense of urgency um before the august 17th work session um i don't know what if what the rules are regarding um having an emergency meeting or i i think it would just be called a special meeting a special meeting yeah and and the i mean the first thing is is to get all the evaluations into the purchasing department because if you're not at the 80 threshold then there's nothing further to move forward on okay um if they do reach the 80 percent i think it is possible to schedule uh a special meeting with them for the presentation and you know kind of get some of the answers or questions that you may have of them answered you can also choose to have a subcommittee handle that aspect too and then report back to the entire commission and that would avoid the need to have a special meeting with a majority of commission members president um what do you guys all prefer doing this like as a subcommittee or do you guys want to have a special meeting i don't want to have a special meeting because i know that or just host one just because i'm not sure what everyone's time is like and i don't know what that would entail for everyone i know we're all really busy so i would be open to um taking this on with like a separate smaller commission committee i do know that for me if we were to do the special meeting it would have to be the uh monday of the week of the uh work session with city council since we have to have that number of five of the commissioners within the in-person guideline and i won't be in iowa city for next week i do have to be out of town for work for all of next week this is commissioner dillard again it sounds like a sub committee would be the best and i would volunteer to be a part of that to help move this along yeah i would i would also like to be a part of that and um commissioner rivera you had a question um i don't know i'm leading this is a pretty big deal so i'm just kind of leaning towards um as many people being involved in the sort of deliberation process as possible but i i also feel like this is urgent and we do need to move forward on this so i'd like to just kind of see with those present in the meeting if just say yes or no if you feel like it's important for you to be part of that discussion and if it is above quorum then i think that we should do everything that we can to find a date and time that works for a special meeting so i would like to be part of that process now one thing i would say is that as well anyone that cannot make it what we can do is forward the questions to each other uh the people that will be participating as well uh that we might have so that they at least have all those questions available to ask and can all report back to the commission so we're all aware um so it also sounds like um the rest of you guys so it sounds like commissioner dillard me and commissioner rivera are interested in getting this done and then i can reach out to commissioner daniel because i know she probably would be very interested in being a part of this if anyone else wants to be a part of this then we would have to probably do a special beating just because we're at four there but if you guys are okay with that then i think we should move forward in um arranging like a zoom call or something between us at the early early sometime next week yeah i'm also this commissioner on the floor i would also i i think it's a good idea for us to do this and i want to be part of that and i'll make myself available next week we can work out that as we work out the time okay so then that sounds like we'd have to have a special meeting um can the special meeting be via zoom no no it has to be here okay so um does this mean that all of us have to be there oh just at least at least five yeah since five of us want to be there it has to be a special meeting because of quorum five five is quorum so um you don't technically have to come if you if you uh don't want to i i don't need to um i i trust my fellow commissioners i just wanted to know are the comments that we make going to be available to you uh if you're not there yeah or like the comments that you make on the evaluation yes um that would be a good question yeah that's a good question steph are we going to be able to see all the comments that the other commissioners made on the evaluations i i would think that that can be compiled into one document okay if i'm incorrect i will let you know tomorrow yeah i i wrote comments in the evaluation and um i'm happy for those comments to be my uh my my contribution to this and i'm i trust the the subcommittee to take care of that okay that sounds good um so then what it sounds like is we'd have to figure out a time that a public space is available next week for us to have this meeting well first everyone needs to return the evaluation yes and and make sure that the firm is at the 80 percent okay that sounds good so then we won't be able to make a decision on that until at least monday correct and correct at the earliest that sounds good so uh did you mention that you were going to be available earliest monday august 16th for if you wanted to be a part of that yes i'll be out of town all next week monday through friday um so i actually have that evening would work for me august 16th i mean maybe we just want to pin that in the calendar at the end of the day like let's just have that in mind for a date but if it comes down to it and we do decide that a special meeting is not needed then we also do have the option to have the smaller committee do it if all the comments are going to be compiled and any extra questions can be sent in then we can also kind of have a summary update that we do send in to stephanie to forward to everyone so we all are aware yeah that sounds good um i think just kind of as a last thing because i don't think there's much more we can do until everyone's turned it in i think uh just if you haven't turned it in please do tomorrow by 5 pm and i'll reach out to stephanie on monday or i'm sure if you i mean if you find out the information before we do you can email us all um but yeah so then we can all touch base uh on monday or tuesday next week and i think make a decision from there if that's okay and just to clarify would this meeting be with the firm is that the intended purpose of the meeting or is the intended purpose of the meeting to just have questions about their proposal um i think i think we could turn that special meeting into um the if if we find out it's over 80 percent i think we could meet with the firm i think that if or if they have a time to and if they don't i think that it would still be valuable for us to have at least a discussion um even if um we are talking about even the strategic planning thing but um yeah i think that's a good way to move forward there vice chair would you be the one setting that at the agenda for the special meeting yeah i can do that and i'll be sure to get notes as well uh if i learn anything more from the people i do know in elgin and i just get a little more background to have available do we have anything else on this item i have a quick question we don't we don't do anything else on the weekends is that is that correct uh not required no okay well i was just saying uh we wouldn't we wouldn't be available at all possibly just sunday and just all meet up before you have to go or anything along those lines yeah for the public meetings do we have to do those during the week i would prefer to i would have to read the iowa code to to double check that i don't i i don't i don't know i i can check yes yeah i can't remember because i think that came up when we had the one um a few months ago that it had to be during the week but yeah i guess that's just something i don't know yeah i don't i don't believe there's a rule that says that they have to be during the week but i just want to double check that before i sign off on it okay as a as an advocate for mental health i i'd like to advocate for protecting weekends for this commission as much as possible i think we all deserve a break from this type of work so that we can have the stamina to keep going forward do we have a location and in mind where we're going to be doing it it just depends on where it is and what the city has available i think correct if it's a special meeting that is correct if it's um if it's just a subcommittee then you know it wouldn't be it would be up to the subcommittee to decide how they wanted to meet yeah okay well i i i'm definitely about uh meeting up whenever you you might need i'll try to work my schedule around it and if uh if we ever need a facility or anything like that i can work that out as well so right does anyone have anything else on this item okay we are on now to agenda item number eight which is budget proposal updates and i do want to give the public the chance to comment on this before we do continue it doesn't look like we doesn't look like we do have anyone from the public to speak on this so um i guess i'll just give a quick summary of things so far so essentially again yeah that um facilitator aspect um the amount quoted would take us over what we currently do have allocated in the budget um and this is another reason i have been looking on multiple occasions now since pretty much late february early march a concrete answer from the city on how much exactly we can use out of the million dollars that was allocated when the trc was created to things such as the trc and black lives matter related not having that answer makes creating this budget a little more difficult so hoping that we are able to get a better answer on that but uh from what occurred last week um i just want to thank everyone for coming and also as well for giving your thoughts whether it was people that were speaking in support or against and also those that wrote in whether you're speaking for or against gives a better idea of maybe what to say or how to plan for the next meeting with the city and how to plan the budget going forward i don't have anything in terms of specifics to say on changing the budget because that's going to fall on that work session but at this time i just do want to say that again when it comes to the public being a part of this one thing i just found a little disappointing was that we just had this increased amount of input from many individuals who i've literally never heard from when it comes to anything on the trc so it's just very surprising for them to speak so strongly even though i had in my actual statement please listen to understand before listening to reply and then had some of those people still read their exact prepared statement asking questions that were literally just answered out of the budget and then some accusations such as we are not doing the work that we were mandated to do which was hard to hear as well because that once again to me shows that when it comes to commenting on something like this when it comes to commenting on these situations it really is important to either be at the meeting or to listen to the recordings or to engage with us because that was to me a disingenuous comment like we are doing the work we were mandated to do we have little to engage key government officials we have looked to engage the community and we have engaged the community we did hold the listening session in may we have continued to work on getting the truth out on that from that listening session we excluded workers fund in tandem with multiple organizations in the city we have continued to meet with those organizations and we are also looking for an actual reconciliation process with that so if that is not following the mandate then i don't truly know what following the mandate looks like and i just need a little more clarity on that because if we can't be on the same page as the people that we need to give recommendations to then it's difficult to know how we can plan and how we can make recommendations i just think that it's imperative that they do reach out to us and ask these questions ahead of time rather than waiting months to then say that they have no idea that's going on what's going on and with that i yield the floor there's a raised hand chair uh go ahead commissioner novice um what what happened i so i mean there were those of us that weren't there so um essentially what occurred was that so what i'd read from was seven pages of ten point font um which is the statement i read after going through the budget by line item and giving a summary of what each line item could potentially be used for and what we were looking to use each line item for but we were told that we needed more clarity in the budget and that it was hard to understand why exactly all these things were needed and as well um how i thought it was going to go as i've seen other presentations go with budget proposals or contract proposals to the city is that you do actually get some kind of opportunity to respond to questions in real time or at least have an ability to clarify but instead of having that opportunity it was kind of just cut off and then went to the comment went to uh the response from the city and then the work session and that was that so this was the city responding uh both the city and and uh people from the public that didn't agree with the stipend aspect that was the main thing oh yeah i mean that's there's obviously going to be pushback on that but um i'm sorry i i uh thank you for clarifying oh no no you're welcome um i was just gonna say they just pretty much want like a plan about what we're gonna do with everything and like a project plan and stuff like that was what i got from what council said they wanted to know more specifics um which is asinine because that's going to take me so much time and so much effort and energy to do in order to have that prepared by august 17th so they're just asking for justification pretty much on every point in the budget uh they didn't pass it or like deny it they just said we want to talk more about it at a work session on august 17th i believe was the proposed date the only council member that was kind of um fighting for us counselor burgess is the only one that has consistently kept in contact with me with what we're doing as a commission um she's the only one that has reached out and you know offered advice or asked um if there's anything that she can do to help her keep she's the only one that keeps you know i don't want to say keeps tabs on the commission but genuinely cares um and so i i just yeah i'm i'm still frankly annoyed by a council but um that's kind of the situation that we're in right now um so i can go next um first of all i want to say that i appreciate all the members of this this whole thing that put that budget together because it felt like that it was just they didn't appreciate that people that's on this commission took the time to make a budget they just look for things in the budget that was wrong second of all um i don't appreciate that some of the people that made the public comments were former members of this commission and also those former members were responsible for inappropriate behavior holding up the whole trc process they only showed up there because they were upset because they were blamed for holding up the whole process cause the whole media flurry because they interrupted our process and these people are supposed to be leaders in our community they're actually johnson county supervisors i'm i'm i'm going away from saying names because you know and that person even went on facebook and talked bad about the whole trc and the city council kind of defended this person with that idea [Music] yeah the extent of what i'll say on the facebook stuff which is kind of the other reason i'm staying away from you know calling anyone out on there is that i did see one of the council members as well pretty much like and agree the status and the comment and this was going in to the budget meeting which to me was i don't know not only tough to see but very telling because you can't really be impartial and be there to listen and understand if you're pretty much already agreeing with the side and you also don't answer i mean never have answered phone call from me or a text and also not paying attention to the meetings and then to say that you are very surprised and disheartened by the stipend being in there which wouldn't be very surprising if they had attended or listened to any of the three straight meetings where we talked about it and deliberated on it but i mean at the end of the day i'm not one to hold grudges so uh hopefully this is something that can be resolved and i do have faith it can be um which is another reason why i just think we need to continue to stick together and we need to continue to stick to the decisions we have made if there is anything we do want to change in terms of what we have said or done in the past we are open to that but let's just make sure that we do have each other's backs because this is only the beginning of things and it can always get better or worse this is commissioner rivera i just want to thank chair treyori for opening the that discussion at the city council meeting i thought you did a brilliant job at presenting a case for the whole budget and also items on it including um you know the argument that we've formed over the last several meetings in terms of asking for a stipend i thought that you did a commendable job and the response from city council was not a reflection of how much effort you've put into that i just want to kind of reflect back on my own response to that meeting which was a very emotional one it was a very sort of resentful and angry one um and uh off it was also left me with a little bit of kind of hopelessness in terms of what this commission might be able to do i'm not there anymore um but uh you know one of the one of the thoughts that i had throughout that city council meeting was the the irony or hypocrisy or whatever you the contradiction that exists when city council asks a commission like this right the truth and reconciliation commission to do transformative revolutionary work it's asking us to invent itself as well as invent solutions for the community of iowa city and yet the refrain our argument um that was used by almost every city council member who agreed to defer the decision um and memory many members of the public who spoke up in opposition of our proposed budget was that well this is just never the way that we've done things before right we've never paid any other commission and so why why should the trc get a stipend and i'd like to propose and maybe commit as my myself um to not stoop to the level of sort of only making recommendations that i think city council will accept i think that our job will still be um tasked with making transformative and revolutionary recommendations that can better this community um and benefit members of the bipock community and so that's my commitment um and that it'll be up to city council as to whether or not they listen to the people they appointed to this commission for for these recommendations so i just appreciate all of you for sticking with this work i i think that you deserve the world um and um i i think like you said chair um that we really need to stick together and keep moving forward and and if what they want is a better budget proposal then we'll work on a good better budget proposal that still argues for the principles that we stand for and without a yield and i just want to clarify something that i heard you say um chairperson so um i just because i think people need to hear this and just have clarity about it so a johnson county supervisor made a post on social media and have headed up and ahead of the budget meeting and have head of and ahead of a vote a council person already liked what she said ahead of the vote is like is that correct yes okay i just want that to be known for the public that's how things work and that's how that's not the right way to do things you shouldn't do things like that and i just want to let that be i want to make sure that that sticks out that's commissioner johnson we are supposed to be here for positive change and that's the thing that confuses me the most about how the mindset can be well it wasn't this way for me so it shouldn't be that way for anybody else positive change positive change is something that you might not have had before but because of it because of what it does and how it it literally it kind of speaks for itself changes things for the better i i'm i'm just i just can't even understand it i don't i don't get it and that's also one of the reasons why i do as well support every single member who is currently still on and has been on since the beginning because you have been here fighting for positive change and you did not walk away from positive change even if you are doing positive change elsewhere you're also not stepping on anybody else as they're trying to create positive change and not really appreciate that and that's one of the reasons why like i said i wanted to join on because i didn't want you guys to lose the steam that you have let's keep moving it forward let's keep doing the right thing let's keep progressing and making things better for all of us here in iowa city not holding grudges in any way shape or form because of one thing to another i once again appreciate uh all my fellow commissioners period who have put in the hard work and the effort and at the same time are still in still pushing forward i think we need to if we're going to have discussion i i would hope that people would show up and actually talk with us and we can talk things out in order to move things forward rather than it's almost like a blind side we hear something in the paper or somebody shows up and they they feel a certain way about it but they haven't discussed anything with us at all and and not publicly at least not not in a a situation like this it doesn't make sense to me i would hope that if we are going to be uh moving forward for the better instead of telling people to tighten up on us and uh and show their power against us and so on and so forth how about we just figure out a better way of moving together as a unit and if this is something that can help us uh if this is something that can help us in creating that creating an easy process for it then you need to push forward together instead of arguing and and or anything else along those lines let's come in let's discuss let's talk about it and then understand your your point inside on why you disagree why it should be that way and then listen also and and uh and and understand why we feel like things should be changed a little bit more uh i mean to me that seems like uh it's pretty easy to to figure out but uh with that i yield i'll take the floor this is commissioner wangui i am piggybacking on commissioner rivera's comments yes it was an emotional leading day especially because with commissioner rivera we had just come from [Music] presenting the land acknowledgment to the human rights commission and yes what we've all said and especially what commissioner johnson you've just said it is we are supposed to be moving forward positively but it is but then again i'm not surprised that there is so much knee-jerk uh a reflexive uh pushback with that being said i do want to thank the people in the audience that uh declared publicly and as we go about in the community meeting them they talk to us because we're getting known in the community and they let us know the the it is time for this to happen in our iowa city to get to to work through uh hear the truth are they painful of course and then move on to a positive place so i do want to thank them those who when they met us at whether they park on they would call out and tell us that we are your allies and partners and that particular day during that that session with the council there was a very young man who i really really appreciate his being there and his courage and his vulnerability of standing there and seeing and being an ally and partner i could get his name wrong but i think he told me he was jonah that being said something came to light again and again we were told we are just like you near the board and commission in the in the city that being said i earlier won't have served in the human rights commission so i have something to compare with with the two boards the uh the amount of work i am doing is much more and the amount of uh there was a mechanism that is was there as they got in uh the human rights commission which is not there with our ad hoc already even our name ad hoc is already different from the other commissions that being said i will make a suggestion before we go as we go forward with our discussions and get to the work session i am thinking we ask for for what the other commissions have uh the mechanism that is set up for them for support because this is also a show of faith from the council of iowa city that uh and the government of iowa city that they are really it is not just taking a point and and they are truly uh committed to the process and the work of their commission so that is something i would want us to get the the comparison of what mechanisms are there for the other commissions and this had her commission the trc what do we have because right now on that day because i felt attacked like i was set up and then i'm being attacked for not achieving what i was set up for so moving forward i would want to understand that and then by the time we get out of the session i will want to to know uh whether what getting equality of mechanisms of support for this commission and also equality is not always equity and the truth and the trc is about equity too so uh i will also want the going a step ahead not just equity but the specificity the equity the fairness of what specif the specificness of this commission what they need uh getting what we need and with that i yield the floor that was my main takeaway from the from that day thank you i yield and um i can go really quickly i just want to make sure we give commissioner novice a chance okay go ahead yeah let's see that's weird now oh i just uh okay so i'm just trying to get a understanding of what's going on here um so um basically there were people that were just kind of against everything in general um obviously because of some uh personal bias but then uh there were people that specifically had issues like with the uh the uh honorariums with is that kind of a summary of this and then like then they went on their own pages and said things it yeah it was essentially um most of it was against the stipend but a lot of it was just in terms of just comparisons to how things are done in the past and process and about saying like why do they want a truth reconciliation commission if they want to continue to do the same thing as the past and to quote counselor burgess we're just going to be paying someone else to do this work anyway if they're not paying us to do this work like that that is like the other thing like if this wasn't going to get done then they were going to pay someone else to do it so why not pay the people that are already here willing to do this part of reconciliation uh is reparations and so people don't understand that i guess we'll have to do a better job at educating them which i'm happy to do and i just want to bring up a point too that you know as far as the amount of money you know we can always talk about that you know people want to try to point that out they're getting paid this much the hour and all this stuff we can work that out we just want to feel appreciated because we are different than all the other human rights commission and things like that because we're going to recommend things to all of those commissions whether it's about policing health care education we and we have a deadline and somebody brought that up you know when he was at that meeting another thing that was brought up that was blatantly ignored but it was brought up was that you know like all these like trcs across the world and other places get paid and that was brought up in that meeting it was lately ignored yeah so with that idea is that it at least oh go ahead you can go ahead muhammad i'll go after you i just wanted to say that um let's just make sure we don't take this as any type of loss at least take it as a lesson um in terms of what we can learn from what did occur and uh what we can change to at least uh think of these things ahead of time um and as well when it comes to the budget in itself it does give us another opportunity to amend it and to improve it i mean one thing i'd always thought of is in a question that i we do get to ask at the work session like is there a way to put in donations to specific nonprofits that we've spoken to that we feel like you know need this money or should get this because like we're going to recommend it anyways or are there opportunities to you know i feel that our support staff that we do have compared to other commissions we have one person and doing a lot on another commission can we put in a stipend for that person i know there's like a little like a few differences because you're already a city official but that's one thing that that have been on my mind and that's one reason i tried to reach out to some of the city council people and just had a little bit of trouble getting an understanding we get to talk to them we get to figure that out we get to have all of that in stone [Music] um i would after commissioner dillard speaks um i would say that uh we would move on just because i think that this could also be um talked about in another um agenda item but go ahead commissioner dillard um i just wanted to give my insight to the experience from last tuesday and how disheartening it was just agreeing with everyone and it was deflating um and just uh what i've come from it in real after reading the rfp and i think kind of finally understanding what a facilitator person or team could be i just feel like um the city has failed us twice by not truly sharing with us what or or not truly sharing with us what this could be and i'm i just would like to say i don't even think they understand what truth and reconciliation is um but with that i will yield before if we don't have anything else on this are we ready to move to agenda item number nine no yes so we do have update from the education subcommittee uh responding to the state of iowa ban on critical race theory do we have anyone in the public that wants to say anything on this um just want to give the floor to commissioner uh gotham now yes as the point person it's uh i'm not going to take a lot of time reporting where we are at we started out by listing and wanting to explore the the framework we shall use in fact finding and truth and exploring the experiences that we shall uh we shall the breakdown of their experiences and at that time we also decided it was very important as members of the education committee to attend the national night out which we did and one of us was also there in her capacity as a host and right there it it's already showing that uh members of the community even without any swag or any paraphernalia trc profaneria or badges or a t-shirt which i would at some point want to wear they were recognizing us and letting us know that they are behind our work and it is timely that being said this was interrupted in our last week's meeting where we agreed because during the previous tlc meeting we had agreed to that we cannot not as trc we cannot not address the new law and i'm not i'm not a lawyer so i'm not using legal language i'm an educator so burning critical race theory being taught so and again we repeated this in our meeting which was is made up of commissioner johnson and commissioner dillard so we just agreed that we're dealing with it and we gave ourselves tasks and we say the way to go about it because we cannot we can't just not address it especially as an education and youth engagement subcommittee so we agreed the way we would want to suggest to trc is by petitioning on that law uh that state law so we divided tasks on what to do i am going to research on it starting by educating myself and the committee on what it is i do know uh oh oh casually that it is used to teach on race relations in this country uh emerging from 1970 so that is a the task that i from the subcommittee that i that i have ahead of me and then commissioner dillard we look at the law and commissioner johnson is going to is going to look at the ways uh i'll let you jump in and tell and talk about that commissioner johnson and commissioner dillard on clarity on each of your tasks yes uh i'm looking up uh critical race theory from uh multiple different perspectives uh i feel like in order to understand a whole you got to look at it from each and every single person's angle and uh try to understand why and where they're coming from why they're where they're coming from and why they think the way they do and then from there i try to move forward so that's that's what i've been doing over this past week is uh trying to just uh research a lot more a lot more and kind of get it more locked into my head but i feel like there's still a lot more to it for me to go through but uh i'm getting a pretty pretty comfortable grasp but by far not done of uh how people are kind of feeling i i feel though as though i'm getting a pretty good grasp so but i would like to hear more from the public i would like to talk with the public i feel like that is extremely important uh because uh you'll find that a lot of people agree with you and you'll find a lot of people disagree with you the only way you can do that though is by communicating so i i would hope that we can set up a time where we can all discuss it in a a civilized manner that's all that's that's where i'm at right now yeah differentiating that uh commissioner johnson's from my task mine is the is more historical and more academic and versus his which is experiential and very very present but the uh overlaps on his task and all that and we will continue of course coming together as we look at that and bring it back to the trc yes and thank you commissioner dillard was commissioner dillard was next and then chair commissioner nobis has her hand raised too that's exactly what i was going to say um i i'm going to be doing exactly what um commissioner gathawa said i will be looking more um at the law of things and what's going on in the air in our areas i have a clarifying question for dillard yes yeah i guess i'm just kind of wondering like as a commission we're we're talking about this but i'm curious as to what this might turn into in terms of you know um yeah i guess the question that i have would be like could we make statements on critical race theory as like a government entity um or like would we be able to provide education to the public on critical race theory or is that explicitly banned so um those are just some of the questions that have been floating around in my mind and haven't been clear to me um i need i i can't give you the answer yet but that is something i was i was looking into so those are the questions yeah we haven't clarified that to ourselves yet uh when we we agreed that we will do a petition we uh because uh that is where commissioner dillard is looking at how is that as far as the law is concerned i also do have an example where i was at a summit that is funded by by the state and and uh uh one presenter because they were already ready with their presentation before they being made for the law and at that summit there was a state aid to listen in uh and how they went about it they said they cannot not talk about it uh and the the the they had music play over such that if there was anybody audio recording it would come out jamboard yes going back to your question commissioner rivera we uh that is how far we have gone with looking at that we don't have an answer for you right now yeah commissioner novice uh i wanted to um uh provide some uh thoughts that i have on this wonderful subcommittee that i wish i was a part of um where i am doing a lot of work on this uh with my own um work so i appreciate that this is happening um i wanted to add that i really don't think we should use the term critical race theory uh when discussing um this issue the term critical race theory is not even used within the uh the ban itself within the legislation itself by the state because the term critical race theory is just one term of many used when discussing anti-racism and cultural competency and so basically the ban is on teaching certain concepts such as like you know um the fact that the us and iowa is systematically racist which we all know is this is why we're here this is why we have the truth you know this iowa city truth and reconciliation commission because of systematic racism the state is trying to stop us from [Music] dismantling systematic racism and they use the term critical race theory because it's in their benefit uh because the term critical uh can be can be taken two ways it can be taken uh as like an academic term uh when you are uh you know you know obviously observing things and discussing them um and then it also can be seen as you know criticism right and so um they uh the the racist uh the racists that like to use the term critical race theory like to like to use it because it implies that it's being critical to race um but that is not the case at all critical race theory is basically anti-racism work and so we should call it what it is there is a ban on anti-racism work within iowa which is exceedingly dangerous and is targeting people like us right here right now and this is why i was so um fired up uh in the meeting a month ago about doing something about this because um it is a huge step back for um all of the work that has been done uh for social justice in the past 60 years um and uh exceedingly dangerous uh to the health and safety of bipoc folks and people of certain uh religious uh um affiliations uh in this country um and so um i just would like to i don't know if we can even i don't think there's no emotion or anything i just want to advise that to the committee um if that's something they'd like to discuss about the the using the term critical race theory because basically what it does is it feeds in to their uh uh their racist uh viewpoints of what this is it's how they're it's how it's how they they're they're it's their propaganda it's like the the term real criminal choice theory is propaganda so i really want to stop using that term i mean we can use it when we're obviously trying to explain what we're talking about but we always have to you know clarify that it is anti-racism work uh i'm done thank you i'll jump in and respond to commissioner nobis thank you very much i personally i always appreciate you re-centering me on this very very crucial work what you have just contributed right now is it goes to our petition and a reminder to all of us that language is very very powerful and also in this there's also the politics that mark up uh this work as understated the struggle is really real as it continues i will yield yeah thank you very much oh i just thought of something while you were speaking um it would be really great if we talked to other truth and reconciliation commissions uh in other states and cities and other um you know folks doing this type of work um like we are uh to see if we can create um a coalition of sorts uh because they've banned critical race theory now in 17 states and there's uh 28 states that are looking into um there's more states that are also look there's so there's 28 total that are looking to ban it you know what i mean and then there's 17 that already already done it um and so it'd be great if we could add that to the i don't want to add too much more work but i wonder if there's a coalition of sorts with trc committees or you know committees like this because i know there's a lot that have popped up since um last summer as well so maybe just a thought thank you for adding to our ad game which is the petition and really contributing a lot to the content of that uh of that petition and with that i yield because there are other hands up thank you thank you i'm wondering um if we are as an education subcommittee our meeting with uh um and she's representing um great plains action society is that different than having an additional person or would that like would that be able to work if we wanted to work together to um work on this and see kind of like what she's done as far as you want to consult with me yeah it's still a quorum and you're talking about so as long as it's that would it would still count okay just wondering um i'll just say what i think about it um real quick you know i'm not on the education committee but it's this is one of the issues that you know disturbs me a whole bunch that there's a ban on this um so i appreciate the work that people are doing you know to try to deal with this and i would like to hear like further updates later on in future meetings and i don't think we should let this issue go um it's upsetting to me because like it's like they want to bury some racist history just bury it and it never comes back maybe sitting around and having a conversation about hey this happened in the past this will make people get together and like okay that was a mistake it shouldn't happen like that whether it was people you know whether it was african americans whether it was native americans or and all the other groups that have suffered racial injustice in this country since this inception so that kind of makes me mad that they just want to bury it apart so we can just say hey it wasn't we don't want to teach about slavery we don't want to teach you about something that drove this country and the economy in this country for years is the use of slavery and with that idea i'm not seeing the hand so i'll go ahead again and respond to commissioner nobis and what uh commissioner harris has just said and also respond to tie together with what commissioner ali has said all of us and even what commissioner harris has and what commissioner nobis have i know we are able to reach out to them and they they give us their contribution without us going to the realm of ending up being a whole meeting and yeah so and yeah i yield i think uh we can do it that way and then once we feel that we have enough information together like maybe let's shoot for two meetings from now to kind of just correspond on all of that and then maybe just actually do a presentation together on it so that way everyone is in the know when everyone kind of gets a chance to have that be a focus of a meeting and then another thing that that allows us to do is take a little more time to research that law and what it says on um public uh figures in uh in terms of the government being able to speak on it or being able to do certain um certain things with it because uh that's just one thing that when the law came out that i was essentially just looking at um if we are to make a certain recommendation would we even be able to implement it because of the fact that there was it seemed like there was like a threat in there to like sue like that group or that city or something such as one reason i kind of just want to make sure we take that time to look into it and yeah let's still do the work and make sure that we are trying to respond to it but i just don't want to get in that position of also you know acting too early before we know that and kind of hamstring ourselves on that on that front yeah and that is why today we placed our water after what we were charged with for the commission in the two weeks to look at and kind of make the suggestion on on what we are suggesting for the commission and with that if anybody has materials now that we have let you know the tasks that we have charged ourselves with please send us through our visual communication our with the suggestions that uh anything that you have to contribute to the three tasks that as three commissioners are doing i yield i think this is probably a good place to move on to the next agenda item so in terms of the next agenda item the strategic planning session the frameworks we use to complete our work so um we did add this to the agenda in the last time and the main reason i do want to make sure we do still speak on this is that really after digging into that facilitator proposal and seeing how it was written out it was giving me a few more ideas on this and to me this is going to be more so a shorter discussion in terms of what the critical aspects of this would look like and what we want to consider and also just to talk about how we can contribute to this because the way that that facilitator agreement is written or that proposal is written would really change a lot of how the strategic planning aspect would go and unfortunately just because of the rules on it i don't want to attain anyone's possible vote or how they score it by speaking on details within it stephanie i'm not allowed to do that correct i mean you can speak to details oh i can okay but i mean i guess i'm not it's not clear to me that that's what that agenda i mean it's a strategic planning session the frame work we will use to complete our work yeah so it's the framework based upon what you have to say or is it based on the rfp well it's based on the two because um in terms of so i'll essentially put it this way um how this would work is we essentially come up with a framing question something that we want to try to use as like a pilot test of how a process could work and something we want to look to complete within the next 90 days and each of us looks at assets or things that we can bring to the table to help accomplish that in terms of your like physical and natural assets like things that you you know have available to hold or you know just uh things that you do currently know such as like skill knowledge assets social assets people you have within your network that you think can contribute as well to help lighten the load or to also help contribute their knowledge assets and capital assets and that's not uh particularly you know your own money but rather like in terms of budget items and things like that so that's what i mean um we voted on this last time but the budget aspect being pushed back kind of hampers that a little bit and talking about that end and then the next thing is linking assets and how they can work together um how they can collaborate so it's more so that each person within the network is doing something to contribute rather than just the commission scrambling and taking all of these other things on because we're looking to make this a repeatable process then the last thing essentially is looking at an action decision like what should we do in terms of that pilot test idea and then ranking a few things and looking at all right what is the easiest thing to do out of this like the big easy something so the things to rank are high impact first low impact difficult versus easy but we're looking for something that has that good balance of being high impact but being easy to complete and when i say easy to complete i mean that in a way of if you take something that's very very very difficult but high impact to complete right off the bat and you fail at it it can you know lower your morale feel like you're not going to get anything done if you take something that you feel like is moderate to high impact that's easy to get done it helps with building momentum and you've already built a network and then it's easy to see okay who within this network could help us with the next thing building that network out further and all right now out of that one who can then collaborate with us on the next project and then continue it in that way so we're building the engagement that we're getting within the commission but that we're also bringing more people to the table and giving more people a voice in how the entire process is going so how each leg of it would work is um so thinking of so i remember a few meetings ago i asked you all how this commission went and when it came to the end what would make you happy and what would make you feel like we succeeded the reason i asked you that is because the last thing to really look at is a pathfinder project beginning with that end goal in mind and then setting guideposts of how we can then get there kind of planning that path there so this is like in each like 90 day increments what do we think for that last 90 day part of each leg where we want to get to by that milestone and to get there what can we do in 30 days what can we do in 60 days and then what can we have by that 90 day mark and each of us looking at all right what can i do to put 30 to 60 minutes a week or every other week to contributing to this so that i have something to bring to the table in terms of an update it doesn't have to be the most difficult thing in the world that you're doing but just that little time commitment that you can put in whether that's within a subcommittee meeting working together and all of you putting that time in together whether it's going a community event and helping to build that network so essentially leveraging those assets over time so thinking of each thing that we're doing on behalf of the commission or to help the project is more so like an extension of what we would want to do anyways within the community but having this guidepost in mind so i know that's a lot to throw out and i will be typing a summary of this as well and including that for one to have in the public record the two for everyone to see but i do want to ask first and foremost of any questions that anyone has before we dive any deeper i think i think that all of this stuff in relation to like strategic planning is really great and i think looking at all of those aspects and all of the questions that you raise is really great but i don't think that it's going to be easy for us to figure this out before we have the facilitator part figured out and i'm not saying that we should give up on everything i just think that like we're not all professionals in this aspect and that can be asking you know a lot for um some of us who work long hours and have a lot to do i think that um figuring out all of those frameworks is really important in the work that we're gonna be doing but i think that um our facilitator whoever that may be will help guide us in that direction because they've had these experiences before rather than you know um nine individuals who haven't been guided in any way like this is all just us doing everything nobody has helped us and um i really think that it would be important to work on this maybe in um like the kind of figure it out at like as like the budget subcommittee maybe before we meet next time but i think as like as far as the commission goes i really feel like this should be kind of put to not the not first perf the back burner per se but just i think that we should focus on what the facilitator aspect and what that person is going to be bringing to the table and what we need from them because i think a lot of this stuff and getting the networking and stuff together would be really easy because we could just provide that person with that information and then we're paying them to do that work you know um so i just don't want to over extend or ask some of us to do a lot when there's already so much on a lot of our plates you know you're going to be gone all next week that's a lot to have to deal with the week before or a couple of days before we're meeting with um the city council especially after something so important you know you're not gonna have a lot of time to prep for that realistically um so i just don't want us to get too ahead of ourselves on something like this when there's already gonna be a step that we have to um a path that we have to like something that we have to cross off before we can even get to that step um but i think all of those points that you made are great and those plans and working to cross off those goals are really important things to make us feel like um we're you know continuing to do important work as a commission so i think everything you said is really great i just don't know if it should be on at the front of our minds right now before we have such an important meeting coming up with council um and stuff like that so i'm going to yield to the floor uh with that uh chair treyori commissioner um dillard had her hand up it looks like it's down now but she did have it raised well i just want to make sure commissioner dillard did you have something to add um i just wanted to uh second what commissioner um amel said i i agree i think our i think what you're saying is very important and i appreciate everything all the thoughts you put in it i think a facilitator would be able to make this happen even faster even more so i think we need to really focus on the facilitator part of it first and i just want to say that i agree with those points too as well that once we get the whole facility thing worked out and then it'll work out and then because the points that you made were really good points but i think that we should get the whole thing worked out first with the uh facilitator because that will help out more and we and we're going to pay him you know help out with that so yeah that was a good point yeah i actually agree wholeheartedly with all three of you um this is why like when we talked about this at the last meeting um that was one before knowing you know budget thing being deferred but two as well after really seeing uh the facilitator proposal they could kind of hit a lot of these points within it um so that really changed my mindset on how this would be done but i just kept it in there in this way and kept that 45 minute aspect in there just wasn't sure how you all would want to tackle it uh so i just wanted to keep that time in there just in case so this time i think what i'll do is still type it up and like just leave it in terms of documents in the notes so it's just there and available and then you know if anyone has anything that comes to mind that they want to think of and jot down there's at least that framework there that you can kind of just you know make a quick note um and then as well kind of just giving us an idea of not just what was proposed but also kind of like questions that we may want to ask uh to in terms of that proposal like how would how would they leverage those assets like it's one thing for them to say that we will do this this this this and this but i'm also just thinking of the fact that we're bringing in people that aren't even from here to then start building a network here so i kind of want to have like each of us think of uh who do we kind of know that we at least want them to think about for starting with instead of just throwing them out there hey go do this but um i'd say yeah just over the next like 30 days or so just if you have anything that comes to mind in terms of a group that you may really want them to collaborate with just like just jot it down take a quick note for something that comes to mind of something that you think will work and that's all i really have on this on this agenda item the thing i'll add is um another set of thanks to you uh chair triori for bringing this up and closing the loop on it i would appreciate that summary of all the points you made because i think that i need to sit with those points and questions a little bit more so that i could provide some productive feedback to you i agree with everyone's points about you know the conversation will change a lot depending on what happens with this rfp and that will put into perspective and really um crystallize a lot i think for me in terms of um just the strategic process of of this commission um but you know in the proposal that was written one of the first action items that the firm had suggested was an individual meeting with maybe you and vice chair to talk about what the goals were and so i think that it is going to be important for us as the rest of the commissioners would be to sort of consider these points and be ready to provide some of our thoughts to the chair and vice chair in preparation for that meeting with the firm should of course they be hired on as our facilitator and i'll yield yeah thank you does anyone else have anything to add or does anyone from the public have anything to add on this i'll take the floor commissioner triori i will appreciate if uh the the request you're going to put in writing if uh you would share and then i would use it for some reflection and then putting some things down and then to use with the final product that you will have written down so that by the time we come to using it uh everything we've been doing i i will have it handy i'm piggybacking on what also what car commissioner uh rivera has said i will want to to receive what you had said you were going to send to use for my own reflection and looking at it and the final a copy of the final document that we will use the one that you'll have thank you i yield thank you just want to check one last time before you move on okay we are now on to [Music] number 11 which is discussion of community topics so once again for these uh these are things that we asked to get added on here that we can talk about back and forth but i know that usually we have a few extra items on here um i just think that there are a few things we'll probably talk about that are more of announcements but just want to remind everyone going forward if there's anything that you want added on here for community topics please do not feel like you can't say anything because i won't hesitate to put it on there that's the whole point of this agenda item and again um just to remind us you'd like um those topics submitted by like the monday night before uh the commission meeting preferably but if something was to come to mind on the tuesday then at the latest that tuesday at noon because that's the time i try to have it to stephanie so that she can have it prepared and sent in by the end of tuesday because i believe that's the requirement of when you need to have it in it's it's not the requirement but it makes make it ensures that i can get the agenda posted within the rules of the iowa code okay yeah so by that monday night if possible but if anything is to come to mind on that tuesday just get it in by noon otherwise we can either make sure to have it on community topics at the next meeting or to just at least i'll let you know that you can still have it as an announcement and then we can have it as an agenda item the next time yeah and i'll take this minute it's commissioner onegoi again to appreciate commissioner treyore of always a prompting in meeting that deadline of if one is having is going to have some item on the agenda of always shooting a text to to to to prompt to to just as a kind of prompt to make sure that we are within the time we are timely in having things on the agenda thank you i yield um so just want to say in terms of the excluded workers fund updates uh i just want to thank everyone for everything they've been doing on this chair should we open it up to public comment oh very true uh yeah yes so we have uh oh we have uh charles easton speak on this one yeah is it okay if i just give him my mic or does he have to use that one oh we have to use that uh thank you chair trailer my name is charlotte easttown i'm appearing tonight as a member of the center for justice board of directors and i'd like to talk about the uh uh i asked the commission to do a uh to consider an extent uh an addition to the excluded workers fund a proposal which i think was given to you within your last one or two or three meetings i've taken a look at the excluded workers fund proposal myself and i noticed it includes four general areas for using american rescue plan pac funds from the city of iowa city in the county and one of those general areas is for affordable housing i would like to ask the commission to do some outreach and clarify and expand perhaps that the types of housing that we should be considering particularly the expand the completion of the forest view neighborhood which i'm sure some of you are familiar with and uh the application of american rescue plan act funds to the development of the final development of that new neighborhood will help a lot of people in the community of many latinx as well as african-american and other people of uh minorities to obtain a long uh long-term housing that's affordable to them at a very reasonable price for the uh foreseeable future i can go into details or so more general statements about the uh uh the background of the forestview neighborhood uh proposal and and the work that's been done there so far we just say that it's about a five-year project at this point um and it's uh can be near completion but we need some capital to uh to do the final steps here so uh i'd be happy to talk with commissioner members maybe after this meeting if you would like and give you some more details and practice if you could again consider including this project specifically in the excluded workers fund proposal thank you i'd just like to ask a quick question um so in terms of the capital amount um if you have kind of like a round number on it um you can either say it now if you're comfortable saying it now or if not i'd be more than happy to talk to you i'm comfortable with saying a range of numbers of the uh the capital amount varies depending on several factors i would say in my view this is my opinion the capital amount varies in the range of 69 million dollars for up to 80 individual housing units 50 plus of those housing units would be manufactured homes and another 20 to 30 depending on circumstances would be condominium units and apartment buildings all of this has been the factors that determine the capital amount and the number of final homes are all in an agreement that the city and the residents of force view worked out a couple of years ago as part of the rezoning process here does that help chairman yes and i would definitely like to have you uh speak on this more and we can one uh correspond uh one privately or with with the coalition but two i would also like to give space at our next meeting to have a more expanded discussion on it i would appreciate the commission obviously i think that would be a good idea because i'm definitely curious i don't know a lot of knowledge on um this agreement or this project so that would be helpful if we could talk about that at the next meeting so i think we're good then if you don't have any more clarifying questions for mr reeson yeah i just don't have any off the top of my head that's why i just want to make sure that we get the chance to speak and then we do give it more space so that we can like truly flesh it out and get a good statement together uh get a good recommendation together as well so we truly do it justice right and that's and i think the same thing i would like to look into this some more and have conversations about it because this is an extremely topical um point of discussion so i appreciate you presenting this to us we'll um in the meantime um kind of communicate with the rest of the fund excluded workers coalition that it has been brought up uh and that our sort of action item at this point is to learn more at our next meeting thank you very much thank you thank you thank you do we have anyone else from the public that wants to add anything to either what was just said or on the excluded workers fund updates in general okay uh we're now over to the commission and before i say anything i want to give commissioner harris or commissioner rivera the opportunity to speak first or anyone else um i would just say that um i think next week there was this march that's going to happen and um while i was sitting in this meeting um i got a message from the iowa the albuquerque worker and he showed me some a picture with some of the banners so it's going to be a very big event like he he sent me a message with pictures of the banners um every time that you know one of the things that makes me proud is that every time i go to one of those events i see someone from the trc there you know even though i've heard people say hey what's the work that that we do outside of these meetings well every time i go somewhere whether it's kevin whether it's cliff whether it's mohammed i always see people and especially with the um school to work is fun um there's been a lot of work put into that um there's been a lot of powerful things going on with that some of the testimony is powerful um i gave some myself um it's actually the second time that i gave some testimony about that in the past month or so and if you ever want to hear about why the scooter workers fund is important go to one of the events and listen to the testimony from the people and with that are you and chair do you see that commissioner okay we have commissioned let's hand up um this is a time that we can do commissioner announcements right oh um that that'll be a little later but okay do you think you have one that's just related to excluded workers fund you can still do it now nope i misunderstood i yield i'll just provide a quick update to the rest of the commission for those who weren't in attendance at the last excluded worker-funded events so just to provide a brief update the fund excluded workers coalition of which the trc is a part um uh planned and organized um a stakeholder meeting with the city manager and the associate city manager last friday at st patrick's church there were several the majority of the audience was latinx individuals many of whom identified as either excluded workers and or essential workers who many of whom have been deeply affected by the pandemic and i think it was sort of an extension of the type of stories that we heard when the catholic worker house first presented the fund excluded work the excluded workers fund to this commission i think it was really um important for us to see the response of the city managers as a point of um as a point of that meeting um we asked uh or members of the panel asked the city manager point blank you know will you support the excluded workers fund how soon will do you do it you know will you support our essential workers um and uh he was very clear in stating that he couldn't make any commitments on the behalf of the city or city council and that his purpose in attending that meeting was to learn more about what was proposed in the excluded workers fund but he did agree to follow up meetings with the coalition to discuss the details and points that we have he made it clear that um it you know it's his job also to continue to hear public input from other people who have requests or ideas about what to do with the funds from the the discretionary funds from the american rescue plan act i think that you know as members of the commission it's still going to be important for us to be present in this feedback soliciting process you know there there's still a survey that's going out to the members you know the residents of iowa city um asking you know for public input input for um how to for how to use the arp and so if we can continue to encourage people to take that survey um and and use it to voice support of the excluded workers fund that would be an extension of you know the commitment that we signed up for is that a good summary chair yeah yeah i'm very very good um i just want to say as well that um the the thing that really did help for me was at least hearing the commitment to more meetings because that's um that's highly needed but i just want to say unfortunately i can't make the march next week because i i can't not go to my work day in des moines for all of next week but that i already have blocked off my calendar for the next um the next few listening sessions and definitely will be at those and what i would assume at this point is that there will more than likely end up being either more marches or more organizing events behind these listening sessions and it's good to see all the people sharing the events and the posts and also just i don't know if anyone had noticed but uh david goodner did email us and show us that the language that was used to refer to to the group or the workers itself has now changed to excluded workers by the johnson county board of supervisors themselves so in that repeating it and having the coalition continually speak out is at least changing it in that respect because it's one thing to hear about people that have been hurt by the pandemic but it's another thing to have a specific phrase of excluded workers to me that holds a lot more power and just shows um that it's truly being recognized uh with that i yield the floor um and then i'll just go again real quick um i'll be at the march definitely when he has the march um one of the things that i observed while i was at that meeting is i sat next to the um city manager who's going to have to take some extra he looked pretty uncomfortable during that meeting uh he's going to have to take some action and you know you brought up david goodman he's not going to stop he's not going to give up so hopefully we can see some action to come soon because there's going to be more marches he's not going to stop with that idea i plan to attend the um march and for the other commissioners who aren't familiar with the details of the march the information is included in the back of the packet so it's happening on wednesday august 11th at 3 30 starting at catholic worker house so i plan to attend it sounds like commissioner harris is as well to make sure that we're not um [Music] superseding quorum maybe you can just reach out to me and i can just make sure um that we won't have more than five of us in attendance but please do reach out and let me know if you plan to attend as well oh um yeah go ahead i was just gonna say more than likely i'm gonna end up there myself so just just heads up yep yeah i just actually wanted to ask them because i know that uh public events like put on by the city are just like general public events aren't counted but because we're part of the coalition would this end up being something i mean i think if there's five of you there and you're talking about commission business that would be problematic if fiverr you are there to support this cause and you're simply walking and not discussing commission business then i don't think there's a concern okay yeah i think it feels like commission business though right because we've i mean we've made the fund part of our um part of our work yeah but i i still you know as long as you guys aren't huddled in a corner inside of you and you know i mean because i i suspect the purpose of this is more solidarity right so i you know if you're not having conversations about oh at the next meeting we should approach it like this or this i think you're fine i mean if you're there in support or solidarity that's fine it's what you do when you're there that could create concerns okay the boss gave us permission everyone come if you can we'll just pretend not to know each other thanks stephanie for that clarification thank you does anyone else have anything they'd like to add to this i think this is related but if it's not somebody will let me know i'm thinking when we are out there in public it would help to have something that makes a standout maybe a t-shirt with a lettering of trc a yield yeah you can do you have your name tag yes i would suggest wearing that i think that was uh the suggestion that last time this came up i think that that was the suggestion to where these at like public events or things like uh city sponsored events or things like that yeah facial erection facial recognition is enough already and it looks like thank you that's why i spoke to it spoke out thank you this is commissioner dillard i keep hearing about name tags and i don't know what you're talking about where do we get name tags from stephanie i have them if you can send me your address or i can i can get it from the city clerk i can send it through the mail um if you prefer to have a contact list delivery i will email you about it thank you okay thank you if we don't have anything else on this one um i had a b on here for the increasing public engagement uh so the reason i just kept this one on here was just kind of seeing what happened at you know the meeting last week and kind of having more people you know kind of finally actually speaking about this thing uh to me it just got me thinking in my head in terms of increasing public engagement not to um you know necessarily purposely look to inflame anyone but in terms of like the topics we talk about like continuing to be intentional about it and really not shying away like if there's something that's on your mind um and um when it comes to like people that you're talking to in the community and something that they feel passionate about or something a group feels passionate about like yeah let's get it on the agenda because it seems like that's what's getting people to show up and to come and if that's going to get more public engagement then to me that's highly important because that's going to help solidify the actual recommendations that's going to help to build the momentum before a facilitator is even approved or before they can get out and start doing their planning work to kind of already have that network there i agree with that [Music] and then the next thing i just have is that it was kind of suggested to me that um we kind of look at some of the other uh city commissions or city groups and what they do and see if uh any of us have interest in here and there like just checking in with them or just kind of establishing like a line of communication of hey what is it that your commission does and just having that information and seeing all right what subcommittee might that fall under and then that subcommittee not necessarily that you have to take on their work but at least know that we have a point person in each one that can just reach out like every other week or once a month and just be like hey is there anything uh that you guys are doing that kind of fits what we've had on the last two agendas or anything that you think we should include on an agenda does that give them an opportunity to kind of just present something to us or us enough opportunity to have a few of us go to one of their meetings and kind of just hear that to just kind of build those relationships because we're also looking to make sure that we're taking everything that they've done in the past and the present on each of those commissions and have those being recommendations in relation to that this is commissioner wang gui uh through through me uh as the coordinator of nissa african families being part of the core a coalition the refugee alliance called johnson county refugee alliance correlation uh they requested the board requested that the trc uh if we can't we put on their agenda they meet once a month the last tuesday of the month at 10 a.m with uh at some point we could be put on their agenda and the so that we talk to them about what we are about and what we are doing so i i don't know whether that's something that can be put on their agenda so i'm putting it in relation to what commissioner triori has just said in building those alliances and connections with other organizations yeah and we just want to make sure that um the reason i just bring it up that way is also so if we get on their agenda just to make sure no more than four of us go so it's not some like joint meeting because if it's going to be a joint meeting let's just get them on our agenda so we don't have to worry about the special meeting aspect we can just have it just be one environment and everything already being recorded and available if they're comfortable with that at least just just so we have that but if not then we want to make sure we're just kind of talking to them like once every few weeks or once a month at least kind of getting an update but that's something that'll be easier with the facilitator as well so that's something they'll help to handle but next item is uh date selection for the work session with city council so this one is being added on here just because i want to make sure everyone is just aware of the date and time so tuesday august 17th at 4 p.m is what they have it listed as so i do know that there needs to be at least five of us there i think correct if it's set up as a joint meeting yes yeah so at least five of us there and i do understand that you know tuesday 4 p.m like people could have work stuff to do or have other things to do so if you can't make that or you can't attend um just let it be known if you're comfortable just saying it now or if you want to just let us know by email so you can talk to the city council as well to see if you know there's maybe another time that we could do that day or maybe if there's another day they have available that week that more of us can attend so just so we have at least five people there this is commissioner rivera i won't be available at all that evening i would be available the evening of wednesday the 18th but if there are more than five then i will definitely let y'all move forward i think that uh we should just move forward with that date and if people have issues they could reach out to stephanie individually if that's okay so that she can kind of let uh commissioner treyara i know um and i can just follow up with the email tomorrow to everyone i think we should move on to the next one next agenda item the next one is a discussion and vote on changing the meeting schedule from every other thursday to the first and third thursdays of each month or switching to a once a month meeting date so this one um i don't think yeah that we are ready for that once a month meeting date i know it's something i talked about in the past but definitely with how things have been going lately with all the different groups that we've been corresponding with definitely looking like we need to keep the twice a month but also the first and third thursdays aspect is on there just because that helps with getting a solidified date of when we can actually be uh in that city building or city area because if we just keep it at every other week there could be a month where there end up being like three every other week thursdays and that ends up being three in that month and then kind of just makes it lopsided in the next month with how it goes and i would just say from a staff standpoint it would be better understood from the community when you meet because if you meet every other thursday unless they know when you last met they they don't really know um and so at least being able to say they meet the first and third thursday that's very specific and very clear and does the first and third thursday work for the city uh to have a place or okay yes it does yes um do we need to make a motion about that or you know i think as long as you are all comfortable moving forward that there is consensus on changing to a first and third i don't need i don't think you need to have an official yeah vote on that yeah because i wouldn't i wouldn't want to do a once a month because that would turn into a marathon i mean so yeah i think at least for now until the facilitator position is filled we should at least continue um if anyone opposes the first and third thursday i think if you want to say something now this is commissioner dillard i i don't oppose it i'm just curious if there's ever um is there a possibility in the future we could not do thursdays um you know if that's the route you're going maybe agree to at least meet on this um the 19th of august i believe is that your next meeting yes okay um and by that time you know i could send out a doodle to see you know what days of the week work best for everyone i think you know trying to figure that out tonight would probably be difficult but yeah and it would just be a generally you know are you available on this evening you know i realize that things come up and schedules change but if you want to look at um different days we certainly can i know um you know tuesdays are always gonna kind of be problematic particularly if you go with the first and the second because that's when city council meets and i believe if if my memory is correct the school board meets the second and fourth tuesday generally and so i guess tuesday's probably you know just to kind of remain an active group in a group that can participate in other meetings you might you know i guess i probably wouldn't even put tuesday on a doodle yeah i would i would agree with that as well to me it sounds like mondays wednesdays and thursdays would be the best days to look at because in terms of the time that meetings would begin on fridays uh it'd be hard to continue getting public engagement regularly especially if it's going to be on a friday night and as we move into the fall as well and the winter and wary of quad football season college basketball season all the people being in town for that and everything and that will likely take a lot of people's attention away too so and also people that have kids and want to have that weekend with their kids don't want to take any of that time from them jeff a couple questions for you um if we meet on mondays for example um when would the agenda need to be posted um i mean technically it could be posted friday um so i would say by friday would would be i would be pretty much all right um and then another question that i have for you is when you do send out that doodle i would appreciate it and um and if you can also um maybe we can engage interest in like trying a 6 p.m meeting on any of those days of the week as well sure that was my next question could we also look at different times earlier in the evening so thank you coming forever rivera i'd say to just uh if we could look at mondays wednesdays and thursdays and then in terms of start times 6 6 30 and 7. can we do 5 30 6 6 30 and 7 on the doodle hole i can i can put all of those in so for now still meeting two weeks from now on the thursday and then we should have results of the doodle poll from there and just be able to kind of decide and make that concrete vote and i can follow up i mean if everybody can fill it out and get it back to me i can just send a follow-up note to the group that says you know basically at this time it looks like this is the the day that a majority of you can meet um and just kind of go from there and that way it knocks out some of the discussions yeah i just want to make sure yeah as well if it ends up being the one that the majority is if someone had a specific reason they couldn't make that date just so we had that discussion the next time um it's like there's a second one we can fall back to to kind of just make it more accommodating does anyone have anything else that they want to do on or say on this um agenda item only one thing you know once we decide this is going to be stuck in stone correct meaning it'll be that way from that point on or is this always fluctuating my guess is uh that remains what it is until for whatever reason you know a majority of the commission says like hey there's this specific reason we need to change but at least having the doodle poll we kind of have like a set of dates and times we could already look to fall back on and start the next discussion on but i think it'd kind of stay like this sounds good all right um so next we do have commissioner announcements if anyone has any this is commissioner dillard again i do have an announcement um i want to thank everyone that came out to uh national night out this week it was great to see everyone there and then also invites the commission or any commissioner that wants to come out to another event this coming saturday on august 14th 11 a.m to 2 p.m pheasant ridge neighborhood center it's going to be a back to school bash and uh a smaller scale of what we had this past week what's that this saturday or next week on saturday august 14th so next saturday what'd you say was that again it'll be pheasant ridge neighborhood center so um the west side of town and i can um forward the information to stephanie and have it all sent out yes please thank thank you does anyone else have any announcements um this is commissioner rivera just um mentioning if you hadn't heard johnson county expanded general assistance availability to essentially anyone who would have otherwise not applied for that type of assistance because of their immigration status so now that will no longer be asked of um the general assistance application so if you know anyone um who is an immigrant and could use a little bit of extra financial support then you can let them know about that general assistance um there's nothing that i have in terms of announcements stephanie oh no i don't have any announcements oh so no more commissioner or staff announcements so with that um i will make a motion to adjourn seconded commissioner ollie all right thank you very much everyone for attending and we are done for the night thank you have a good night everyone