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Home My WebLink AboutTRC 20210819 auto transcript[Music] and i'm now calling this meeting to order and with that stephanie can we please get roll call ali president millard yes commissioner harris commissioner johnson here commissioner nobis here commissioner daniel president here commissioner rivera and commissioner treyore all right so um next we have agenda item number three which is the reading of the land acknowledgement and discussion remember we did have commissioner rivera do this last time sir commissioner nobis would you like to do it this time or would anyone else in the commission like to read the land acknowledgement i would like to encourage other members of the commission to read it if they would like i will read this is commissioner for the record blood acknowledgment to be read at all public meetings and events 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 mesquite and silk and because history is complex and time goes far back beyond memory we also acknowledge the ancient connections of many other indigenous peoples here the history of broken treaties and forced removal that dispossessed indigenous peoples of their homelands was and is an art of colonization and genocide that we cannot erase we employ the iowa city community to commit to understanding and addressing these injustices as we work toward equity restoration and reparations thank you um one thing i just want to include as well is that um thank you for correcting this agenda item to be the reading and the discussion of the land acknowledgement so i do remember when we had the actual uh talks on this process that it was about not just having the acknowledgement but also looking to do more to um make this less of a symbolic gesture but something that actually moves the needle um one thing i'd like to say on that is that we have had some pushback still on this being accepted in terms of all commissions and the city government and itself so i would like to have something within the next meeting or two in terms of planning or within subcommittees and then bring it to the full commission to speak at a city council meeting in terms of looking to put forth the conversation on this and actually get this passed by the city council and additionally if there's anything else that we may want to do to advance any of the causes of the indigenous peoples within our community that is something that's welcome as well such as anything in terms of sustainability or any policy recommendations or anyone we would like to have speak in front of the commission fair to follow up the recommendation that was made at your last meeting in the recommendation that was made to the by the human rights commission to the city council that will be on the september 7th city council agenda asked final approved minutes of the trc and hrc so it's it's possible it could be discussed at that time but that's really in the council's purview do we know if it's on the consent agenda at this time or within the um original i mean the full um agenda i believe it would be on the consent it's a part of your meeting minutes and there's just a cover that staff puts on it that says there's a recommendation from this particular board of commission and looks like um commissioner daniel and commissioner novus both have their hands um did anyone see who had their hand raised first i have no idea sorry um one of you can show daniel was first commissioner daniel commissioner daniel you can go ahead um commissioner nobis we can have you go for now and then we can come back to the commissioner damn sorry i i i was a little confused as to the explanation you just gave oh um in terms of what i've said before stephanie or after before stephanie like we so there's pushback on the specific land acknowledgement is that yeah in terms of i spoken to a reporter earlier this week a little bit about that land acknowledgement aspect and some things that they had been told or given in terms of correspondence on it in itself uh so it was written in such a way that he said he didn't want to repeat the exact words to me but they weren't um very flattering sorry about that oh no you're fine it was cutting out a bit so i thought you had so is this is this the the same reporter that did the article in the press citizen yes yes believe so so this is not the johnson county republican folks that wrote that letter this is like another batch of people or i didn't ask him to clarify i just wanted to know a little bit more about what exactly had happened because the actual text wasn't in the article and just knowing that it's something he didn't want to repeat was enough for me to know that i mean at least in my opinion that this is something that we might want to actually show up at city council for to speak on i guess that's what i'm trying to understand like so there was a letter that we all talked about at the last meeting that was written by the johnson county republicans that doesn't agree with our land announcement and that's that's you've seen that right i said that to you yeah yeah so i just wasn't sure in terms of if there was something else so i just asked him uh just to elaborate a little more and just on the fact that he just didn't want to say it to me just showed that this is something that we might want to actually come in and speak on okay so then i guess what i'm trying to get to is like i don't really care what the johnson county republicans have to say right like none of us really they're not a part of this commission they're not like within they're not part of the city uh framework um so we need to find out like if anybody in the city council or within like a city employee has said these disparaging remarks um because then that would be an issue but if it's just about these other people i just think we just continue with our work and then of course again there's the problem of them not adopting the land acknowledgement so i did see positive emails from the iowa city human rights council is that what they are called i believe um rights commission yeah yeah human rights commission so they are going to adopt it um is the idea to get the iowa city council to adopt it is that the final like is that kind of the the thing we're trying to do so at the last meeting um there was actually a recommendation that the ad hoc truth and reconciliation did to the city council that asked the city council to adopt the land acknowledgement at their meetings in formal events and also require other city boards and commissions to do the same okay so the iowa city council just hasn't looked at it yet or they've given like a non-answer well the it's more of a procedure issue so your your minutes are draft until they're approved okay so until they're approved the you know they don't go in into the uh the council a packet for their formal meeting it just goes in like an information packet has draft minutes okay great okay so that's good to know so that just means that we haven't gotten to that step yet uh there's some major feedback just so somebody knows uh just because i know this meeting is being recorded um so then the only thing we do might the only thing we might have to worry about then is the possibility that somebody within a city council or like employed by the city of iowa city has said something very discouraging about our land acknowledgement that's i don't know anything about that that's nothing that i was told i just mean in terms of that original letter in terms of any one council or government saying anything of that sort i'm not what i'm saying at all i just mean in terms of their meeting we may want to actually show up to talk more on that recommendation in the case you know there is some people some people from the public that do come and speak against the recommendation in itself it would probably oh okay i understand now thank you so much for clarifying yes i will i would like to be there to to speak about that at the next meeting thank you i'm gonna go ahead and say i haven't heard anything like that either um i haven't heard any city council or johnson county supervisor say anything about that but if i had to bet on it you know the way i'm feeling and the way things been going it may be somebody that says something so i don't know anything personally so thank you daphne is your um mike working are you ready to make your comment yes my mic is working my question was answered i i just want to get out exactly uh some clarification i i can't seem to get my video to work so sorry about that but yeah i'm getting my hands down oh wait nope okay [Music] um i think if nobody else has anything to say on that i think we should move on to the next agenda item next we have agenda item number four which is the approval of the minutes from the august 5th 2021 meeting date does anyone have anything they want clarified or in terms of additions anything missing from the current meeting minutes from august 5th so these get the exact page you found essentially after the second page i'd like to make a motion to approve a second and stephanie can we please get roll call it's been properly moved in second to approve the meeting minutes from august 5th um all those well i'll do roll call i guess um commissioner ali yes commissioner daniel yes commissioner dillard yes commissioner yes commissioner harris yes commissioner johnson uh commissioner nobis yes [Music] commissioner treyori yes so next we do have agenda item number five which is public comment of items not on the agenda commentator shall address the trc for no more than five minutes and commissioners shall not engage in discussion with the public concerning said items if there's anyone in the public here today or anyone on the online version that would like to speak you now have the floor [Music] if you are in the zoom version and you would like to speak please raise your hand and we'll be sure to call on you okay it does not look like we have any public comment so we will now uh so originally we were slated to go on to agenda item number six however i just wanted to first and foremost recommend that we allow mr charles easton to speak on the presentation of on the forest view neighborhood project if we were to go on to agenda item number eight we would then come back to agenda item number six are all other commissioners okay with that yes yes yes yes all right in that case then we can move on to agenda item number eight and then come back to agenda item number six this will be the presentation on the forced view neighborhood project by charlie easton uh good evening everyone and uh and ask the staff is the audio is okay here okay thank you i talked with you briefly at your last meeting about uh requesting that the commission include redevelopment of the forestry neighborhood association and any recommendations you make to the council regarding the city's use of the american arpa funding and so i'm here tonight to follow up on that discussion that the request and to have any discussion with you that you might care to have um again my name is charlie ham i'm a member of the center for work for justice board of directors um i'm also a member of the iowa city queen disguise school board but and i have been working with the forest view neighborhood association on the future of the force view new neighborhood since the neighborhood association was formed and began advocating for that end in 2016 for that about so just a brief rundown with you about the history of the forestview project and then um can answer it or discuss any questions you might have the uh forest view mobile home park as many of you know is located just south of i-80 and west of dubuque street at the dubuque street and i-80 interchange the park itself has been a mobile home park since i think around 1970 or perhaps earlier at its height or it had 150 mobile home lots available for um for use for place funding to mobile homes um and with that the the those lots are still there but the number of residents has decreased over time and i'll try to describe that a little more as i go along here about 2016 about 2016 the residents were notified or learned that the park owners intended to sell the park to a development team for the purpose of redeveloping for commercial uses and residential uses of the park its uh site itself as well as surrounding areas in an overall large-scale development that redevelopment would re plan as initially presented understood by the residents entailed removing the residents from their homes and offering them the possibility of relocating to mobile homes owned by the park owner in other parts of the county in iowa city or possibly moving the homes themselves the residents were not were alarmed and not in favor of this this proposal they pointed out in meetings and conversations that the residents had formed a very viable very meaningful residential neighborhood many people had lived there for for a long time some people for decades and they were a very cohesive community and they wanted to maintain there there are many children put the school age in the park and many of the elementary age children especially who are going to one elementary school horace mann and have been doing that for a long time many of them knew each other and were very very pleased with their school opportunities so the residents formed themselves into a neighborhood association and then and uh in the in the process they asked people from the center for work for justice to work with them as advocates and and to assist in some of the technical things that they had that had to be addressed that's how i and other members of the center for work of justice became involved and we remain involved to to this day and intend to remain involved until the neighborhood is a new neighborhood is built so the name the residents in conversation with the development entity and i think muhammad you asked about the about who is the development entity now the the old entity is now called i think i have this right north dubuque limited liability company and its major parties are the mobile home park resident mobile home park owners owners which is the kohl family a development company from des moines called blackbird i think vibrate investments is their formal name and two local farms one an architect firm architectural firm called uh bunsen uh i'm sorry i'm not remembering the names exactly right and a construction firm called maxwell construction which does a lot of construction projects in this area and so the residents again in conversation and in meetings with those those parties um and center for worker justice people and other people from the from the community too decided that they wanted to have an opportunity they wanted the the redevelopment because there was a it was a large scale world development it's the original uh development cost was in the 200 million dollar range for the entire project and the residents you know realized that we talked about that that would result in the considerable tax increase in tax of revenue for the irish city um as well as revenue for the development team so the residents wanted i thought it was preparing just for the development team to include instead of displacing them to another location for the development team to build a few new forest view neighborhood as part of the overall commercial development and they have we had a lot of conversations with development to the developers about that and eventually the developers agreed to that overall concept so the plan changed from relocating residents to another site in the community or in the county to a new neighborhood consisting of manufactured housing on homes on single individual individual lots residents definitely wanted to get out of the honors relationship that had been in existence for a long time by mobile home park owners they wanted to get out of that they wanted to have ownership and control of their own lots their own neighborhood and so they proposed that and as i said eventually the residents and the uh developers have reached an agreement of that that on that concept and that that would be part of the future so that part of the overall development as i said would be a new neighborhood for residents and then the rest of the development would continue as the as the development team had originally intended in the commercial office and some large-scale residential uses that plan overall uh skipping over several technical things was eventually taken to the virus city planning the zoning commission because the entire project had to be had to be zoned properly for such a uh for such a change in use from a mobile home park to a large-scale commercial development so that plan was taken to the planning zoning commission and over a period of a few months in several commission meetings planning zone commission meetings that plan was eventually approved by the planning zoning commission and part of that plan that the overall planner i didn't i deliberately did not try to bring a lot of documents tonight because they're getting involved in the elaborate and frankly even for me with my ten years experience i'm playing zone equation they're hard for me to understand sometimes so i didn't want to distract us with the uh with the details so that that that plan was approved by the commission by the plains owned commission and that plan that plan included an agreement called a conditional zoning agreement that essentially the uh incorporated the residents desire for a new forestry neighborhood of manufactured homes and enough additional homes in the apartment buildings that could be kind of minimized to accommodate the needs of these wishes of whatever group of residents were remaining in the mobile home park at a particular date and who wish to purchase a new house or a new condominium in the new area uh an element of that uh important elements of that additional zoning agreement in terms of the neighborhood was on the price that residents were going to pay they had been paying lot rents of 310 a month for quite a long time and they wanted their their monthly payments on their new homes to be the same uh and we the development team agreed to that the client is on the commission approved the agreement the conditional zoning agreement that contained that element um they also since the uh of the residents and the forest view for a long time have been a uh consistent have been a [Music] latinx in hispanic families a number of african-american families some white families and but many of the families were undocumented and that was a feature that was clear in our continuing ongoing discussions about what needed to happen in the future so the financial plan has to be available to people who don't have documentation so they think they can purchase a home and i have had the financing available to them so the next step was to then after that after those elements were all agreed to the next step was to go to the city council which we did as a group this chamber and make the same presentation of the council which the residents did in all of these presentations to the plains under christian and to the council residents led the presentation for their parts of the overall development and after again several hearings several meetings the council eventually the council itself approved uh that basic uh plan for a new forestry neighborhood the price availability to people without documentation a manufactured housing neighborhood built on single individual lots that the residents would own and um and enough homes to provide for the uh the wishes of people who were still living in the park as a time of the resulting improvement there were other elements i mean there were the parts of the rezoning process that that the council dealt with uh including i might comment on that including opposition by neighbors as you if you're familiar with this area and there's a fairly new uh newer a residential uh set of uses so houses just to the west of what will be the new forestry neighborhood and uh there were there were people living in in that area and actually in other parts of the community too who appeared at the council and the pnc hearings and objected to various parts of this plan i would say uh in my interpretations not speaking for the residents themselves they speak for themselves but i would say that uh that opposition was in in part in large part coming from [Music] coming from an unwelcoming unwelcoming attitude towards people of color [Music] but the council as i said went ahead and approved the plan as it existed since that time the development group uh has or since that time in the council's action the development group uh in summary has not been has not complete has not started the completing the overall development and has not made any significant steps to start to build out the force the new forestry neighborhood the development group is still maintaining that they want to do the commercial development and they're saying that they want to do the new neighborhood too but they haven't taken any steps to do that and their story about why or their their version about why they have not been able to go forward with the project um and i should mention too that that the the overall plan requires the development for the entire development to occur the first thing it has to occur is building the new forestry neighborhood that's the first step actually the first step is putting in a road but properly consider the first real step is building the new forest neighborhood and that has to occur before any of the commercial development can start and in part that's practical because the commerce development is slated for where the home park now sits so again the development team has said that well we can't proceed with this development now because of the pandemic and actually the timing in terms of when the development would actually they would try to start and went up had pandemic came upon us was unfortunate but they say we if they can't proceed with the development because they were going to obtain they were going to get the money to do the force to build a new forestry neighborhood and sell the homes to venture qualified residents they were going to do that from proceeds that was coming from other properties that they owned in the state and in nearby states and the pandemic resulted in the huge reduction in the revenue they were getting from those properties because of occupancy a lot of residential this is their their their claim um so they haven't made any changes or they haven't made any progress on the new development the resident if you're familiar with the forum forest view mobile home park and i would if you're not i would urge you to drive there and just go through it uh it's it's easy to see that the part that the mobile homes themselves now at this period of time after many years of use um have have deteriorated the residents are quite frank about this uh that they're uh and they're difficult to live in during the winter time especially well the park has not been particularly it's not been really well there's not been well maintained the road conditions or in my view atrocious so the residents have been actually it's through this entire five year or so period they have been very concerned about the pro they approach it each winter about whether or not they're going to be able to to continue to habitate their global homes and that has become much more acute over the through these recent years and now there are there are actual mobile homes now that people cannot occupy so the residents are very anxious to get the new neighborhood built and to get into stable decent housing that's good for their families and their children as i said again this is a very large population of kids that live in this area and this point so with where we are now with that uh i'm coming to the end here uh where we are now is that the development group says that they can't proceed because they don't have the funds to proceed and the residents are faced with poor living conditions um uh so we have uh the residents the cwj uh people and others have over the last uh very few months uh have been talking about an additional another way of developing a new neighborhood which would involve uh which would entail not the development team not doing the actual development not doing the you know putting in the roads building the pads and so forth and buying the manufacturer homes put installing them and so forth not not being done by the development team but by doing it but that would be that development would be being done by a local non-profit there's been some discussion with non-profits about that possibility but the uh an issue of course is finding the the funds to actually do the building it's like building you know your a house you know that you may occupy or may own but someone puts up the money to actually do the construction then someone else comes along and buys it takes out a loan and pays the you know the original cost back and so getting the the capital to do this has been a a difficult part of it so with the uh with the city and the county the county to be a part of this too having uh arpa funds um available to me uh that to us appears to be a possibility of financing for this for this project i just want to point out that the financing for the project really involves providing a loan to do the original construction and again since the residents have always said that they're going to pay 310 dollars a month for their new homes if you multiply you know if you consider that they're going to the standard way of buying a house is to agree to put pay a certain amount a month over a period of time and that period of time is quite often 30 years so if the residents are paying 310 a month for 30 years they are after 30 years they will have paid back the hundred and eleven thousand dollars of the original cost so building a new neighborhood does not uh does not mean yet to deter the entire cost is going to be subsidized part of it would have to be subsidized but that those are elements of this uh project that i think could i i'm asking this commission not to get engaged in unless you really want to um because that's they're being worked out have been worked out can be worked out otherwise what i'm asking this commission to do is to consider that this is a part of i think the truth of reconciliation commission commission's charge which is to understand acts of discrimination and racism in the past and then to make recommendations about how to change what's happened in the past into something that's much better in the future and uh the deep you know the the the exact how exactly how to do this financing is again not what i'm asking i'm not proposing to you to have you do that i'm proposing to you to include to your recommendation to the city council about the use of arpa funding this particular use i hope i'll be clear enough to make it possible for you to ask questions or to make your own comments if you wish um the main question well first uh my questions were just i know you said earlier uh but just wanted to repeat just for the record uh how many of the homes were there and what was the initial loan amount needed to be in i'm sorry was the second part of your question uh how many homes and what was the initial loan amount needed to begin the construction uh um at the time that the zoning approval was was given by the council i think we're estimating that there were around 90 or so families that were living in the park then and why the numbers went from 135 or so to less than that over time so there's a whole set of reasons for their explanations for so around i i i'm personally looking at around 90 numbers that and i'll be frank frank with you that that number has not been determined definitively yet i think we have we being residents cwj the owners in the city i think we have enough information to figure out what it is so and the plan for the manufacture housing part of the new neighborhood is for i think it's 57 uh housing uh homes so the difference between 57 and whatever number of residents are qualified and choose to buy a new a home in the new neighborhood is in the 30 or so range so now and those residents uh or some residents may choose to to purchase a an apartment or a house in a condominium building so and your second part was what was the initial cost needed to start the construction uh well uh that's an interesting question always these are uh deliberations in terms of the loan amount either one um the cost of the manufactured homes that was definitely a part of the original proposal was between 65 and 85 000 and that's because some residents were looking for a smaller home some residents were looking for a larger home and the number of residents that wanted which was uh was not quite i mean we didn't quite get to that point yet so in my calculations you know i would kind of say the average cost per manufactured home and this is very rough and i guess would be maybe in the 75 000 range something like that and the cost of repairing a lot putting in the required streets sidewalks and uh sewers water service all those things that has to go into a new neighborhood subdivision i might be in the 30 to 40 000 range that's kind of [Music] what i understand to be kind of a typical price so using those numbers as estimates and i proposals have a cost per unit and i definitely i want you to understand here i'm talking speculatively here the cost per unit might be in 130 range to 140 range which would be typical or not unusual for of a a fairly modest affordable housing development and the problem with making these just having these discussions now is that four months from now the price is significantly different than you know we argue with each other about why didn't you estimate this right to begin with oh it's hard to estimate right now but anyway so i would say and again this is a very speculative i would say that the initial capital requirements is an eight to nine million dollar range for the entire number of units but i also want to say very clearly after i've said that that i don't think that's something that we're looking for that any regional person would be looking for you to make a recommendation about i think the actual cost uh and what form that that uh proper capital for that investment would take i think those are things to negotiate with the city frankly i think the city manager has some ideas on his own by this time about how about how to actually do the cost the thing i'm asking you to do is to say that first is recognize that this is an important valid uh proposal to come within the purview of this commission and to recommend that the council use um funding from whatever sources are necessary to make it occur i've just got a really quick question um so i i really appreciate your time and explaining everything that's happening in that neighborhood um and i'm i'm so happy that there's someone like you who's advocating for the folks that live there um uh but my question is so in regards to like the meetings with the planning and zoning and when you guys um spoke to city council um is that still is there a way and i don't know maybe if steph could answer this too is that still available do you remember what time that was uh i i could look up the dates okay um council meetings are you know recorded yeah they're available uh the finally another commission meetings i think are also available too and they're archived but they're probably they could be minutes though yeah yeah so and then the follow-up question to that is um since i'm in the housing commission or committee i think that this would be something that we should probably take on um and i would love to find out more information uh during one of our subcommittee meetings um but i don't know if you still have access to or anything of like the proposals that they made to the zoning commission um and then we could maybe set up a time to meet as a housing subcommittee with you and kind of discuss um what's happening and how we can proceed moving forward thank you uh yes all the documents that were used at the presentations for the vladimir zone commission and of the council all those were archived and available in the pnc packets okay did that include as stephanie pointed out that those documents include the transcript of everything that was said yeah so if do you know what date it would have been like what time like if it would have been like last year or um this was an in uh i think in 2019 okay yeah no that's totally fine i don't mind looking through them i just uh wanted to make sure if i could have like a general time but i would be more than happy um to continue this discussion with the housing subcommittee if that's okay with everyone else and if anyone else has any questions i actually have a few questions yeah yeah i'm gonna go next soon excuse me for a second huh i mean one of the things that's not present here tonight but it's my fault for not being here are the residents the the leadership of the residents themselves okay they have been very active yeah uh they're advocating for themselves they're quite competent very capable very articulate and they know they know very much what they want to have happen so i'm actually would like to if we can arrange maybe for the subcommittee to have a chance to talk to the leadership there yeah i i thought about trying to get people to come tonight but you feel really bad about asking people to come paying for child care yeah right understandable and we can as a housing subcommittee communicate and figure out a time that works best i think where most of us are comfortable with at least meeting outside um so we can try to make something via zoom happen and i can i i believe i have your number so or if that'll touch base with you and i can get that information from you and meetings with residents do necessity translation okay many are spanish speakers okay okay commission bill all right yeah oh well you answered one of my questions was where the residents are so that was i was really just curious um to hear why some of them aren't here so that just really answers one of my questions and i just was wondering so i fully understand why this is the best option for this group is so the goal is for them to stay in this area because they have already built their lives there is that what you're telling me okay because i'm wondering why would it be better to take the arp money to help them move into other parts across the city uh um well again that's the question for the residents to answer themselves as far as i understand their preference has been quite clear that they want to stay in that area and they want to stay as a as a community they want them they want people who they're living around now to continue living and then um they don't necessarily want to be in another part of the city that unders that answers my question and i was also wondering so if this development happens are they completely bulldozing everything and then these people are going to be displaced for a time no the conditionals only agreement is quite clear quite binding there's no way for the developers to get out of this uh except by getting a council to to agree to them change it the uh agreements vary by new neighborhood first people move from where they are now to the new neighborhood then the rest of the development occurs thank you um so i can go and i can and usually i come out like this and i'm pretty frank about what i believe and um i'm opposed to this um for a few reasons um the main reason is you said that you stated in your comments that in 2016 residents were notified of the attempt to sell and there's a lot of children that's in the area and there's attempt to sell so this thing's been going on for a long time the ar ap money is to help people who were affected by cover 19. so i believe that the trc you know we can say words and support you know about maybe we have to get this neighborhood get to like help it out and get us together but the a r ap funds are from people that need relief from kobe 19. this is an issue that you may have to take up with the city because they should have done something a long time ago about this if you knew about this since 2016 it's kind of like more issues that already are happening the city is not taking action on and they should have took some type of action on that issue if people were notified of the intent to sell in 2016 we're in 2021 and now it's just where i appreciate your efforts to come and speak out for that community but if people knew in 2016 you wouldn't have to be here today something would already happen eric i'm gonna i just i disagree a little bit because i think 2016 is very different from 2021 i wasn't paying as much attention like in 2016 i wouldn't have known any if someone would have said land acknowledgement i would have had no idea what anyone was talking about or anything like that so i think you know it's unfair to say if it's been going on since 2016 um so what you know we all know how things run and you know local government so i just want to say that i don't think it's any fault due to them for the reason why council or whatever hasn't taken this seriously yeah i never yeah i never blamed them i'm just saying that it was an honor since 2016 and nothing has happened now we you know and i think what's important now is that people are paying attention a lot more especially what's happening into their in their communities and people now are more willing to speak up and they know that you know um not everyone in iowa city is going to stand for this so that's just that's just my only thing um i i'm going to be honest i don't know like the specific logistics about the arp and that's just my own ignorance um but i'm going to be serious it's a lot of reading i just was like okay i know i'm not getting anything whatever but you know i just don't know like what the conditions are for what they give to the county and um the state and like what that pertains how that works i think that's just kind of above well well i was just in this part and say that i understand what he's saying and i don't want to put it on him and saying that you know he's wrong for what he wants to do but you know if stuff has been happening for these many years to me it's the city it's lots of other neighborhoods that's similar to where he's describing not just that neighborhood you know south district east side it's a whole bunch of neighborhoods that need development and things like that and we can't even get them to get to the points to give us a whole commitment about what they're going to use to a our ap funds for i'm amir um i i would just like to say that i mean with that to me that just kind of brings the point of maybe maybe the ar arpa funds maybe not but at least the point stands of this being something the commission should look into in that fact that you said of possibly multiple neighborhoods as well with that same thing and i would agree there are many neighborhoods within this city that are under invested in and you know just all this expansion into other areas they get over developed and it's cycles and cycles and cycles and cycles so for me i would just think that housing committees should look into it and at least talk to these residents and learn more about it and this is something that can also be used to compare to these other neighborhoods as well and what's going on in these other neighborhoods and see if there is a pattern of what's occurring because that could build a basis as well for a final recommendation to maybe rather than just the one neighborhood and just this set of ar arpa funds but rather a broader set of funds for multiple neighborhoods if it does show up that they're all you know experiencing more of the same issues and i would just add briefly um this neighborhood the city could quickly and swiftly put a discussion on the agenda about this neighborhood that they refused to and the other thing i would say though is the one really alarming piece as well is the fact of the mobile homes not sounding sounds like they're not properly weatherized and with the last two winters that we've had that's really worrisome because if that occurs again i'm thinking of the fact that developers saying they don't have the money to do the development but if if that's the excuse when it comes to the winter time is that going to be an excuse as to why they can't properly weatherize the homes and their kids and families going to have to suffer there another winter because of it which is another reason why i think we should at least take time to look into it in the housing subcommittee i just want to add that i agree that we should definitely be looking into it i see this as a great listening post talking session for our housing community and also while i agree with uh both commissioner terrerian harris and ali these people in these neighborhoods are going to fit under excluded workers especially since they are undocumented i mean not all of them but there is a huge amount of people that are undocumented so i think there could be an argument for both sides that's exactly what i was thinking i also think that charlemage charles made a really good point earlier if you haven't been through forest view or you know any of the mobile residential parks you should definitely go and drive through it i remember being really young volunteering at broadway um going and taking lunches there and like the moms treating me like i was their own kid giving me corn on the cob with all this mexican cheese on it like it is a really beautiful neighborhood and i completely understand why they want to stay together um it's you know those are their people like that you know that's the closest thing they have to back home is that community and i don't see that there's anything wrong with um staying together and not moving into other parts of the city i think that it was genius to include that into the proposal um and i'm really excited to hear from the leaders of the forestview neighborhood association sounds like they're doing some really incredible things and i just want to help uplift and elevate their voices as much as we can yup i would agree as well um i wouldn't agree to endorse it you know that they need to help out that neighborhood but i just wish that we had more help from the city i just want to clarify one last thing as well i'm not saying the arpa funds can't go there just saying that i don't feel comfortable saying directly yet without having the housing subcommittee first look and then maybe get with planning and zoning and these other groups because that may help the arpa in itself come to the excluded workers fund in that coalition if other groups are included then that could be a process that works but to just look in right now as just trc push it forward i think that's the point he was trying to make of we have been trying on that end and getting stumbled so i think it's important that it's looked at in the subcommittee and build that broader coalition so more pressure can be applied and more voices are brought into the table to see if that is an acceptable use for the county and the city to then finally take action i i i agree with that overall strategy there are i would say eric that i think they're very they're very clear reasons why the use of arpa funds in this project are are warranted however i also i'm aware that the uh there are other that there are other possibilities of financing too whether or not we're going to use arpa funds in what form and how that will affect other uses i think this those are things that i said i think need to be what can be worked out can be negotiated the thing that i think is important to me right now get us to the table so we can negotiate yeah definitely looks like daphne had her hand up yes i i i understand the need to secure funding this community um really what's happening to affordable housing even mobile homes despite them being a terrible investment we need to recognize that these are people's homes i also think we also need to recognize that we are not a legislative body we are not our mission is not to um become this to become a legislative body or to push for legislation or ordinances or whatever so yes this would be a great opportunity for collecting truth and and getting the story so if this community was forced to disperse their stories are still there this beautiful community that they created is still there very similar to what happened to new yorkers during the urban renewal in the 1960s but we really should recognize this is our job is not to um push city council or peshawn city council to spend these funds a certain way and i yield i could agree with that last piece maybe not to push them to spend those funds now in that way but that doesn't mean that we can't with final recommendations if it turns out that this is something that was a systemic issue so i think again me personally myself others can't agree or disagree but this is something that we really should look at in the subcommittee in itself so that we can build more of that conversation with the group because i'd rather let them come to the table speak fully and then get them with excluded workers get them with uh planning and zoning get them with more of these other groups so it becomes a bigger coalition in itself rather than it being just us it's another thing yeah as daphne to your point we also have the final recommendations at the end of the commission rather than now whereas those arpa funds are going to likely be decided long before that so that's something i'm thinking of as well i can understand that so i'm out of my hearing that you'd like to get together with me and we'll try to see if we can get the uh leadership of the neighborhood association together yes yeah i would love that yeah and that way uh as a commission we are not working all together we have the smaller subcommittee because as per for myself it's uh and this is on me i didn't get to do my homework on looking into this neighborhood but i've started and i've that way you as a subcommittee we get to educate ourselves on on more of what you've presented before us as because i'm thinking from all our responses here we do agree we do need to look further into it and work together as to uh as commissioner daniel was saying what are we able to do now as we move forward because we get certainly some things that won't wait until we get done and yeah and i think we captured even what commissioner harris had brought out part of the broader charge of the trc other than just concentrating on this neighborhood and on the issue of coved it's documented that in our city and our county these marginalized people and you also mentioned some ray stuff in there are also the ones that are very hard hit by covered negative impact so and then as far as uh the date is concerned and the systemic discrimination and racism i am not thinking we we go as far back as the history of the usa goes in iowa city so moving forward here i agree that we the housing committee is the right house for us to to work with your neighborhood on this and and more with the with the the bigger part of that you're representing here yeah and without a yield thank you i think daphne has her hand up and then um we'll try to kind of wind this last uh agenda item down yeah so i i hope i didn't come off too harshly i have my personal is with mobile homes and the way mobile home park owners treat the people who have invested in their mobile homes and consider them their homes and they're often the victim of or the people who get stuck having to choose between their homes and will really they can't like after a while they can't move their home so but that's just like a personal issue made it to my work um but i do think that is the beautiful thing about truth telling while we cannot necessarily become the advocates are on the front lines making change happen when more when enough people start telling their truth people who seem who think they nothing in common with their neighbors in a community start to realize that they're facing similar obstacles and barriers and going through similar troubles and so i welcome anyone who wants to come forward and talk about this flight talk about what urban renewal in iowa city this new wave of urban renewal means to them and i think that the subcommittee will definitely be a great place to talk about this more because this is happening in a number of mobile home parks in our greater community and and apartment buildings and stuff so with that i yield any last comments i really want to thank you for uh uh for meeting with us and uh looking forward to continue to work with the subcommittee yeah thank you so much thank you yeah and once uh don't hesitate to reach out again by the way you do have my number my email as well either one um but then in terms of housing subcommittee um we do have the list for that but um i can get you or yeah well i'll i'll coordinate with the rest of the housing subcommittee and then coordinate with you okay all right great all right thanks very much yes thank you so much for your time appreciate it thank you so much oh do you need anything on the on the way out like water or anything do you need like water or anything oh no no you're fine yeah thank you good to have you thank you thank you yes thank you mr thank you thank you thank you so that was agenda item number eight so we are now moving back to agenda item number six which was the discussion of the proposals submitted by kearns and west for trc facilitator and the next steps on that and i just want to say on this aspect that i believe we do have um [Music] hopefully i'm saying it correctly dr larry schuler schooler in the attendees for tonight and also i think a few other members from kearns and west so if we do have any if there's because of the rfp process any questions or communication has to go through the purchasing department not so yeah i realize they may be on the call but you you that needs to go through purchasing okay yes thank you for clarifying um other than those that would actually be a part of the proposals submitted by kearns and west do we have anyone from the public that would like to comment on this item and if you would like to do so please raise your hand or you can come forward okay looks like it's on to the commission then would anyone like to start first or um um i think this is commissioner ali um i was really impressed with a lot of the things i read um and i would like to go forward with scheduling a time to chat with um some of these members of the kerns and west team um i've chatted with eduardo gonzalez and i've been on a few listening sessions with him and some professors from the school of law and he has just so much knowledge regarding trcs in general and i think whatever information he will provide to us regarding trcs with his experience it's just invaluable um there are you know some i i saw that they're working closely with elgin um which is kind of next door not really but kind of but um yeah i was really impressed with a lot of the work and i would definitely like to have a conversation with them and i i hope the rest of you guys feel that way as well um yeah so i can go um i say that i feel similar um the amount of money not necessarily totally angry in agreement with that but i read the 60 page the 60 plus page document you know it took me a whole day to read it but i read the whole thing and i'm impressed with that resume and i'm impressed with the things the different crcs that they've been involved with and different things like that i don't know about the amount of money like i said but i'm impressed with you know what they bring to the table [Music] i'm just gonna say i agree um i was very impressed by what um we could be offered um especially the relief that we could possibly get from a team of experts in this in this realm um i am not um upset about the money i think it is i mean it's not one person it's a whole team and i think that makes sense um i think that um for only having one um team submit an rfp we really lucked out in that way because this i mean it is basically what we are asking for so with that i yield um and this is kind of i mean i guess and maybe i'm kind of directing this right at daphne and i apologize but when we were talking about the rfp there was a point where um i remember the discussion was like okay so are we doing like a facilitator or are we looking for a strategic planner are we looking for you know a project manager um and then the nice thing about that is i think we've got someone um with expertise on each of those subjects if not all of them you know each person um so i think that that's also super important to remember that it's not going to be like we're hiring one person for this job and then another person for a facilitator all of these people are trained and have the expertise to be able to fill multiple positions and roles and i think that that's really important and i would like to clarify as i do usually um the idea for a project manager came from a city council member um we always had facilitators and use that language so i just i've always got to clarify that yeah that's um so in terms of the multiple uh roles being filled that's one thing i liked as well and just to know that it isn't just the two individuals but rather more from the actual uh from the actual group and then i would just like to say that we should look to schedule a concrete time in terms of either sitting in front of each other in zoom for a public session or a special meeting where we're actually having an in-person meeting because i do have some questions to ask in terms of the phases and or they'd be carried out how much overlap there is between them yeah no because just in terms of timeline of when the commission would be completed and then as well in terms of the power dynamic of things uh there are some ways that things were written that i just wanted some clarification just to ensure that when when it's all said and done we are truly having a voice rather than just being guided along the whole time and then the last thing for me as well that i do really like about bringing in a reputable group such as this is one thing i'm cognizant of is how much it seems that we're kind of looked down on and disrespected in terms of the public eye but more so as in terms of government officials in many cases and i've just been worried about the whole process for the final recommendations because it's one thing to make them but it's another thing for them to be taken seriously and for them to actually be looking to implement them and having a reputable group will really help with that factor and with that i yield in terms of my actual discussion on that proposal itself but i'd like to turn it more so to the date that we would look to yeah i was just going to ask stephanie how about go through purchasing but i mean just kind of thinking forward your budget's scheduled to go in front of council again on the seventh um so i mean you have a few options you can try to um and when i say try i'm speaking through purchasing but um i think the decision for tonight is whether you want a subcommittee to meet with them or if you want the entire commission to meet with them the entire commission commission yeah then you know with schedules it's probably better just doing it september 2nd if that is possible the that's the thursday before correct well it's just your next scheduled notion everybody has 7 p.m on the second already on the calendar and we don't have to kind of look at trying to get everybody at the same time at the same place and it would have to be um it wouldn't be they can be on zoom but again we would still have the requirement that at least a majority of you would be here in person yeah thank you because that was one key question i had as well of whether we had to have them in person or could do zoom and then um when it comes down to the actual contact with them whatsoever so i know you said things going through purchasing i just want to make it clear so there aren't any mistakes made so no contact with anyone from kearns and west or on the budget proposal the evaluation form that everybody signed to get the rfp um the second page has a disclaimer that i'm not going to read it all to you but um but it basically highlights this policy so yes okay thank you yeah i just wanted to make sure so didn't have any missteps or anything so i will follow up uh with purchasing in the morning and we'll we'll go from there and of course i'll keep everyone up to date but for now um the hope is to try to just get it scheduled for that next meeting and then um in terms of how the interview process would go i remember how we did it last time but because this is an rfp process is there any type of requirement or precedent in terms of having questions available ahead of time or any subset of questions available ahead of time or can we essentially ask that would be a teresa question but i don't think you have to have prepared responses that are reviewed or prepared questions prior to asking them i i've said in on rfp proposals before a night no no i don't recall submitting questions ahead of time then i'm just curious what happens after that interview well i i mean it largely depends on on council and the budget i mean it's so if you if if you guys are yay it's still going to have to get council approval for in terms of the amount um and that would be true regardless of the amount right um and you know i guess if you guys um meet and the expectations not quite what you thought then i guess at that time you need to have a discussion on how you want to move forward and trying to find somebody well we have to vote or will we have to vote to hire them in front of their them like during the meeting next time because that i know that's kind of an awkward question but i'm just wondering i think i i think you know looking back with the past facilitator it that the contract would go to council to approve so oh so we would just no yeah yeah we're not of commissioners that supported it and then it goes to council ultimately too okay good question have i missed it has council given us a a budget limit to um so we can discuss that specifically when we be able to discuss that in this one or we'd have to go to agenda out of number seven well i think i mean depending on if you still have conversations on number six i think you could move to seven okay if i mean that that's group decision yeah yeah so there's no concrete vote we have to take in terms of having them in for september 2nd or should we i don't i mean unless you spill it's going to be contentious later on i i mean i you they i mean and and really the email that i sent out on monday they they scored above the 80 which is required so yeah so i mean that just following the process alone that this would kind of be the next step i i don't know if they call it an interview i think it's more of a presentation and then you ask questions of them based you know on the presentation which can include things that were in the proposal but um i don't i don't know if the terminology would be quite an interview but it's interview like okay so it's just like a record i i as well uh i like this team they from what i've read seem like they're good to go my first time kind of reviewing this so i do have questions and i'm not i just want to put that on yeah and um so it does sound like the next meeting that we do have that we would more than likely i mean or everyone so far and i just want to give commissioner nobis a chance to speak can you hear me [Music] okay yeah either one uh thing i had to say about the group again is i don't know how to gauge the financial aspect of it because i'm not really familiar with hiring uh such a team and secondly um because we are a truth and reconciliation commission working to um uplift uh bypoc folks um i wanted to note that this is not this is this is a white owned business and so that was something that i had flagged in my assessment of this team not saying that they don't do great fantastic work and they have a great team but that it is uh from what i can see like a white owned business so i don't know if that's something that you would like to consider moving forward um but that you know we are trying to provide um you know opportunities uh to buy poc folks uh to uplift their businesses and i don't know if that's something we can flag or discuss i don't know if that's relevant or if that's something we literally are able to discuss um but i just wanted to say that for me i i did look at the website as well and uh they do have multiple people of color within the actual organization and the actual submission when it was submitted was not made by a caucasian male or female and then um mr gonzalez as well was another key piece for me of him being a part of it uh not only due to the fact that no it's not going to be all white people and having that diversity in that representation but also just in the fact that he's really been following our trc and kind of been with things since the start and oh yeah no i think that's great i have no problem with that i just wanted to tell everybody that this is a white business [Music] thank you sure no that's a quick question could you um where did did you find that information on the website or how did you yeah i did i just looked at their uh leadership their about section [Music] i just find i i would like to clarify that i mean if somebody could just double check that that would be great um but uh that that's all i wanted to know i don't know if that's a problem or not i just that i i have not a lot to uh it's not to me it's not going to stop me from wanting to have these folks work with us but i i don't know if that's something we should just note one thing i do want to note is just one thing i am wary of and also looking into is that because we are involved in government in terms of being a government body we just have to be careful in terms of making sure not disqualifying anyone due specifically to their race and i know people may want to say oh but that's white people but at the end of the day it is still policy in in that and just there's no adverse action that's why i said i don't know if this is something we're even allowed to discuss so um but we are the truth of reconciliation commission so i i just want to clarify it's it's not policy it's federal and state law so um we really shouldn't be meaning a comment on the race of who owns this business or lee is it yeah it's just not a pandora's box we want to open so this is commissioner i want to piggyback on commissioner nobi's comment uh as i was scoring the scoring sheet for their farm i of course i don't i don't know them i was just using what what is provided and it's all on paper and it's all looked good and i was looking at it through the lens of someone who for uh oh i'm familiar with the south africa truth and reconciliation [Music] body and my original country we've also in 2007 2008 we went through a reconciliation after political violence which was brokered by kofi annan so using all that to make my decision and coring the farm and the information that they gave us and getting to this point and also as someone who has been researching and teaching on ratio inequity so on commissioner no base comment i'm worried and i i even reading the proposal and even on paper that i uh we don't get into [Music] the but i didn't get that sense when i was looking at them that because you can be working with someone who it's a career it's a job it's a it's work for them so i go in hoping and from what i saw it didn't look like that but it doesn't mean that i don't have that fear that i wasn't because i haven't engaged but i'm going in we with that fear but with expectations with the positive and optimism that this is not the case because we do know that in the history of oppression and systemic racism there are people who are career and who make a business out of out of out of this out of or wanting to make things better they actually don't they really don't even want things to be better they because it is business so i i do go in with that fear yeah yeah i i won't yeah go ahead i just agree yeah i won't discount any of those fears by any means but i guess just to kind of tie a ball on it the two things i would just have to say is um it's one thing to have the fear but let's also not forget that we are the commissioners on the commission so we are hiring them not the other way around so that's the other reason of like in terms of that next meeting september making sure we're getting some of those guidelines that information just so that we know or have more assurance that this is going to be something mutually beneficial rather than it just being us used and i have faith that that's not going to be the case so at the end of the day it can seem like that but we are the commissioners on top of this and the way as well the rfe originally was written when it was sent out is that we also do have the choice to end things if we are to decide that it is necessary and commissioner novus yeah so um bringing this up has uh provided me with some more insight um i would love some more information on the policies uh of the uh you know because that daphne just mentioned um is there a place where we can like get this information on hiring practices and so on and so forth but like do we like are there diversity equity and inclusion uh uh policies as well that we should also be considering um those are just two questions that have come out of you know my little inquiry that came up for me um because you know what we're trying to do is provide opportunities uh for um you know bipoc folks um because the whole point of this committee is like realizing that you know we are dealing with a system uh you know rooted in white supremacy um we are dealing with you know hundreds of years of oppression and genocide uh and so like we're trying to make moves to uh bring our people out of these uh you know these these these uh you know places of poverty um and so on and so forth uh and so we should also be trying to um you know that's why we had the what is it called the that's why we have like black black business day right in iowa city and so on and so forth um so i would just love more um uh knowledge on how to move forward on this so that i i don't like overstep some kind of boundary that the city has or the state has so that you know we can make good decisions i think that i you know i can follow up um i mean it's really the city that enters into the contract with whoever is selected so i i wouldn't really call it a hiring physician it's it's a more of an independent contractor but i um i will um follow up with purchasing and um if there are materials relevant that that she has relevant to your request i will definitely send them out to the to the entire group um i i i mean i'm i know for a fact there's a um you know there's policies um against discrimination of course that that the city has to abide by but um i will um follow up in terms of specific duties um with commissions and boards but like again like i said i mean i guess the border commission can discuss whatever they want to right but that doesn't mean that there's not repercussions to those discussions so and and so that's kind of the the thing so i mean what you choose to talk about as a group you know that's that's you know okay thank you yeah so my question more leans into the uh leans into to wanting to understand policies around diversity equity and inclusion that's what my question would lean into um not about discrimination but about what policies are there so that we can make sure that we are uh lifting up uh bipod communities thank you so much does anyone else have other comments on this one okay then as it stands sounds like the next meeting september 2nd is when we would look to have this listening session conversation whatever we want to call it with kearns and west then now on to agenda item number seven and this would be the budget proposal with the revised budget and the discussion on the work session with city council from august 17th 2021 so the reason these are all wrapped into one is because they are all tied together and just want to make sure there are no issues with what we're speaking on at a time but um so first we want to just talk about the facilitator aspect of this in terms of any fear of the city possibly rejecting it that for me was essentially put down by the fact that they pretty much talk themselves into it at the work session at this point it's either the money is paid for the facilitator or it becomes very very difficult for anything to move forward for them if a stipend in that full thousand dollar month amount is not given and i'm expecting them at this point to be going with that facilitator point because they continually argue for it over and over and over again project manager needed this and that so and for anything else on here just want to point out uh the changes for things like the advertising and outreach videographer the removal of the experts in training the addition with the facilitator aspect is the way the rfp was written sounded more as that would be in terms of experts bringing them in with the facilitator and in terms of the training less training for us to have to do for project management if we have facilitators and experts taking care of it so just to keep that concise then the advertising outreach videographer part so the city had a lot of pushback to the videographer aspect and i know we had put it higher just in case there was more of a need but figured might as well drop that amount now to have a better chance at having the budget actually passed and still you know gave them that information in that argument of there will likely be people that do not want to speak directly to their government crews or government officials but um kind of just having a hard time making making that be understood for the advertising outreach dropped that way down to that three thousand dollar amount one because that was a question they had but more so for having the group of facilitators and experts seems like there's less advertising outreach money that's needed and if anything anything extra would be needed more so for what they can't reasonably cover is what's written in the second draft for the next draft the transportation for necessary participants so make sure to keep that amount in there because again we are not sure who we might need to bring in and want to just have that money set aside rather than having to go back later with it without it being approved in a budget and then having to ask for it um in terms of the items on the back pay and also the stipend the reason that was left in there in the second submission is because personally for me i did not want to walk in there with having only facilitator expert no stipend or only stipend and cut down the amount on facilitator expert as i felt it was imperative to force them to make one choice or the other that they had to know that it is what it is you go this way or you go that way otherwise it would have just been hamstrung things we are going to have to change in terms of the stipend to get that passed is reward that for i know things that they did approve or say would be approved uses were like babysitters transportation um also food as well so those are items and my only question for them essentially would be why not make that a stipend rather than just say approved costs because if you say approved costs that still means we pay for it ahead of time and then we have to write out an expense report and then give that to the city and the way i'm familiar with expensive expense reports is you're putting those in monthly so i'm not really interested in spending that continually spending that money monthly and asking the city for it waiting for it to be returned over and over and over and over and over and over and over again so if you lose any receipt then that's you know you're out of that expense um so just a comment that i want to say and i'm trying to keep it short because it's not it's not worth beating the dead horse over and over again i appreciate the efforts of the chairperson treyore he has dealt with personal attacks attacks that we saw in person from the mayor of iowa city who attacked him personally at the session and he has dealt with this and one of the things that you know i remember the chairperson telling me it was he said i stayed up to 3 a.m in the morning making this budget and he has to deal with personal attacks because he doesn't want to have a conversation with a person outside of a public forum or he wants to defend other people who have committed things that slowed down this commission so i appreciate you and that's all i got to say and now you're with that i will add my voice to what this is commissioner to what commissioner harris has said because we all publicly witnessed that and we did say thank you even after the session to commissioner triole for the leadership that you showed and the the control that you showed and which really changed the way uh the rest of the session went and i think it for me it wasn't the expected outcome but it was we moved beyond that point and uh it was because of the way andy i'm i'm also glad you brought it out there at a public meeting in where you stand on that you showed a lot of of all of the leadership quality as as usual yeah thank you very much i want to thank you guys as well though however um and apologize for the little bit of an outburst i did have and for losing my cool in that moment of of the personal attacks um thank you for checking me on that after the meeting that is something i will not be doing again i shouldn't have fallen for that in any way and should have kept it on the focus thank you as well eric for bringing that back but thank you to each of you that spoke at that meeting or helped prepare this budget budget subcommittee all of you because i mean presenting it's one thing but you guys were all really a big part of why this is written the way it is and it's a lot easier to fight for it knowing that it's going to benefit everyone on the commission but also hearing what all of you had to say that made it easier to keep pushing back and standing for it you know not having to sit there alone and just take that that was that was amazing so thank you thank you a lot um and i will say that i you know i know that you wanted to go just go back against the personal attacks and and it got to a point where i i just had to step in because you know you think of a public official and you wouldn't think that they would just go to the lengths of personal attacks like that and so that's why you know i stepped in on my own and was like hey this is going to go too far but the point of my comment is you wouldn't think that a regular person or a regular civilian like me and you would have to step in and stop personal attacks from the mayor of iowa city i'm the year thank you commissioner harris because it was very encouraging for you to step in and right away commissioner johnson you stepped in uh all of you setting setting the tone on how the rest of the session was going to go then going and i'm grateful for the commissioner the counselors who are trying to say it because i couldn't believe my ears even now i'm still trying to wrap my mind around it when uh even our mayor uttered the words canceling the tlc because i'm still trying to check did i hear that one it can be it can yeah so but you say you set the tone and stepping in and setting the tone on how the rest of the session was going to go and us moving forward and talking about that and really thrashing out things out in the open whether are we doing serious work or are we are we yeah i'll yield i i i this commissioner johnson i feel like some positive things definitely did come out of it though i think it seemed like we we all kind of do agree to a certain level it's just about work if we just word things a little bit differently it seems like they are really they're just we have to work our way around when it comes down to it but it's clear that certain things need to actually take place in order to make things run smoother and we there there was a moment in time if we if we go back that uh it seemed like we were right all on the same page so i don't see any reason why we need to be canceled in any way shape or form as of right now and and and it would just negate any progress that has been made period it doesn't make sense um this is commissioner dillard i would agree i was i was so shocked to hear that from our mayor a black mare as as it is um but i think the greatest part of it is that um he was the only one to say that and everyone immediately disagreed that would definitely take us back it's insane um to even think that and i think that um was definitely a part of the personal back and forth that was going on that had nothing to do with us it was just him so i think i agree i i really commend you um chair terrari and everyone a part of our commission for keeping our cool i want to give a special thank you to amel as well because let's remember that we don't even have a facilitator if she doesn't write the rfp so that's that was a very key piece to this and that made this a lot lot easier to be able to argue in front of them of having such a robust plan right there and showing them it's either you go with this or you have to go our way pay us but either way it's it's you know in our in our benefit and in our favor so thank you so much for taking the time to write that out you're welcome i definitely will not be missing the next meeting i promise you that i will be there so i'll be action i'm also going to add my thank you to the budget committee and on all the work that you put and personally figures i'm challenged so i really really appreciate the work that you've done and making it putting it in in layman's language that i'm really able to follow and be able to support and know what exactly we are doing and as we discuss with the council and even with the public you have made it easy for me personally yeah i yield thank you i just want to give commissioner daniel a chance to speak thank you i was gonna save this for the counselor announcement but um i think why not right now um i wanted to say for every one of you who spoke i want to give you kudos like i stood up there and i was nervous and i like i have to talk in front of people as a profession and so people who really um you're going up in city council you're going up against personal attacks and knowing that the room is more likely than against you i just want to give you all kudos i i really impressed and um even the fellow commissioners who who were at the meeting but didn't speak at the podium you held your composure and you weren't snickering making obnoxious noises unlike some other people some of whom are elected officials that utterly embarrassed me as a member of the iowa city community so i just also want to say you deserve a pet on the back for keeping it together um and really i watched out of that building um proud of all of you and i rather that building proud to be a member of the trc and if people want to look down on us that is totally fine because people look down on the freedom riders people look down on the people who were sitting those wool works more worth counters people look down on children like rudy bridges and fit on them and everything who were segregating schools so yes you can look down on us because what we're doing is different is making people feel unsettled and i just want to say i am utterly utterly proud of all of you thank you i yield thank you callus you had your hand up i just wanted to give you the floor thank you uh i am shocked and livid to hear this i didn't know that i could go watch the meeting you should go watch the work session yeah i um i i so i was going to be was this the one that was on tuesday at four yeah yes okay yes so i was going to attend via zoom uh and then at the last minute uh found out that that wasn't possible but i couldn't make it because i had my children um so i am very shocked and livid um and i don't think that we should just be in here uh i mean i love that we're talking about this but i think we should do more than just uh discuss it i think we should put a um a press release out uh or something because um i think we should talk to media about this issue this uh government uh put together this truth and reconciliation commission for a reason um and if this is how they're going to treat like our recommendations because we were uh brought onto this commission as experts uh to find a way to better you know this uh issue of uh basically violence uh and an oppression that we've been dealing with for a long time and so if they're going to uh you know mock and or come at us you know and take personal digs uh particularly the mayor um then why why did they put this commission together i don't really know what they were expecting because if that's the case we are definitely uh in their eyes just a a token um and something that they are using as a ploy uh to uplift their you know political um uh you know strategies uh to get revoted in and i am very upset to hear that they would treat uh particularly people that are putting a lot of emotional labor uh into uh something that is a very very difficult issue uh to deal with because we all come from these uh these these places um so i i would want to go so far as to put a press release out um and talk to um you know or hold a press conference even and talk to uh the press so that we can uh educate the public about you know um this kind of treatment so that it doesn't happen again one thing uh so i do agree with that but one thing i think to do to be strategic is let's get this facilitator thing and when it comes to their next meeting we don't just have to do a press release can just tell them there of how that made us feel and and what we're looking for going forward i want to make sure that this statement is ironclad solid if if it's the same day of facilitators coming up then it's going to be very hard for anyone in the media or anyone in that room to try to tear us down because it would be talking bad on us for what exactly while also having to deal with the fact that hey facilitators are now brought in what you've continually asked for for those detractors has now been brought in so if there's anything being said against us at that point to me it it just really shows where everyone is truly standing and that's one thing i just want to have clear before we all go forward is it it's it's hard enough to do this but it's another thing to walk into a community and think that that people are going to stand behind you men you know try to call their phone try to email them etc not getting answers things like that and then the times you do it's called procedural and commissioner uh all those things you've said once like commissioner amel suggested uh if when you go in there and watch all that uh we we did respond right there directly because some things you just couldn't wait and get out of there and then go have a press release we had to actually directly address the mayor especially on some terms like telling the trc chair go get a job and i am quoting it sounds even right now to me it's still sounding like i'm making up eva had been alone but i'm glad you are all there that is the problem so if once you watch you will see we did talk about it there and he did respond right there and like commissioner johnson said it was terrible and it was looking like it was going to spiral down by the time we got the word cancel this tlc but the important thing and the positive thing we dealt with it we felt whatever feelings that came with it we wrote them and we let them wash over us and not just the tlc the people who are there and i can't speak for those who are watching but i've had some feedback from other people who are working with the tlc and we did respond and move forward past that moment and moved to where we are here now so but watching it even us who are there it's still unbelievable i would also like to say i i really like um this is commissioner dillard i like what you're saying commissioner novice about doing a press conference i kind of like that idea more than a press release just because oppressed how many people are reading the news i mean we had a news article and people don't know what's going on but a press conference we can't control i was also thinking if we all wrote our own opinion piece into the newspaper we all have our own voices i felt like in that meeting that we needed our own truth and telling session just to let them know how we felt in that moment so i think a press conference could be warranted full disclosure so it isn't a record yes i do have a job [Music] oh i just want to clarify my comments um to me this is the first like the first shoe so i don't know the first part of this was at public um or at the city council i think two or three weeks ago where one one of the speakers told the city council to retake your council or retake your city or whatever and i felt the mayor and the city council felt that was a mandate to be disrespectful um to the trc and so i want to just say like overall i'm very proud of everyone um that meeting [Music] i'm still trying to process exactly what happened and who told who who who said that was a good idea to even say those words or to do that and i think a lot of people are showing their true colors and process and we as voters just should take them take their actions not not birds to to show what they do behind closed doors as far as how they see the community um and i yield i just wanted to say quickly i i know that all of you really had um you know everybody's back in there so i hope that when i said that i wanted to do a press release or press conference it wasn't that i didn't think that some wonderful things were said uh in defense of the trc and and and our chair um but that uh like i just believe that um you know these kinds of things need to be known like to the public because this is a public uh commission and if people don't know about the mistreatment and the tokenization of this commission then we basically are still dealing with i don't know how to explain it but uh the kind of secrecy and the kind of things that happen behind closed doors you know the things that oppression does to people you know what i mean so like i just want to be very open and honest about this process and make sure that the public knows about the continued crudels uh and uh red tape and uh like just straight up lateral oppression and all this other stuff that we're dealing with trying to move forward uh making you know positive change in our community so um it's just good to keep the public informed uh and we do that through the press and i really appreciate um your remarks uh chair i mean like you know this is more in your wheelhouse and i just wanted to provide uh you know uh just one example of how we could uh you know be above it you know take the high road and just talk to you know the public who we're working for and let them know what's going on and going forward as well uh in terms of any of these media things don't feel like you got to talk to me for anything about it if you want to do any of those go ahead just yeah it doesn't have to be me or amela i don't think yeah you think it has to be you either so feel free you just have to make it clear that you're not speaking on behalf of the trc and that you're speaking for uh yourself only that's just the only thing i think that we ask oh yeah no i i'm thinking that like as the trc if we are all in agreement yeah yeah i think that's a good idea yeah we should move forward with a press conference or press release or something but that was my recommendation um i you know of course it would be discussed here in the meeting um and uh yeah i'm very i just feel terrible about this i i'm so sorry it's already hard enough to do this work and i might you know thank you for thank you for being there thank you to all of you yeah so i would just add that um i do agree with a couple of points um a press conference is a thing that we need to do but i agree with the chairperson as well that we should get our facilitator first so it's more organized and it it would mean more if we got all our stuff all together and instead of us going to the media and then we say something and then this gets taken out of context and it and it goes somewhere else also um the i'm gonna go back to the personal attacks about you know if you don't want to do this job then go find you a job that pays you money you know that's unbecoming of a mayor that's under that's unbecoming of any official in this city and it didn't make me feel like that he was opposed to a stipend or he was opposed to the budget it felt like more of a personal attack to me he has a personal issue and i i don't always agree with what people say in different meetings but i don't do personal attacks against them and that was a meeting that spent like 30 minutes of personal attacks against you and against other people and it just doesn't make sense to me and it's not it's not the end of it because when we get some more agenda items i'm going to discuss more personal attacks that has been happening with different things it's just starting to be i don't want to use this word but the personal attacks are starting to become a pandemic because it's just it's just not stopping you know um and one of the things that you know he attacked you about and attacked us about you know the commission about was the whole roy sam porter thing he's still saying that that was a good person that we did wrong he stayed this publicly into a meeting uh the people that been on the commission from the start that no we didn't do anything wrong with that idea i think also and this isn't to like this or have anyone else's side i think it's also like um he genuinely probably has not watched the meetings from before i brought that up i don't think that any of the counselors watching i brought that up as well uh i remember during our like one session uh maz literally said to us i will not be attending your meetings i'm not going to be attending them um so i it's just hard to hear you know a lot of pushback and feedback when nobody's here even so that's just the rough thing for me you know um the one it's funny that the one counselor who supports this the most is the one who has been paying attention who watches all of our um zooms even or all of our meetings even after um so i don't know i just it's it's just really frustrating in that aspect because they have access to see what it is we do and what we work on but you know um i don't as far as the personal attacks and stuff i i'm not sure what your relationship is with the mayor or whatever um i think loyalty plays a lot in this as well so um but disregarding everything else i think that um we are all pretty fired up about this and i'm excited to be there together hopefully at the next council meeting and just really you know uplift each other and continue to support each other the way we have because i think as long as we're still all in this and know what the mission is and know what we want to do then it doesn't really matter um how many times they tell us we don't do anything because that's we all know that that's not true um so i'm i'm glad to hear that nobody's fire had been burned out like it happened to me um so yeah i'm just proud and you know we just got to keep fighting the good fight man again are they not allowed to call in or anything is that the case or no there's nothing against them listening to any meetings live speaking on any meetings live there's attendees nothing i remember our mayor said and a lot of them said that they want to be invited all right social media do they want invitations do we need to write out invitations or like what are we all right i'm just saying that's what they said um i can hand write some [Music] yeah let's do that um i was wondering could we talk about the budget again yes um one thing i do want to point out as well is in terms of look at the differences in the subcommittee amounts so the reason a lot of that is dropped in terms of researcher pay for one just next to that with having the facilitators available uh assuming or at least going to make it clearer i think that we should that they should be working with subcommittees in terms of sub tasks how things uh how each subcommittee kind of saw that stuff going so that research is actually done in a way that helps and then the collaborators consultants i mean in terms of consultants like we have a consultant group for collaborators the main reason this is stayed in is it i just really think if we're bringing people from outside of the community have to make sure that groups from within the community are also at the table and i think that's one way we help with the equity piece as well um can specifically ask groups that we know that are bipod led or owned or whatever it is or work with people from these populations to be a part of it and a really big reason a payment is a part of that is as i said in the meeting i don't think anyone should be doing the work for free so if they are going to be consulting on the things and helping with it we'll want to pay them for their consulting work and also because from what i've learned about many of these programs that target these groups they're underfunded and they stretch things pretty thin as it is so i want to make sure that they do get that support um as in regards to the budget i don't see anything about child care on here so uh this so this was just the um version that was given to city council so the only reason that wasn't spelled out is so counsel for the child care aspect it was hard to get something clear from from them on what they were willing to allow for these meetings i mean even for the transportation aspect like that question i'm just confused on why we keep getting that question but had to explain to that in like a full like two paragraph so because there might be people from the past that need to speak on these things that don't live here and i'm not making them pay their way to come here and the fact that that even had to be explained even though in the first version that was not only explained but written uh just don't get it so i think when it comes down to the child care part it might have to be wrapped in to some of the materials miscellaneous but one thing as well that they've continued to say is when it comes to the public events that we have that they would work to make sure that it actually happens in places that some of that can be taken care of by the city keep hearing a lot about how the city will help with this and that and this and that so if that's what's how it's going to be said by them in work sessions or also in the first time how they said in the work session going to make sure their feet are actually held to the fire on that because that's the only reason it's not in this budget because if they want to keep saying it they better actually get done and is this budget what words the if we approve tonight we want to give this to city council on the second or the seventh right so we should meet with them facility yeah we'll have another meeting september 2nd so we have until then so i'd like to talk to the budget subcommittee one more time i just wanted to make sure we went over with each of you that way we didn't go all the way until september 2nd without you seeing any changes so i want i'll go ahead just actually so the city council packet will actually post the afternoon before your meeting and so there there should be a submission for that now if you want to amend that or modify that you know you have a certain amount of time to do that but in terms of you know the the city clerk would probably i mean i would probably need it i mean really no later than tuesday at noon to make sure that it turns around and gets in that package for that september meeting correct their september seventh meeting oh no i mean our september so the tuesday before we would have to get it out to them it would be the tuesday or wednesday before your meeting correct because the council packet will post thursday afternoon it will post prior to your meeting second just five days so one thing i'll say that we should probably do is the budget subcommittee is in terms of that stipend we can write out stipend and like sub notes on what exactly that would entail and then try to estimate a number of what that could look like for amount multiply that out multiply that out so it's actually on there and then get that submitted then we can have our meeting and any amendments we feel like we need to make can make those that way that way we know for a fact it's in there that's what i actually wanted to address um devil's advocate but i think we should move to take out this event at this time i mean my thing on the stipend is like i want to keep that the word but instead have the sub categories underneath of like babysitter that um food etc because i'm just like my thing is if we take all of that out it again goes down to have to keep track of every single receipt that you pay for on anything because it'd be expense reports i have to do that for my job and it's not the funnest thing in the world but it is doable yeah but like for the child care part like if somebody gets a babysitter it's like then you then have to put have that extra burden added i think um it would be a good idea to have this this like invite chastity to like a budget subcommittee meeting and then or just like chat with her with just three of us um that way she can explain why she feels the stipend should be room you guys can have that like open dialogue about that in a subcommittee is that okay yeah i don't i don't mean the stipend in the full like thousand like keeping that but more that the like yeah yeah yeah yeah i would say you know i had a great idea i just thought of on a whim and we need to just we need to get some of our stuff together you know get the facility thing going on and get the professional people and they can go and talk about why people can't have a stipend why so why can't they pay for child care they can go and tell them that and let's see how that goes because they've been in front of many trcs so that too yeah that's something we do can't have asked that's september yeah my um only reason for saying that is i want to put our attention more on the facilitators i i'll say again i'm okay with i believe we deserve to get paid i just feel like we have a lot of attention on it and um we can talk about this another time but i would really like to put the attention on what we're here for yeah oh yeah yeah completely agree but just want to one clarifying point even if this budget goes in front of them without stipend word anything there is no guarantee every single line item gets approved if they want they can vote item by item what to approve so i want to make sure everyone is clear on that so you know what i was under understanding is this was a base this was something to start off with and negotiate from that point out and that's why i was so confused why so much it seemed like we have to start from somewhere and work our way out rather than just you know not have anything at all so i i don't understand why it turned so ugly but i i don't make sense we're supposed to be uniting together and not dividing ourselves and saying yeah um commissioner daniel has had her hand up so i just want to make sure before eric says something that she has a chance to speak go ahead i think i think uh commissioner harris is right in the sense that um the facilitator may be in a better position to uh to move this forward i it really seems like people are struggling to understand that this is not unusual it's not even unusual for commissioners to get a stipend in other states so this this shock wave that our request made is is a little over my head because i i it's just over my head um but i i think the facilitator might be able to help introduce a new idea to iowa city or at least the city council and the mayor i yield in that case uh yeah yeah let's just we'll have you still if you want to join that subcommittee meeting come in but can just cross it out and let's facilitate to take care of it can i just throw something out there for the sub community to consider is to maybe at the meeting for the seventh move forward on only the approval of the if this is assuming that when you meet with the facilitator that you you want to move forward you also have the option of only submitting the cost for the facilitator to the council on the seventh and then you can work with the facilitator once that contract is signed and and really create a roadmap that is blended with your vision in their experience and then you can present the budget the whole budget to the city council i think that might be like the best idea of them all um and i think we should continue this conversation specifically with like the budget and stuff i and i i assume they will probably assuming the council passes and agrees to hire them um they are probably going to have opinions on what our current budget is anyway so it'd be nice to get some opinions from people who have done a lot of this before um yeah and so i only think i want to add to it and we can end this discussion after this but the only thing i want to add to it is that people that were at that meeting you heard a bunch of contradictory statements you know at one point no stipend at one point what about child care well that's a stipend and you heard them they don't they don't even have it so i think we need to just move about it in the right way because those guys don't even know what they want to do at this point because they are making contradicting statements among themselves about what a stipend is or what this is and the things we were asking for for stipend is the things that they named out personally themselves child care transportation food and i think one hour into the conversation they changed it around and said well first they were saying no stipend then they changed around well what about child care what about food well that's what we're talking about yeah so yeah there's a positive point we all agree yeah literally yeah because just let it play out you know pretty clear that you know we see where we need to go but for some reason wording we have the word a certain way yeah yeah um so with the next agenda item i i think we could do this in less than five minutes i think it's fair to continue to meet every other week didn't we have to clarify which thursday week it would be easier if you if you just had a more consistent schedule so yeah the second and fourth thursday versus every other thursday yeah people the community doesn't necessarily know when the last time you met yeah but if you can say well we always meet the second and fourth bam they know to put it on the calendar yeah i definitely agree with that and when we did the doodle poll your best bet is to stick with thursday at seven because after that it just there was no consistency in terms of even even having three people being able to meet at a different day or time yeah i saw that as well so i just didn't enter one because i was like this isn't going to make sense for me so i have a question i so would that change the outcome of this september 2nd or would it be september 2nd then we'd meet september 23rd um but i mean we could you could hold a special meeting on the second um but or you could have it go into effect after the you know if you want it to go into effect afterwards i guess it depends on how the group wants to proceed you can meet um because if we meet the week of the ninth and we're not meeting again until the 23rd the one thing i'm just thinking of as well though is i think personally i would like to do that second 23rd just because of the fact that a city council meeting being the next week yeah uh we definitely need to have that meeting on the second if we keep that ninth i mean some of us will probably be at that city council meeting too so that's another week of two meetings in one and want to be cognizant of people's schedules time everything because remember that's also right after labor day so you've already cut one day out of your week right there so i think that starting october maybe we should go like the second thursday i think yes yeah that's what i think so we get the important stuff done yeah so starting october it'll be the second and fourth and then um until now it's just every other sorry stuff no that's perfect that works is everyone in agreement does anyone have any questions i don't i'm in agreement i don't know if we need to vote for it but i'm in agreement we're doing it we're not doing any changes until october yep yeah i'm good that'd be september 2nd 16th and then 30th good and eventually if we deemed it's appropriate we would go to one once a month yeah i think i think that would be the goal especially once the commit uh the facilitators really got in and stuff like that then i think the goal is to move to once a month uh me and muhammad talked at least by christmas time like yeah we need to move you know november december it gets hard to meet a lot around especially yeah we just need to get the tough work done first and then we can move to that we just need to get the facilitator and all that stuff done and then we can move to that you know because it'll be a lot you know that'll go on you know on the meet once a month but we haven't facilitated it it'll be a lot that we can learn a lot that we can do in a short amount of time and we'll have to meet every other week because we have things in place and for november and december it'd probably be hard to get two meetings in both of those months anyways just because of those holiday weeks that occur so one thing and the future is you know unclear right now so we don't even really know what's going to happen with yeah cover 19 resurging who knows what's going to happen who knows that we'll be sitting in this room again in the next couple weeks i'm just saying i'm just saying it's out of control man so i i like that idea um i think this next agenda item is going to have a lot of chat involved so i just wanted to get involved and get into it as soon as possible for the sake of time because we do have listeners that aren't on this time zone uh yeah so uh the discussion of the community topics uh the american rescue plan and excluded workers fund updates so muhammad went to a johnson county public information sesh and then specifically commissioner harris had sent me something that he was upset about uh the responses from local officials um and i think that kind of goes with both um but if you guys want to chat on that or talk about that or give updates really quick yeah um i can go real quick yeah um actually you know what public yeah yeah let's let's let public go fast yeah or go however long they need um discussion and community topics topic a the american rescue plan excluded workers fund updates so there's two subsections on it you can speak on either one or the whole thing johnson county public information sessions and responses from local officials do we have anyone from the public that would like to comment on this item all right um so just update um well it's not it's not going to be a great update but you know it's going to be as best as i can say um we've been working on this thing um in the past couple weeks we've had a march that we marched down the street and and demonstrated against this and had meetings with the city manager and it's just excuses after excuse at the excuse at the excuse and on top of the excuses um a johnson county supervisor rod sullivan he decided to take to social media and put a comment that we can all see in our packet if you look in your packet and you can go and it's the pages that has the twitter layouts and it says parts of the story don't add up how does she work at the marriott without a social security number you know and so a lot of people challenge him you know because that's so many things that's also a comment that's kind of not appropriate especially for a person that's supposed to be a johnson county supervisor but then you would think that he would stop at this point but instead he said either the marriott is ripping off but the marriott is ripping off taxpayers or both or she's well she's admitted to say that her situation which i guess she's saying that she's lying and she's actually eligible to get funds right now which we all know that's not easy for people to get funds it's all up to her she should follow up and he also [Music] continued and she said she should get everything she is eligible for something doesn't add up then he continued multiple times he was like did you meet with the um ewf coalition and he said i've met several times with kathy and katie a few times with others i don't know the woman in the story and she never actually meet me if she wants to i will well that's not true either because i invited him to have a meeting with me a couple days ago and at the last minute when i was going to meet him he found a way to bail himself out of the meeting because he didn't want to meet me because of all the things he said and then he said i think she should apply the county to get the benefits you know and then this morning um i got more stuff from the the you know the scooter workers fund when he was doubling down saying more things again and it just doesn't make sense but those people are working hard on that thing but it's not going to go good a lot of members of this commission were there with me and one of the first things that one of the members of this commission did to me is appointed when we went to the johnson county listening event and pointed at the date that say october 27th is the next time they're going to talk about so with that i'm a yield and and somebody needs to call out these you know this is this is this is starting to become ridiculous yeah so um i just want to say on this this is muhammad uh so as most of you know i was out of town last week for work and i was going to be gone until sunday and i woke up on saturday to just all these messages and just like what's going on like what happened like i hadn't been on social media like at all last week so i then once i finally see the tweet just like like first thought was just why would you even like say that like it was like a friday night or something like like why were you on there at that time but then seeing like the thread and how it just kept going and going and going then it was really like all right okay i'm going to read these messages because this is probably worse than i thought and by that time it essentially came down to okay i'm not staying in des moines until sunday i'm coming back saturday so i got back saturday just to make sure get enough done sunday is like yeah i have to be at that meeting monday night and the second i saw that paper yeah i pointed to you and showed you that the final listening session on the american rescue plan act is october 27th and i didn't mean to like chuckle like during that meeting of like literally thought of something but like funny of like wow like i hate that i was right of said since june i think in one of the excluded workers coalition meetings yeah i have a bad feeling that this is just going to get dragged out until after the elections and they're like why it's like i don't know how all these people can be emailed it can be this public and this little movement and listening sessions won't even start until august like that doesn't add up why would you not start listing sessions till august you might not know all the details on what you can do with it but you can still listen to people before august so with that not adding up stonewalling stalling and i know we were told it wasn't stonewalling installing but being told that as the coalition said and as the iowa city catholic worker has said as well the intentions are different than what actually occurs it's like luckily enough these moratoriums on evictions have continued been pushed out had they not been really don't know how all this would be going right now for these people like this could have been july 31st that this moratorium was over randomly gets pushed out and now at this point if it just keeps going until october how much longer can we count on an eviction moratorium getting getting pressed out how much longer can we count on little funds here and they're being released from general funds to keep people going eventually something's got to give one way or the other and the fear is that it doesn't go in the way of the coalition and of the people that really need this money and that's why like earlier when we were having that conversation on forest view and i don't mean to try to go between two things but essentially this is why i really think it needs to be something larger involving other coalitions involving other neighborhoods involving other groups because we can go to this many meetings press that hard for this many months and just nothing and still do october 27 and say it's just procedure because just finding out while other states and municipalities have passed things like this definitely need more people behind it yeah and i agree with that too because at that meeting on monday when the person that this johnson county supervisor disrespected or said what he had to say about her when we wanted to let her speak we had to take over the whole meeting we had to say hey this is not the format they want this meeting to be in we wanted people to speak and say stuff and this was a woman who the county supervisor rod sullivan disrespected and me and a few other people had to take over to me like hey it should be public comment you can't keep restricting public comment this is a common theme in the city and this county and we had to take over that meeting to just let public comment be heard and that is the disgrace to me this is uh commissioner dillard i just want to say share my point of view i didn't attend those um meetings but i did attend the non-profit session and um as a member a worker of the nonprofit and i was really discouraged to hear that they were only going to do six sessions and the sessions are only they're only going to do two in iowa city two in swisher area to cover all of johnson county and then two however in some other areas and they're only they're expecting people to come to them so that to me tells me that they're not going to get any of the public they're only going to get the same people that always go to all the same meetings you can go to any meeting you'll see the same like 50 people you'll never see a difference so that means that they're already not committed to actually hearing the people so i think that's where we come in as a trc to actually do some type of listening post they're not actually going to hear what um our people the people in this community actually need from the american rescue um plan so um i hear what you all are saying and i just i i'm just gonna say i think it's all scam they don't really care what people need um i don't know how we can move forward and make this a part of what we're trying to do of course we could say our opinions but i'm really interested in what we can do to move it forward i liked one thing you one thing you said there that sounds really intriguing actually is a listening post listening session of our own of being able to invite all these people for that um can they can all attend over zoom if they'd like have public comment that way if they're people would like to be in person that's how we started it you know i mean i'd like to do that as well just the one thing i am a little wary of is as kids are going back to school now more than likely in a lot of these pockets going to have more cases jumping around and yeah if it's like an event sponsored by the city if we're all there then you can require people to wear masks yeah but there's one thing though that you have to worry about too that i worry about is the trust level you know people don't you know they're undocumented they don't want to come out come out of shadows like that and put their self in wrists and so i worry about that too you know like some people might not want to come and speak out because they think something's going to happen to them or something happens to their family which we hear tragic stories of that every day so i know that iowa city doesn't you know do a lot of enforcement on that but that doesn't that's through the county so well that doesn't exclude other law enforcement agencies so i really want to give some praise to nanoscale as well because of all of that the fact that yeah yeah listening to her speak i i honestly was just gonna you know let them talk uh but if but after hearing her speak it was really like nah yeah we got to get up and talk too because the bravery she has yeah it was unbelievable who is this it's the um so it's the woman that ross sullivan um that he talked about yeah it's the one that he talked about said how can she possibly work at the marriott hotel she doesn't have a social security number maybe the marriott is ripping her off or ripping the city off for the county off and that's what he decided to put on social media you could have left your fingers to yourself and not type that even you felt like that and so that's what he did and then when i wanted to have a meeting with him after he said that he ducked that meeting and then he decided this morning to put more inflammatory comments about things about how he believes that people he knows many people say that they work so hard and why do people want to get money for free and other things that he so he doubled down on it more this morning so you know and it's to the point to where people are talking about hey can we find somebody to run against these guys when it's time for election that's what the point is getting to they gotta go keep in mind the nose is a single mother that works multiple jobs as well exactly [Music] does anyone have anything else they would like to add on this or any questions they'd like to ask no no i just have one quick question um so i i was there but i left like probably like very close to the end uh so did this all happen at the end or is this a response to the to the article it looks like it was a response to the article right yeah yeah um yeah the article that he hadn't replied to okay i just wanted to to make sure about that [Music] um i think it had been updated like there was an original version of the article posted so i saw that one like earlier friday and i guess it got updated later and that's when all the comments happened so yeah it got updated uh from just interviews and just more context that was brought in okay and he decided to make those comments after the article was published i think i updated and it got published and he decided to make those comments oh you know what bothers me about that is it's dangerous [Music] like if he had any clue about his job and what we're trying to do like you don't just call people out like that publicly it's it's he has no understanding of what people are dealing with here at all and that that's very worrisome to me well i i think it's worrisome because if if i'm understanding everybody correctly we have an elected official official who doesn't understand that even undocumented people still pay taxes and so people aren't getting money for free they're it's government funds and they're like everyone's contributing tax-wise so are you telling me there's really an elected official who doesn't understand that undocumented people pay taxes what was the amount um shared person that they said that the undocumented people pay in taxes in iowa yeah like what was that amount yeah we need to put that on the record because i think it was like it was millions of dollars i don't know more than more than the arpa funds point five million eighty two point five million dollars and this guy's supposed to be point three million in state taxes my question pertains to uh cities that uh are rebuking um ice ice raids and iowa city is one of them is not yes so did he not then violate like what the iowa city stance is on that by calling out a particular individual and putting them in danger i don't know county supervisor i don't does that yeah i don't know fit in his jurisdiction i wouldn't i i just i don't know i just this that's just the thought that came the second i heard that like i i just might hackles one up i guess you can say it because that's really like a public official to do that like you know in that capacity um [Music] it's scary i yeah i don't know about that i think that he's i think he's a human being and he's supposed to be a supervisor so i guess he can say what he wants to say the enforcement part is the part that they don't do yeah just just happy that right now uh nothing has happened to her and uh this is something where a lot of people did come around to support her but also nice to see you know how strong she is remaining in it because all i know is i've known a lot of undocumented people growing up and something like this would it would have scared the living hell out of them yeah if i don't know if there's any experts in the room on this but if we can find out if that was an okay thing for him to say like that in that capacity i would like to know um she did file a complaint with the human rights commission um soon too yeah and they're going to be having a meeting soon regarding that um but i i believe she went to the correct entity to file her complaint um and i think is that the complaint that's in the attachment yeah yeah yeah so that's that drastic oh okay i didn't see the attachment yeah so it's um it's it starts with the excluded uh workers ios so it's august 16th 2021 is what it stated um it says complaint of discrimination and public accommodation retaliation and intimidation against johnson county supervisor rod sullivan the county of johnson county and the city of iowa city right and so she she did the correct things as far as okay good i'm really glad to hear that and everything like that and there were a lot of people there supporting her which was really awesome to see and we have three trc members that stand out from that too as well so and i'm also afraid that she kind of being zeroed in for some some hit groups and this is by a public official it is worrisome and uh yeah i would really want to know what are the consequences yeah i think something like she was special i think maybe the best course of action um and i can see i'm friends with the fight or with the chair of the human rights commission but um i'm wondering if figuring out when that next meeting is and um just first tuesday the first tuesday yeah so finding out when that next meeting is and just being there in support and solidarity um is important and you know saying that this is really dangerous what he did there is a lot of you know crazy people in johnson county or whatever you know but i just i i think that what we should do moving forward with this is just support her um in what capacity we can with her complaint to the hrc yeah i just want to make sure we are cognizant of the fact that we don't put anyone in a position where they are um you know like put having their hands in two pots i don't know how to say it but stephanie i know that you are on the hrc i'm staff for staff yes you just want to make sure that we don't have too much between the two yeah it's just that i want to just like just call out for something good that she's very brave to come out and talk about something like that you know leaving out iowa city go to another town or city you know she can face deportation or she can face like you said these groups these hate groups these people she could face violence against her family so i command her for being brave and coming out and speaking about that um i i think she's definitely someone we're going to um even like do a more in-depth interview of and get her information get the copy of that complaint and um have it documented for uh uh well for for future generations because i i think that that's a flash point like we we need to kind of recognize that we have a an elected official or a government official who is doing that kind of nonsense on social media and um i'd like her to have a voice and yeah yeah and i would just answer that i would definitely definitely approve any vote to have her as one of our truths it's not a doubt with me yeah she could definitely be one of our troops yeah then the next topic uh sorry if there's any feedback from outside everyone um yeah i was like i don't know if anything yeah i have no idea what that is it's like wolves or uh yeah i don't know but be engaging crack a wolf engaging the immigrant communities well i can speak on that we just got done talking about that so we kind of that should be a short conversation you know person like we just got done talking about is people we need to engage yeah i just want to include um so other immigrant communities as well like african communities like that yeah but um i remember commissioner mitchell got those you talked to us in the past a little bit about this but i want to give you an opportunity to say anything else on this because remember you had invited me to something as well yeah i just want to say that uh and i've i've i've given you updates on this that through the african communities network in johnson county the board some time back allowed the team i think they're around seven africans to collect their their truths in line in a culturally specific and linguistic way and i am part of that team and because they've been following our meetings and even our last two sessions on the on budgets and as they meet and as they could they decide on the method to do that maybe a public forum where they do a focus groups there might be some need so right now they're wanting some clarification on what may happen on some things that they might need one of them is child care we do not want somebody not to come and speak their truth because they cannot get to the venue so things like that and because of that i i i thought we we would want another member not just me of the commission uh uh and making it easier for them and to attend on zoom and the chair did we had a conversation and he did agree that he is available this wednesday at 7 00 at 7 pm but if because schools are also reopening if that changes it could be adjusted but we have that as part of the engaging the immigrant communities that are going on because they are also as we can see as the example we've really talked on that they're really impacted too on on what we are trying we are working on uh making better and he i'm thinking even the other commissioner is about to attend the clarification session that would be good and that would make us free without it being ending up being a trc meeting and i think for now that is what i have on on the on the community understanding getting more and hearing from a different commissioner um i would just say yeah we need to reach out to all immigrant communities because i don't know if a few commissioners might remember you know we heard from people that was from the latino community but we also we went to some of those meetings we heard from people that were from the african that were from the african uh and they were african and it was one guy i don't remember his name i had to reach out to people to figure out his name but he talked about how he worked seven days a week he said he worked seven days a week at the university he said that he had to he didn't have any other choice so we needed to so then so reaching out to the people of any immigrant community we need to reach out to them all so without you i'll respond to that it's still commissioner to it again and you mentioned latinx and we have a big population and during the diversity uh businesses when we're attending there we engage with uh her name is a little bit elizabeth she's she's been a liaison in the in the indian cities called district and um i really celebrate that now she has gone to the point of starting a uh this is just my name for the cultural center unlatent yeah that's my name for it it has a name or on the paper paper drive plaza and so far they started with child care for the community which is cultural specific and linguistic specific and now they've moved on to teaching english i am excited it's growing the point i'm driving at is we had some conversation on how we she's one of the right people to help the trc get to the truth from the latinx community in iowa city yeah and yeah so with that i yield thank you yeah this one just wanted to have on here to just things for everyone to keep in mind but also um just have notes for anyone that is attending if they have any other ideas as well then the next up i'm gonna add i am having a conversation because we're having we have organizations that are refugee immigrants in johnson county and iowa city and i'm having a conversation with the coordinator of the refugee alliance in johnson county uh because the members had wanted and the board had wanted the trc to go to them to one of their meetings they meet every last tuesday of the month but they let me know that august 25th is taken and september but uh we are considering october whether a a number of us and and so far we've been doing so many and present to them and tell them [Music] they want to listen and hear because they are organizations in johnson county it's and they they work with refugees and immigrants in our city so and they find out the gaps and the redundancies so uh it's a it's a good avenue for us to engage with the to to engage with the immigrant communities without a yield thank you yeah i wrote that down as well for that possible for october in the refugee alliance johnson county and then the next one we do have is the youth engagement aspect so it's one on here so i know we have that education youth youth engagement subcommittee but i do know commissioner johnson you having the everything going on with your gym and the new gym coming in but also just with school starting i think it's um time to kind of just keep that in our minds of not wanting anything like these past few summers with the shootings and those aspects going on but also it's one thing to as i'm sure you're all aware talk about education reform youth engagement and stuff but it's another thing to really get them to the table and then i've been speaking with henry harper a lot who actually worked at city high and in terms of created youth program helped a lot of people i know really continue on in life making places and i was a community police liaison for a while now he's with the national development council but one suggestion he had that i really liked that i think we should think about in terms of not only engagement but also final recommendation is having kind of like a youth advisory council of some of these kids at these high schools to really bring them in and give them a voice saying hey what do you think needs to change for your education to actually make to make you care a little more or if it's not that what's going wrong at home that you think you could receive some support on or what are teachers missing things like that it's one thing to ask the adults but actually going to them really helps and then giving them that voice and that feeling that they are going to be supported if they do have these complaints so you know there's none of that gaslighting or any of that oh that happened years ago don't worry about it anymore if they're to finally say that as adults want to make sure that stuff is taken care of so i don't know if you guys saw the last two years instagram summer especially summer 2020 there are all these accounts popping up of students anonymously posting to this as like an iccsd one about all this racist stuff that have been happening to them at school and it was just it was heartbreaking to read well um here's my thing um i think we should and i usually don't like to pass things on or go over things but i think we should pass those from on because the woman who was here she was going to speak on that because i'm working with her on some things with restorative justice and talking to and i supposed to talk to some children this weekend we still haven't got the date land up but she you know she didn't feel well so i think we should talk about this put this on a different agenda and talk about that again because i've been talking about this stuff with her recently you know there's a child in my neighborhood who did something that he shouldn't have did you know with some fireworks and stuff like that so and and it terrified another child and so but i don't feel like that you know i feel like they're both going to be victims because the child that was terrified he's terrified and mad about the fireworks but the child that did the thing with the fireworks he's going to be villainized so i think we should just put this you know to talk about this again we we we can't let this come off you know i don't have a lot to say about it today because i'm still working on it but and i wish you could have stayed you know to say what she had to say but she didn't you know yeah i just wanted to chime in i really like the idea of youth advisory councils my organization uay and a lot of other organizations have done that in the past so i think it'd be a great thing to i really want to give our youth a voice definitely i want to move forward on that yeah and currently what commissioner de lady is saying uh the youth engagement we have it together with the education subcommittee so [Music] and i yeah the idea of i use advisory we can talk about that and how we go about it as definitely trc information because i that's my area of expertise yeah because i'm a licensed co-consultant in iowa and i train school counselors so i never want youth to be left behind and even as we engage immigrant communities even now in the team i make sure i am getting youth and i i want also to make sure i get a cross-section of youth to be on board and even right now with the groups that i'm working with i make sure that we they don't get forgotten and also uh or also being an educator in the school district either having worked there as a school counselor so being in touch with that and yeah but yeah i uh agree with commissioner harris we we we are not going to engage very much right here but it's a it's a direction that the education committee yeah together youth engagement with that subcommittee we can continue yeah we need we need that yeah yeah we definitely need to talk about this more because i think one of the people that you know cliff he you know he has a gym he you know he tries to help ut i got six kids under the age 20 to five years old so that can be very helpful in starting a committee to work on that especially if you have all the attributes and the facilities and the areas and the programs i think we should you definitely should be the head person on that so i think we should be i like the youth advisory council experience you have as well but yeah i mean sounds like all of you really have something to bring forward i just i think that this these are all great discussions and i think we should also just keep in mind what we're actually charged to do and not mix that with things that other organizations could be doing yeah and still do our collaborations no i agree i just wanted to make sure it's just put out there as an idea because it could be something that's put forth as a recommendation like when it's all said and done just keep keeping these things in mind it's one thing for us to recommend it but kind of need to delay that break that break work here and there like yeah and then um the next thing we do have on here is the correspondence so um i'm not sure that we had anything else on this aspect that we didn't already cover oh um so some other attachments in here are ones the electronic version will be better for this but the slides the american rescue plan act the local fiscal recovery fund so i got this off the johnson county website just to make sure it was in the public record just never know who's actually going to be looking at our agendas just want to make sure that they have this information available so it's not just saying arpa but they really see what all of this can go towards and then see that with the excluded workers fund plan act and then also the last thing was we had that just quick talk about the strategic planning stuff last time this isn't something you need to have memorized or anything but just wanted to have that outline attached for everyone's records and also just to have in the official record in case we ever need to come back to it or if it's something we can do to work with the facilitator group commissioner announcements anyone the only thing that i got to say right now is i just got um this is kind of important to me but i just got an email about a new mass mandate so it's from the city that is they just enacted that in iowa city right today right today grocery stores pharmacies hardware stores retail stores restaurants and bars public school buildings government builders university iowa buildings house of worship and it starts 11 59 thursday august 19th 2021. they just announced that just announced that mere tag how are they going to enforce the bar part but because this is iowa city and it's they're they're fully nothing's going to change okay but so i just want to stay this is not on the agenda okay yes oh yeah yeah my apologies my apologies yeah thank you we'll just let you know so that's okay um and then my i wasn't gonna make an announcement but i just have one thing if you guys have older relatives um or loved ones who are immunocompromised hiv is starting to give out the third dose i was able to get my immunocompromised partner in for a dose tomorrow so um if you are they have moderna and pfizer um so if you're eligible i would really encourage you um to go and get that and tell your loved ones um because this is the only way we're gonna be able to beat this thing and i'm so sick of you know the lack of compassion from people who um don't understand how important public health is so i went through the hyvee website i don't know if other pharmacies have it but i know hyvee does for sure and um i saw i believe all of the locations in iowa city were available locations for me to pick uh to get the third shot so um just wanted to point that out there tell everyone you know please thank you thank you anyone else have any announcements and stephanie do we have any staff announcements um no just to say that those items that i took notes on i will follow up as soon as i hear anything with each of you thanks motion to adjourn second cool all right are we good do we have to vote no and with that this meeting is adjourned thank you everyone