HomeMy WebLinkAboutTRC 20210916 auto transcript[Music]
so the land acknowledgement
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 musquake and saw
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 act of a colonization and
genocide that we cannot erase
we implore the iowa city community to
commit to understanding and addressing
these injustices as we work toward
equity restoration and reparations
we now have the vote to approve the
meeting minutes from the august 19th
2021 meeting
and
is there any way to amend for the
meeting minutes for the last meeting or
we just have to add that for
you mean to approve them from the
september 2nd meeting yes those will be
on the next agenda okay
um
does anyone have any issues with the
meeting minutes from the august 19th
meeting
um
i would like to
make a motion to approve the meeting
minutes from the august 19th 2021
meeting second
stephanie can you please get roll call
uh commissioner
yes commissioner daniel
yeah
commissioner dillard
yes
commissioner gathawa yes commissioner
harris yes commissioner johnson yes
commissioner rivera yes
and commissioner trevory
yes
and next we have the review of the
proposed agreement with currents and
west including reference checks
so for this one
this is part of these late handouts
[Music]
and
one thing i just really wanted to go
over first and foremost was
the scope of the services in the
consultant agreement
and also the timeline
but before that just wanted to bring up
that we have had some stakeholders in
the community that do want to join the
discussion
that are asking if there are any other
opportunities for public input
on this aspect
and also just more fears of
how much
uh say they are going to have in the
process
and that factor as well of if this is
going to be volunteer work or if this is
going to be work that there's any way
them or their organization where they're
coming from can be compensated for
uh so just wanted to open the discussion
in terms of that if any of you have
heard anything else such as that if
like we wanted to allow for space for
any more public comment on this aspect
or public comment at this time
i'd welcome public comment
atsu as well
is there anyone
in the zoom version or here
tonight that would like to make any
extra comment on that
then
um i will make
just a comment um just something that i
heard you say
um people i think we should have public
input because
i saw other organizations
unnamed at this point but in iowa city
and they have
facilitators and the facilities have
just kind of
set up the format of the meeting and
they don't really have control over it
and
it's been some things that happened in
the past couple weeks was certain groups
didn't like the format that the
facilitator had set up
but the
group that the facilitator was
representing really didn't have a say of
how the format was so i kind of agree
with the concerns of how much sway they
will hold
so
um
just wanted to quickly read just
some of the aspects of it so we could at
least have it on the record
um
so for the convening and understanding
that first task some of the things that
jump out again are just the developing
the strategy agenda and materials for
the task force kickoff meeting
so that kickoff meeting would be with
the city of iowa staff team
trc chair and vice chair
one-on-one interviews with trc members
and selected city staff council members
developing an overall work plan and
meeting schedule
and then they would do weekly virtual
coordination with the city staff team
one question i just again have on that
for the city is i do remember them
talking about having more city staff
available for us which is one thing just
haven't seen so
um
we do have uh
teresa sorry i can't remember your last
name
uh miss miss vanatar has now been
joining us these last few meetings but i
just not clear on whether it's here for
this process or they do they have you
with us going forward
okay just procurement
yeah so
um that's one thing that we just still
need to clear up with the city as well
because um in terms of correspondence
that
would be picking up a lot more
and just wary of the fact that
we do have one dedicated staff member
and don't want to continue just throwing
all of that correspondence her way
because otherwise if it doesn't happen
that way then that then falls on us to
follow up on everything
that next aspect of the designing the
fact-finding truth-telling
reconciliation process
so interviews being conducted phone
video conference etc
uh reporting on findings to trc drafting
the process design
and i want to put that keyword on what i
keep seeing here isn't like drafting and
assisting
so it just seems to me still that
in any part of the process there still
needs to be
you know consent from us or a vote from
us on how that happens
so one thing i would just like to make
sure that we do
if we are to agree on
on this current proposal
is that we are sure to
not only ask for public comment
for each of these items but to actively
seek it and to continue asking people in
the public to come out
talking more about the trc
maybe writing op-eds and things of that
nature
i know i do plan to
write another one for next week
but that public
just input from us is just going to be
very important to making sure we
actually have that public input early
rather than later because whatever comes
into the process early is really going
to define everything else that happens
for the next part
assisting with coordinating the
logistics in terms of the fact-finding
truth-telling public process
training uh the conservation corps
prepare public facing materials to
assist attendees with participation
so one thing i found with the reference
that i spoke to was that um
actively sought out dr larry larry
schuler uh in the city of austin in
terms of some issues that they'd been
having down there and
they had a lot of problems with having
more public input on things that the
city was doing and he brought him in to
task him essentially with
making sure the public wanted to have a
stake in the conversations
and that's one thing that i was one
happy to hear but two that
their correspondence started years ago
and they do still speak today
and this was mr doug matthews
and he was also polite enough to want to
you know stay in touch with us in terms
of how things are going
so just wanted to make sure to include
that so that was on the record and then
um
determining appropriate roles for trc
members kearns and west team city staff
personnel at in-person events
so it seems that every part that's
drafted in here
it's thought out in terms of not just
drafting the materials but making sure
that we do know that there's going to be
roles that we do have to play at these
events and it's not just setting it up
and
hoping for the best
but again i just keep seeing that iowa
city staff will assist at events with
agreed-upon tasks
and just the troubling part again is
there's a lot of stuff that talks about
staff helping
and just still have yet to hear from the
city on that actual staff assistance
which again is why those two original
budgets had those payments to community
organizers and community helpers
so i think it's been six weeks now since
we heard about meeting more city staff
and
still know nothing on it
i guess i'm just saying all this to say
that
while i do
want to proceed forward today
i am having a hard time doing that and
knowing that they're going to be ready
to start from day one
but we still do not know
what the city is going to do from day
one
we still don't know
if they're actually going to be giving
us more staff
and that's the main thing for me
because until that happens it comes down
to having those community helpers those
community
assistants
and we need a budget item in front of
them to make sure that those people are
paid because if they're doing work that
the city would otherwise pay someone for
they shouldn't be doing it for free
again but
that's all i have for now if anyone else
has anything they'd like to add
that
this is commissioner
that last point where
you are expressing your
hesitance
on
not being clear as far as the city is
concerned
um
it's a
it's resonating with when i
i
i talked to
mr
beret
as one of the references for this uh
note on that i
provided a
summary of that discussion
and one of the things he said when they
got kansan west
and also and in particular because they
were working with
doctors called the doctor scholar
uh
he was saying the that what
the chair has said resonates very much
with what mr beret said that
when they were
seeking him or seeking them
it's because they were feeling
that
their priorities were not together with
the executive they had different
priorities
and it's also sounding a sieve
from what the chair
is talking about which i also
personally i also feel and have
expressed publicly
that
are we on the same path because the city
council does say this but is it really
for that
so
and when they got kansa and west
they were able to move from
the kind of starkness they were in
getting it's as if they were able to
pull out
the executives
uh priorities
and then theirs
they were all clarified
so
i
i that's one of the points i loved when
i was discussing that because it
captured
where we were
and they
and that they were able to get that and
start moving
yeah and they're still in the process
that made them higher
khans and west and in particular
yeah again like i don't want anyone to
feel like i'm trying to stall or
anything but it's just again just seeing
the stuff iowa city staff assist with
this distribute to media social media
and this and that and i just personally
do not feel comfortable adding all of
that load onto one person
especially knowing that stephanie is
also involved in
other parts of
uh commissions
it's like that is just
not fair at all
and
that again just comes back to all of us
taking it on and
again everyone has jobs things to do
families etc
and that again comes down to that piece
of
them continually saying against
compensation against compensation
against compensation
and this is the trouble i keep having
with
us not being heard on the sense of
if people aren't brought in to help us
do it then we have to do it in the
nature of the work and how intensive it
is
seeing this laid out and from hearing
from the references it just shows
that if that staff backing is not there
if and if that community backing is also
not brought in with it
it cannot be a success
there's so much follow-up that's
involved
and seeing the timeline here as well
of them still wanting to complete by
june 30th that that original date to get
that report in
that squeezes things in in even further
i'm just a personal position right now
where
i want to go to that city council
meeting on tuesday
and read this and
just take them
to task publicly on that aspect because
it's honestly just
i can't take the stalling anymore it's
it's annoying
we shouldn't be told a whole six seven
weeks ago that they want to provide more
city staff more city staff should be
provided that
also cannot be compensated
um
and then had some people people in the
public saying that you don't do enough
like not thinking that we do enough and
now seeing this if it's not the staff
then it's us taking it all on so again
literally does become another job
i personally right now cannot add
another job
because if that happens especially with
this being unpaid
that would force me to spend less time
on things i could actually
get paid for help pay
bills at home
pay off student loans etc things such as
that
it's that's just not right
and when you when you're saying when
you're talking to the references
like me
one of the other things that mr
beret said is that
what was good about working with them
and especially
because they mainly work with dr schuler
is that he is very knowledgeable of how
local government works like you're
saying the the they can see and how it
ought to be
for
i mean for
some of us that's not our area it's not
my area of expertise
so and how it works and sometimes even
the politics of it
no
that's yeah so it was good to hear from
them and for them it was a benefit
with that knowledge and how to proceed
and they became unstuck and started
moving and laying the groundwork
once they hired them and even when
you're talking about the community
uh another strength from dr schuler
is drawing out people and drawing
on members
and understanding even the scope of
their needs
and
and drawing other people to come and
participate and understand their
concerns
yeah
yeah so
i kind of feel the same sentiment that
mohammed feels um
just not sure about this it doesn't make
sense staff no you can't be sand
staffing plural
because we don't have that
and so
and another thing is
the public comment part
that can't be limited at all
i'm i'm going to re i'm letting it know
right now on the record if a facilitator
comes in and wants to limit public
comment you know we're not going to have
public comment for three hours but
shout out to the limited in the ways
that i saw other facilitators do you
know for example i went to a meeting
that was an hour and a half
and they gave 15 minutes of public
comment that's unacceptable so i'm
letting it be known that i'm going to
oppose if public comment is not involved
in this whole process
i think what i want to do but again
need input from all of you on this is
i want to talk to as many people in the
community as possible to try to get them
to the city council's meeting on tuesday
chair muhammad um daphne's had her hand
up for a while and i
was
hi thank you
might just have to talk loud
commissioner daniel oh okay
um
so i i don't necessarily want to
to think that we were intentionally
the trc was intentionally set up to fail
i think circumstances have put us in a
position where
failure is
imminent without support
and that that includes staff and that
includes a facilitator
and
at some point if we're not getting the
support that we need from the city and
from the community maybe we need to
go back to city council and just say we
don't think iowa city is ready for trc
we don't think the community is in a
place
where
we
yeah
um i
i don't want to think
that there were bad intentions behind
this i really from the bottom of my
heart think that people had good
intentions
when they established the trc through
that resolution but
you know
you know what they say about good
intentions and what certain roads are
paved with and i'm i'm wondering if
that's kind of where we're heading
um
and with that i yield
i'd like to thank everyone for their
comments thus far i think it's
all really important things to think
about i
am very encouraged that there is sort of
a unanimous sense that i'm getting from
all of us that
central to our work is hearing from
members of the public and including them
in our on in our processes right and
even in this discussion right there's so
much
um
uncertainty about how to move forward
because we are so sensitive to wanting
people to tell us how to do our jobs
well and i think that we're setting
ourselves up with that posture
to to do well
we've also seen over the course of the
last eight months with this trc is that
the whole thing is a dynamic process
and there's
room for
change and revision um
and we are constantly being pulled by
sort of a sense of urgency while also
sort of realizing that we're also
limited by the breaks of being a
government body um
and so i don't think that we're
necessarily at risk of
this
thing getting out of hand
if we say let's go ahead and move
forward
because one i think
uh
decisions do come through the trc
ultimately and not through the
facilitator
um
i
i hear the concern about um
uh providing too much
work on top of
everything that we're already doing with
the trc but i think this agreement and
the things that we heard from their
presentation
two weeks ago represents an offer an
opportunity to offload um
a lot of the work that you chair and our
vice chair have been doing thus far so
that you we can have a little bit more
time and energy to sort of act um be
activists in the ways that we want to
and still come together and make some
decisions while moving forward with the
truth-telling process
there's been a lot of
[Music]
bad communication from city council to
us and i think we have every right to be
to be reactive
to that and be discouraged in a lot of
ways
but
um i think in between a lot of
sort of the
the tension um that there's been
i think city council just is like
wanting some deliverables from us based
on the the the mandates that they've the
charges that they've given the trc and
if we're saying that you know this
agreement and um
everything that we need to support this
agreement including extra staff
um is what we need in order to go about
our fact-finding as our next step
then
then that might actually be
encouraging to them
and that that might allow them to sort
of see us as beginning to do our work
and they might be
more ready to accept some of the
recommendations that we have moving
forward
um so i
um want us to keep thinking about these
things
as as we continue to do our work and
carry out the process the processes that
we have but i don't think that
we should
delay
anything
without a yield
just want to check in case anyone else
this is vice chair ali
i just wanted to say that
commissioner rivera
very eloquently
worded i think the what i was thinking
i truly have
faith
and i really think that this can work
and
i just wanted to kind of second and
agree on that
i also think it can work just my fear is
just still in just that aspect of
being told we'll get this being told we
need this from them and then having just
so little movement
i it's like yeah i understand it's it's
government but
like they just worked on a budget and
they know who they have available for
staff and they have so many people on
staff to tell them and correspond with
like
it's it's something that just needs to
be taken care of very very soon
i i don't
i don't think it should be this hard for
them to find even one person
to to be added permanently to assist
if not two
but it was even like it was even clear
in that uh proposal that they originally
gave that
staff
added staff would be needed for one but
especially that community input
and already hearing from some people in
the community of yeah we want to be a
part of that original process of
creating
everything but
when it comes down to how it all shakes
out
are we just going to be a part of the
process the whole way through
helping with all these other aspects
and
still again doing it for free
chair uh this is one going to do again
um i'm wondering whether what i'm
hearing from you it's giving me a case
of
what came for what should come first the
chicken or the egg
so
do we
work with the city and demand staff
before we move forward
with the with the decision on kansas and
west
or do we move forward with that
and then
working with them
get additional stuff
uh
i don't know whether that's the sense
i'm getting
and if that is so
i
will
uh and
when i was sharing what i got from
talking to the reference
is
if we moved forward because even then
they were stuck
it helped
to navigate that stuckness that's the
one that i'm using for us and for both
cases
which also means that
it's also
agreeing with the commissioner rivera
and also commissioner ali
that it will help us versus because i'm
feeling they're the option of waiting
for us to work out and because we've
really laid that and really requested
the council publicly i remember
personally publicly during our work
session with the budget saying can we
know the other commissions on boards
city boards what support do they have
and who do we have
and
commissioner daniels has come back and
said it's not
intentional
that this ad hoc commission
uh
it's kind of like they were not ready
for it but it wasn't intentional so
again going back
do we wait and work that out
or do we move forward
and
work it out and get help
in getting to that point
with that i yelled and hoping i didn't
confuse the issue more than
yeah
i yelled johnson i'm sorry
christian
i just i want to know really where do
they expect us to be at this point in
time right now what exactly is
where where
are our ex
expectations to supposed to be
at this moment of
how long you've been working
like without staff without experience
without
all i mean i just i'm a little confused
at it all now at this point like uh we
only get to meet
once a month
and in that process we're expected to
jump leaps and bounds with no experience
whatsoever
no staff i i'm just confused by it i i
just don't understand it does to me feel
like it's set up to fail it it just
simply does it sounds like it sounds
great to say and now that everything is
kind of might have died down in certain
aspects it's like okay well we're just
gonna brush this under the carpet and
move right on along
i i don't get it i think i i personally
think the truth and reconciliation
commission should be permanent i feel
like we should have staff i feel like
we should rotate
as we step off somebody else sets up
there's always truth there's always
reconciliation there's
it just is what it is i'm i'm just
confused that where we need to be right
now
you uh do we have a clear-cut answer
that's one of the reasons why i was
asking before where are we
expected to be
all right that's just my own personal
one
um so
i got a few more things um
it's been mentioned in this conversation
that the um city of iowa city may not be
ready for a trc well
the way that i would think of it is the
government of iowa city is not ready for
crc
i've got comments from people and it's
so many people in the public that are
eager
to speak out
and i also
feel like that i want to move forward
with this too like i don't want to stall
but if we move forward are we going to
get those staff
you know like we're moving forward but
they're not moving forward because
they're worried about
different things
you know
are we going to get the staff when we
move forward or we're going to be left
like was already described and turned
into a whole nother job that i can't
afford to do you know a lot not
not
not
for free i definitely couldn't afford to
do that because you know just like
people talk about they have expenses and
things like that
um i have children mortgage
kids about to go to college so i you
know i can't afford to do a whole nother
job when we need those staff
and as far as making the
trc permanent
i mean if they're not going to give us
you know
any
um
stipend then we could be permanent like
the other commissions and
and
but because other commissions don't have
a mandate they don't have a time frame
so if you're gonna make us have a time
frame
and not give us a stipend how about
change that around and make us permanent
and i like the idea you know some people
may like rotate in and out or
have other obligations and but it's
permanent
with that idea
commission commissioner elise cut her
hand up for a while okay hit him
can you guys hear me
talk just a little louder
um so this is kind of a clarification
question first off
um if we approve this do we does that
mean that we're agreeing with everything
that's on this contract or do we have
clarification with kearns and west after
and
be are we able to amend it
um
vice chair did you hear that response
from teresa
not at all
okay she said we can't amend it but um
they'd have to agree
okay so we would be able to have that
conversation with them
after
even even if we decide to send it to
send the recommendation to council we
would be able to have that conversation
with them after
but they have to agree as well to the
amendments
the the contract i mean
if the contract is signed
then
you know you would follow the dictates
of the contract
what theresa said was is that
is there potential to amend the contract
at some point during its duration that
answer is yes assuming that kearns and
west is agreeable to that and then i
would presume it would have to go in
front of the
city council again
so then my question is
would we need to
have the like would it have been
probably ideal to have this conversation
with kearns and west
regarding the issues that we might have
with the things that they said or am i
misunderstanding kind of where
some people's issues are with these um
uh
i mean the things that i've heard in
this discussion and it seems that their
the concerns are
with the city in terms of
support
and staffing
i mean
so i think it's also important to
you know especially if you have paid
attention to city council meetings in
the last you know year
maybe two years they have this weird
affinity for consultants so i think that
it actually might be helpful to have
someone like kearns and west who
can
you know speak bureaucratically like on
our behalf
um i
i really think that it would be more of
a benefit rather than anything um
detrimental to this
commission
but i am also
um
i i also understand what people's issues
are with these with the contract so
and with that i yield
to me it's just more of like just the
timeline in itself like just that task
three of the fact fact-finding
truth-telling public process
like them wanting to complete it by the
end of february
and like sitting here of at this point
they'd probably start beginning of
october or so and then that that issue
of the staff community input and
everything
it's like if it takes them too long to
get staff like to assist
then again it's everything else packed
in on all of us
until
like we get through that period
of either more staff coming in
getting a budget item passed alongside
kerns and west and the question becomes
how long does that take with the city
you know like are they going to properly
prioritize it does it take
them two three four meetings and finally
be like all right listen to your
consultants we'll do this
because the longer they take
the harder it is to abide by these
timeline guidelines they're wanting
i mean you're talking the best that we
can
right i don't think that we need to
keep acting from a place of reactivity
and discouragement i think that we need
to keep leading with our best foot
forward and right now this is our best
foot forward
i think when we get down to the
logistics
having a facilitator can benefit us in
two ways one is that after we begin our
like really nitty gritty work with them
we can get a very clear understanding of
what roles as an extra staff could be
because then we'll have more of an
understanding of exactly where those
boundaries of their responsibilities our
responsibilities and these other
responsibilities might fall and that
argument will come
i think will be presented to the city
council much um
uh much more realized and they would be
i think more prone to accepting that
recommendation that we hire additional
staff for extra labor
um the other thing is that i agree with
the point that vice chair made which is
that at this point we have bad
relationships with city council and
that's why a facilitator like kearns and
west can mediate some of the discussions
so that they can really package some of
the concerns
and
and
emotions that we have in a way that the
city council can best hear it and still
respond in a productive manner because i
think that we've done a really good job
with city council are expressing
ourselves honestly and that's been
absolutely needed chair you've done a
fantastic job at that however
city council isn't good at hearing
the way that we want to hear what the
way that we want to say things and i
think for that reason a facilitator is
necessary
um and so moving forward with this i
think is the
first step that needs to go forward it's
i i said a lot of stuff right now that
i'm not happy with
right um
i don't love this situation that we're
in
but i want to move forward i want to do
the work of the trc
yeah
question has the city council ever
maybe i've missed it or i'm not thinking
of it at the time have they ever
recommended how much money they wanted
us to spend
no i've been asking them since like
march february or march so we ask
all right we ask we don't get a response
and then when we come up with something
then it's still not good enough how does
this work it's
i've never had more clarification than
there's been a million dollars set aside
to last summer
and that part of that is allocated to
what we need to tell them what we need
as soon as we ask for it then all of a
sudden
not really how does that work i don't
know um
yeah yeah and and that's where we are
thinking that those concerns
uh because we've been expressing them
again and again and my word for this i'm
using stuck and it resonates with where
mr bray and
their
their
management was
when they got kansa and west
and
uh
i would rather we move forward
and they will help us get and stuck like
they were helped
and they
and they have no reservation continuing
to work with kansa and west
and i am thinking
moving forward is better than being
where we have been for
for some time now
because we really i also personally
wouldn't want i love this work
and it's part of the work that i also do
even professionally
so
some of us really do not have a choice
especially in equity work
because it's even it becomes even
personal so even if
i'm not
part of trc
wherever i am because i'm on the wrong
end of it me and those that are around
me and our allies
not just here but in the world and even
as i sit here there's a lot of people
even outside of the u.s who follow this
commission
so
that being said
i
again i would i would go for us moving
forward
than
being where we are because what i keep
using is just being stuck
and kind of just floundering
yeah and i also read more on khans and
west and what they've done i'm really
right now my i raise even my voice
because i'm excited at seeing what
they've done
yeah
so i would choose to go forward
than being where we are or going back
and even if it's not for this commission
like i said this water continues and
i don't even want to be under any
pressure that there are deadlines that
there it's uh
it's
we we do our bit
and the best that we can
yeah and we get we get the help
that we can
and if our time is up
we will have added and actually even
this work it's historical i've been in
the city since 2002
and even when you look around in other
towns there are also other people who
are watching even as i was listening to
mr beret even before he had been reading
on us and following on us on iowa city
so we are moving in it depends on how
you measure success even having those
difficult conversations
uh commissioner rivera has even said
we have said very difficult things and
even saying that even to the lack of
government
and like i said some of us that's not
our expertise either in experience or in
education but we say it anyway
and even learning even to be in such
meetings and being trusted by the
communities and the people that are
around us so with those very many words
i feel moving forward
and not just feeling
it's even with talking to those who have
what with khans and west
and the reading that i've been doing on
them and the work that they do when
they're not doing equity work
uh
it made me feel
wanting to move forward
than what we have right now
um so
i would agree as well that we do that we
need to move forward
but if we move forward i think that one
of the first things we should have them
address
is the problems in the gap and the
things that we have with the city
because if we have
all of these times that need that things
need to be done by and these deadlines
well the issues whether it's stipends
not having enough staff and things like
that those things need to be addressed
first
um
so we can move forward because we got we
are running out of time
so we need we can't stay in these
we need them to help us address that
first
um
as long as i've been on the um
the um
trc this is one of the most difficult
votes that i'm going to make
that i have to make
because in my mind you know it's kind of
it's kind of like a common sense thing
um
these guys are gonna get close to two
hundred thousand dollars we don't have
staff
and we do extra work because we don't
have staff and we get zero so the vote
that you're taking
is to give someone two hundred thousand
dollars get no staff that we know of yet
and we don't get anything with that on
the yield so think about that before you
you know
it's a difficult vote
yeah um i'm comfortable with it as it's
written but
yeah one thing i would like to have is a
contingency of
sometime in these next 30 days
think of a way to make
like a well thought out recommendation
to the city that this does not remain a
one-time commission
because there is no way
that i'm walking away from this
letting people that have such a low
turnout in their own elections for
getting their positions and then get to
keep that position for five years
decide whether or not that these
recommendations
that are given at the end of this
become part of what they do without
another trc having the ability to step
in and say something
so commissioner daniel has had her hand
raised
so
i i understand being optimistic
i i also think there's room here for
being realistic
and
what they
what we have been
um
we need to do something
a number of steps we need to take
before we can start really
diving into
the truth
telling truth collecting
part of our work and that really is the
most important part of what the truth
and reconciliation commission is going
to do
and i for one i feel like the community
deserves more than two or three months
two of those months being the month of
thanksgiving and the month of christmas
and
doing that and thinking that we are
gonna get
like truths from people who really have
been waiting they've been waiting to
tell their truth and we are rushing
through this and i think the worst thing
you can do to someone who's brave enough
to stand up and talk about their truths
is to rush them through it you might as
well not even be listening and so i
think it's we need to be realistic if we
have deadlines
those deadlines may have to be pushed
back to actually do justice to what this
commission is and to do justice to this
community
and with that i yield
pretty clear
make sure we have goals set and we want
to make sure we have them
accomplished but at the same time this
is a very very touchy situation that
needs to be taken care of and for that
a deadline
of a
short window
would this item is this already
on the table for the city's next meeting
uh do you happen to have the the warding
structure of the agenda item
like have they not released it yet
it will it's it it is on the
council agenda but depending on
tonight's meeting
you know it will either be up for them
to consider it or it could be you know
pulled entirely
this is commissioner dillard i've been
really quiet because i've just been
listening to everyone um i really
appreciate everyone's
thoughts on on this matter and i feel
really torn
um just hearing both sides i feel very
strongly as i always do that we do
owe our community
to move forward and have a sense of
optimism while we do have this sense of
pessimism
because of what we've been through
i do feel
also i've been thinking the same thing
about what commissioner daniel's been
that this is not enough time
to do what we need to get done we're
going to be doing the most important
part during the winter months who's
going to be able to do that
um
but i also feel that like as everyone
else has said that we do need to put our
best foot forward and if they asked us
to do this we need to show up and do it
and say we're doing what we need to do
because people are depending on us we
were chosen to be the voices of this and
obviously we want as much public opinion
as possible
and i i wholeheartedly agree with that
but i think um
i i go back and forth it's a disservice
on both sides if we aren't at least
putting our doing what we we need to do
um
out there
so yes that's my thoughts on that
yeah so i think i'm ready to move
forward too because i kind of agree with
you um it was just mentioned that
there's a lot of people waiting to tell
the truth so i think that
um just the stalling and waiting around
is not about us doing it
getting us more staff and other things
that we talked about could have been
handled a long time ago shouldn't have
to wait six weeks
and things like that because
it makes me personally feel
you know just kind of messed up because
it's people that i know that want to
tell truth and i told them months ago
like hey
maybe you know
we always have to go through and pick
the people that we want to hear from
about their shoes but i told them months
ago like hey i might get you a chance to
come and tell your truth but because of
all this stuff and stalling these people
are just waiting around and then just
that's like what was mentioned too i
don't want these these people to be
rushed through telling the truth because
that's not the way to go
and that seems to be a trend around iowa
city and the government they rush people
to make their comments so i don't want
that to be i want people to be able to
be heard because that's the most
important thing um
that we have in this community to hear
from the people
do we want to continue discussion or do
we want to move on to the vote i just
have one question on tuesday where
are we presenting or are we just are
they um just discussing and are we
allowed to talk
yeah you would be allowed to talk okay
they'll ask for
a quick question we're all going to be
there tuesday or most of us or some of
us or how's that working oh there's no
way i'm missing that yeah
yeah not everyone has to be but yeah i
know there's no way i'm missing that
i'd like to respond quickly to something
that commissioner daniel had mentioned
um
in terms of like the time crunch that
we're under it's certainly not ideal and
i agree that we really need to
have the space to do our job well
we also have to kind of currently
operate under the assumption that none
of us are doing this work past june 30th
because right now no one's appointed us
past that point and so if
that time crunch if these deadlines that
are being imposed on us are fine are
final then we should
do as much as we can with the time that
we have i agree that um i'd like to
request more time for us to do this work
um
but we also have to carry forward the
possibility that that that won't be
granted
but i thank you for your comments
um
i just got one last thing as well
um if we ask for more time
i think we're justified in that um
because of all the disruptions that we
had that wasted time in the beginning
we are definitely justified in asking
for more time because we could have been
had a facilitator but
we could have been had a budget but
um we had to change the whole
look of our commission so that also
slowed us down which was i think was for
the best that we changed out look
um
so i think we're justified and actually
for more time
we wanted to move on to the vote on
agenda item number six
just before that
i uh
oh mishna hurries and also
[Music]
uh some of the
i don't feel we were wasting time
and all of us in our lives and even
as we work we do go on assessing
situations
so that we can make decisions and then
work and collect information
so
and it's there
it's laying that groundwork
it usually takes a lot of time
but once you have laid it
the collection
is usually
easier once the
groundwork is done and they
the making decision based on it and
looked at it at what you collected so
uh a lot of the things we have been
doing even the tassels with the city
council they were necessary
and from both ends it's courageous work
and
a lot of us here have been in equity
work
it's never easy a lot of times they're
tears and we have even
shared tears in these meetings
because it is tough work and it takes at
all
emotionally
so
it isn't really
wasting time
so it is just that
groundwork and as we say moving forward
we do
our best and we give it what we can
and if we don't get any more time to
continue then we leave it
for the next person
to continue
there
and without a yield
chair before we make a vote can i
request that we open up to public
comment one more time to see if they
haven't yet definitely wanted to do that
um do we have anyone from the public
that would like to make a comment on
this or i mean any input is welcome
um oh you just have to use mike
i guess i definitely agree with your
concern about having enough time
for community members to come forward
and be heard
and it is really
the coldest time if we have some of
those super duper cold times you know
the polar vortex
people aren't going
anywhere and you've got people for whom
getting out in child care is an issue
i just think that's
on so many levels that is your work
that's what you've been saying so i'm
just saying it back to you not like i
know something you don't know
so i just support you with that concern
and seeing what can be done
to allow for more time
thank you thank you for your work and
your deliberation and your commitment
thank you thank you thank you thank you
our name
um
you do have a member of the public with
the hand raised i believe
was hoping this thank you
uh
can everyone hear me okay i just want to
make sure before i yes okay
um so my comments so i'm nicholas tyson
by the way um long-time resident of the
area so to speak i currently live in
coralville but i lived in iowa city for
a very long time
um
okay so i should preface this by saying
my comments
are in the context of someone who has
been paying attention to
city government and local politics for a
very very very very long time
and so the point that i want to make is
that a city council is trying to wait
you out
and what i mean by that is that that's
not necessarily like a good thing or a
bad thing
it's that from my perspective as someone
who is you know has whose political
ideology is extremely left-wing
the reason why it seemed like
the city created the trc in the first
place was to essentially do something
that responded to the fervor of the
protest movement you know last year
and
ifr for instance the iowa freedom
writers were intimately involved in the
process of creating the trc became very
frustrated with it
and even you know after some time did
their own thing and you know now that's
on hiatus
but
at the end of the day for city council
like the purpose of the trc has already
been served
so
what i would suggest to all of you is to
go
like actually just be bolder like do
what you want to do in other words i
on the one hand i think it's useful to
try and navigate the politics of how
city council works and also the fact
that like
they are pretty easy to bully into doing
what you want them to do if you're more
vocal and more forthright about things
but
if this trc is going to get any traction
within the broader community then you
all need to be like i don't know i i
guess i just want you all to be
not angrier but more like
uh
in people's faces about this
and that's not just counsel but that's
also like go to don't just go to council
also go to all of the various local
interest groups go to the affordable
housing coalition go to the housing
trust go to like
even go to you know bvp go go to all of
the various groups that exist go to sdna
and say like hey we need you on board
and if you're not going to be on board
at least like tell people what we're
doing why it's important and i realize
that that puts a lot more work on your
shoulders
but
if you don't
then this will all fail simply because
city council will wear you down in other
words what will happen is like you'll
keep submitting budgets to them and
they'll be like well why are you going
to do this you've already seen this
you've already you've already submitted
a budget to them in which they tried to
pick it apart for completely arbitrary
reasons
so if you don't go bold and if you don't
do it now
then i don't know i i am afraid that
this will die a slow death
and i think that would be horrible and
the reason why i think it's horrible is
sorry i know that i'm taking a lot of
time but i don't know how many of you
are familiar with this but back and i
think it was 2012
there was this play that was put on
called mayberry in fact i know for a
fact that one of the commission members
even performed in mayberry
what was mayberry mayberry was this play
that gathered a bunch of testimony from
people all throughout the community and
it was an attempt to try and have an
actual racial reckoning especially
around the whole issue of i mean i know
you're all familiar probably familiar
with the phrase like chicago people
and the thing is it was really gut
wrenching it was an amazing performance
it was put on by um the working group
theater and
there was so much positive feedback in
the community everyone loved it a lot of
great conversations happened and then
nothing happened
and so the thing is
that the conversations aren't really
enough like the truth telling
it has happened in the past and it's
happened in a way that has been really
powerful and moving and then it goes
nowhere and so the thing is
and i'm sort of riffing here so
apologies if this doesn't make sense but
there has to be a political
confrontation at some point and if that
means the trc going against the city and
saying like
hey
like this is [__]
like you are all engaging in straight
straight up [__]right now and go to
counsel with that go to the city like
name names if you don't want to do that
i can understand why
but that's just my perspective in terms
of like seeing how things have been
going like i get so mad because so
little changes and it gets worse and
worse and worse every single year
sorry i'm a little emotional about this
and like and this is coming from just
like some random white guy just some
stupid white guy like i see this and it
makes me furious
and i really really want you to go bold
like go hard or go home i guess is the
way i would put it because
i mean approve the contract don't
approve the contract i don't really
think it matters either way because i
think the real struggle the real battle
is in sort of like taking all of these
things that have sort of been like
behind the scenes with council behind
the scenes with city staff and being
more open about them and i'm going to
stop rambling thank you for letting me
speak
thank you thank you thank you
are we ready to vote then agenda item
number six
[Music]
send out item number six vote on whether
to recommend to the city council to
enter into agreement with kearns and
west um stephanie do we need to put a
motion forward on this then because it's
the
the name of
i'm not sure i understand your question
um i just wasn't sure just because this
was the name of the agenda item if we
need to put a motion forward or if
if we just start with it
well you can i mean usually you would do
a motion get a second open it up for
discussion and then
take a vote on the motion okay
in that case um
making a motion to recommend to the city
council to enter into an agreement with
kearns and west
i am end
just
to say enter into agreement based on the
consultant agreement in our late pack
and handouts
um what was that can can we amend the
motion to
say enter into an agreement based on the
consultant agreement that we're
reviewing tonight
i just want to clarify on the process
for that under um so because there was
already a second
do we just have to rescind or do we have
to vote first on
the one that was second to none i i
think you can amend the motion but i'm
the the agreement that you're looking at
currently
would be the agreement that would be
in the council packet if you don't make
any changes tonight so i mean there
wouldn't be it's the same okay agreement
i um revoke my suggested amendment oh no
no good clarification
and if you notice kearns and west has
actually signed it so
their their signatures on it so
if there were any amendments then you
know you'd have to go back to the
process of
getting their input on any amendments
and then
getting their signature again
um
is there any other discussion anyone
want to have for the vote
in that case stephanie can you please
get a roll call
commissioner ali
yes
daniel
yeah
commissioner
yes
commissioner gathawa yes
commissioner harris
yes
commissioner johnson yes commissioner
rivera yes
and commissioner treyore
yes
pass is 8-0
exciting
so in terms of the next steps uh for
agenda item number seven just because it
doesn't um it's not really specific
what exactly can we say during this
agenda item uh the next steps are in
relation to
um what happens
kind of after the is assuming if the
council signs it
the agreement or agrees to
enter into the agreement is a better way
to phrase that what would kind of be the
next step so that
everyone's clear and that's another
reason why theresa's here so that she
can explain that
okay
thank you
[Music]
um
so once they
let's just say they approve it
we'll just go ahead and issue a purchase
order once once i get the proper
documents
and then you guys are free
to take it and run
and that's going to take like a couple
days
probably a couple days for me to get
everything together
and um
so you could start as soon as next
friday we allowed to speak to them at
all until that point
no
okay
really okay until the final it has to go
through me
okay
well the only thing i would say about
next steps is something i mentioned
earlier
we need to get the differences that we
have resolved so we can just go full
speed ahead just in case we don't get no
extension of our day we need to get the
things resolved like where's our staff
at because the contract mentioned staff
so
that needs to be resolved immediately
and that'll be my thing in the next
steps instead of
and then of course when it's time to go
then we start getting these truths to be
told as well but with the differences
it's going to cause you know
the same arguments back and forth like
where's our staff was we need to move
past that it's time to tell the truth
so we need to get that out the way
just in terms of calendar um
so in october we're switching to
meeting still twice a month until we
change that on the second and fourth
thursdays of each month
but if we keep going then our next
meeting will be thursday september 30th
um i think
if the agreement um is approved then
it'll just be important for us to really
have a
big meeting with kearns and west again
and to sort of lay out exactly what how
they would like to work out work with us
but i think that
if once the sort of every
all the dots are
all the eyes are dotted and the t's are
crossed if you would put them into
communication with us even before that
meeting um so that they can reach out
and if you know any of us have
availability to talk to them before that
next meeting i certainly would be happy
to try to find a time with them so that
they um so that we can be a little bit
more prepared
i can
when i issue the purchase order i can
give them all your your names and
contact numbers that's fine
[Music]
um
can you tell them if we prefer text or
phone call
and like if it's okay for them to text
us
can we just say email addresses as
default and then you can communicate
with them
um
do whatever you like so if you just want
to email stephanie what you want me to
tell them
[Music]
once the procurement is over with
you can do whatever you like
as far as contacting them
does anyone else have any other
questions on the next steps
in that case moving to agenda item
number eight which is announcements from
commissioners and staff
um
i only have one announcement
and
i can't i'm making this to put it on the
record
so i figured we would likely end up
passing this today so in terms of
contingency plan
just putting this on the record now in
case they listen to it but i'm also
going to request this at the meeting
tuesday i would like every single member
of city council to write an op-ed to the
press citizen and other local
news organizations in the area stating
why exactly they voted
7-0
to establish a trc
that's all i have
so um i got an update um
as everyone knows i've been working
really closely with um
with the excluded workers fund
and um my update is kind of
a great update you know it's not
the best that we can get but
um it kind of relates to some of the
things that we've been talking about
this evening about how they limit public
comment
in different meetings and things like
that
um in the past month or so i've been
with the school of workers
and they have took over
two supervisor meetings that were
supposed to be public
forums like listening forms
because they were upset because of the
lack of public comment time
um
i could say that
two of those meetings were
facilitated by a different facilitator
than
that we're going to get but they were
the ones that were insisting on this
format
to not just limit public comment so
we decided um
that
we were gonna make 200 people show up at
every meeting 200 undocumented people
show up to every meeting
and
at the last meeting that they had which
was
on monday
the supervisors
they couldn't make it past 20 minutes in
the meeting because there were so many
people in this meeting room
and they instead of staying there
listening to the concerns of the people
they fled
and left the building and stopped the
meeting 20 minutes in
and
the scooter workers took over the
meeting
and also sadly to say
when they left the meeting they took the
microphone so the scooter workers could
not use the microphone they took it with
them but they had a backup plan because
they had a megaphone and they were able
to still talk and use the time that was
allotted for that space even though
the supervisors fled the scene
um so that's just an update on that um
they
we always you know we always talk about
a budget and stuff like that and the
concerns that we have with it
um
the iowa city city council which was
also a meeting that we had to go and
kind of assert ourselves to get public
comment in as well
they
the city manager has a um
uh he once he put out that he wants to
spend one
million to one and a half million on the
school workers
well
our budget is a million dollars we've
been the fighter women for eight months
about that so
that's kind of a lot of end
um
i
um one of the things that was on
the agenda
you know from the
previous meetings that we had was the
mobile homes in the area um i've been to
forest view i've been to
a lot of them and there are you know
in disrepair we've been i've probably
with the
workers coalition
the school rights coalition i've
probably talked to a thousand people in
the past two weeks
and with like stories of with people
that are in tears because they lost
their job they didn't they didn't get a
stimulus check they struggled through
the pandemic they were already
struggling before the pandemic and
sometimes
after i would go spend the day
canvassing going door-to-door it would
leave me mentally broke down
just to hear the stories for those
people
you know and those people need the help
and i and and
i've done some research about that and
it doesn't make sense of
the some of the responses that the city
and the county is giving oh
we need to help small businesses and we
need to do this we need to do that well
during the pandemic
small businesses were one of the most
profitable things in this area because
they had ppp
like the paycheck projection programs
they had programs that where if they
paid the person
10 bucks an hour
the government would reimburse them 70
of that 10 bucks so they really gonna
depend on the person three bucks an hour
but we're gonna take the arp funds and
load it and give these guys arp funds so
i just wanted to update everybody and i
will have more updates in the future
because we've been working hard and
we've been doing a lot of things we're
doing a lot of impactful things
and just lastly um
i would like to say that you know
showing force and a political force
um and just you know i don't want to say
there's good ends in the face
but just forcing their hand
it's sad to say
it works
so
it definitely works
so with that idea
for me is
dunking the
all of us
for getting up to this point
it hasn't been easy we know that but we
know we have been
giving it our all
and being genuine authentic
and expressing ourselves even if it's
difficult
to so
thank you to all of us for what we've
been
doing including even the staff the city
staff who have been
working with us and clarifying things
and letting us know some of the stuff
that we didn't know and all of us
bringing in
our knowledge professional our
experiences
into our work up to this point
and the other very critical part of this
process that i wouldn't want to forget
we appreciate what we get from the
public
some of you
a lot of you have been with us from day
one you follow what we do
you support us but when
we need to be told
even some words i am even something like
you're basing
we get told i won't say it in full
because i don't think i can not right
here so
we appreciate that as we move and
when we get reminded can you be
yourselves
and can you
can you let your light shine and can you
let one going can you let your liveness
come out
and she does we thank you all of you and
especially the public
people have very
we don't give how many minutes are they
supposed to have and contribute
you just mentioned that they have very
few minutes how many minutes
two three
three two or three yeah but i appreciate
it
yeah i appreciate the public
participation because they figured the
ways some of them have been using
is to channel their contribution through
us
last i'm thinking of a group and i thank
you very much
the private african urban and regional
consultancy
they put their information together in
helping us look at the farm khan's khans
and west and they use their expertise
they volunteered that
so they got more than the three minutes
in getting their participation in
and then even today
they got their notes through me and this
is the
african
communities network group they have been
week after week they meet
to follow what the trc is doing and
where they should be
and also asking questions like
volunteering and how that is going to go
and how much time do they have in
participating so even them
i thank them i thank everybody who is
walking this journey with us and
continues even as we go into winter
they are still with us and helping us if
it's working out whether do we have more
time or will we not
so
yeah mine in those very many words is
thank you to everybody who is working
they walk with us our talk with us
i yelled
vice chair
commissioner daniel had her hand up so
i'm going to let her go first
no
yeah
thank you commissioner i'm out uh
commissioner
um
so
i just wanted to
one clarify um commissioner treyore
there was one member of city council who
did not
um
vote in favor of establishing the trc in
the resolution and the only reason i am
bringing this up is because i'm sure
people
may bring this up to you in a snarky way
so i wanted to do it in a very just um
just fyi
and then
i also walked like
commissioner harris what you said really
spoke to my spirit
um
the
the cdc had a moratorium on evictions
that was recently struck down by the
supreme court
and in
in what i do
we've seen a lot of people who have been
losing their homes
and the stories are heartbreaking and
yesterday
at the end of the day i broke down in
tears
and i
really just i did not think i could do
anything today because i was just
the stories were so sad
um and there's only so much you can do
and
in the past 25 or
in the past 24 hours or so
people have
listened
and people have said kind words who
didn't even know what i was going
through but just kind words and it's
it's amazing that thank you saying thank
you to someone and really meaning it
and telling them that they're
appreciated
can make such a difference and
um
i i just want everyone who's watching to
kind of just say a kind word to someone
because people are really going through
it and
that's another reason why i really want
to give people the opportunity to tell
their truths because people are going to
come out on the other side of the this
pandemic or even on the other side of
this winter with really
real real strong stories that i think
everyone should hear and um and i i just
want to say thank you for all of you and
and really
um you're really appreciated and i know
it doesn't always feel that way but you
are
and with that i yield
does anyone want to respond to that
or am i like we can't
oh yeah that's true um
sorry
uh so i just wanted to let you guys in
on a few things that are going on in my
personal life right now
um just before
um it becomes more public
um i was sexually assaulted in august
25th of
2019
and recently within the last two months
my assailant was arrested
and um i am going to be writing an op-ed
about my experience um within the iowa
city police department and prosecutors
department
on
my notifications and things about how
i was notified
of my rapist getting arrested
and i wanted it to share that with you
guys because i didn't feel like
that it was fair for any of you to read
that and find that out about me
um
just on in a newspaper article
i wanted to tell you guys all
i'm super open about it and um
i realize that i'm lucky that i
have had um
the person who
assaulted me caught um but yeah jury
trial is set for december 14th and i'm
hoping
that
um things will get panned out before
then um but yeah i just wanted to let
you guys all in on what's going on with
me
um right now and kind of why
i'm i'm not always available and i just
i wanted you guys to understand that uh
i i value you guys
more than um
you know to let you hear about that
through a newspaper article that i'm
writing so um yeah with that i yield to
the floor thanks guys
my announcement is um
mostly gonna be a reminder to myself but
i'll say it aloud in case it's helpful
for anybody else
but
you know i think it's important for us
to acknowledge the heaviness of this
work that we're doing in sort of the
confines of this trc but also in all the
lives that we're living outside of
these hours that we spend together it's
hard it's like it's you know like there
are times that i really dread coming to
see you guys because i know that we're
gonna be talking about tough [__]
um
but um i think that in order to sort of
keep going so that we all stay sane and
keep coming within a lot of enthusiasm
is to make sure that like i need to make
sure that i'm looking i'm making a daily
practice to find the joy in this work
to offset sort of the tragedy of the
reality of all of it and i encourage
maybe everyone to do the same because
there's a lot of joy to be found right
the the every thursday i get to hang out
with powerhouses in our community and i
get to hear all the different
perspectives of strength
we get to hear from
mr tyson and miss tucker
the people who are still willing to do
this work and to to try to advise us
despite it being a really tumultuous
journey
so there's a lot
to celebrate um
but if you blink it you'll miss
if you blink you'll miss it um so make
sure that you're kind of
landing on finding the joy
and the things to celebrate
because that's that's
i think that's an important model to
provide for the community
without a yield
um i guess just on a final note
um
how can i word this um
for these six
council members that voted yes and the
one that voted no
would still like to see op-eds from all
of them
and
um i just hope that they take a lot of
time to consider
this
if you do not write the op-ed that shows
a lot
if you do
take a lot of time to consider every
word that you write
this is how you're going to show people
that are your constituents
how much you actually think about the
decisions that you make
with that i yield the floor
do we have any staff announcements no
thank you
all right um
with that we are now adjourned
[Music]
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 mesquake and sauk 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 act of
colonization and genocide that we cannot
erase
we implore the iowa city community to
commit to understanding and addressing
these injustices as we work toward
equity restoration and reparations
all right
[Music]
um is there any discussion that we want
to have on that
um okay so i wanted to make a motion for
the next um agenda item to approve the
meeting minutes from september 2nd and
can we do it all in one motion
from september 2nd
and september 16th
here a second
any discussion on that guys
good
stuff
yes
commissioner daniel
yes
dillard yes
commissioner
yes
commissioner johnson yes
yes
commissioner rivera yes
mr treyarch
yes
all right the next um agenda item
is uh the motion to considering a motion
to hold meetings the first and third
thursdays of each month
um and i remember
a couple meetings ago when we spoke
about this
um it was just that we didn't do it this
month because there was a weird number
of thursdays i can't remember if that's
exactly three yeah there's three
thursdays um and then we had we had
spoken about uh starting that in october
um
is that still the same does everyone
still feel the same way is there um
anyone who
feels like that might not be the best
question for staff does um logistically
does it matter between first and third
um or second and fourth
um so uh the second
thursday of each month historic
preservation meets in the same space and
sometimes their meetings run until 7 7
30
so it would just be you know i couldn't
really guarantee a seven o'clock start
time for that second thursday
there's sort of no choice
a choice less choice
i'm sorry sort of no choice
or i would have to change the venue no i
think i can probably work with the staff
to the historic preservation to see if
they can probably uh locate a different
space to meet i believe they're a little
smaller group but
um but if the first and third works for
everyone then we could just do that too
that means meeting next thursday
yeah that would mean meeting next week
starting next week
i'm totally fine for that i just i
want to hear where you guys are at about
this
meeting next week and stuff
i agree i would like to do it i think
it's a good idea i'm fine either way
since
when i
joined the community i
i mean i blocked does this unless even
emergency took place so i will be okay
generally speaking it doesn't matter to
me first and third is a better idea
compared to second and fourth based on
what steph told us i won't be able to
make the next meeting though yeah
um i'm okay with it
okay um then is it okay if i make the
motion all right perfect um so i'm going
to make the motion that we uh starting
next week move to the first and third
thursdays of each month
that's second second
commissioner ali
yes commissioner daniel
yes
uh commissioner dillard yes
commissioner gathawa
yes commissioner johnson yes
commissioner harris yes commissioner
nobis
yes
commissioner rivera yes and commissioner
treyarch
yes
okay melissa passes 9-0
um
okay the next uh item item number six is
the discussion on the city council vote
on facilitator agreement
and next steps um before we start having
our discussion um we do have members of
the public here and on zoom
so i want to open it up to the floor
to those members
before we start our discussion
okay
well
um is there someone raising their hand
oh mohammed it's me yeah hey
um
yeah i kind of just want to start out
saying um
it's a lot that can be said about this
but kind of had a lot of those
conversations already and
the idea of kind of behind this agenda
item is just to quickly get some more of
that clarity
uh get some questions together in order
to send to city council as they do meet
next tuesday
so that we are ready for whatever it is
we need to do next
um
the way it was kind of conveyed to me
based on my conversations with council
is we should be looking to just get a
list of questions to send forward to
them as in terms of
uh what kind of clarity we're looking
for on a facilitator agreement so some
things i was really thinking about were
one
is the last facilitator agreement just
cut and dry as in it's disqualified or
are they supposed to
you know um
apply again
can i just can i have you pause just for
just a second just because there's
commotion in here just a little bit
while we're getting people seated
do we
do we want to open public comment back
up in case anyone
okay that's jared i proposed that um
we'd open up to public comment now again
and then maybe one more time at the
conclusion of our comments um in case
that spurs anyone else's discussion
yeah yeah that sounds good um so i know
the people that just walked in don't
have the copies of the agenda
currently we're discussing uh city
council's vote on the facilitator
agreement and our next steps
and i'm opening up the floor to you guys
if you guys have any comments about that
before we start discussing again
okay i i appreciate you pausing uh
muhammad you can continue
no problem
um yeah the questions i just essentially
had
were um
was the last facilitator agreement
disqualified
um are they supposed to look to apply
again and when it comes to the rfp
process
is this something that we ourselves
should be looking to redo or is council
preferring to draft something themselves
uh
really
whatever way it goes just wanting that
concrete clear answer
and in terms of our next steps however
we'd like to go about it from there is
on the commission to decide uh at this
moment i believe just because what
happened
not giving clarity
essentially the last meeting ended
well the council meeting ended with
council voting to
not accept the agreement however there
was zero follow-up in terms of
what we are to do from there in terms of
the actual facilitator agreement if it
uh was denied
or just voted down so i don't know if
they're allowed to apply again
if their application is still valid and
it just the whole process just needs to
be reopened and looking for more more
local people just a lot of gray area in
there so
the facilitator side kind of just in
limbo i do know in the meantime some of
us have been speaking to people in the
community that seem to be interested in
applying for such a position so the
clarity is just important in knowing
if
an rfp needs to be redrafted
in to disqualify anyone that isn't local
or not
and that's kind of just where we're at
on that
um i think those are all really good and
valid questions um and for clarification
purposes step is there agenda already
posted um for the next council meeting
yeah i got posted this afternoon it got
posted this afternoon do you know if
they're having any discussion on things
regarding the trc on that agenda no okay
no um they don't have
correct okay thank you
can you hear me
yes
okay um so i i don't
what's i don't know if it's any good to
get clarification on the facilitator
until we get flick
until we get clarification on our
timeline
if they're not going to give us more
time then what
what can a facilitator do at this point
um when it takes maybe a month maybe two
to actually get a facilitator what are
they going to be able to do for us
how how is that going to help us reach
our mission
if we have like four or five months
well no it would be like
six
six months to do everything six or seven
months
that's just a question
yeah and i think that we had all had
those questions kind of in our head
before and we were um
for lack of a better term i don't want
to say banking on our facilitator
helping us
have that discussion with council
and that's kind of why we didn't
propose that
and i do i think i remember steph saying
she felt like they would be open to
extending it just because of everything
that is
transpired since
the commission was
formed a year ago
um but i agree that's something that we
should probably address with the council
before um we go and
do like
all of the rfp or figure all of that out
is let's figure out if we have time
and
if they're not going to
give us more time then i don't know that
we'd be able to get
solid a lot of solid work done in the
time frame that we currently have
well if the goal
if the goal is to
hobble us as much as possible or if the
goal is to make sure that we do
we don't do enough so that there's
uh a
a redo a second redo of the trc i don't
think
i don't think council has we have the
votes of support to get us
the facilitator so
it's
it's a matter of i think being just
honest with counsel and saying are you
gonna give us a deadline yes or no and
if they say no then we know okay
then this is not in good faith we're
wasting our time
and we could be spending our time doing
good elsewhere um i don't i don't have a
personal interest
in seeing this thing be to death like
we're not we're not begging to do this
type of work
where we listen to the representatives
of the community and the city councils
the community and so if they're not
going to stand behind us
what is the point of getting a
facilitator
and um
i would go
really quick
i'm glad we got the right audience in
here today
so they can hear the frustration that
we're going through
so glad we got you guys here i will
welcome you guys here anytime but i'm
glad you guys are here tonight so you
can hear about this
we should have the right to pick our own
facilitator our facilitator is not going
to be hand picked by a handful of people
um
our facilitator is going to be picked by
this commission
our facilitator also
is not going to be a person that
that has to be a local person a person
that understands trcs is what's
important to me personally and it might
be more important to other people on
this commission
the people locally
we felt that they were not qualified
enough
so we went outside of locally because we
wanted people who had experience with
something iowa city doesn't have
experience with is trcs
so are we going to continue to be
handcuffed
and then our mandate just runs out or
just kind of wait us out until we don't
have a mandate anymore and start over
with
you know start over and go through the
same process
we should have a chance to do our work
we have not had a chance to do our work
whether it is
not being able to get a facilitator
having to remove disruptive members from
the trc
we have not had a chance to do our work
and the part about disruptive members
from the trc being removed i think
that's not called out enough that that
slowed us down by a good at least six
months
and the disruption the disruptive people
are elected officials which is none of
you guys in this room
so don't take offense to that
but we've been slowed down long enough
we want to get work done and you just
and uh like some of the work that we
want to get done
you may see it on display tonight
without you
this is commissioner dillard i just
wanted to
address the question that you asked
commissioner daniels
what is the point and i just want to say
i i did hear your point of the city
council represents the community but
clearly that's not completely true
because i think every one of us can name
someone that disagrees with the decision
that the city council has made and i for
one stand firm in my belief that there
are people in this community the
that are not able to speak
and while we have heard a lot from the
loudest voices and everyone's voice is
important there's still people in this
community that don't even know that we
exist
and i would i personally want to find
them and give them the chance to tell
their stories so that's why i believe
that there is a point to still working
for this
commissioner johnson uh i don't i don't
think this makes any sense at all for us
not to look for any outside help i do
understand
that we like to handle we might want to
handle things on a more local level
personally i understand that completely
but
if you have experts in a field it
we're looking for unbiased opinion we
would sometimes the outside the box
person might be able to really help fix
something that has been a problem inside
the box in the first place i it just
doesn't make sense to me
that we wouldn't reach out to anybody
that would be willing to help us
uh become a better community it just
simply doesn't make sense it's almost
ice skating uphill completely and i i i
wholeheartedly agree with the rest of my
uh
fellow commissioners who have uh ever
pretty much every point that they have
made that
we've had disruptions and setbacks and
never had a chance to get the ball
running we need to be able to do the job
that we came here to do and the only way
to do that is to get some serious help
to get serious problems taken care of
anything else is dismissive anything
else is just
brushing it under carpet slowly but
surely that gets us nowhere fast
i really hope we're better than that
without you
this is commissioner
there is something i'm struggling with
uh
as far as our city council is concerned
they are the ones who are supposed to
hire their facilitator
and
that being said they are the ones who
put the advert out there
they're the ones who
they they were aware all along about the
job description
and i'm also
putting our communities in iowa city
to the the public
so it was out there
the process was public for everybody
including the city council
so the advert that there could be an
outsider
the limits
i'm thinking it the boundaries of the
usa the usova
then the process went they did approve
after
even the farm went through putting their
proposal on their budget
the council approved
i've been puzzling
this and trying to understand
because to me it looked like the vote
was
fighting themselves
but probably thinking it's fighting trc
because we are all supposed to be on the
same side the communities
the city council
the trc we just happen to be the
what do you call that what what were we
given the contact point
as we were and the whole point of this
is some members of the community
and that's
the witnessing we are going to get the
evidence from the people that's what the
trc is supposed to do
that
some members of this community
are not able to drive
it's been said again and again
because of
racial injustice
and
what we are supposed to get by
uh
our the end of our date our charge
is the evidence the fact of this that
some members in our communities
are not able to drive
because of that
and the human being
does need that so that they or we can
all drive
because the ground is not level
a question i usually keep making public
to the communities
even
last year in one of the city council's
listening post
uh as we move forward and even with the
the listening post and even the
resolution that created this the ad hoc
trc
uh
is the
city
and also under the
the iowa city council and the people
are we
is this whole thing
just a way that was supposed to diffuse
the tension
that was in our community because of the
dead the death of george floyd
because he died
because
of racism
of forces in our communities and even in
the rest of the world
that
make people who look like
this commission not drive
i asked directly that today
to the mayor because he represented the
council that time are we just checking a
box and in the process
wasting some people people's time
and our own taxes is that what we're
doing
i'm relating this to what commissioner
daniel said
is this how it's supposed to be
just diffusing but maintaining the
status quo or making it even worse
the situation
so as i move forward
i don't even know what forward was
because
like commissioner um ali said
we sat here to was it two weeks ago
and i was like
because as we were some of us were
hesitant commissioner harris
commissioner
treyore and i said we are floundering
we need clarity
so what comes first
the clarity
or
help of a facilitator to help us
and that was what was on the table
because even the local consultancies or
individuals
they were there nobody we that's what we
had on the table
so continue floundering
or have what we had
you all know what happened we went there
even that is has been removed from the
table
i'm trying to look into my
toolbox
on how to move forward
i am very very sad
i am merely a very optimistic person
but right now
i am feeling the way i felt around
to 2010 2011 we sat at the public
library
we were trying
to look into our school district
because it was the school district
and it still is even today
very hostile
to our students of color especially
black students
the
the deputy superintendent
left the meeting in tears
because his last words were the the
that time as a human rights commissioner
and
as we were talking about those issues
with the superintendent's office
he left saying
iowa city
doesn't the district doesn't seem to be
ready
for black students it's still something
that can be accessed because it's public
and
the black students of course with their
parents
and their other holders
don't also seem to be ready for iowa
city so i'm asking the same question
iowa city has been home to me since
2002.i brought up my children here
it's still my home
does it mean it's still not ready
the general now not just the school
district
is it not ready
for people who look like me
people who are
people of color or people who are other
than adversed
or are we not ready for iowa city i know
some who live who have left or who have
been defeated or
yeah
others who have
so i have that question
and seriously i have no suggestion on
how to move on
with that i yelled
commissioner treyarch and commissioner
daniel have had their hand up
yeah i was just um uh commissioner
daniel do you want to go first and then
commissioner treyore right after
perfect
so
what commissioner gathway
said
um kind of took me by surprise how how
much that
touched me um
so at the at the meeting
with city council
a number of members of the community
stood up and talked about how kearns and
west were from outside iowa city they
weren't local
they don't know our community they don't
know the people they don't know the
issues
um
and
beyond just how fair
our process was
and how true to actual equality we were
as in everyone had a fair shot at
submitting an rfp and if you were too
lazy to do so
then you didn't submit an rfp and you
weren't considered we weren't going
behind anyone's back to
get our friends
um
better treatment or anything
um i i was i i was personally
i don't even want to say personally
offended because i feel like there are a
lot of people in the iowa community i
have a city community who are not
originally from iowa
um and the idea that you have to
apparently be
in iowa for 30 or 40 years to really get
the community
um
really kind of showed me what we're
dealing with we're not just dealing with
members of the community who are pushing
back are people from a political
ideology we're fighting we're
essentially coming up against people who
have this sense of ownership in the
community not in this not in the good
sense of ownership where you actually
like go out and clean and bond we're
talking about people who feel like
things need to be done our way and if
they are not involved in the commission
if the commission doesn't reflect what
they think iowa city looks like then the
commission isn't valid and it should be
redone and that's fine
for them
but for me
i'm at the point i don't consider iowa
city my home i
was getting i was getting there but
after that city council meeting i don't
consider iowa city home i probably never
will because there is
this
inner
kind of just scapegoating that goes on
for anybody outside of iowa city
and i want to apologize for current to
kearns and west because they took the
time
to talk to us and go through stuff and
and everything and
i
my frustration
is at a point where i don't think it's
necessarily giving up i think it's
throwing good time
after bad um and i'm really i'm
disappointed in some members of the
community um i'm disappointed in the
mayor i we don't need a mayor who just
does things because
they need to do they need they need to
settle things down forming a commission
is not something you just decide to do
if anything city council should have
gotten the facilitator and gotten the
guidance on how to create this
commission and it shouldn't have taken
the murder of a black man
and riot and
civil unrest which is what was happening
in iowa because there weren't really any
riots and i was like the civil unrest
that shouldn't have been the thing
for the mayor to have a knee-jerk
reaction to he's a black man living in
iowa he's lived in iowa enough to know
the issues probably more than i do and
so if it took the murder of a black man
to to spur this on without forethought
that shows poor leadership skills and
we're we're not we shouldn't be held
responsible and trust me
another black person will get shot by
police we all know this is something
that's going to happen again and then
what are they going to do create another
another trc
i'm just i'm just frustrated um and i
yield
i this is commissioner johnson i
[Music]
i
wholeheartedly
feel that and i don't want that
frustration
to
have us walk away i want to say that
clear as day i think
our truth and reconciliation commission
should exist
indefinitely that's how i feel
because there's always truth
there's always something that
needs to be said by
somebody
i it it saddens me to hear every time
that we're taking steps back it just
does it's very upsetting
because we we clearly have
the heart end for our community no
matter where we're from
if we live here we are here we are part
of this community and we need to take
care of each other we keep with a
constant
do your own thing
and survival to fit us
this is exactly how we got here in the
first place to a certain letter and
degree it just doesn't make sense so
what i i just wanted to piggyback off
you with that that's all i i agree
wholeheartedly
with that uh you
commissioner treyari
um
i just want to start off with two
questions um stephanie uh for one is
jeff ruins still there
yes yes
would i be able to ask him a question
would he be able to respond or
see
yep yes
all right um
jeff uh so quick question in terms of uh
when it comes to any of the um
funds that the trc may need at this
moment if we request funds for uh being
able to distribute surveys or being able
to print surveys or
doing an online survey service
is that something that you believe the
city would be able to clear funds for in
short order as in within the next week
or would that be a long process
i do think
that we've indicated that
the smaller line items to support the
ongoing commission activities we can
fund through
our human rights budget
um you know how quick those turn around
uh it's not always we turn around
expenses in a week but in fairly short
order
uh the facilitator agreement's a little
bit different the council's expressed an
interest in that
and so we would take
excuse me any um
any modification of a facilitator
agreement back to council but if you're
looking at surveys or marketing uh
special events uh
uh accommodations we'll work with you at
the staff level to accommodate you
all right um
so
question if by this time next week the
city is not able to provide funds for
like an online survey service or
printing out surveys
uh if one of us were to
you know pay for that um would be would
it be eligible for reimbursement
i think we just we just need to work
with you on that we'd have to have a
good reason why we couldn't turn that
around in the required period of time
[Music]
we do reimbursements for staff
occasionally that have expenses but we
try to avoid that and try to do the
direct expenditures from the city budget
so
um best i can say is we'll work with you
to try to understand what you're doing
and we'll try to move as quickly as we
can
okay thank you
one more question for you before we move
on yes how come you can never give us
definitive answers
as long as we've been meeting with you
about whether it's a different subject
whether it's this every time we talk to
you it's never we can do this maybe it
worked that's what your answers are all
the time i just want to know that and
you know i'm going to be the person that
would be friends situated i appreciate
that eric um the question at hand here
was very general was can we get can we
get money for some surveys or some
activity so i have to respond in a
general way because i don't know exactly
what those activities are i don't know
what type of dollar amount you're asking
um so i gave you the best answer i could
like and i expressed my intent that we
would try to work with you i appreciate
the answer but one thing you should
consider
we've been waiting long enough so just
consider that and i appreciate your
answer and i hope you appreciate my
comments because you should know i don't
understand the second comment i'm sorry
we've been waiting long enough to get
some type of approval to stuff that we
can move forward with the charge that we
have every time that we talk to you it's
been other council members that have
gave me even the mayor have gave us
direct answers like i don't want to do
this but every time we talk to you it's
not a direct answer i like i know your
answer depends on what council does
but
you know
he just he asks a question like within
the next week or so and you really
didn't you said maybe maybe this
happened maybe
on occasion
i'm not trying to be evasive i'm trying
to do the best i can to answer that
question
my question more clear then um yeah
talking about an amount that's no more
than 150
yes we can do that okay within the next
week
well it makes a lot of difference what
we're talking about so there we go and i
i don't know what what history you're
talking about may be invasive this is
the first time it's not that i've been
before the trc yeah i'm happy to get
into tcrc so so we'll hear about that
soon but we already know what other
topics you've been very evasive on so
i'd like to hear more on that okay thank
you
what i just like to say so
i've been speaking a lot of people in
community over the last week and
a common theme repeatedly is that
instead of continuing to wait
on council in terms of what we want to
do
if the fear again is the restarting or
any of that stuff happening we need to
make this our own thing as soon as
possible
so
what i want to do personally
is
i want to create one online surveys
we'll be distributing all over all my
social media pages
two i want to begin going to nonprofits
between every meeting
and bringing these surveys to them
telling them what i would like to see
done in the commission
and i would like to ask if the rest of
you can join me in doing the same
and a big piece of that as well for me
is that
i don't know
how long i can keep doing this but
i know that as long as i am a part of it
i'm going to do anything i can to keep
it going
so i just want to be honest with
everyone on that
but
when it comes to what i actually want to
see in this commission is the same thing
i said right before the pause when the
city did vote to pass
that this commission is not going to be
decided by the council it's going to be
decided by the people
so with that
we have to bring as many people to the
table as possible
whether it's surveys whether it's going
to their meetings whatever it is we have
to
i'm not willing to wait anymore for them
to just do their bi-weekly meeting
whatever it is vote against this and
that and keep stifling things
no eduardo gonzalez did email us
say that he has a group ready to provide
guidance as needed
without cost
and that's something we can leverage
we do have people in the community
willing to help that a lot of us have
been speaking to
so we just gotta get all that together
and really just focus on it and just
make sure that we're coming into these
meetings knowing that any one of them
could be the last one
so to preempt that
we've got to make sure we have as many
people on board as possible because it's
a lot harder to stop us if we have a lot
of people behind us
than it is if it's just a few people at
some meetings or if it's [__]or if it's
just a few of us speaking for ourselves
at a council meeting in larger groups
speaking against us
where there's people there's power at
the end of the day so
we got a plot we got a plan we got to
strategize we got to organize like we we
have to get this on the road any of
these meetings could be the last
without you
um i just i want to make a
comment
really quick um so uh
i like this sentiment and i agree
um that we should kind of
move this along um
i think that
sometimes when we get to talking about
things i think we also lose
um track of what
the truth and reckon and this kind of
goes into like the next
um agenda item so i can't get i don't
want to get too deep but i i think that
people
um some of us and people in the public
don't realize or forget to realize
sometimes is that um our job is to just
listen to people's truths and compile
them in like a place
and um then after that start working on
suggestions to the community and i just
i want to keep reiterating that and not
let that get lost because they think our
main goal and while we do need to reach
out to the community and you know these
surveys and things but at the end of the
day we need to be listening to stories
of those who are um who have been you
know victims of injustices
due to
their circumstances or their
the color of their skin especially in
this area
so i i think the survey idea is a good
idea
um but i think that
i i don't
i think that we need to like plan to
actually have a truth-holding event and
actually do that um and i would and i
think that it's not like we have to do
one or the other i would be more than
happy to help plan
an event and if you wanted to take on
like making that survey
um and getting it sent out you know it
would be
pretty it would be pretty easy to send
it out you know we have a lot of people
who have connections within this
commission um but i really really think
that we need to start listening to
people in the community
um we need to start bringing those
voices
um
out and
whether it's
us going one-on-one and taking a video
with our iphone and then
sending it to steph i think that needs
we need to get on that um
and that is all i have so i will yield
yeah and i'm gonna say that and i'm
gonna say something really quickly soon
before you move on um
you know the regular bickering and stuff
that goes back and forth about this
issue you know it just happens but
seriously
we want to do what we are here to do
and if we have to move on and do what we
have to do without the city of iowa city
because they you know we can't get any
agreement or
we're gonna do it that's the choice that
we've pretty much made that we're gonna
start get the truths out this is what
that is the first word in this
commission we haven't been able to do
that because of all the raglan and you
know i don't want to go back and forth
people i want to go and start doing what
we're supposed to be here to do
and we're going to move forward with the
way out whoever they you know that's
just that i'm healed
[Music]
you are on the same point when you talk
about surveys i'm assuming the surveys
would be surveying
part of the fact-finding
and
it's not that we have been wasting time
or like we have not been doing something
as far as our church
is concerned
and even the
but uh
from what you've been saying
commissioner harrison commissioner
triori
we really cannot say we will just do our
work with or without the city council we
can't we are a commission for the city
under the city
so
yeah but
uh so
that one is is part of this so it's
working within that
and what we have been
trying to do
so far is get a framework
to
collect facts and for truth finding and
getting the evidence so that we can
compile
and that is one of the areas where we
were needing a facilitator
and i remember i have publicly asked
because
we
are a commission
that does not have the mechanism to work
with
from the city other than the staff that
we usually have stephanie and we also
had teresa with the process of
working on procuring a facilitator
so even as we say we need to get on
and even as we get punched
for me i take it as evidence so we are a
soft punching bag
for
i still i'm not of the feeling that this
is just a
just uh
what would you call it just to show that
something is being done
but it is not but i want i dare to think
in the history of iowa city
that this is not is different
and it's not still a way of maintaining
the city's core of racial injustice
for those who benefit
from the status at the expense of other
human beings
that being said
we are still back to floundering on the
framework we were getting a facilitator
to help us get out of the stuckness
of the framework to do to carry out our
charge
and i think with that i i'm kind of
creeping on to our agenda number seven
so i will yield as
perfect um before i open it up again for
public comment one more time since we've
had discussion
um i want to uh
leave this question for
the commission members because i do
think that this last question is
important and i just want everyone to
think about it
what
can we do to heal the divide
between this older generation of african
americans within the community
and us being you know the younger
generation
um
i i think that that's really important
and we're clearly divided um and i just
think that uh we should all really think
about
what that would look like or
um
how that
how that would
how we would go about that and i'm i'll
reach out to you guys individually
next week but um yeah so um is there
anyone that is on zoom or in person that
wants to talk about our discussion or
have any comments before we move on to
the next agenda item the only thing i
say is maybe we should put that on the
future agenda because that is a problem
we should put that on the future agenda
for a future meeting because that's not
on this one but it's it's very relevant
yeah and it should be talked about
because it needs to be fixed
i don't want to talk too much but
commissioner early i want to respond to
what you said
about the division
uh in the black community
historically
division yeah i was going to say
that
yeah oh okay yeah
thank you thank you yeah of course i
have my comments please i just want to
help
um
i really appreciate um the strength of
everyone's comments i hear
a lot of
emotions
ranging from
despondence and
frustration
and
some hopelessness but there's also
kernels of hope that i'm hearing
in
a lot of your conviction to to continue
doing this work despite
repeatedly city council trying to steal
the oxygen from the flames of this
commission
some of us have been doing this for nine
months and i want to reiterate that
for the last several months the only
reason that we haven't been able
to really move on with the charges of
our work
is because we've been trying to
play the circus that city council is
asking us very vaguely and so when they
say
no you guys need to come up with this
type of plan and we say but how and
there's like figure it out and we come
up with a proposal
and they say that's not good enough
here's another roadblock here's us
moving the goal post
i'm i'm absolutely not interested
and wasting any more time
through those means
i understand that we're appointed by the
city
and that ultimately our recommendations
will go to them
but i don't think that this commission
should be for the city i think that we
should be for the community
i
was really upset
on tuesday night and wednesday morning
of last week
and i was also on the verge of saying
you know what i'm walking away from this
i can't do this anymore
um and then i called a lot of you had a
lot of really wonderful conversations
with members of this commission and
members of the community who
reinvigorated my commitment to being on
this commission
what was
very
very heavily impressed upon me
is that
um everyone kind of said you know what
no one would blame a single member of
this commission from walking away from
giving up right
and uh
for the most part i think a lot of us
are still really committed and i think
that's a wonderful reminder
of the fact that we are members of the
community that we're trying to lift up
and so we are part of
the experts in this community that can
really move
this
mandate and our charges forward
but we also have a lot of really
wonderful connections we have eduardo in
this group who are offering their
services for free to give us guidance on
truth commissions and how to do our work
we also have a lot of allies who have
already reached out to us think back to
our first couple of meetings when we had
people come to our meetings over and
over again saying we want to help put us
to work
we have members of the fund excluded
workers coalition who have said yeah
we're down for
anything you guys want well maybe not
everything but um we we want to be able
to help let us right and i think that
specifically is a very very important
partnership that we need to maintain
specifically because i know that we
don't have any latinx representation on
this commission
um and so we really need to kind of play
to both our strengths but understand our
weaknesses and when we don't know what
we're doing we say who can we ask for
help and there are people who can
respond there are people who are willing
to do the work
i i think that it's appropriate for us
to
propose motions such as
asking city council to
lengthen
or extend the timeline for for our
commission but i don't think that we
should assume we're getting anything
from them
i don't want to waste any more time
asking for their help
because we have a lot of people who are
willing to help us now
i thought i yield
beautifully said
um
thank you
um all right so if any uh members of the
public would like to discuss
uh
the
council vote um now is your final
opportunity to do so
all right so um now let's move on to
agenda item number seven uh community
comment on the trc's charges including
fact finding and truth telling um before
the commission has their discussion oh
yes mo which one we gotta do
um i just want to clarify um
kind of just like the intent behind the
way that this agenda item was written
so this was written open-endedly on
purpose
when it comes to the community comment
on this
so
fact-finding truth-telling
whatever you are wanting to speak about
in terms of you are in the community i
personally am not here to limit you
in how long you speak on it what exact
topic you are coming in to speak on
fact-finding truth-telling here's your
time whatever you need to say
go ahead and say it
and that's why
that's why this is written this way for
the rest of you in terms of the
commissioners if you agree uh that's how
i'd like to do this
um i agreed i agree i only got one
question um
since it's a agenda item can we respond
to what they say so who goes first like
do we make our kind yeah we are allowed
to respond
i think the public should go absolutely
yeah
that only makes sense so
any members of the public want to
address this agenda item
i'll use that one over there i'm going
to trust
hello good evening my name is
i am one of the founders of the
coalition for
the excluded works fund
estamos aqui esta noche integrando
we are here expressing our support for
the truth and reconciliation commission
porque estas personas
we are in the 21st century where there
shouldn't be any discrimination or
injustice
we are all a community regardless of
race or religion
we are all part of this community and
we all work together to make sure this
community um
succeeds regardless of your race
yes
and we are fighting so that these people
also have some type of help from the
federal government
yes
and i am here again with the
excluded workers coalition
to
reiterate our support for you guys
gracias
thank you
is there anyone else from the public
who'd like to comment
all right commissioners um
i guess uh
i'll let mo start the conversation on
this if you'd like to take
i want to ask as well um uh miss annie
tucker if
if you have a moment or if you have
anything prepared um
i've been meaning to hear from you
for the circles
for
quite some time now and
apologize for the delays on it but if
you would like to present anything on it
today would really like to hear it
thanks that's really kind
first i just want to say something that
my friend shatoka webb told me after
someone really harshly treated her she's
an african-american woman just over in a
local
store
john's
and i said how did you
how did you
how did you
how did you deal with it
and she's in seminary now so she said
some there's a
there's a
what do you call it a bible verse
that says
protect your heart it is your wellspring
there's a lot of ways of saying it but
that's the one i liked best so i just
want to thank you guys for the degree
that you're protecting your heart in
this time
in this role it's your wellspring i just
wanted to say that part
um
about circles
i think we
i think we all
know that one thing that can help people
with trauma
is to be heard
and the power of circles is
that everybody gets a chance
um
[Music]
also i want to say i was talking with
pastor smith in the summer at juneteenth
and he said yeah we're not doing circles
we're teaching people to do one-on-one
listening
so i'm just telling you because
you're thinking of processes and people
who've been harmed of whom there are a
lot
right
and people might want both maybe they
would want to start with
feel more comfortable with the
one-on-one and then feel more
comfortable in a big group who knows
so
i also so i'm just i
thank you mo i wasn't like prepared but
i am responding
the other thing i want to say is i went
to this restorative just colorizing
restorative justice and the powerful
thing
it was a one-day
zoom
conference
the thing that kept being said is the
importance of
people of color or people in a
particular community working with people
in a particular community and [__]you
had mentioned that as well
to me and i think that's true
one of
laura
i think knows this
angie knows this
that what i want to do is get some
funding to get
a variety of people
i think eric knows this trained in doing
circles
there can be so many purposes what if
you've got to sit in a circle every week
of your life
it'd be transforming
actually
but there's also
using it for
for hearing trauma and hearing truths
um
so
anyway that's what i'm working on is
getting funding to do that and train a
diverse team group of people pool of
people
who can do that in this community
and
i'll keep you posted
i talked to the person who's been
training
people i know and she gave me names of
three african-american men throughout
the country who are doing circle
training along with a social justice
bent
which she herself has as well so
so i don't i don't have
i would be glad to sit and circle with
any of you oh i do want to say the part
about
i'm a white woman
it really is
it came to white people on this
continent from the from the first
nations folks in
the yukon
they taught
people in the judicial system and the
corrections systems about restorative
just about their methods circle
because their communities and their
families were being destroyed
by the white institutions coming and
using their processes on the people in
their community
so um
[Music]
so one thing about the process i learned
it can't replicate
first nations or native people's work
because in those circles everybody had
a life in common
right had a commute had a
had all their values had all their lives
in common
the process that i would bring that i've
learned and i'm still
still learning for sure
is one where people create there's a
process for them creating their own
values and agreements
and
and learning about each other before
they start any work and that's because
of the nature of
the community that i live in right we're
all from someplace else we all are
grounded in a different place anyway
so that is dealing with the
you know appropriation issue
and if if people would not want to work
with me because of that that's okay and
i just am a person who wants to make it
possible for more people to feel
confident in doing circles
so in process i don't know if you have
any particular questions but that's
where i am right now and i appreciate
you listening
thank you and um thank you as well for
coming up on the spot
and um
i just want to say as well
i know mr fruin you are still here
remember
there was something
that i was given in terms of advice that
if there's ever a situation where
a commission is to request funding for
something
that it makes it much easier for that
item to get
on a city council agenda
um
sounds to me like there's a lot of
processes for healing trauma that can be
had and there's people that are looking
for funding for it
spoken to multiple people over the last
week that are wanting to see more people
be trained in something such as circles
so i'd like to ask the rest of my
commissioners to consider um
asking the council to
provide funding for this
for so more people can be trained in
this
there was something that the council
said as well last week that
healing needs to be had first so it
sounds like it's a priority for them for
them too
so in a way to push them to actually
stand by things that they've said if
it's healing they want this should be a
very easy decision
in terms of funding
so again this is up for the discussion
between all of us but i think that it
could be a very good use of money
can i say one more thing
i did not when i mentioned looking for
money i was not looking for it from the
city council
i've been thinking of other things i did
not come here
at all with that in mind just to make
that clear i'm just telling you what's
percolating in my brain
and
i'm not as
i'm i'm picturing what i'm doing
parallel
and maybe concurrent but not at all
instead of what you guys would be doing
or doing with your funding or funding
that you would ask for i just want to
make that clear
okay thanks thanks for
being so
so listening thank you
yeah thank you i just want to say
quickly um uh no you did i know you did
not come here looking for funding
um and as well
that in terms of it being our money or
instead of our money as far as i'm
concerned
none of it's been spent none of it is
committed to us
we don't have any money so
it's
however it gets used as long as it gets
used in some productive way
would like to see it
um
i was wondering um just for just to ask
a question um
is it you know just how you talk with
andy is there a way that i can ask um
like our previous speaker you know a
question or two
is that allowable
you want to ask annie a question no no
no the previous speaker before her like
he asked some questions is that
allowable
manuscript i would like to
um
okay okay okay
so
what my questions are yeah and i just
want her to be able
to just answer these questions since
there's people in the room that should
hear the answers to these questions
um i want to know
can you tell us
about the issues that you heard while
you were going to knock on doors and the
problems that people faced
we've had a
very tough time uh within
the community the communities and the
communities surrounding iowa city
[Music]
las cosas
it's not the same listening to the
stories
um
then hearing them from people who are
leaving them behind closed doors
sincerely it's amazing how people are
making it through
this time with the
with the virus
it's amazing how they're making it
through
[Music]
this is not about color this is about
people who are suffering
even with a paycheck
and people who did not receive a
paycheck
it's easy to stand in front of somebody
and judge them because they're asking
for some financial help
but i believe it's not easy standing in
those people's shoes who have been
struggling through the pandemic
yes
personas
it's sad that us as human beings do not
want to support each other
has
just like
we are with the coalition for the
excluded workers we are here in support
of our
co-worker eric has been um
volunteering going door to door as well
as
myself i'm his wife uh so he's she says
that
they appreciate you a lot
okay
[Music]
we have been to washington muscatine
columbus junction
and we have heard stories
that you will never get to hear
but we have because that's one of our
jobs
refrigerator
we've heard stories from single mothers
who haven't been able to give their kids
the appropriate meals because they don't
have enough in their
in their um
pantries
hey um just just cause you get into my
second question so i might as well get
that out the way so then she could
finish it
what would you say if there were a full
city council here and the full johnson
county board of supervisors what would
you tell them right now that you think
they need to hear
um
i think they need to hear a few things
they don't want to see
don de la hente
una yoda economica
where people are asking for an economic
relief
where they have to help people from this
community
because each one of us plays an
important role in the community of iowa
city
do you have another question
no that's good
um
david did you want to speak
i don't know okay
thank you thank you guys thank you
um first and foremost thank you to uh to
noscope for speaking and thank you for
the translation as well thank you eric
for the questions
um
as far as i understand from what's been
going on right now
uh there was
some amount promised for excluded
workers but not nearly enough
in terms of the amount that needs to go
around
are we allowed to talk about this part
because the agenda item doesn't have any
well i think the agenda item allows for
people to tell their truth so if a
committee member has you know follow up
or comments like that sounds good i just
wanted to make sure i appreciate that
yeah thank you
sorry muhammad oh you're fine um
we first listened to this at a meeting
back in may
and then voted to support it
and since then
there have been
multiple events
where the excluded workers coalition has
shown up to
council meetings to johns county board
of supervisor meetings all these
listening sessions and asking
over and over and over and over again
for economic relief
it's now september 30th
there's been
little bumps in emergency funds but that
again is still not enough
and this is going to keep going on
until real decisions are made
and people actually get the economic
relief that they deserve
we have people still working in
dangerous conditions
that have not received hazard pay
and that to me is an absolute joke
you cannot say that people should be
working
as frontline workers
during a pandemic
and not pay them hazard pay
that is completely wrong
it is as some would say morally bankrupt
these decisions need to be made sooner
rather than later i know everyone wants
to talk about process this process that
again we first heard this in may it is
september 30th
please fund excluded workers
please
please give people their hazard pay
thank you
um just one other comment and that's
what i got to say man
if you feel like it's directed towards
you then that's the way you can feel
about it
um
it's kind of it's kind of like deja vu
it's kind of like how the trc process
has been going
delays
stalling
delays more stalling
and
let's talk about the ridiculous numbers
that were put up
how much money is the trc budget one
million dollars
when the city manager gave his
presentation he said for the hundreds of
people who are front line workers and
who are out here struggling out of all
the millions of dollars that you got
from the arp funds
you will give one to one and a half
million dollars which is almost
equivalent to a trc
nine person commission
to help hundreds of people
i'm sorry
that i'm in a conversational mode today
but patience is running out this is the
same way that you guys have treated the
trc
delays stalling and it's not every
council member we know who it is
we know who it's not we know the people
that want to help us and want to help
the scooter workers fund
we've got some of those people are not
even on the council yet
that doesn't make sense the people who
are you may call it posturing for
election but they really came out
publicly and supported it
what's the holdup
because you know you can make about a
process but this is the same way you
have done the trc what are you gonna
find a way
to
help these guys
when we're already going through we
don't know what the delta variant is
doing we don't know what this fall and
when it's going to bring us are we going
to wait till it's terrible again go at
somebody at the university hospital
about how their bed capacity is
go read about
the numbers that are going up again so
i'm going to wait till we get to another
pandemic to help people
you guys can't be serious
one
to one and a half million dollars is
almost a little bit more than the
equivalent of the trc budget which has
not
been passed
or released for use
what do you think gonna happen those
poor people
and not just people that we visited
forestview that place is in despair
someone maybe it's a contractor or
somebody who can't they should be
ashamed of themselves
they're not going to make it through the
winner
they're not going to make it through the
winner
and it's too late to try to
figure it out now but they're not gonna
they're gonna have to have a really
really tough win especially we had
another win where we had those vortexes
and things like that
they're not gonna make it through that i
went out there personally and saw that
place and knocked on doors and talked to
those people
we got to have something some type of
somebody let's just sit down let's talk
it out we don't need no stipend no more
i mean it's always viable that we always
felt like that way but we're gonna take
the vice
of your of the mayor
if you want to get paid go find your job
that gets that paid you
that's what we're going to do and we're
going to move forward and continue to
move forward and with that idea
the only comment i have remaining in
terms of
fact finding and true telling
is again
so we really need
to prioritize this in that factor of
going to more community groups bringing
them in
maybe keeping the agenda item like this
in the meantime until a concrete process
can be figured out but as kevo said
we do have people willing to help
so i would like to accept that help and
ask them to give us some more guidance
we can kind of build this out a little
more and that way no matter what happens
with this we at least have that advice
some kind of structure
and whether it's with the city or apart
from it can find a way to continue
and also when it comes to the next
meeting
i think that meeting just needs to be
full planning session
like in itself
of just what exactly we're looking to
do for um
one
i want
so i've been talking to this guy um
i don't know if he wants me to give his
name just yet
but i've asked him to come and give us a
presentation i've been meeting with him
essentially every week now for a good
five or six weeks
so
he's worked in strategic planning he's a
degree in like urban and regional
planning known him for quite some time
now immigrant as well
he's more than willing to help us
right here and local
and that's another person that i would
like to have with us in that meeting to
really help us
bring out some kind of process
and just the one thing i want to be
clear on for eduardo gonzalez
i don't know if he will be available
next week
but before we do continue further with
that
is there anything against us talking to
him at this point or because that
agreement was struck down are those
lines of communication now fully open
i think between eduardo you would be
okay because this is kind of uh a
separate entity that he's representing
he's not representing kearns and west
anymore
okay good
um then whoever it is it feels like they
have the best relationship with him um
if you want to kind of just like work
that out in some way if he kind of if he
is available
in this next week
i can i can shoot him an email tomorrow
too okay
i'll i'll
ask this yeah it's i'll ask it um
after the meeting
uh with commissioner trey or the uh with
chair treyore
uh
justin
yeah
okay all right
um on the subject of um just fact
finding and truth telling i just want to
reiterate um we have people who are
already doing that work we have people
who are meeting community members who
have been
systematically oppressed and left by the
wayside in this community i don't think
that we need to invent very much i think
that we as a commission can go up to the
workers who are already doing this and
say how can we help how can we document
the truth you're already gathering
how can we gather that so that it's
represented and
so that people can hear it and know it
right
um we represent
um great plains action society nissa
family services like again like you guys
we're already
interfacing with these communities why
not ask them
to help like to just imagine how they
would like to see the work with the
communities that they work with and us
say okay we want to just partner with
you in the work that you're already
doing
um so i mean that's the vision that i'm
selling right like i i think that we
really need to decentralize some of this
work and say
we're going to be partners with the
community
um
and you know leaders that we need to be
but um there are so many that we can be
inspired by and led by as well
i want to respond to what
commissioner rivera has said
that already
some of the the
a lot of things a lot of bodies that
have been created
on
on the truths on racism
[Music]
if i'm allowed can i still respond to
what
anitaka was talking about when she
talked about restorative circles yep
yeah i
in my life in iowa city i'm aware that
circles have been ran twice
and
the
and you remind me if i'm wrong but i
think the last circles you ran
on racism
i'm
thinking the last ones you ran at the
robert lee rep center they were on
racism
and even the earlier ones
they were also on racism
and they do learn themselves
not just so so that's something that if
we can look into it's also something
that we can use
because
it brings
all the different members of the
communities into the circle
to
tell their truth and at the same time
the telling is also healing
so
oh that is something we can bring
on the agenda use that because it's
already been used in the
in the community
then i'll respond to
commissioner rivers he mentioned nissa
african family services in iowa city
i coordinate that and it was actually a
creation
which was created
and it's part of our funding is from
the state
and it and the rest of it is is from
uh
vowel
violence against women that
because the
state was convinced as far as
survivors and victims of domestic
violence who identify
as african immigrants or refugees
they suffer equity
when
they are served
by
the dominant
program
of the tint of the intervenes
as far as
services
for
being sub yeah so
to restore that
and to level the ground
for african immigrants and refugees
they get served by nissa even from the
very name nissa means
women in arabic
so
we serve people
in a culturally
specific way proficient way and in their
own languages
so yes
commissioner rivera we do have a lot of
bodies and organizations
that already
have a lot of evidence a lot of you have
had me speak in the community
of even
as we serve even me as the coordinator
in iowa city
myself as i advocate for somebody who's
only speaking gikoyo ki swahili or my
co-worker who speaks arabic or our youth
interns who speak luganda
as we
serve in the community even for us we
suffer and commissioner rivera you've
actually triggered me because you've
reminded me
i sat in the office just before covered
hit
as i went to speak on the
women's international day
to give a key address
we shared the platform
with members of our police department
just before that we had been planning a
meeting
because i am a trusted member of the
african community i am a matriarch
in the communities
of the they trust me so we sat with
members of the police department two of
them in the nisa office above d.o.t in
iowa city on the isdale plaza
and we were planning because i am
trusted to call a meeting of the african
communities and if i call them right now
we won't even be able to contain them
here right now if i just send a text
because i am that trusted
which i say very humbling
they will come
so as we are planning and we continued
planning only to learn later
from the newspapers
one of those officers
and this is something in the public
arena
that they were part of
having somebody arrested
because of something they hadn't done
somebody whose skin color looks like
mine
and this is an officer
i had already taken in i was going
yeah
and
the consequences
and as i continued working with the
other officers
they were not telling me
and this is work it's not even friends
it's not even that so even as we
continue working on inequity it
continues happening
yes a long story short i'm a woman of a
lot of words
organizations are there
and
we can tell truth like the one i've
already started and which is already on
public record
in our law enforcement and our court
systems that even as we advocate and
we research on these things
and we teach on these things even those
of us who are at the forefront of doing
that because i do research on racism
having come from a mother who was part
of the kenyan colonization in africa
and then learnt the history of slavery
and ended up in iowa city joining with
the peace of my ancestors who are
enslaved
and even as i
work on that
and as i'm leading others and standing
up for them and speaking up for them
i
also suffer
as i am part of that so there are
organizations in the community
who
we can
who have already collected the
information and who can continue doing
that making it easier for us
for them to come in as a group and tell
their truth
thank you
um does anyone want to make any final
comments before we move on to the next
agenda item
not um
related to that i i just um
had one more thought
uh
pertaining to an item um number six do
we want to
um
make a motion to request like to
recommend to city council that we they
extend the timeline of the truth
reconciliation commission just
just so we can do it
they wouldn't talk about it next week
that's fine yeah the sooner we get it in
then yeah we don't know what to do is is
that is that i can put it on the agenda
okay perfect yeah make a motion um that
we recommend city council extend
um
the life of
our commission to the end of like
december 2022.
i think we should discuss it next week
and then
yeah i think we should discuss it next
week and then vote on it that way is
that okay stuff
so that we don't go backwards or is
there logistically
i mean if you want to make a motion um
on making a um special next week and
requesting an extension from council i
mean i think you can do that but if you
want a week to kind of think about it um
and you know it's possible that you
might make the
the the uh request a little there might
be things you may add in a week that you
know may not be on the radar tonight so
so that we know yeah the timeline is
that okay
if we do that again i won't be here next
week but
i just wanted to put it up okay just so
we're not pushing that off too long but
i'm i'm happy with that solution yeah
yeah yeah and
um we'll i'll correspond with these
stuff for the
um agenda next week so that we can make
sure that that's on there as one of the
items um that's a quick question yeah of
course it's for you stephanie i just um
want to understand how does it work for
us to even get on the agenda for city
council is it just us making a
recommendation or
like you would you need to make a
recommendation um to the city council
and then it's it's more their
prerogative at that point and they can
say no
they could take no action on it yeah
take no action on it if we wanted to go
to a city council meeting and is there a
time for public comment and we can
yes at the beginning of their meetings
they have a comment for items not on the
agenda
it's only three minutes so
i just wanted to clarify that thank you
no problem
um all right um if nobody else has any
lasting comments on agenda number seven
um if you do reach out to anyone in the
meantime or anytime going forward just
do remember if there's a chance that
they may be antsy about being public
about anything
uh first go with the phone call rather
than email because just remember email's
all archived so just to respect their
privacy until they are ready to actually
come forward
um
okay
i only have one more thing uh
commissioner johnson i just want to
reach out to our older community before
we even have our conversation next week
uh
i hope that we can find peace and work
together uh there's uh
no reason why we shouldn't change is
always scary and
it it is the only way we have gotten to
the point where we've gotten to now so i
would hope that
our older community if we could all get
together and work
in a positive light and moving forward
with things rather than
restarting anything at all
it would be it would be great so i i'd
hope that uh we could get some
conversation started up and uh
really work that in next week yeah i i
agree
um
can we can we move on to agenda item
number eight for commissioner
announcements is that all right
okay
perfect uh so agenda item number eight
announcements from commissioners
um i'd just like to request anyone who's
in the room and anyone who's joining us
on zoom well first of all thank you we
really really appreciate you joining us
it's very exciting to have folks
listening in it's been a while since
we've had a crowd like this
if you believe in the work of this
commission
um
i don't know what skills you have or
what you might want to bring to the
table but um please let us know how
you'd like to help spam our email
address and we'd love to sort of speak
with you um
uh because we want you to be involved in
the process um
i also want to say that um this
commission says still have a lot of work
to do in terms of reforming our image
right yeah i think there's a lot of
reasons for folks in the community to
not trust us to view us as troublemakers
and oppositional
and we know that's not true
right
um so
um yeah if anyone in the community wants
to go up to bat for us um we'd love to
work with you um
or hear your recommendations about how
we can reconcile ourselves ourselves to
the community because i think that's
going to be a really really important
part of
our next steps
thank you
this is commissioner dillard and i also
wanted to thank the community for being
here
and also i would like to just add
another
request that you bring um or you you
tell your friends your families everyone
in the community about us as
i'm not supposed to respond to anyone
else
but as i was thinking um that to help
build our image um if we if you can help
us out by letting everyone know
about our meetings and that we do really
want to hear from the community that's
what we're here for so thank you again
for being here
um i just want to add that um if you
know i want to thank some people too as
well um if i say something that
you know that turns out to be different
i got to acknowledge that so i do want
to thank the two council members and the
city manager for actually coming and
listening and taking in what we got
going on and
what kind of
you know like
challenges that we face so just showing
up means a whole lot
regardless if we don't agree on
everything
just showing up means a lot
because that will that's what we've been
asking for
you know just some input and some help
you know from the city council so i do
appreciate that
commissioner daniel
i just wanted to let the community know
that i will legal aid and the city of
iowa city is holding an expungement and
employment barriers clinic
generally what they do with these
clinics is help people expunge their
criminal records in the state of iowa as
well as talk to them and counsel them
about court debt
and
the stuff that they can have kind of
wiped out by bankruptcy
um
you don't have to go to the clinic to to
get in like cases like to get
cases expunged you can do this on your
own or you could call idle legal aid but
the city is offering a clinic on
thursday october 7th from 4 pm to 7 pm
you are not expected to be to stay there
the whole time
and if you are interested you could
reach out to iowa legal aid or you can
reach out to the city
uh thank you and i yield
i have one question i have one little
small question just an informational
question
um is there a link that you have to go
to to like pre-register for that i'll
send it to you okay thank you yeah and
where is the location
at the library yeah
and
um
d i could
yeah she um stephanie's gonna
send the link
and then
prior registration is required
by tomorrow um
so
if you are at all interested please give
us a call but like i said you do not
you could give io legally a call you
could reach out to the trc you could
reach out
to the city but like i said uh the
expungement is not the be all end-all of
getting cases expunged you could reach
out to iowa legal aid outside of the
clinic or you can
attend i iowa legal aids clinic later
this month
and with that i yield thank you
thank you um sakalis
good evening um i just would like to let
everybody know that
today
is
orange shirt day september 30th is
orange shirt day um
which is also known as national day for
truth or reconciliation and though this
is a
a day of
recognition
in canada it's something that's actually
being really recognized here in the u.s
now
and that's because of the thousands of
children
that have been
discovered in unmarked mass graves
across canada and now here in the us
and so i just want to
tell people if you all see like pictures
on social media or people wearing orange
shirts today
in your community it's for this reason
and um there were three uh uh boarding
schools here in iowa so
um it's not like this is
it's not like this doesn't affect us and
um i just
want to make sure that people are aware
of this very important day uh
because i don't know if um
there's anything more horrific uh in the
u.s and in canadian history than um
the rape torture and murder of of
innocent children from
the ages of being a newborn to
um all ages so it's a
very
i you know
it just it really
boggles my mind that nobody really knows
about this and nobody really cares so i
just want to get that out there to the
community thank you
thank you sakawas
i have three announcements i'm going to
make them try and be brave
one is again to
say thank you to members of the public
who are here both virtually and
physically
and even members of our city council
thank you very much
i feel warm
when i see
support
for this work and for our beloved city
and especially because
we know the
how central
ratio injustice is in
in our in our country and in our city
thank you very much it's a motive and
it's controversial and it takes a lot of
strength even to actually
stand up and be part of that i really
appreciate that thank you
the other thing i want to announce
tomorrow we start october
domestic violence awareness month
on
october 29th
nissa
we have
an event
it will be a zoom discussion
and it's being led by our youth intern
one of them just graduated from the
university of iowa the other one just
got in
and she was our youth intern in des
moines but now she is here
so
they're female youth so they're the ones
who are leading
and
we target our
african youth in the community and in
our colleges in kaku and the u of i
through the african student association
and through kakwood
so they're the ones who are leading
because we are targeting the youth on
domestic violence
because they are our future
and then the discussion we also gear it
towards
more
african male youth because document
documentation
on domestic violence and sexual violence
is not just in our country in the u.s
but also in the world show that the
perpetrators of sexual violences and
uh may uh the statistics are higher on
on mail
so
for this particular one we are it's
based on discussing three questions
making people aware
and then the resources that we have and
cultural specific con
confidential resources that we have
the other announcement i have i learned
that we have a delegation
from kenya that has come to visit our
city for me that is huge
we have a delegation from the government
the judicial service commission
that manages the
judiciary in my country they've they
have come in to visit our city
through the
the our college of our law college at
the university of iowa the business
college and the
international office of course
and
they and mainly because the vice
chancellor of one of our universities in
kenya
where i am an alumni
she
is an alumni
of
iowa state i don't go i don't want to
say go cyclones no
but she's a cyclone but her daughter
just graduated from the ui goats
so
she has learned a lot and she has
modeled my
my alma mater
you would think you are a cyclone when
you go to
to nairobi to kenyatta university
so she's the one who has led that who is
through she is part of that delegation
and they're here and i'm excited
we are not on the the kenyans we are not
on the the kenyan community and african
communities we are not on the official
program
but
uh
we
we
are part of the unofficial program
so i'm excited to say that if you
if you see some
kenyan delegation and kenyan floods
around our city
we do have a government team
and by the way
as a commission
they get paid salaries
because we
were colonized by the british so a lot
of practice
including most of our judiciary
and we just got our own constitution in
2010 even if we got independent in 1963
so even the pain
of commissions
is eurocentric thank you
i yield
stephanie i don't have anything
i just wanted to introduce myself
i'm the new deputy city manager for the
city of iowa city
and i come to you
with some experience in human rights
i've been the chairman of the
human iowa human rights board and the
status of african american commission
and also had the opportunity to serve as
the affirmative action officer for the
city of davenport
in addition to
having the opportunity to serve as city
manager and city administrator another
community so
i say all that to say that the issues
that you're working through
i appreciate them i shared with
muhammad after the meeting last tuesday
which was difficult for him but
um
although it's frustrating what you're
going through right now the work that
you're doing is important and
there are definitely people that
appreciate the work that you're doing
and i appreciate the work you're doing
and i think ultimately uh the universe
does bend towards justice and the work
you're doing will show up for that so i
just wanted to thank you and uh just
introduce myself to you and um
let's have some dinner because i haven't
had yet
redmond jones by the way redmond jones
redmond johnson nice to meet you thank
you
um motion to adjourn
cool
we're good sweet
[Music]
that now calling a meeting to order
uh commissioner ali president
commissioner
daniel dillard here
commissioner gathua
yeah
commissioner johnson
uh commissioner harris yeah
commissioner nobis
here
no commissioner rivera is not here and
then uh commissioner treyori here
all right
so next we have the reading of the land
acknowledgement
okay
okay i'll read
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 beyond memory we also
acknowledge the ancient connections of
many other indigenous peoples here
the history of broken treaties
and forced removal that dispossessed
indigenous peoples of their homelands
was and is an act of colonization
and genocide that we
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
with that we are now to agenda item
number four approval of meeting minutes
from september 30th 2021.
motion to approve
oh second that motion
commissioner ali
yes
commissioner dillard yes commissioner
yes
commissioner harris yes
uh commissioner nobis
yes and commissioner treyarch yes
motion passes 6-0
we are now on to agenda item number five
public comment of items not on the
agenda commentators shall address the
trc for no more than five minutes and
trc members shall not engage in
discussion with the public concerning
said items
we have anyone here tonight
that would like to speak we do have the
microphone on the side additionally for
those listening you can raise your hand
and we'll be sure to call on you
all right looks like we do not have
public comment
with that we'll be moving on to agenda
item number six community comment on the
trc's charges including fact-finding and
truth-telling
so again this is an agenda item where
you can either give
recommendations on ways to go about the
fact-finding or you can
do the same for truth-telling or tell
whatever you needed to say
to the commission
all right do we have um anyone from
the trc that would like to comment on
this
gen item while we're on it
um on the aspect of fact-finding and
truth-telling did get to meet uh with
wengui last night and
so kind of what we talked about was
going about a process of doing surveys
and do have some people interested in
the community with helping with that
so one thing again there is just the
wariness of
having them all take the time to do
those surveys and collecting the results
helping to report on results
so still trying to find a way to work
that out
if anything comes up in the way of
payment however when it comes to online
surveys
have registered for um online survey
platform
so one thing that we can do is if there
are any community groups that would like
to host surveys
then they can use
that login that i have created
or
if they want they can
get their own account attached to it
so they won't have to worry about the
payment aspect and can conduct their
surveys online through that
um
i can go real quick um
i know a bunch of people that's ready to
do some truth selling and things like
that but
i just don't know when it's time for
that to happen
we got budget constraints and
things that's been kind of holding us up
so
you know i just kind of need to
have some more guidance of when he's
when we have these people come in and
tell those truths so
it's like more guidance on when we can
get that done you know because i got a
lot of i got a lot of formerly
incarcerated people
people that are
that's dealing with immigration right
now um
just yesterday morning i you know i went
with somebody that can tell us a good
truth about how they had to have
immigration interrogation and they could
have got deported but
they decided not to and
those people got to walk out their
office and stay in the united states of
america so i got a lot of people to sell
some troops and some things but i just
think i definitely i
want to touch base back me and you let's
touch base after this meeting and we'll
talk about that
um my i just had a clarification
question um is there something uh since
we are like uh affiliated with city
council and i don't know if
jeff or steph would be able to answer
this um is there a specific way we need
to go about
getting a translator or translating
things
my mom's offered to translate and
document and my dad can do it as well i
just didn't know if like
you guys had to have like a specific
certified
translator um
we do have a translating service that we
use that translates i believe into over
i think 140 languages so okay if you can
give me the materials then we can you
can get it translated okay perfect um
yeah that was just kind of the last
thing i had about that um agenda item
i just want to this commissioner wang
to add on what
the chair was saying about the meeting
he was able to be in attendance
since the beginning of their trc work
there's a
group of
african communities in
johnson county iowa city and lynn county
who
are part of the
african
communities network of johnson county
and they have been following and they
volunteered
to
to
collect
communally and collectively
which is culturally suitable for african
communities and linguistically touching
on also water commissioner ali has been
talking about because
we are talking of many languages the
main ones being arabic swahili
and
french and lingala
which is the majority of the communities
of african
of the africans in
in our city and in johnson county and
berlin counties so
they were already starting to listen and
to
get a framework down
on how they were going to listen
to
the facts and the evidence of racial
injustice against
against them but they put a pause when
they
the city was under commission the trc
was going through the facilitator
process but because they were following
as soon as they realized that it was
voted out
they didn't pause and they were part of
the people who are helping us process
that and start to plan what's the way
forward
and they
did agree
the week before last that they will
continue
even if they are yet to figure out
because
they are
they
the
the giving of their facts and their
experiences that one nobody can actually
ever pay
but
uh sometimes be depending on how this is
collected sometimes paper or something
like that
is
might need to be
there might be a cost so
in yesterday's meeting those were some
of the things we started talking about
but in the next meeting
those logistics
will continue being planned out
uh which will be sometime next week
and
once it's uh it's always open i always
invite anybody who might want to attend
but for logistic purposes it's a team of
about 11 people it just works better for
the planning purposes when it's just
fewer people
um and i want to touch base with you on
that after this meeting too so that i
can find out when that is and maybe
attend it with you next week and then
kind of get that going
um
i don't want to steer off
uh too far
just on
what you guys have heard from community
members versus
um what they're doing so i think this
might be a good time to move to the next
agenda item oh no uh i just got one more
thing to say about it just one more
thing yeah no you're fine um
um
for months and months i i've had a whole
lineup of people ready to tell truth
and tell things they need to tell but we
had so many delays so
i just need to get some time in on how
we're going to be able to do this and
when we're going to be able to get these
people because
i know that everybody you know
i can't say hey i want to be this person
they we need to also vote on who's going
to talk and tell truth but i have a
whole line of people and it's like a
a bubble just bursting open it's waiting
on people to tell truth so with that
idea
it's it's long overdue yeah i definitely
agree
yeah i want to add the peace to that
it's commissioner i'm going to do it
again
that
it's really
humbling to see
members of communi the community our
communities in iowa city
joining us in our work
because i
did get a message
from
members of the community called the
rileys who are having
portland
in the community in the remaining part
of the fall
and
in the spring
and inviting
like-minded people
in our community to
to talk about
racial injustice in
less
formal
environment
so it's really humbling to see all the
people reaching out and
they're also members of the african
community who are really admiring
what commissioner harris
and the catholic worker house
are doing
with the rescue plan such that they
really want to get together with
commissioner harris
uh through me and find out
what they can do
to continue improving
our community for me it's feeling that
the
the
work of fighting racial injustice it's
getting a life of its own and a momentum
as you have used the
terms of bubble busting and people
wanting to come forward
in a positive way
without a yield and
yeah
um just the last thing i have to say on
this muhammad here um
i do remember
that we we're talking about trying to
get some kind of truth-telling event
together
is this something that we're still
wanting to do within what yeah
yeah and i'm uh not one i'm don't want
to talk about this during a public
meeting i'd prefer to discuss that
privately when we're doing like our
smaller group meetings but it has been
something that we're talking about it's
um we'll just have to find the time
because there's three of us or four of
us to
loop you in on the meeting but yeah it
is in the talks and i
would like to engage with all of us just
outside of a public meeting
[Music]
if no one has anything else on that
then we'll now move on to agenda item
number seven
so consider motion to recommend that
city council a clarify the intent
purpose and expectations of the trc and
b
extend the timeline for the trc to
fulfill its charge
so
we've been
oh
uh do we have public comment on this
agenda item before we continue
you can raise your hand and we'll be
sure to call on you
okay
so now on to the commission discussion
so in terms of the aspect of the
timeline for filling
the trc's charge
is there a length of time that we want
to specify in terms of the
recommendation
um
i would say like um
with
the
the aid to clarify the incentive purpose
and expectations of the trc
um
i like to hear from
someone who can tell us that
we're kind of lost in that like
um
and i completely agree with what you're
saying eric i don't think that
uh
i'm gonna try to keep this short and
sweet so that we can have a discussion
i want to make a motion that we just
kind of push
this agenda item number seven off for a
little bit um
but i so and i'm going to tell you why i
feel that way
i've been approached by counselors
saying that you know
keep the trc off the agenda and you guys
don't have to worry about it being
disbanded there's an election coming up
shortly and i think that the other
council members that are going to be
involved
um that may come on
may be better to talk to i just don't
think that it's our best interest right
now to keep going at this back and forth
with uh city council
especially because
genuinely i don't think that
a lot of them care about what is
happening in this room a lot of them
aren't participating in the things that
are happening in this room so i don't
see why
the need to currently right now
keep trying to have this engagement with
them
and that's all i'm going to say about
that well that's kind of been part of
the dysfunction that's been going on
non-engagement so we need to know
whether they elected or not or they're
going to be elected
i think that
you know
this is
go ahead
yeah go ahead this is commissioner
commissioner commissioner dillard
um i um
don't really care about um number a i
don't think it really matters what
they think at this point because they've
already told us we know what our charges
are for that but i do think if we were
to move this motion forward um if we're
going to talk about this we should
extend it at least a year
because that's how much time we've lost
in that
opinion on that i think by putting it
that way i think i agree with both of
you guys so yeah they don't really care
so i think that i agree with both you
guys with that one
can someone repeat the agenda item for
me
it's uh
agenda numbers item number seven it's
consider a motion to recommend that city
council
a clarify the intent purpose and
expectations of the c trc
and b
extend the timeline for the trc to
fulfill its charge
yeah hi
i just think that oh go ahead sicaos
oh no i just said thank you um
sorry it's just kind of
wild here right now with my kids so i'm
doing my best to keep up um thank you
yeah no worries
um
i agree with the sentiments of pushing
um off a
but in terms of b
that's something that i feel like is one
not only okay to do emotion on but to to
look to send up sooner rather than later
if we just keep pushing that off and
waiting then to me the question becomes
when we decide that timeline and when we
do end up voting on it
and we are
at this point in october and the current
one is only until june 30th
and whether someone is elected or not
wins their next race or not or whoever
else does end up on there
would like to make sure that we have far
more clarity on how long
this is going to go
i agree i'm going to
say that sorry commissioner harris as
long as we don't stay on the trc or on
the council agenda they can't disband us
we you guys were there in person i i
wasn't physically there and i'm not
saying that that's going to be the idea
but we already know what the council is
capable of doing and how they're capable
of voting and i just don't think that
right now when we don't have anything to
give them and any changes in anything
that this is a suggestion we should make
maybe if we have a community something
like a community project in october and
we have a truth-telling session and we
touch base with those people that
commissioner harris knows those people
that commissioner guthua knows and then
we come up with something and then show
them then i think that that makes more
sense but to just uh put that as an
agenda item at the next council meeting
i'm not for that i don't think it's a
good idea and i don't think that the
city council cares
and i yield to the floor with that yeah
just with the last conversation we had
in a few minutes so i think that a is
not something that we want to talk about
either so i died because that's the
comments that you guys said you know
nothing gonna change they don't you know
they don't care we need to wait
i agree with that sentiment so that's
why we can enjoy
and um
just to clarify to stuff
um the motion that i made was to just
kind of push this
back push this entire agenda item
7a 7b back
i'll work the tab so
and i think if um
if if you're not wanting to take any
action on a then i mean because there
wasn't a second to your motion anyway so
i don't necessarily know if there needs
to be a formal vote if you're not
wanting to take any action on aid
okay you wanted to take action on b and
have a motion in a second
and um then vote you can do that
yeah i'm i'm completely fine on the
aspect of pushing off a minus thing
again which is pushing off b
is
people can say in the background
you know
stay off the agenda don't have to worry
about being disbanded but again i'm
still in that same position of last week
of whether this is going on or not as a
part of the city
still interested in continuing
it doesn't mean that we're not going to
ask for the city to in like their
december meeting i'm just saying we
don't have to ask them at their next
meeting to expand we can ask them in
december maybe when we've got you know
17 videos of 17 people in their
experiences in iowa city and how they've
dealt with racial injustices i'm not
saying that we don't need to ask them
and have it on their agenda i just don't
think that it is in our best um
in our
i don't think that it's the best idea
for us to suggest this right now in the
next
city council meeting definitely
would really like to push this back
until after we have gotten some truth
told or some videos or
something
well
i kind of agree with you about you know
we don't need to talk about it right now
but you know pushing it back is kind of
doing them a favor
yeah but it also does us a favor but
they
they push things back for no reason
and by pushing things back right now is
doing them more favors so they can find
more months to push back then so you
have to watch out for that that's all
i'm telling you you have to watch out
for that because
so during that time we have to make sure
that we're going to get these truth
tellings done yeah
they they have to be done because and i
think that that's doable
they're not done and then we're going to
say
we're going to be at february or
something before anything happens you
know so
i'm just in um it's like the last vote
we took on a couple of things this is
kind of a tough one for me too so
because you know i know how the city
council operates so yeah you're making
valid points
all i wanted to say is i i hear the
conversation and i um i think i am
leaning towards the side of commissioner
ali
because i mean why stir the pot when
it's already stirred up anyways when we
could be doing what we want to do
anyways right now we have the
opportunities to put on truth-telling
sessions we can do as much as we can
right now they're going to probably say
no to putting us on the agenda the fact
that we went on last on tuesday's agenda
says a lot anyways
um if it was important we would already
been on it
why push harder i mean if we want to get
on on november's after the election sure
or or december that's yeah how i feel
about it
we can still do a lot we can still do
work now
and
in response to that about you know why
push harder
um
that's
that's some of the only things that
really works with them sometimes but why
do we
i guess i don't care
we need to do what we need to do for the
community if the city council is not
going to work with us let's do what we
need to do for our community how are you
going to you know get transportation and
money for all these people to come tell
these truths how are you going to pay
for that how are you going to get that
stuff
let's talk i would be
happy to have this conversation after
because we do those questions agenda
items so you can't go past it well i
don't know how you're going to do all
this it's about extending the timeline
for the trc to fulfill its charge it
doesn't have anything to do with getting
people to truth-telling
i'm just saying that i think that it is
in our best interest to maybe push this
off let's think about it on the third
thursday of the month yeah this is not
you know i'm in opposition to it because
it's not it's not really opposition but
it's a warning
yeah you don't if you keep pushing stuff
off that's right what they want you to
do but imagine before we know it it's
going to be june 2022 and our mandate is
going to be over
so and and let's say we suggest this to
them and we have a video
to also show them that what we've done
in the last in the three weeks
that we have till the next meeting or
whatever and then that
i think that that has more power than
just setting it on their agenda and i
really think that this group of you know
commissioners isn't gonna sit around and
lollygag anymore i think we're really
kind of over it and
yeah so um i'm gonna
suggest that we
can i make that motion one more time
steph
i'm gonna are you just gonna make a
motion for about the timeline or about i
was gonna make a motion to uh push 7b
back since we're not
all
like
moves
consider 7b at another meeting
7b or 7a
extending the timeline you want to push
both back
yeah yes i
i mean i guess
in my opinion you if you don't want to
take any action i don't you can just not
take any action on it okay if you want a
formal motion you can certainly make one
but
since it reads consider
if you're if that's not what the group
wants to consider then i think you can
probably just move on
still on this i
am curious
uh
chair treyori
um
what difference it makes
if
we
don't work on
[Music]
uh
the
a and b seven on the on the city
council's agenda in december
of us are starting to do that right now
i mean for me it's just the whole thing
of again the pushing off of votes um
if people want to worry about it for an
election whatever it is i don't know why
it may want to be pushed off but
they of course there's always that
ability for council to then say
at the at their meeting if they're to
look at something like this whether it's
now or in december of hey we want to
defer this for another meeting before we
decide on it
so that's another thing to consider is
when we're ready
to bring it forward that's always a
decision council can make of
we want to defer the discussion on this
for the next meeting or defer the vote
on this for the next meeting that could
happen now that could also happen
december that could happen any month for
anything
so for me the
strategy behind doing it now
is it's at least on the table
and
also i feel that way because i'm not
interested in
not doing the simple things like this of
the fear of retaliation or whatever it
is because if there's fear of
retaliation on something as small as
extending a timeline
on something that's
shown clearly it deserves an extended
timeline
then what happens for anything else
that's bigger
are we then going to have that same fear
of
it's going to be a lot harder to approve
a timeline when we have nothing to show
for it because of them and i'm saying
that that's you know because of them but
if we show them if we this gets put on
later or whatever
i think i i i don't agree with putting
it now i don't know i it feels like we
should just have a vote then do we need
to have a vote just um
chair treyarch can make emotion since it
it seems like he's
um i'd like to make a motion
that
we
move the discussion of
7a clarify the intent purpose and
expectations of the trc
to
another meeting but however we do pass a
motion to city council to extend the
timeline for the trc to fulfill its
charge
it might be better to separate those out
yeah just for clarity
so the first one would just be to make a
motion to uh
to delay
uh seven eight and then get a second and
then vote
like to make a motion to
delay discussion or the passing of a
motion on 7a
second
commissioner ali yes
commissioner dillard
yes
commissioner gathawa
yes
commissioner earth
yes
and uh commissioner nobis
no and uh commissioner treyori yes
the motion passes five to one
next i'd like to make a motion
to
send a recommendation to city council to
extend the timeline for the trc to
fulfill its charge
are you wanting to specify a time on
that or just an extent specification of
timeline is for
one year from today
a second
uh commissioner ali
no
uh commissioner dillard no
commissioner gathua
no
a commissioner harris yes
uh commissioner nobis
yes
and commissioner treyori
yes and unfortunately we're deadlocked
yeah you are so
so it just has to move for another time
[Music]
when is it
it's a failed motion yeah it's failed
motion so
in that case um so we can't make a
movement on that we do have others to
bring into the conversation then it's
forced to move for another meeting
can we have a conversation about it and
see if we can
like
convince others to vote a certain way
and then take another vote
okay
um my only qualm with doing that now is
that because we're missing three voices
on it if we're this close to deadlocked
now just want to make sure they can be
in the conversation first exactly
because that doesn't that well doesn't
make sense at all so
i would rather vote again when everybody
just said because that vote doesn't make
sense
also i'd rather us be more on page than
not well that vote doesn't make sense
exactly because you guys wasn't here for
the beginning of it the people that
voted against it wasn't so many people
wasn't here
from the beginning of the time we got
wasted so we need to have another four
vote on that so
we could have been
so we shouldn't have to stand our time
because
the reason we have to spend our time is
because of the delays from the city and
delays from the people that we have to
remove from this so i think we're well
aware of this uh so we're going to
continue discussion on 7a and 7b at a
future meeting yeah that's good so with
that we'll just move on to agenda item
number eight which is begin a
conversation on how to heal a divide
within the african-american community in
johnson county
so for this one um once again
have
just been
do we have public comment on this item
so for this one i have continued
discussions with people in the community
and to have a good conversation last
night
with someone from the south district
about assisting with uh getting some
kind of
meeting together
for a formal conversation whether that's
some
a circle
or a private meeting is to be decided
but at least some movement on
uh healing that divide between
some people that are more outspoken
against the trc
some that are in support of it or some
in between and the commission in itself
and that's all i have to say on that
nobody else has nothing to say um i
guess i can go and say that
this topic right here
is a topic that needs to be healed it
needs to be fixed
it's obviously a problem um
i don't have anything personal against
any people you know in the
african-american community
but some of the views and some of the
stances that they have took in
has been disturbing um
i'm a person that's kind of in the
middle of it because
i'm an older person in african american
community but i'm also supportive of the
younger
african-american community i don't want
to leave them out and that's what it
seems like
the older african-american community
wants to do like hey
you know
we're gonna say we've been through this
you know like sometimes i see some
people who've been in this community for
20 or 30 years and they're just
instead of seeing you know what they
want to do in the community they'll list
off all their accomplishments
i'm on this board you know i'm on this
board i did this i did that i did that
but then they just kind of brush off the
younger
people um there's some fellow some
fellow commissioners here that i know
that have done a lot in this community
and have been brushed off by
the older community of african americans
in this community
like to the point to where some of them
don't even
won't even talk to him
and i'm one of those people
that they don't talk to me
they will not talk to me they've even
sucked into
juvenile behaviors where they will block
people on social media and they won't
talk to them and
instead write
terrible things about these people
i wish that the the vat could be healed
and
so with this agenda item i want to hear
ideas from people
you know of ways that we can heal these
things you know that's what i you know i
would like to hear
um
going back and talking about you know
old things that happened and why we got
into conflict before that's not going to
work
um i think i think people need to start
anew and just say hey whatever happened
in the past we need to work together
because
you know we're kind of all in this
together you know we're trying to do
this thing and
and that's what happens a lot in whether
it's
federal level politics whether it's
state politics it's always a divide
somewhere
you know you can look at
you know the us government politics
right now
there's a divide in getting things done
but they are supposed to be on the same
side
so with that idea
i guess though one thing i would have in
terms of ideas on this is that
um
kind of just focus more on
working on those that
people in both groups or however many
groups there are we'll talk to
and kind of get them to open up the
lines of communication a little more so
it's kind of just what i'm
leaving it for at this moment
i think that'll just really help us with
uh getting some kind of meeting together
and it sounds like maybe the best way to
do it would be uh privately for one but
to make in such a way that people can
actually address
the past disagreements first
so that we can you know label those
things
get them all out there
come to some understanding and then look
to end it with
what we can actually agree on and
building baselines from there
this is commissioner ali um
i think
you and i mohammed probably spoke to the
same person um i was reached out to by
angie jordan
um and she had mentioned doing some type
of restorative justice circles
ask type of thing with annie
and
i think that that's probably
a good way to go forward i think we
should utilize
especially since a lot of us know angie
very well she's that bridge that we
really
could utilize and i know that she wants
to heal that divide more than anything
um
so
and i haven't really
i mean she brought this up literally the
other day to me so it's not like we've
been able to come up with a plan um but
i think
that type of um
setting would be really healthy for all
of us um especially because
i mean for me i'm interested in that
process and i want to be involved in
that process and i think that it would
be a really good learning and growth
opportunity for all of us as commission
members
and with that i'll yield to the floor
and i can just respond to what you said
um
when i was presented with the idea as
well and
because of all the hostility that we had
in the past couple months in the past
six months or so
i was hesitant at first but i think that
i'm going to sign up for it too because
i think this is a thing that can be
helpful
we need to heal the wrong the wounds you
know i i don't care what people
what type of issues that people had in
the past and
things like that we need to i'm i'm
going to agree to sign up to the circles
things and even if it's people that's
going to be on that board that
we already have past issue with
one day you have to solve the problems
yeah so i agree um
yeah it's just figuring out the
logistics but if someone is passionate
about that it's definitely angie i know
for sure definitely um
so yeah i think
do you do you have anything to say to
commissioner dillard or commissioner
i just became aware
uh on 21st
that they are
raised
tension
and now i'm
seeing it
labeled as the divide
and
i'm trying to see from what commissioner
her is you said
it's
uh
you're saying it's the young versus the
old
and what i'm not clear on
is you give examples of the
the it's something like generational
difference
yeah yeah yeah basically like in a quick
response to that um like
it's a couple people that's from the
older generation that me
uh mohammed and emil
they don't speak to us and they will not
speak to us so that's the divide right
there that's if you want to meet the
defendant you know they just won't speak
to us
and the example you're giving is that
it's sounding as if the older generation
is
so
uh
what are they wanting to happen
so that what can happen
those are the questions that are going
around in my mind
as i
try to
get the picture
and then from the younger generation
what are the
i'm hearing a sieve
from what you've just said
you
want to be spoken to but there might be
much more than that so and i'm i'm
raising all these
because uh
i'm for healing
because
it is definitely
interfering
uh it's uh
for lack of a better time i'll just
it's tripping the work of the trc and
it's delaying and becoming sort of like
the proverbial when
they say that
i don't want to see it as throwing
stones to a dog as you keep moving
towards where you're going because i
don't want to trivialize
because it's not trivial well
one thing i would say is that if if they
would speak to us we would know what
they want to talk about but
unfortunately
communication is key to everything but
we don't have communication with them so
yeah um
i wish they would speak to us so we can
know
what the issue is just
in the interest of uh time and also just
clarity on this uh one thing i i want to
say for me is i would just
uh he'd caution
on this and how we speak on this
publicly
let's just remember that
it's important not to try to just label
what others are feeling unless they've
explicitly told us
and we've actually had that chance to
have that conversation either privately
first if they prefer it that way or
publicly so if we start to get in the
business of labeling people's feelings
for them then we're going to get into
some trouble
uh there so
just continue to work on on this outside
of the trc but you can bring the ideas
but
um i just wanna make sure
we're not actively alienating
uh people at the same time
thank you my point was uh still trying
to clarify to myself
what is going on
so because i i want to be on the side of
of
healing any divide that is there
so walking in knowing uh
yeah because for now
and thank you for offering some clarity
yeah to some of the what might be going
on as as uh as
i join and go in into if we're having
any meetings or gatherings to work
towards
getting to a point where we can work
together
yeah yeah and i just oh sorry oh sorry i
was gonna say i'll definitely keep
everyone informed in terms of what i
learn or if anything else happens
and
just want to be clear on this point too
there isn't only one divide to heal
there are going to be multiple so that's
one thing to think about as well so
there's going to be many of these
conversations we'll likely need to have
and then we'll need to remember as well
even after
healing divides between us and certain
communities we'll have to think of that
factor of the more people we bring in
we may need to also have these types of
events or talks between
certain groups that might have issues
as well so that's going to be very key
to keeping a strong coalition going
forward
um
this is commissioner dillard i am
hesitant to talk about this because it
does feel as we're kind of saying it's
definitely a huge
generalization of people as we know
black people are not a monolith
um
but
my contribution to this is to continue
having conversations with people all
over the community and try to get how
they
try to understand where they're coming
from listening i don't think our end
goal is going to be to completely
um fix everything but to come to a sort
of understanding
because we all are going to think
differently
we're not always going to
agree on everything but the goal is to
move forward so that we can serve the
community so that's
how i view this this topic
but i do i do appreciate everyone's
viewpoint
yeah i need being part of our
charge
of
uh bringing evidence of racial
injustice
not forgetting that and
yeah and as the
chair said uh
divisions disagreements
they are very
central even the very
the very
practice of racial injustice is divisive
it drives on
it's constructed socially constructed
made-up division so
thank you for that reminder that there
are already some that are already there
historically and they will
and creating new ones as we move so
uh
learning how we respond to that and how
we deal with that as we move
and recognizing they're there and
they're real and they can derail their
work as we move forward
does anyone else have anything they'd
like to add
all right with that we'll move on to
agenda item number nine updates on the
progress of the fund excluded workers
coalition
[Music]
we have any one from the public that
would like to comment on this agenda
item before the commission
discusses
all right seeing no hands at this time
so
on to the discussion from the commission
oh where are you oh sorry i didn't know
if you're pointing
um
eric i want to defer this to you
actually because you've had far more
contact than i have
as of late
yeah so
[Applause]
um
one of the first things i would say is
that
um what we've heard from people and what
we saw from people
it's far more than we expected um
we didn't expect to see as many people
support
what we've been doing with the school of
workers team
um
in the past week you know we've had 730
people sign a position just in johnson
county alone
that may not seem like a lot of people
but that's a lot of people just in
johnson county alone other counties
have the same funding that they're
getting you know from the american
rescue plan and the numbers in those
counties i'm not sure of yet but we've
been to those counties as well we
haven't tallied those all up but justin
johnson county alone is 730 people that
signed a petition
you know for this thing
um also on wednesday october 27th
there's going to be another public
hearing
about the school to workers
and can you say that date one more time
sorry oh i'm sorry um wednesday
october 27th at 6 pm
9 13 south dubuque street
one 913
that is correct
and they're gonna have another public
hearing which the all the last public
hearings that they had about this issue
have been basically tooken over
because they don't allow
the
just fair public comment
when it's time for that
and so those things and those tactics
are going to have to continue to happen
but this hearing is the final hearing
then it's supposed to figure out what
they're going to do with the funds
um
[Music]
in my estimate
we've probably talked to
3 000 people
in the past
four or five weeks
and from what we heard from them
some people you know of course
they don't agree with you know what
we're doing you know
they say you know people need to go back
to work and
you know but when you're paying somebody
twelve dollars an hour
twelve dollars an hour
it's not a livable wage out here
not in 2021
maybe in 2001 it was
but we listen to the stories they're
pretty difficult and
sometimes they become emotional
and we see people break down into tears
we went to some of the trailer parks
especially some of the ones that been
devastated because there's a lot of them
in johnson county that are not in good
shape
we've talked to people
and they're just
this is not doing well
at all some of them a lot of them lost
lost their jobs doing the pandemic
some people even
told
us that they didn't lose their job
but they had to work more hours
because
a lot of people got covered and lost
their job and i and we asked you know
did you guys get more paid for that
and they said no
but a lot of the employers they got a
lot of you know like people got stimulus
checks those employers got ppp things
they got paid
protection programs where
you know say for instance and this needs
to be breaking breaking down and i i
hate to go elementary with this but
if you pay a person ten dollars an hour
and
the government
the government program pays you 70
of what you have to pay people during
the pandemic
that means you're actually paying that
person three dollars an hour
why do you need to get any arp funds you
profited through the whole pandemic
unlike other people especially regular
citizens like me
and other people like that because i
don't you know a stimulus check
that i got personally
was going before they even sent it in in
the mail of my bank account because i
had bills to pay
so
um they're gonna keep on so just to end
with my update about it is they're gonna
keep on doing what they're doing
it's not gonna stop it's not going to
end
um
they have plenty more events planned and
this is not going to stop and
if the right thing doesn't happen with
those funds
the backlash is going to be very tough
it's not going to say hey where we gonna
appropriate these funds and that's just
it
it's gonna be very tough on a lot of
individuals
so i would advise them to do the right
thing and
if they wanna know
what really goes on you know you got to
go out there in what i call the field
because being inside of an office
thinking you know what's going on
you don't know what's going on until you
go out in the field
and see what's going on
and one of the main topics that i had
talked about in city council a lot is
forest view
go walk over there to forest view go
look at it
that place is devastating
and it is failed
and i don't know who to put i don't want
to say it's a contract i don't want to
say it's a city
but they're not going to make it through
this winter like i mentioned before
and with that i'll heal
and clarification uh commissioner harris
since you're kind of like the
ambassadors
yeah let's see fc um so is the what
the petition that you said
do we is there
do we have access to that do you mind
sending it to stuff so that she could
send it to all of us yes i definitely
can do that i definitely can get that
information sent over a second we have
all the information we have the
a big stack of about you know because is
this 730 in johnson county but we have a
big stack of about 1500 of physicians
and also we have our own survey that we
took independent
of the
the the survey that the city of iowa
city sent and the johnson county
supervisor sent out we have a survey
that's independent of that that what's
the google document one right yeah
perfect that's and that's what so we can
send that information as well
which will show
a deep contrast
compared to what the city and the county
sent out because the county and the city
didn't send it to the right people
so it's for clarifying
i would i would definitely get the
information shared within the next
couple days so it's no problem with that
does anyone else have anything they want
to add to this
i just want to say very well summarize
for one for two thank you for continuing
with the amount of time you are spending
with that
yeah i basically been
you know we have you know i've basically
been an ambassador from the trc to the
you know and since we voted on that a
couple months ago i've been putting in a
lot of work with that and i see that
that was
like i appreciate all the commissioners
who voted for us to
support that movement because this
is very important and i saw a lot of
things that i didn't when i first stand
on to it and i first first took it on i
didn't know it was that serious but
you know when i have people coming and
you know they talk to me and right when
i bring up what i'm talking about they
just break into tears
and just say
you know i had to choose between rent
and feed my kids and
[Music]
i don't even have to do that you know
i mean
i i could any day that can happen to me
but
you know
right now i don't have to do it but
that's a sad thing to think about so
whether the shoes like are you going to
eat or you're going to pay for your
house or
that
you know people shouldn't be in that
position especially
it's the people that
that made our economy works like without
those people
this city wouldn't work
it wouldn't work at all without these
people those are people that's in the
back making your big mac
that's the people that make your bed
when you get done staying at the hotel
you know that's the people that do all
the hard work in this country that
americans you know
i'm not saying that we don't want to do
it but that's the work that has to be
done we need
vegetables and produce picked and
things farmed and americans don't do all
that work
those are people that do that work
we need those people
i know i wish that the process of
getting to this country i wish they did
it you know a little bit better and did
it more legally but those are people
that we need
so with that idea
yeah again thank you for being our point
person and also
facilitating these two in front of us uh
and helping give a voice to
uh
groups and communities in our in our
city and our county
that are unseen and unheard
and
it is still a struggle
to make them
be seen
because we are not there yet
thank you and the
the feedback we're getting out there
like i say
there are some members who
want to get all of you because they want
to follow they want to follow you
into
supporting this and thank you for the
information on the
on the public hearing so that uh
those people can
can get on formally
in
bring continuing to
fight for this
for these members of our communities
that are very crucial even if we we see
the results but
we we
we have to be forced to see them
and to hear
yeah like
and one thing i would add to that some
people
they may see see it as weird like you
know i'm an american citizen you know
that voice is about choice but i'm an
american citizen
and some people may see it weird as you
know why do you support these you know
support people you know like this in
this situation
but it's
really
a two-part answer and it's only one
answer but it's a two-part answer
i myself
have children who are latino
they are african-americans but they are
latino as well and the second part to it
is
i am african-american
i know how they feel
we went through this
you know we don't got to talk about the
amount of hundreds of years we went
through this so
i understand how they feel
and and with that i'm a yield i'm
i just got to let that part go i just
got i'm just i'm going to heal that but
you know just being even though i'm an
american citizen i know how they feel
so
no the honesty is truly welcome
and with that i just wanted to ask if
anyone has anything else on this
specific item before we continue
okay with that we are on to agenda item
number 10 which is conversation with
thinkpiece
eduardo gonzalez
um
david raglin and
i just want i want to let you introduce
yourself because i just don't want to
mess up the pronunciation
but my apologies
yeah an antibiotic and you would do
anyway really well
okay
and oh
at this time we'll just defer to you to
to begin
um i think this one's just presentation
first
eduardo can you hear us and speak from
bamako and then i think david will go
and i'll address
last
yes i can hear you well can you hear me
yes
yes yes
well thank you so much
it's uh 1am here in bamako mali
and
so i bring
memories of the land commissioner
well i'm very happy to be with you here
uh tonight
i'm joined by my colleagues auntie
pentekyne and david trackland
all of us bring
different elements and skills to
think peace
which is a hub that we are establishing
in a cooperative manner with different
practitioners around the country and
truth-telling specialized
movements also around the country
what we
want to do in this organization that is
fairly new
is to get together with colleagues who
have actual experience with truth and
reconciliation processes
and to provide our support and
service sounding board or as a technical
support space
for commissioners commissioners like you
what is happening right now across the
country is really unprecedented
there are dozens of truth commissions
being established this is something
entirely new
and it has to do with a social movement
that started just a few years ago
dr ragland who is with me here
for example is one of the founders of
the truth-telling project
a project that emerged out of ferguson
missouri
and that ended up
being a space and a platform
for families of people who were executed
by police for racist motives
and what we want to do as i said
was to
give our
hand
now that the truth commission of iowa
was probably going to make a number of
decisions about its uh its work and its
methodology
as you may know i was in the list of
external advisors and
at honorim external advisor pro bono
for the proposal by kearns and west
to provide facilitation to the
commission
and i
was in the session by the
council
where that proposal
was rejected
i do think that the proposal was an
interesting one was a useful one and it
was a necessary one
but at the same time
since the city council took its decision
probably
many of the issues that were going to be
covered by this proposal still require
some attention
so
we did send a letter to you
proposing that
we can
help give a hand in a number of areas
including strengthening capacities
putting the commission in touch with
other commissions and with other
people working on this on these issues
and
also to carry out a scoping mission to
your city to talk to you guys directly
to talk to the different actors
in the
in the community to understand what are
the elements
um that are at the basis of such a
divided and polarized situation
so
that is what we want to do and we would
bring to this proposal
what we are
i will let my colleagues dave and anti
introduce themselves and tell you the
kind of work they have done
in my case i have been supporting truth
commissions for the last uh
21 years
i started with the truth commission in
my country peru that was a commission
established after an internal conflict
that left 69 000 people killed
and so it was quite necessary and also
quite a traumatic
experience
and and also a country with a lot of
polarization that is where truth
commissions work truth commissions don't
are not establishing societies that work
well
they are establishing societies where
there are these functionalities where
there is polarization so that is what i
started in peru and then i have been
working for the last 21 years in truth
commissions around the world
um two of those in the united states in
greensboro north carolina and in
the state of maine
so this is what i
bring to the table and uh i will be very
very happy to uh to to talk more about
what what would be necessary
um let me ask dave uh to introduce
himself uh dave are you there sure i'm
right here um
thank you all for having us here today
um it's a pleasure to be here
we know this is difficult work
for you to do
and um i'm one of the co-founders of the
truth-telling project of ferguson which
was a
commission or a quasi-commission that
didn't have
um
it wasn't city sanctioned
and
we went for it anyway and um
[Music]
uh one of the people who i helped to
start this project and with is
congresswoman corey bush
in addition to so many other activists
we started the project immediately after
mike brown was murdered and it was a
large uh group of people from all over
the region
who came uh to try to be a part of a
process and put a process forward
um and for various reasons uh we
ended up really focusing
on police violence and
people who experienced it relatives of
people who experienced police violence
in part as an intervention and
we learned a lot from that process
um and since
before that time
i have been um uh studying restorative
justice and
international human rights um
and
in the lead up to the project i got a
chance to study with the greensboro
uh truth commission um and so many
people who worked on south africa
and this is where i met eduardo uh while
we were learning about all the processes
that came
before us
and as someone who grew up right around
ferguson missouri
this was an experience that
we needed to address within our
community and that
it was connected to so to so much
other forms of injustice that we were
experienced
experiencing um
since since the time
um since that time we have
uh continued to organize and educate um
around um
some of those underlying issues that
came up um
uh that were connected to police
violence and
um
we've also had an opportunity to work
with and support communities uh around
the country
uh who were thinking of doing this work
and
who just wanted advice or wanted to hear
what kind of things we went through
and trying to get a process to transform
our our
communities um in addition
uh we have been involved in uh in uh
trying and still involved in trying to
create a national process
uh because the the processes that we
each experience in our own communities
are not separate
from the larger
national um and even global
issues of concern
and so i just want to
thank you all for allowing us to be here
um and
learn uh alongside you
thank you dave and um
mr chair if you may also say david had a
nice rule for my name he said it
resonates with auntie so uh if if that's
the way to remember that that's he said
there's a good memories with aunties and
uh
i like that um i'd like to address your
commissioners by just listening to your
your meeting um
you trying to navigate the realities
political realities around you the rifts
that seem to be breaking the trust and
harming your work and creating
hurdles
um
the inner dynamics you have within in
the commission
and at the same time what i hear
is this incredible
excitement to convey the message or
urgency that there's this bubbling
uh happening people want to come forward
they want to testify they want to share
and then the awareness of of the
injustice that it continues to hurt
what is the consequence
and and then the question
uh uh one of the conditions brought
there are people who may not make
through the next winter
so
in these moments that you are are now um
the question that you have decided is
not
whether the time is now but why it
hasn't happened before
and if not you
then who will
and i just want to comfort you saying
that you you are the responses to the
prayers of many
including your ancestors that who have
struggled
and and and trust that
that you are there for purpose and there
are always those who will carry you like
the president of colombia president
santos he said when you put the survivor
voices in the center they will always
guide you
and give you the ethical compass
whichever way you need to go
and what i have observed
internationally it is always up to
individuals
there is never a perfect process there
is never a perfect moment it is always
up to certain individuals take to have
the courage to take the responsibility
to carry the burden
that gives the community the ability to
move forward
and it's not just the injustice but it's
also the intergenerational trauma and
pain and what it means to become
liberated
to have that imagination
for
who are living now and who will be there
in the future
to be liberated from intergenerational
pain so i just want to commend that and
also saying that with incredible
humility there isn't anybody buddy who
can come from outside
to do it for you you need to be there
but at the same time
there are many of us who will be
standing beside you
who you can call for
or who you can have at the table when
you feel
there's something that you want to to to
share
and just couple thoughts around that um
so my background is i've been working uh
with truth and reconciliation processes
since south african
a little bit at restful you know today
we celebrated our piece of desmond tutus
19th birthday
i'll come back to that but um one of
couple things i've learned is that
we have to move away from this this
third-party mediation concept into
and and where the parties themselves are
in incremental process defining what
means inclusion fairness of justice
um
and and there's something that we are
just learning when we're looking this
process is
is the need for healing and i think
too rare do we realize how commissions
themselves need to go through a healing
process to be able to work together to
trust each other
and and what is the critical number of
people in iowa that need to get involved
in a process that the trust can be
created where a process can be designed
and again when it is survivor centered
you will be guided guided on this
um so i'm just very proud of the work
david has done and several others and
eduardo and if there is anything we can
do in your service do let us know
just couple words about um
uh artbeads of tutu's
birthday celebration um
if you haven't watched the movie
forgiven um
do do watch it it's not necessarily
addressing this but um but you will see
how
difficult the commission meetings were
in south africa
and there's a story behind it where
a mother of a girl that was killed
continuously goes to this one tutu
saying that you need to find out the
facts i need to know
and doesn't reluctantly does it
he doesn't know how to do it he doesn't
always have the carriage there is the
tax and the commission but he still does
it and there comes the final scenery
where
the truth is being revealed
and the mother of the victim stands up
the police have been hiding and trying
to avoid the truth to come out
he's scared what's going to happen to
him and the mother says this is all i
wanted to know
and they embrace embrace each other i'm
not saying this should happen
to other people but what is really
beautiful in that moment is that this
one is not the center piece he's silent
what the healing what the truth gives is
the healing to the individuals it's not
a hero work
but it's it's something that a
commission that you you can do you can
create that space for individuals to
find healing
and for the communities to move forward
he just moves his hands like this for a
prayer
and even though we celebrate someone see
really significant like him
the true heroes
are the survivors
and and i also love what was said unto
jordan
they're there your communities has all
the wisdom they have all the courage
they have all the knowledge
and and and so the more you can rely and
and and relate to them
uh the work will will certainly carry on
so i'm sorry i i took a bit long but i
wanted to address this couple of points
thank you
and um
just want to say edvardo especially
thank you for
being up so late on on the other end
here uh
nice to see that you're out in mali
i don't know maybe might run into some
of my family who knows
other than that when it comes to
uh the assistance and also the feedback
and outreach
um i know i can only personally speak
for myself but
i would like to accept that assistance
of from you all
and continue to work together moving
forward
i think that sentiment
would
apply to all of us as well we will take
all the help we can get and i'm sure
that
the people that work for the city that
are here would also agree that this help
is probably very beneficial
um
i kind of i so
david i'm really interested in the work
that you did
um in ferguson um
and specifically working
you know with the rep corey bush
i just
i'm i'm kind of curious to know um what
you might know about what's currently
happening
um within this community or
um kind of i don't want to say like your
opinions on what's going on but um but
for a lack of a better term kind of how
you feel about the situation that we're
dealing with as it pertains to this
specific trc
and that question i specifically said
david but um i would also be interested
to hearing um
the other
opinions of auntie and
eduardo
um
thank you um and
what what i can say is that um just
following the news like i understand
that there
that um
there's conflict or or there is chances
for
um
um
more collaboration between the city
council and the commission um and
there's been some changes um
with the composition of the commission
and and that's um and some
you know just from this conversation and
from reading uh some news dispatches
and let me say that um
i've seen
um
similar
things happen in in other cities um
this is not
out of the ordinary
um every every place every community is
different
uh with a different
uh group of people who have
um
different interests and things that are
important to them and
um
and you know
and like for instance some of the the
commissions that have happened like
greensboro they're still
like the work didn't stop after
right the commission formally ended
right there's
recommendations that are still working
their way
um through the city a decade later
um
um so
it's a complicated process and i think
that um
what i see here is a commission that's
committed to
moving forward
um despite everything else that's
happening
i see people who
are trying to get their issues addressed
um so
you know
i kind of want to leave it there without
going into too much detail um but i'm
really looking forward
and would love to
be available to you all and
support um
you know what you're always trying to do
in any way that i can
thank you so much
commissioner harris i think edvardo has
made the request for david to perhaps
come into this um fact-finding mission
and perhaps be available in discussing
with also the different sides in the
community if they would like to see him
and shake his opinion as well and uh
and just couple thoughts one one what
you have to be prepared and i'm sure you
realize that is that every time you deal
with something that has the potential of
feeling it triggers a response
that may relate to to situations where
people have not had the safety work they
can address what has harmed them
and and and so do not be frightened
about those responses
the second is what i've been really
thinking about this country as a whole
so i had an opportunity to serve for a
moment as a secretary for the usgrhd
movement initiated based on dr gail
christopher's work on the truth wrestle
healing and transformation and done and
uh
and it's been now
waiting for the hr 40 preparation
attendant to move into congress and
senate um
what i however have been you know
wondering
and not wondering but thinking about is
that that represents to be effective the
mindset that causes harm has to change
it's not enough to address the past harm
or current because if the mindset is
still there you'll find new ways to harm
and so there has to be an invitation for
also those who have been harming into a
process of becoming better in the shared
humanity and recognizing it each at each
other's humanity and this i think
something dr bill christopher has really
wisely developed so even though there
are elements in the city council and
others might might not care
eventually there has to be an invitation
for them as well to change
i just want to say thank you for one
and
uh two just wanna include that uh if
there
is a time that we wanna try to schedule
a meeting outside of the trc uh just
feel free to email us and we can get
that going as well can exchange phone
numbers uh to to talk more on how we can
do this collaboration
it's one thing i'm just wary of is
explaining everything in detail uh
initially in a public meeting
i wanted to get some kind of baseline
outside of it first
and
just to make sure that
we're finding a way to truly include the
community from the get-go as well
for me too is
to thank you david and edward
it's humbling
and it's honoring
to for you to volunteer to
work with
us and
i am
[Music]
especially looking forward to discussing
uh the framework
to
do our charge from the very beginning i
that is what i um i've been searching
for even as we break out into the
community
uh
that falls under our umbrella as we
carry out our charge i'm looking forward
to
working on that thank you very much for
your time and coming forward thank
you and uh one thing i want to ask is
well um
oh
jeff
um
evrata when it comes to the amount of
time you'll be overseas is it just molly
you're going to and then coming back or
will you be gone for quite some time
uh thank you
mr chairperson
um i am in mali until the end of october
but as you can see the connection is
excellent really so um i'm really
uh very much in touch and also with my
colleagues in the us um i'm confident
that that we can
be in touch
closely and permanently uh to plan out
the different actions that we could that
we could take
forward
and in fact i would like to suggest that
we start as soon as possible with a
conversation and a presentation
on how
truth commissions have worked in in
different parts of the world and in the
united states so we
explore and we explore with the
community
the experiences that truth commissions
have actually happened uh have actually
had
um in my opinion just to
start the conversation to have the
conversation going
uh your truth commission has a legal
mandate the resolution that created the
commission that is actually quite
complete
and that
presents actually a few opportunities
for you guys to do the different work
you have been commenting
from the moment i joined the
conversation
hearings discussing with people that
have been directly affected by
institutional racism
getting their voices heard
and very critically preparing a report
that you can propose to the city
i do think that the mandate leaves a few
doors open to recognize the fact that
there has been a time in which the
commission was not
active due to reasons outside of their
um
of their control
and therefore the possibility of
extending the time of the commission is
open and it could be something to be
discussed
um and i think that there is nothing in
the
in the mandate that precludes the
possibility of bringing to iowa city
these conversations happen around the
country because they can be helpful
it would be i think very very
significant
to bring
to iowa city
remotely
or in presence if that is possible at
some point
the people who worked in greensboro or
the people who work in maine
um the
different
very significant very important actors
that have been involved and are still
involved with the truth telling project
for example so those are things that can
be done
in terms of uh time dedication well uh
certainly we are not currently west and
uh and cannot um articulate a
proposal with so many hours as they have
proposed
but
in my experience honestly what is
important
is to have the right
the right allies to move forward and
the
time of communication is something that
depends and it's built on the
relationship with
with each activity so
we we are not going to propose something
for which we have not the capacity
um so we will be very very happy to to
join you anyway in meetings like this or
to prepare uh specific meetings to to
have conversations presentations and and
discussion with you guys
yeah perfect thank you and i'll be sure
to follow up uh with you all via email
as well
to just try to find an initial time for
conversations time here within the next
week
did you have something oh no i was just
gonna say thank you guys so much i i
really appreciate everything you've done
eduardo especially knowing that it's 1am
over there in mali um i don't want to
keep you guys for too long but i think
the next step is to just reach out to
them
either chair and vice chair
and then
move forward with the conversation with
you guys i think that would be the best
way to go forward
for me i just want to end that uh on a
sentimental note
when you mentioned bamako and mali
uh
having been a teacher of history
seeing you sitting on in one of the
great empires
of africa and great civilizations
it's sentimental for me thank you and is
it good morning there
yeah thank you
pro tip sleep outside on the roof
shooting stars every night
all i wanted to say is thank you
i'm looking forward to working with you
as well
okay on my side i will have to cut
because i start tomorrow very early but
with your permission something that i
want to do is to talk to the chairperson
of the truth justice and reconciliation
commission here because i'm pretty sure
he will be enormously interested to know
that there is a truth commission in iowa
city and the chairperson is actually of
malian descent so
for sure i will try to establish a
linkage and a bridge an international
bridge between these
truths and reconciliation efforts so for
sure count on that connection
got two african immigrants here as the
chair and vice chair we've got molly and
sudan representing
kenya sorry she just
[Laughter]
waited
he's sitting in my homeland right now so
yeah
thank you so much
thank you
yeah very excited to hear that you're
there it's been a lot of uh turmoil in
mali not just the last decade but the
last year especially so
yes
yes but the resilience and the power and
the
goodwill are also incredible so
the fact that in those conditions
they have had a truth commission that
has worked for five years that has
received
22 000 testimonies i think it just
speaks of how receiving that how useful
these initiatives are so i'm for sure i
will be very happy to
to chat with the uh chairperson uh with
ccdb about your incredible effort there
thank you so much i'll be in touch
yourself pretty good
thank you yeah get your arrest
it's like
um
do we have anything else from the
commission on this
okay
um with that we'll now move on to agenda
item number 11.
announcements of commissioners or staff
and just remember trc members shall not
engage in discussion with one another
concerning said announcements
does anyone have any announcements
they'd like to make at this time
um
one that i would like to bring up is
there's the project better together 2030
going on uh right now and there's an
event called the big sort coming up here
this month
so um
even afterwards going forward there's
opportunities for doing community
surveying
and just getting more connected with
not just people in iowa city but across
the county on that
so that's something where if anyone is
interested in helping out
please do email me or get into contact
with me as well and would be more than
happy to have you assist
um
yeah that's the only direct announcement
i have at this time
um this is commissioner ali i just
wanted to talk about an event that's
going to be happening next thursday
through the tippi college of business
casey gerald um who is an author and
speaker will be
presenting
from 3 30 to 4 30
in c106 in the papa john building um he
wrote there will be no miracles here
um
and it says in his bio a memoir that
explores the complex intersection of
race class religion and sexuality
um it was named the best book of 2018 by
npr and the new york times
and he was a finalist for the lambda
literary award um he's got a bunch of
ted talks and he'll be here in ira city
next week and i think that this is a
really valuable opportunity for anyone
who's interested
in business is interested in tippy and
all that good stuff
hello um i would like to uh
announce that uh monday is indigenous
people's day
which is uh in opposition to columbus
day unfortunately the state of iowa
johnson county and iowa city
though they have created a declaration
to observe indigenous people's day they
still observe uh columbus day so i would
ask
people listening uh to think about that
and perhaps um you know
do something about it um also uh there
will be
um a
uh
a couple of events happening uh on that
day in iowa city uh the university of
iowa native american student association
will be hosting their annual
decolonization event at noon at the
pentacrest
please support that if you can
and then in the evening
a brand new uh
business in town uh that close
excuse me the the clown
the clown seat the clutchy um
uh is opening up um on kirkwood and um
it uh will be uh it's it's a it's a
native-owned business uh it's a jewelry
store and they will be hosting an
indigenous people's day event there at 6
00
p.m till 8 00 pm
it's like a meet and greet and there'll
be a few words said
please go to great plains action
society's facebook page to take a look
at the event and
then there will be events happening
throughout iowa as well for indigenous
people's day thank you
stephanie
no
before she goes i just i had talked
about
members of the community
who
who have come forward with the work of
the trc
um thinking of mikhail i hope i'm saying
her name the name right
uh
i did agree that if i'm invited to
any of the i think there are two
portraits remaining of about 10 people
in person
i'm allowed to bring a plus one
if i happen to get
space uh
i will let commission members know
through staff and if
anybody would want to come with me if it
happens
yeah i i'm excited about that the other
thing i will keep mentioning in october
is
its domestic violence awareness month
as the coordinator of nissa african
family services
whose mission is to
end domestic violence among african
communities
so i will keep mentioning that and right
now we are involved in two events
on 29th
we shall have a discussion led by
two of our youth interns who go to the
university of iowa
mainly targeting male youth
because
it's documented in the world that sexual
violence is
the major perpetrators are
people who identify as male
so
that's our target and then the other
event
is
we
are
still planning the
path maya's domestic violence award
and it's good to see you and tucker here
because
as we plan
there was nominations are being done and
i'm not very
off the top of my head
i it's the award is going to be in
october on a weekly at our public
library but i will pass the invite
through stuff once uh we
we put that down and this is by the
uh
our domestic violence intervention
program
once we put the coalition the partners
and the allies we're working on that
together
so
thank you
motion to adjourn
sec i second that motion
all right so we are adjourned thank you
everyone
[Music]
okay it is now 706 pm and calling the
meeting to order
commissioner ali
president commissioner daniel
no she's not muted
can can you say present again just so i
can see if i need to check the volume
a present thank you
um commissioner gathawa president
commissioner johnson president
commissioner harris is in the attendees
list
commissioner harris
yes
thank you
uh commissioner nobis
commissioner rivera president
and commissioner
president
thank you
all right
uh with that on to agenda item number
three
reading of landing
land acknowledgement
and discussion
i can read it
we meet today in the community of iowa
city which now occupies the homelands of
native american nations to whom which we
owe our commitment and dedication the
area of iowa city was within the
homelands of the iowa mesquake and sauk
and because history is complex and time
goes
far back far back beyond memory we also
acknowledge the ancient connections of
many other indigenous peoples here
the history of broken treaties and
forced removal that dispossessed
indigenous peoples of their homelands
was and is an act of colonization and
genocide that we cannot erase
we implore iowa city the iowa city
community to commit to understanding and
addressing these injustices as we work
towards equity restoration and
reparations
next
we have the approval of meeting minutes
from october 7
2021
the
only
change i have is on the final page of
the meeting minutes uh with
the announcements of commissioners uh
just a project a better together 2030
other than that
nothing else thank you
does anyone else have any changes for
meeting minutes
i don't i don't but um i think there are
only four present today that were
present for the last meeting
so i think we'd have to abstain
no you can still i mean
you're not um you're just
basically approving the minutes as
presented okay um yeah so motion to
approve
seconded rivera
okay uh commissioner ali
yes
commissioner daniel
yes
commissioner gathua
yes
commissioner johnson yes
commissioner harris
yes
commissioner rivera yes and commissioner
um treyore
yes thank you
next public comment of items not on the
agenda
commentator shall address the trc for no
more than five minutes
trc members shall not engage in
discussion with the public concerning
said items
do we have anyone present here or within
the zoo meeting that would like to make
any comments
if you're in the zoom feel free to raise
your hand and we will call on you
okay so we do not have any public
comment
on to agenda item number six community
comment on the trc's charges including
fact-finding and truth-telling
so since we already have this um kind of
discussion on trc's charges later
um we can just let the community comment
at this time
oh
we have scouts
okay um so
currently on agenda item number six
community comment on the trc is charges
including fact finding and truth telling
do we have anyone from the public that
would like to comment on this item
all right with that we'll move on to
agenda item number seven updates on the
progress of the fund excluded workers
coalition and the american rescue plan
do we have anyone from the community
that would like to speak on this before
the commission
all right do we have anyone on the trc
that would like to make any comments on
agenda item number seven
yeah i can go real quick um
i know that recently um
so what we set it up is that we can have
pushes against all of them like
different counties so we can push back
against muscatine county and
different places and so now
and some of these places they've set up
their own excluded workers fund
you know it's kind of like a trc works
you know one crc forms more form
more form
so
that's what they did um
after look at the data exactly i think
it may be
tuesday or
wednesday
it's going to be
the last um
last public speaking about it so um
i talked with david i'm pretty sure that
they
explained like
expect to have a large crowd and
we'll see how that goes um
so
and
the only other thing that i would say
about it is
i feel like it's a
it's a good it was a good it was a like
it was a pretty good campaign
and one thing that i
um observed from it is that i wish the
um
trc
was had had as much help as they had you
know and as much
support as as they had
because the amount of support that they
had it was unwavering without any
conditions
and uh
it was even like it was even so much of
a
like a campaign
that david and emily won a human site
like a human rights award for it
you know i'll be going
i'll be going with them on tuesday to a
breakfast that they're going to have
about it
because i was because i was the one that
wanted last [__]so
so i'll definitely like to just shout
out to all your hard work
thank you thank you
do we have anyone else from the
commission that would like to comment on
this item
i just want to say thank you eric for
the updates and keeping up with
everything
and you said
that this was um wednesday correct and
is it around 6 p.m i think
for the listening session
yeah i'll send you the information
okay thank you i gotta go back and look
at
it i believe there's um
a
like dual city council johnson county
supervisor meeting
i think it's like november
17
maybe
i'll have to look it up but i know that
that's coming up too
or maybe it's like a work session
maybe that's what it is
according to their tentative schedule it
looks like the city council has a work
session
informal meeting on november 16th and
then november 30th
yeah okay
yeah so i think it's the 11 16 meeting
that they're going to be talking with
the county
the re the arpa funds
okay i'm like johnson county
um
they're gonna talk
um october 27th at five o'clock 9 13
south duke street and
david sent me a message about it
i'm not that great at spanish but i do
know what this word mean and it means
demonstration so
i i it's going to be a big because i
think it's the last one for the county
so
they're going to turn out and turn out
really big
eric do you think um
we there's uh a need for us to come up
with another recommendation um
to
to kind of consider and um
make a motion on next week based on
ongoing events with um the fun excluded
workers coalition
yeah i think that'd be a good idea
because
um by that time the october 27 thing
uh like that would have happened then
that could be a more of an update and
i and i don't think that he's that he's
going to quit
so it's always going to be something to
update about
so i think it's something that we should
have
regular updates on
um
even when they get to the points where
they make a choice and they start
you know
what whatever they figure out what
they're gonna do with the money and
we need to call that out and say this is
what you're doing shelter house blah
blah blah you're giving it to other
non-profits and not to the people who
need it
so
this is far from over so
contact you a little bit later eric and
um we can get in touch with the
coalition and see what kind of uh
recommendation we can present next week
yeah yeah
like i said i'll see them i'll see david
on tuesday too as well so yeah so we
should so
they should get up with me real soon so
we could talk about it awesome thank you
we now have agenda item number eight
which was a trc framework
so
um everyone's had a lot of questions
about kind of just next steps
what we're really here for
what we're looking to do going forward
i'm not sure if this is
completely confirmed yet but there may
be a work session that we have
at some point before the end of the year
with council
but before that comes
best to get on the same page i do know
that uh eduardo
is willing to do a workshop or a few of
them with us
if we just identify like two to three
key topics we're really looking to hear
about
or that we want him and
his group to present on
so we have that as an option
for one
the next thing other than that i'm kind
of just been reading over
the resolution over the past week
and
just speaking very frankly
it's a lot of just like
it's tough reading it and being here now
so
if we do have that work session there's
going to be
a lot of clarity we're going to need on
if this if this needs to be narrowed in
that sense of like hey this is what you
wrote but these specific paragraphs are
what we want to focus on
or
these specific paragraphs we've tried to
do these things and they haven't been
done
but the one major thing in here that
amel has pointed out and chastity has
pointed out as well is the most
important thing is getting a
truth-telling event together
so i'm really interested in those
workshops with eduardo
so um
we can get more clarity on how he's done
these things in the past his experiences
with them and then try to get one
together sometime in the next few weeks
whether that's
at
a non-profit
event or in a closed meeting with them
or
in a public space of some sort
but
likely going to have to be that way so i
think it's too difficult at this time to
plan it in conjunction with the city you
know getting the space staffing etc so
i think it would be worthwhile
to
kind of plan
right now
times to meet in smaller subcommittees
to
kind of discuss
uh
what we want to get clarity from from
council
i think that that would be a good idea
because i don't really know what this
work session is going to entail but
i think
asking them as many questions related to
the mandate that they approved
a year ago is really important in making
sure that
we're very concise and to the point when
it comes to our questions
that we don't just
allow
the questions to go unanswered and stuff
like that
and daphne you can go ahead
okay thank you um so as far as meeting
with this um
subcommittees
i don't have any intention
of having a housing committee the
members of the housing committee sub
group take time out of their day to
discuss things that should have already
been figured out from the beginning
of this t of the trc
we don't have the power to make things
happen what questions we have is are you
going to grant us an extension and if so
are we going to be able to use the money
you set aside for us and if city council
answers no to either one of those
questions then
what is there to ask further
i i what that i yield
i can't say that i disagree with that
um point but i think it's fair to see
kind of how other people feel about that
and i guess that also kind of
ties into the next agenda item
before we go to the next one
i just want to note
one uh part of this resolution in
particular number five on here
with the charges of the trc set forth
here in the trc is not required to seek
approval from the city council mayor or
city manager to set its own agenda and
prioritize its activities
so
just know that when it comes to
truth-telling event or anything such as
that there's no approval required
there's a copy of the resolution in the
packet
it's a few pages in
but the resolution really outlines the
charges and everything i don't know what
questions
we'd have as that we can't discuss at
one of these meetings or email each
other about or something what are these
questions
that we have not been asking
for the past several months they're just
not answering us
um
i think it's kind of it starts to seem
kind of pathetic that we keep going back
to the city council with the same
questions with the same issues and the
same
people and things serving as obstacles
and they haven't really lifted a finger
to do anything except pay lip service i
i just don't see
the
i just don't see how this
helps us
well
one of the things i thought about
is
because
what was the date that that's supposed
to happen on what like november 17
the 30th
the 30th it so we have to take it man
it could be a totally different
landscape by that point
you know some people going out the door
so
be
a different landscape at that point so
because i've been paying attention to
the um like racist
and
seems like a person that i don't agree
with a lot
he's doing a little bit of gaining
and uh
that'd be a surprise you know
if i see if i see jason glass gain some
more because i already been seeing him
that he'd been gaining
that'd be a surprise to me but
we'll see
because
sometimes
you don't forget things so
you know i don't forget you know
the
all the bad comments i had to listen to
from certain members of council in the
past
few months so
sometimes you might have to pick the
last of two equals
with that i'm
thank you i just want clarification
would this meeting
be to meet with the post-election
council to get their impressions or
their thoughts
on the trc
is that the goal to meet with a possibly
new group of people or
it would be the currently sitting
council on november 30th
okay
um i agree with commissioner daniel that
i don't think that i want to
keep trying to work with the current
city council with its current makeup i
think it is a waste of time but i do
think that there are other things that
we can do that are productive and i
think will be integral to our work as
you guys know um
you know i feel pretty strongly that
this trc can't
really do its job
unless we start reaching out to
community organizations who are already
doing a lot of the work in heavy lifting
and working with
marginalized
bipac individuals in our communities
and so my suggestion would be that over
the next two weeks we spend a lot of
time brainstorming um
which organizations we would like to
reach out to and partner with and then
for us to maybe send
a list together to steph and then we can
all kind of decide at our next meeting
who we do want to partner with as a
commission
and
who might be kind of the liaison for all
of those that we identify
you know i i really envision this going
to a place where
you know we start reaching out to these
organizations and say
what would it look like for us the trc
to co-sponsor a listening session with
you and all the people that you serve
how would we set that up how soon do you
think that we can do that and start kind
of working out certain logistics
and then i think that we can also
preliminarily ask
different groups like
i don't know what would you like to see
with
a million dollars that have been set
aside for the trc and for
racial equity in our community that have
otherwise not been
uh used and i don't think that that
needs to be the the basis of the
recommendations that we give at the very
end of our report but i think that can
really help us start to
sink some teeth into the to our charges
and our mission um
and you know i think that the
suggestions that i'm making at least in
the next two weeks or four weeks
are
are productive and free
i'll go
this is commissioner
i
uh
i do agree with the commissioners who
are saying
right now going to the current
silicon so yes
i it might even be counterproductive
that being said
what commissioner rivera is saying
is giving me what
i
have been wondering all along
the
overall framework of
carrying out our charges
and
what i'm hearing
is and to me that gives me
some unstackness
of moving forward and
either inviting
groups or
organizations or individuals
to come to us whatever that may be
and
they
we fact find from them or listen to them
all
and also as outreaching to the groups
and to the individuals
and like you said
uh working with them and they might
actually be having the answers on how
for example if i'm thinking of
myself
in two
in three ways
in the iccsd school district
how i usually work with them when they
are when advocating
for family
african
families
and then
nasa for african families again who
survive under victims of domestic
violence
how do we go about that and then also
as a member of the
african communities who are outside
those two areas that i've mentioned so
those are just examples so for me
i see what i've been searching all along
the framework on how to do this
now
then we need also to figure out the
logistics of now
of
a record
of that
as we go
how do we
get this raw information which
later
we'll work on and decide how to put it
together
to give to the
to the city
and
yeah that is something definitely we can
do
and we are able to do
and
of course as we go
some of it is going to there's
some use of resources
so
and
i think that that's one that's
will answer one of the questions there's
money set aside
and they and
and resources other resources in the
space and things like that
in the city which to me i still see
it's things that we are able to do
without necessarily having to go for
another
uh
right now which would look like a waste
of time with the current council
but then even with all that
there is something fun resolution for
number six
at some point because it's actually it's
i'm thinking it's put as number six
before number eleven for a reason
number six shall be first the tlc shall
be facilitated by an independent
consultant
so
that has failed twice now
so we are going ahead with number 11
but still
oh
uh i'm thinking from the discussions
we've been having from now september 21
that we've kind of shelved that for the
time being with this current
city
council
so
i will yield as i thank
commissioner rivera for kind of giving
me a light bulb moment and all the other
discussions that the previous
commissioners have had as far as a
framework is concerned and then of
course we have the other little ones as
we work in our subcommittees to do that
and even at an individual level
thank you without a yield
um one thing i really do agree on
quickly here is that
likely a waste of time but
a waste of time for a few things one
it says in here
the focus of this commission is on race
the creation of an ad hoc truth and
reconciliation commission is in the best
interest of the city and its residents
trc is not required to seek approval
from the city council mayor or city
manager to set its own agenda and
prioritize its activities
and then it lists lists our charges as
fact finding truth telling
reconciliation
and getting the final report in there
so those are the parts i'm choosing to
focus on whatever happens in that
november 30th meeting honestly whatever
not thinking about it not worrying about
it
um
questions to ask them i'm more looking
for them to just talk because it's them
requesting that we come in not us asking
at this point
asked the questions three weeks ago just
getting a meeting on november 30th so
not waiting that long
also
yeah as
as you said let's just worry about the
community members themselves
and
yeah just have the events outside of it
try to get some kind of testimony to
bring to them and to me that's the only
deliverable other than that whatever
they have to say they can say
yeah
i agree um earlier in the week i guess
some type there was some type of
correspondence that i had got about a
guy
and he told a story about how i was in
johnson county jail
and the deputies assaulted him he's
still injured from the assaults and i
looked at the date on the jail a letter
that i read
and now like
soon after he wrote this letter he was
sent away to a different county two days
later
well where now he's all the way in
lee county which is fort madison which
is a far away place from here but he has
a story that he wants to tell
so i'm going to try to get that figured
out um
whether i can send him you know
some money and
report a phone call with him
or get him to write something else out
to get more detailed about
what happened so i'm going to
i'm going to see what's going on with
that because he said two johnson county
deputies sheriffs
be him and another
person of color
and he said he's still going through the
injuries
that i'm ill
yeah so in terms of
just following the open meetings rules
uh
we'll just be sure to defer the rest of
this discussion to subcommittees if that
works for everyone
yep all right
so what are we talking about our
subconscious
this is commissioner rivera what are we
talking about in our subcommittees as
long as the subcommittee you choose to
talk to has four people or less within
it
however you'd like to plan um outreach
to community organizations we know of
and can we as a commission decide on a
list of like organizations that we want
to work with before we do that
yeah we could what we could do is i
could start a list in a goo in our
google drive
and then we could add to that if you
want to
i was gonna or do you want to put the
list and send it to stephanie and then
say anyone else who knows of an
organization that is reaching these
community members and wants to add it
then just email stephanie with those
names yeah we could do that
so what we're doing is uh inviting
everyone in to discuss who are leaders
of the community right now we're
brainstorming the organizations that all
of us know of and all of us maybe have
connections with that we would like to
consider at our next meeting so that
this commission can decide here's the
list of organizations that we want to
partner with and then at that meeting
too we can decide which one of us wants
to formally liaise which which with each
of those
organizations so at the next meeting
they'll be here no
at the next meeting we're just deciding
if we want to work with them as a
commission
right it's kind of similar to how we
deal with the um at school workers
we just picked up like a few people out
and that's what we decided was going to
go
over there
and be like a mess of the tournament
basically
yeah if any of them want to present of
course they can but you know yeah i mean
one of the reasons that i'm thinking
that it's it's necessary for us to
um
agree on who our our partners are is
because i don't want us to overextend in
building relationships if we as
a commission don't think that it's worth
it right like i can see there's an
argument for saying okay let's partner
with
iccsd
um because they you know capture
students and but i mean maybe that's not
the
the vibe of this commission and who i
want to go out for and maybe we would
just want to work with ic compassion and
nissa and
um
and things like that so you know i think
it's worthwhile for us to just throw as
many names out there as possible
including like groups within kirkwood
and groups within the ui and and and
then for us to sit down and say okay who
are the most you know interesting um and
important partners here so that we can
start creating a calendar or ideas of
who we can reach out to after that
that sounds like uh
like we have a plan
yeah yeah
so i'll send um steph an initial list it
obviously won't be
comprehensive but
reply to that email um with as many
organizations as you can think of that
could be relevant to this work
and with that onto oh sorry uh chastity
um i just have a question um
would it be
like i think it's great that we would um
put our own or whatever we want for the
list but i feel like there's a list of
organizations out there somewhere that
we could just grab
onto
i don't know if the city has it or the
johnson county social services
i don't know stephanie might know about
that
well i think there are a lot of lists
out um
you know
it could probably get pretty long
just because of how they categorize
things
but i will um
search around and see what i can can
locate
okay thank you
on that
veteran i'm wondering uh when you're
thinking of whom you're working with
i'm kind of
i wonder whether
what
are you thinking of
information rich organizations in what
we are looking for evidence of all
truths and fact finding on
i think now i'm thinking a lot out loud
so because
we and
we are definitely not just we're not
just getting organizations in iowa city
so
sorry can you just restrain the
beginning i'm trying to think uh so
which organizations are we looking for i
guess i went back to
i had some clarity but now i've lost it
i'm leaving it vague so that we can have
a really big list and then we can
whittle it down at our next meeting
um but you know one way that you can
think about it is you know organization
local organizations who explicitly in
their mission you know reach out to
minoritized racialized groups in in iowa
city
or we can say these are the
groups and organizations or
institutions in this community who have
the widest reach uh among those
populations even if their mission isn't
necessarily geared towards those
groups
by poke organizations
right
okay like yeah like places like
the dream city you know those places
like that
that could be all a part of those lists
and in my announcements i explained why
that that should probably be one that's
on the list so
i think the reason that this is
important is because if we're if we're
right now not going to have
a a paid facilitator then we really need
to lean on
some of the manpower from these
organizations
to help us
and women power and
non-binary power
so yeah in that case let's do the list
and then the next meeting look to
whittle that down
and just know i mean you don't have to
only think of the list on your own you
can of course ask anyone else in the
community what they think
to get a a better picture
it's
just trying to get aggressive on this uh
we are
we're gonna decide uh which groups we're
going to reach out to
next week or next meeting next meeting
all right yeah and of course you can
always like reach out to the person in
advance and let them know see if they're
even interested before we have the
discussion
i personally believe we should just
invite everybody i feel like inviting
everybody would be
uh
everybody has truth
so
to invite everybody we can we can break
it down a little bit uh when we get here
but i feel like inviting everybody and
saying look this is the platform we have
let's use it and take this time to make
sure we have everyone's attention and
and and people stay there i hear i hear
what you're saying um
and i think that we can continue
inviting all of these leaders to our
meetings we meet every two weeks or
twice a month and they can come whenever
they want but i think what we're talking
about is fostering relationships so that
we can host some of these listening
sessions in a finite amount of time we
don't have unlimited time to host a
million listening sessions by the time
that this commission is done so i do
think that we need to be
strategic with the energy that we're
putting into this work for free and with
the time that we have
understood
yeah and then to add to that
commissioner
johnson
i'm thinking of
the listening posts the city council had
that ended up
creating the trc
they
invited everybody
and i remember saying in one of their
posts in september
2020
we
we didn't
have the people and i stated that
publicly we
uh because it wasn't targeted like what
we
are planning
uh we
they
we know the bipark people
are the most impacted
by racial injustice yet
if that day you looked at massa park
you wouldn't even you
get you would think
we really do not have i'm just picking
this
as an example we don't have black people
in iowa city which we know is not the
real picture because it wasn't targeted
it was an invite that was put there
for
whatever reason
uh
to me and i stated that publicly
the
group that would benefit most
didn't come forward so
i'm thinking
this is one of the
different ways we're going about it and
also part of the reason why trc was
was formed and then
like commissioner rivera is repeating
we are short on time
we are short on staffing
so still
but working with what we have and the
time that we have
i still i'm thinking it's
the best way to go forward
you understood yeah
see commissioner dillard's hand up
um i just wanted to say um i i think i
shared similar concerns with
commissioner johnson i just i don't like
the idea of us
pulling a bunch of people and then
choosing if anyone wants to come forward
i think we should still be
open to that partnership
i think that's
what i'm i'm really worried i don't like
the idea of being like oh we're only
going to choose these 10 people but then
there's like
11 12 and 13 that really want to work
with this i mean i know we're on a time
constraints
um but
i assume that we would still be open to
whoever wants to come forward
and i yield
yeah i'd agree with that i don't think
like there's no finite number that i've
heard yet to this point i think it's
again just more of
there's more than likely going to be
more of a core group
of people that are going to want to have
more correspondence that are going to
have more availability because we don't
know also what all these other
organizations have going on right now so
that's the other thing to keep in mind
of it's one thing to say like hey we
want to work with you it's another of do
you have the time for this right now
so that's just going to be uh some
remind them that we have a very short
window and
yeah i i i can understand that
definitely um
if we have a short window i feel like we
should move on as fast as possible so
yeah whatever
gets this process rolling
i'm about that
uh
but yeah i do believe also we should
have it open to
a lot of people because there's a lot of
truth out there and
i mean
yeah
that's that's where i'm at with it as
well
i appreciate those comments and i i
don't disagree i i think that um
like i'm not envisioning us creating a
moat around you know a core group of
organizations that we're picking next
week but i think that
my point is that we need to sort of
have an idea of who
next week
we can start reaching out to right so
um each of us has we can't i mean
none of us can coordinate 10 different
community organizations and be the
liaison for all of those people and say
i'm going to independently start hosting
listening sessions with 10 different
groups
right but like you are saying if people
are want to work with us then we should
absolutely be open to them
and so i i don't want to
create walls or
be a gatekeeper by any means but i do
think that we should identify who's who
are going to be our initial contacts and
their initial relationships that we're
trying to foster how much is the city
giving us for uh advertising and
reaching out to the community
we have like i mean jeff fruin said that
we can sort of make small requests
through the office of um human rights
is that your is that the name i remember
i remember yeah
no finite number i know of but i do know
if there's
anything that you do get in advance of
clearance of funds keep the receipts
send them in for
getting paid back for it
if anyone needs help with anything on
that in the meantime let me know and
figure something out
the best way to do it is if there's
something that needs to be paid is to
just um
contact me
and i can work with the organization or
the business or
the printing company etc and they can
invoice the city and it's just paid
directly like that so that commissioners
are not using their own funds to to pay
for things so if there's a cost that's
incurred then let me know and we'll take
care of that
interesting what's one of the most
successful ways of uh reaching out to
the people that we currently have with
the city right now
not sure what you mean by reaching out
to the city or
to the entire to everybody out there
like what is our our means of that if
they advertise for example uh
a festival or something like that how
did they go about yeah i mean how about
doing that yeah there's a few different
ways but nothing i say beats a personal
invite you know reaching out going to
places where people are at
but in addition to that there there
would be social media um i believe
they're next door
um and then there would be
a city news release
so
and in you know kind of um
it's it's not uncommon at least for
um the human rights office i mean to do
flyers and postcards and you know put
them up where people go where they'll
see them
get things translated you know so
there's a lot of
different opportunities it's not really
just one so we can do that correct
i i love that phone calls face-to-face
visits are best
if one possible now that wouldn't be by
us because we're not
we we would have somebody do that for us
correct
you mean like the news release and the
social media that yeah that would go
through um a different division but it
would go to me and then it would go to
them and then they they push it out
i think that's great i think that's
exactly where we should go with things
and push it like it's a festival
i feel like we're not getting phone
calls and everything right now because a
lot of people don't even know what we're
doing right now
to a certain level and degree i mean
they know what we're doing they know
we're here but
i i feel like with all the people we had
uh
out there supporting us i feel like
we need to make sure we keep on their
tap and kind of get them more involved
and
whatever ways we can promote that the
city is willing to give us to give them
the opportunity to know what we're doing
right now uh i think we need to push
that a little bit further so
thoughts
what are you wanting to promote
that we are
looking to give
truth to people
out there in the city any any anybody
that's out there we
i feel like
does everybody actually know what we're
doing right now do they know where we're
at or
that's how i feel like do they even have
a clue that we're having this meeting
right now the vast majority of people
know that's my point so that's what i'm
saying however we can if there's
festival posters everywhere talking
about we're doing this and we're doing
that then we should be able to use that
same method to reach out to people and
hope that that works a little bit more
and bring people in a little bit more uh
that's just my thoughts with it uh
are you saying in terms of inviting
people to these meetings yeah like these
like twice monthly meetings absolutely
and at every single
every time we have these meetings we
should have a list of people on standby
because
time
just like we keep saying goes by
over and over and every single week
we're always planning to plan
i worry about that a little bit because
i feel like it's just getting lost and
i feel like it's a
clock you know a a
hourglass that's just every sand that
drops man
i really hope that we can uh
kind of move people
people people are there they're they're
interested we just gotta keep their
attention and keep them uh in tune
that's
where i'm at with it so with that i
yield
yeah um
yeah we can definitely be sure to be
more specific on it and get on that end
but
um
yeah if anyone wants to have those calls
uh individually or just kind of in those
subcommittees of four or less then we
can just be sure to do that
just want to make sure we don't kind of
just
talk in circles on this one
for now if that makes sense
eric sorry did you have something
no you've got to wait to announcements i
think it's more proper it has something
to do with this but i think it should
wait till announcement so all right
so
we do have agenda item number nine which
was
a discussion and vote on whether to
recommend that city council extend the
timeline for the trc to fulfill its
charge
so this one was deferred from last week
and
their public comment
yeah
do we have anyone from the public that
would like to comment on this
so before we move on from
number
eight
we have a grade that for the
for next meeting
to
have had sent
uh
various groups and organizations that we
can work with
okay thank you i'm sorry you have moved
us back yeah thank you
do we have any public comment for agenda
item number nine
all right so
would anyone from the commission
themselves like to start on this one
excuse me
one two three four
um
yeah do we have to we have to pause
while we use i i think you're okay as
long as you're
it looks like he'll be right back so
you're i think you're fine you're not
taking any action
okay
um
i was kind of doing
the math over here in my head so
um the mandate for the trc was signed
at the end of september
of 2020
and it it had the trc go until june
2022 with the report due in may 2022
so i was looking at if there was two
ways that we wanted to do this
if we wanted to do it by like
requesting that they sign it officially
and we start officially
from their
11 30 meeting then the new timeline
would be
the sign date is november 2021
our end date for the commission would be
august
2023 and the report would be due
july 2023
or
if we wanted to have it start from when
this new commission started
which was after the pause and i believe
that was in march
i think it was around the 15th or 16th
that we had that meeting with the
mayor and mayor pro tem
that would have us
um ending in january 2023
with a report due by december 2022
and if anyone needs me to repeat that
i can
yes please
thank you no worries so um this is about
like the timelines uh specific to if we
wanted to be fair about like either
starting
from
um
when they sign
it assuming they would sign it on the
30th
or if we wanted to start the timeline
from when the new commission started
so
their old timeline
it was signed september 2020
the
um
charges and everything um the end date
was june 2022
and the report from the commission was
due in may 2022
so assuming they sign
and approve for an extension and we want
to start the extension on the november
30th date
um and do the exact same time it would
be
the commission ending in august 2023
and the report due in july 2023
and then
the last option would be requesting that
they start
over from the day that the new
commission
was started which i believe was in
around mid march
so that would be march 2021 would be the
start
end date would be january 2023
and the report would be due in december
2022
um
so i think that it's important if we do
vote to request an extension that we're
very concrete on times and why we would
want
to um
have those tire explained for for the
reasoning for asking for these specific
timelines
and um
from like the conversation earlier
regarding like uh the
november 30th meeting about like what
we're going to ask
from council and um i know a couple of
commissioners agreed with with what
commissioner daniel said regarding
not really needing to ask them for
anything besides you know
just
the extension or if we can use our money
which i totally agree with and i think
that
we should still
work to write up something to present to
them or whatever on why we're asking for
this just to kind of validate it
and i know last at our last meeting i
was very against it
um i didn't want to ask for the
extension
i thought it was kind of a waste of time
but i have
thought about it and it does make sense
and it's
um
yeah i just want to know what the rest
of you guys think especially the
commissioners who weren't here the last
time during this conversation because
there were only two-thirds of us present
so three of us were gone so
well
well i was here but i
um
i would say that
you know i would vote for it kind of
just like you said and in the format
that you have it right there you know
it's just as a formatter
but
i doubt if anything is happening
i doubt it it might come to the fact
that we might have to wait until we see
some new faces around that before that
he
happens because i have to be real with
myself and i know as one person
specifically
that's
it's going to be the most difficult to
let it even happen because he doesn't
even want the commission to be
working right now so
i'm i'm going to vote yes
that we do that but i don't have a lot
of optimism about it
but i do like how he broke it down and
gave him those options so
i will vote yes but as far as having me
having confidence in and
i might wait to see some new faces
inside that chamber
to be
to be frank on on this point of the
extension i think the only vote worth
having if we're going to have a vote is
whether to recommend that it's a
permanent commission
the whole thing about the concrete
deadlines and dates the more i read
about trcs the more i talk to people it
just makes less and less sense
i don't understand how
we're going to have a hard deadline
on looking at
decades centuries of policies you know
while stuff is currently going on on top
of that
and you never know what's going to
happen in the future
so if there's a set of recommendations
put forth
then it's okay we have these
recommendations those can be put off for
however long but if you have a permanent
commission then there's that permanent
pushback
and there is that permanent oversight
and there is also the ability to
continue collecting testimonies and let
the community know this is not just a
one-time thing it's over when the job is
done
not when the city decides the job is
done
i would like to piggyback on that a
whole heart that i wholeheartedly agree
again
i've always felt that way that we should
always have a truth and reconciliation
commission there should not be a
deadline to it if i had to choose and i
had to choose i would obviously pick the
latest state possible
because this is not something that
happened overnight so it's not something
that's going to be solved overnight
there's no way
for me to wrap my head around all of a
sudden an incident happened so we
decided to step up and then we walked
away as soon as the incident died down
that simply doesn't make sense in no way
shape or form to me it's very
frustrating to even think that we
shouldn't have a truth and
reconciliation commission i am mind
blown at that especially
i mean
let's face it with life we've seen how
life is we've seen time and time again
incidents after into after incident take
place and what do we think it all just
disappears and goes away i don't think
so at all there's no way so therefore we
need to make sure we're always here to
stand up for those who need their voice
heard there's no reason at all to not
have a truth and reconciliation
commission permanent i don't i don't
believe that at all i feel like that's
quieting voices that
don't need to be quieted if we're a
community that's progressive that is
trying to do the right thing it just
simply doesn't make sense so i
wholeheartedly stand by uh
extending
as long as we can if not permanent
i i definitely
see commissioner dillard's hand up and
then i would like to go after death and
i just i want to make the point really
quick that um just for and maybe this is
a clarification on the agenda it says uh
the recommendation that city council
extend the timeline for the trc to
fulfill its charge um so i don't think
that
unless we want to
make a different agenda item next time
when we have to just talk about that
stuff
since it's just it's very specific to
extending the timeline only
yeah i mean i think maybe you could
i mean there i guess there could be a
motion where it would extend the
timeline indefinitely or something like
that okay um but but other than that
yeah i think for public notice if you
wanted to make it a permanent board the
public should be given a little better
notice but yeah i still think without
the agenda item is written if you you
know just put indefinitely i think that
would probably still
work
okay um commissioner dillard if you want
to go ahead and then
um commissioner
rivera just had a clarifying question
for this um this vote
on whether to recommend to the city
council when would this go to the city
council
is that in two weeks from tuesday
well technically it would be part of
your draft minute so i mean they would
see those because the draft minutes are
published in information packets
but they so since they didn't look they
deferred our minutes do you think that
that would mean that they probably would
wait till the 30th
i don't know if i know what you mean by
defer their minutes they like didn't i
thought that they didn't vote on
approving or looking at them
and wanted to wait till the 30th thank
you
well i mean technically
minutes when you make recommendations to
the city council technically they don't
go
on to their formal agenda until those
minutes are approved by the trc so it
would technically they wouldn't be
on a council form agenda under consent
until after your next meeting where you
would approve the minutes from tonight
and then it looks like the council would
meet again on
november 16.
november
16th
so it would be a part of their
agenda for that that meeting those
approved minutes would be now whether
there's any action or anything that
comes of that i mean that's in their
purview
they would be part of their packet
thank you for the clarification
the point that i wanted to make is um
you know i don't think that it needs to
be an either or thing i think that we
can say
um logistically that there needs to be
an end date for the ad hoc truth and
reconciliation commission because i mean
none of the nine of us
can or or should be on this commission
forever right i think that other people
should filter in and we should have a
plan for that
i agree absolutely that there should be
a permanently installed truth and
reconciliation commission to do this
work and continue to make
recommendations and continue to liaise
with organizations that hopefully we're
going to build partnerships with
i think that with whatever timeline
we decide on as a commission
when we make that recommendation to city
council for here is what we'd like an
extension for the ad hoc truth and
reconciliation for we need to also
submit
a rough timeline or projected timeline
of what we hope to accomplish in that
time or else they're never going to
grant us that time us saying we need
more time but we don't have a plan for
how to use that time is is going to is
not going to work very well for us and
so we need to have an idea
of
again the function the structure of this
commission and how we're going to do our
work which is i think why we need to
have some other ideas in place before we
submit that recommendation if we and i
hope we do
make a
a recommendation at the same time to
that um a permanent trc is created after
the end date of this ad hoc truth and
reconciliation commission we also need
to submit new charges and a new mission
at least as recommendations or
suggestions for city council
[Music]
so that you know we're creating as we're
we're putting the least amount of effort
on them as possible
so that they can just kind of say yes
hopefully
yeah um i
i'm sorry oh no go ahead yeah yeah go
ahead oh i was gonna say uh it's not
like we had a plan uh that's all i feel
like we already had a plan that's kind
of in play and that's a plan that
doesn't sound like to me it can't be
repeated every time if we are always
if we always have this platform i feel
like
whatever groups throughout whatever time
need to come in
have the opportunity and that that
that's why i feel like
just inviting people in if we have a
longer extended period time or unlimited
period of time then every every time we
have a meeting is when we can
give people opportunity to let their
voice be heard every single time and i
i do agree that we shouldn't there's
nothing permanent about us or anything
along those lines but i i believe that
to put your heart and soul into
something
and make sure you stick with it for x
amount of time will give
a lot more opportunity for things to get
done
but a time frame of of changeover is
that's appropriate i mean that's
appropriate for everything but at the
same time
having people who have been on for x
amount of time can be very helpful in
passing a torch
and
for example
those of you who've already been on uh
for
uh since the beginning uh you guys are
extremely helpful when it comes down to
knowledge and and how to
and all of the above for anybody that's
stepping in like we did and uh i feel
like
that's
that's the most helpful is to kind of
keep a few of us on there and then pass
on the torch to make sure that we don't
get agendas in the mix more than
anything else and that's that's what i'm
worried about i don't want
things to get replaced only to get died
down to get pushed under the carpet to
disappear
that's the one thing that i'm worried
about more than anything else because it
seems like
it's it's gotten pushed in that
direction and every time we have to bump
a meeting down or discuss something
again later it gets easier and easier
for that to happen so that's my only
fear with that but i respect and
understand your thoughts and i
appreciate them
uh
cows had a hand up blow out
i don't know about started
again so cow's had a hand up for a while
yes kyle said you have something no i'm
good okay uh okay
um i think commissioner dillard had her
hand up a while ago as well
very sorry daniel
yeah
commissioner daniel did you have
something
it did not
i guess just to close out the
conversation on this sounds like we're
still not in a place to make a concrete
decision between us but
i think that we can just use
the community groups we do talk to and
ask them their opinions on how long they
think it should be
that could require that could give us
more backing in terms of the timeline
but
regardless of
what action we take
i think their hands are tied and that
it's not going to be an easy decision
for council regardless
because again it says in here whereas
the city council recognizes that for
truth and reconciliation process to be
meaningful it must include bold action
to confront privilege stimulate
difficult conversations
etc also goes on to say that trc shall
be facilitated by an independent
consultant funded by the city with
expertise in group facilitation and
human rights
i want to really note funded by the city
so
again um the way that this is written
this is not successful in any way
whatsoever unless those two things
especially are done
so if this comes to a conclusion without
those two things happening
kind of uh
well for
the political side of it doesn't bode
very well also not spending very much or
anything of the millions set aside also
doesn't look very good
so
it's less on us more on them it's not
easy for them so the longer they wait
the tougher it is on them
yeah i would like to hear why they don't
want a truth and reconciliation
commission at all i i would love to hear
that
oh before
because two people left
i gotta be frankie it's a pain in their
ass i mean let's just be honest right
like this is a lot of extra
and you know what i'm kind of glad we're
talking about this because i don't
really know what's going on so why
exactly
we don't have to name names but two
people left the commission or two people
like where they voted off or did they
choose to leave
they resigned
but this has nothing to do one was yeah
this hasn't been we can't talk yeah yeah
can we move on to the next agenda just
so just a moment before we move on yeah
just to
to go back to what uh chair trolley
was saying to wind up i just don't want
us to lose a piece of what commissioner
rivera said
that
before we even ask for an extension to
really uh
put down to lock in
our timeline on
and the activities that we do the the
activities that we're doing
the timeline
and
the expense
so that that justifies what commissioner
ali was saying
we are clear on what we are going to ask
for
and then based on our timeline the
activities and the budget and that kind
of also addresses
the points commissioner treyori
you've talked about because it ties in
our charge
and
the needs that go that they what we need
to carry out that charge which includes
the budget and the use of
of the city funding
and the need for a facilitator so i
didn't want us to lose that
so that we're not just going and talking
wildly to the council
thank you i yield
yeah um that's all well and good we can
definitely do it in that way let's just
remember again there's no guarantee that
they take any budget or whatever it is
so
less about what they're going to do is
more on what we would like to see
so
yeah i always just think of something
and it makes me just reflect more so
it's gonna be quick and short but makes
me reflect more
like why do we have a deadline
to go see about the racial and social
injustice they've been doing without a
deadline
they've been doing it for hundreds of
years
so why would you have a deadline that's
stopping but they have unlimited
time to do this
to the social and racial injustice has
been going on forever they don't have a
deadline for that with that i'm here
just an answer to that
uh from what i've looked at
through
tlc's
uh and
i usually usually have a time limit
and um and i'm thinking that's where
the our city council was coming from
and
i'm thinking that's something we can
recommend at the end of our facts that
we would want a permanent one and also
uh justify and
looking but from what i've been looking
at
trcs
are usually not permanent
but they have we already have a lot of
arms that deal with
racial injustice they just haven't
worked and that's the evidence we are
collecting
at last i counted i think we had like
seven or six centers of justice
in the county
so
and with that i'll stop so that i my
point was just that they usually have a
time limit and it's they are given a
time limit
so and right now
we have one and it's so yeah
i think in the interest of
um so the way the agenda item's written
i guess we could just choose to
have this discussion at another time so
it doesn't sound like we're going to
come to a consensus and don't want to
just decide this on yes or no votes when
it sounds like there isn't um
a concrete decision on whether to go for
a specific timeline or rather indefinite
all right
does that sound good to everyone just
continue this can you maybe do a motion
to just defer the agenda item to a later
time and that way the record's a little
clearer as to the what the
group want it to do
like to make a motion to defer this
agenda item for another time
second
commissioner ali
yes commissioner daniel
yes
commissioner dillard
yes
uh commissioner gathua yes commissioner
johnson yes
commissioner harris
yes commissioner nobis
yes commissioner rivera yes
and commissioner treyari yes okay thank
you
agenda item number 10 discussion and
vote whether to do a request for
proposals for a facilitator for the trc
i just want to give the community a
chance to comment on this before we
continue
okay um
so whether do a request or proposals for
facilitator for the trc
uh however we get a facilitator i don't
really
care how it's done whether it's an rfp
whatever as long as we have people that
are willing to help
guide the efforts of this and make a
repeatable process
then that's cool with me i don't know
that stephanie do is it's
required that anyone hired by a
commission has to be brought in by an
rfp
no
it does not
require
um
that but what i will say is any
agreement
that the trc wants to enter into with
the facilitator would still be within
the purview of the city council to
either approve or not approve
yes the thing for the proposals is
i might hold more weight to rather get
the community groups or leaders in in
working with us first
and then
put the request proposals out afterwards
so it's one thing to deny someone from
an application
if they haven't engaged directly with
that work but if they're currently
working on it and proving that they can
do it
that's much
harder so and that also stops us from
waiting the
looks like minimum of around seven to
eight weeks to get through that process
anyways
when i calculated it out just looking at
a calendar i think
at the earliest it would be on if you
look at the second to last bullet point
prepare council packet materials take to
council for approval on purchase order
you would probably be looking at january
18th when i looked at their meeting
schedule and then kind of mapped out
these time figures that were put in the
parenthesis
yeah just bring the community members in
bring community leaders in start working
with them do the rfp stuff in in tandem
and send it out because otherwise we
just wait for the facilitator that's
just pointless
they've turned down two of our
facilitators correct
no they accepted one turned down the
other and one of the members eduardo is
volunteering now to help
yeah so i don't
yeah
as long as we need to get a
rfp
i mean i'm done with this
it's just
whatever ideas you guys have so
yeah i think a number of commissioners
might disagree with me on this and
that's okay but i really don't um
you know i think that if we were able
like you're saying to sort of organize a
way to get a facilitator
in tandem during as we're already sort
of doing the work then that's fine but
i certainly don't think that we
need to make this sort of the next goal
post before we start doing the work um
ten minutes it's ten months into the
creation of
that truth and reconciliation commission
all we've really accomplished is
trying to figure out what our mission is
trying to figure out a decorum of
structure trying to figure out
what our budget's going to be trying to
figure out our facilitator and we
haven't really done anything else
and so i i want to spend as little time
talking about facilitator as possible
moving forward
i agree i agree i absolutely agree
i feel like you're constantly looking
for a facilitator is wasting time
i agree with that absolutely
we we're all adults and we need to be
professional adults when we're having
discussions amongst each other
whatever we have to do to do it let's
just do it if it means we got to cut a
mic or something like that
and and say look x amount of time this
time you get you don't get the runoff
because you're friends with anybody or
anything like that no you cut it off
right at the right at the source and
then you move on we we have
real important issues to really take
care of and
discussing about somebody to help us do
it every time is definitely not the way
i i i i hope we don't get stuck on it
anymore at all let's let's move nope
who's the people that's willing to help
us
they don't want any money and the people
that's willing to help us that's it i
don't want to go through that
and one of the main reasons
is when it didn't work
i was sitting right there
next to
muhammad and i could just see the defeat
on his face like
i was up to three o'clock in the morning
and these guys just so i know it's not
work it's not worth it no more
you want to just defer this one then in
that case sounding like
yep so we could figure out a more
concrete i'm sorry um
daphne
well i i'm sorry why do we keep
deferring i'm like i don't know if
you've noticed but i've been quiet the
past few meetings because
i don't want to add more to the
conversations because the conversations
are taking a long time and we're talking
about the same things over and over
so
um maybe next
meeting
i might propose for the agenda um
some kind of conversation that will just
come to some kind of
definitive answer on certain things like
we just have to make decisions and keep
going like
it's kind of one of the reasons why we
keep going around and around is because
we aren't
making those decisions
um
and that's just my opinion though like i
know that uh
you know
other folks might feel differently about
it
but um we need to be bold and we just
need to
um
you know do what we need to do and
uh regardless of whether or not the city
council agrees with us or not like we're
not politicians we're here for a very
different reason and
we need to stick to the very mission of
truth and reconciliation which is
allowing people to testify
and then
letting them speak about different
issues
you know
that concerns them in different realms
and um i don't think we really need
subcommittees to do that like we could
literally
just set up a series of meetings um on
different issues that affect people
like sustainability like education
like policing
um and just go to the community and ask
people to speak
and then put together a report after
that and yes it would be great to have
the fancy
folks to do that for us but
i mean
i just i can't keep doing this it's
getting very frustrating um
and i just want to be honest about it
i can completely agree with all of that
but i just want to say again that
i think
that yes the truth telling events etc
have to happen but
it's pointless to go to something and
just tell people to come to speak
because we're more than likely going to
get one person two two people or no one
because we don't have that trust or
recognition in the community
is the
what it takes for someone to just come
out publicly and just speak like that
knowing it's going to be recorded
knowing it's going to be brought in and
in public archives for good that's a lot
so we need to make sure we're connecting
with these community groups first
having their leaders actually ask
them to do so or help us set up the
events and go that route
and the other thing is in terms of the
recordings
we need you know where are we storing
these things who actually is doing the
recording with us
because the city wants it to be city
staff or whoever it is but i personally
think that that is a no-go for probably
90 plus of the people that want to
participate
who wants to talk
bad about what the government has done
to them
directly to the government that has done
bad to them and think that it's actually
going to change something we all do that
all the time
so they're going to want to speak to
someone independent
so there's some logistic things we have
to figure those out but the real thing
is
building that rapport trust with the
community leaders
commissioner daniel has her hand i would
like to give her an opportunity to speak
yeah because we should go
so
thank you and
yes um well
i
i don't want us to go into the politics
or talking about people or doing any of
that that's this is not the form for
that
what i'm trying to get to is
is the problem with the commission
it is what
can we do
to to fix the problem if it is with us
if the problem is with the overall
structure
um
like the structure of the trc was
ill-conceived and
doesn't
in theory it works when in practice
it doesn't
we should look at that but if the
problem is really
personal feelings or the politics
surrounding this
we should recognize that we can make all
the decisions we want but
it's not going to change
those personal grudges it's not going to
change the politics the policy exchanges
with elections the personal grudges
changes when people grow up so
i i do think sometimes we're taking it
upon ourselves like we're kind of hard
on ourselves we're not making decisions
and people don't have faith in us they
don't know what we do
but we are we aren't the city council
we're separate from them
no i i i understand we're separate from
the city council but there seems to be
a lot of issues there
between yeah sorry i was saying that
support from what you said sorry
oh no that's just
i don't i don't i'm i don't know what
the what the problem is but i'm i kind
of feel like we're all kind of taking it
upon our like out on the commission
like and i think we're putting too much
pressure and things like
i don't i don't know i i just as i'm
listening to i kind of feel bad that we
couldn't we haven't been able to do more
but i also recognize maybe the problem
isn't with us
and with that i yield
and and just to be mindful that the
discussion is steering around whether or
not a facilitator would assist or not
with some of the things that
commissioner
nobis has mentioned commissioner daniel
just wanting to make sure that it's in
the context of whether or not a
facilitator
could serve
in in a capacity that would either
assist or it's not necessary
for the trc to pursue
thank you thank you steph thank you
stephanie and just to tie my comments
and with the focus
what i was thinking is if if there are
issues and we've identified them and the
facilitator can help with those issues
that's a reason to say we need the
facilitator but if the issues are
not ones that the facilitator
facilitator can even help with
then
that also something that's something we
just need to think about
but it sounds to me at least it sounds
like most of our problems with
facilitator would probably
do a good job at helping us out
do we all honestly with that i yelled
i'm sorry do we all honestly believe we
need a facilitator that's what i was
going to bring up thank you for bringing
it up
i was going to suggest that um
i think we table talk about a
facilitator until like a majority vote
that we add that subject back to the
agenda um i think that if we
again engage key community partnerships
you know they can act as many
facilitators that help connect us with
communities
right we lean on them to help us
um and then we also have eduardo and his
team you know advise us
in
helping us steer and keep guiding our
work but you know i think that if we
have those two things in place then we
probably don't need a facilitator and we
can just keep working until we decide
hey we're really missing this role let's
bring the facilitator back into
discussion and decide what we want them
to do and how soon we want them to do it
so my suggestion it's not a motion at
this point i think that we should have
more discussion but i think that we just
stopped talking about the facilitator
until we decided that we need it
chassis
yeah chassis though
um
i was actually
going to talk about things that um
stephanie pointed out are not part of
the agenda but back to the facilitator
discussion
i think i actually think that we could
use a facilitator but it's not
imperative right now
um
i i think
there are definitely aspects of
facilitator that kearns and west was
going to provide for us that would be
very useful in the end
especially putting the
recommendations and proposals together
so as long as we're not
taking it off the table forever
i'm okay with moving forward with i'm
just
pushing it to the side for now yeah
what what what role are we exactly
wanting the facilitator to fill
honestly i i think that that's a reason
to put it off to the side for now of
that fact of need the community members
to actually come in and speak on it
because risk that stonewalling once
again etc but
the only reason we do need a facilitator
is because of the way that the
resolution is written it's required that
for fort to be fulfilled there has to be
an independent consultant that's a
facilitator working with the trc okay so
it has to be in mind at some point
before it's over so we can still bring
in people from the community have them
work with us do the rfps etc don't have
to make the concrete decision on how we
get one now but we have to have one
before we're done but the city doesn't
want us to have we don't want to hire
one outside so at the very end of our
work we say listen we had all of these
key community group leaders facilitate
us we list them all out and we listed
wardo and say these were our
facilitators
yeah well then at that point it's on
them for how much they want to pay them
because that's the other key part of
that resolution number they have to also
pay them they have to pay so bring in
again as many people as possible
etcetera
but
yeah um there's a reason why before they
didn't want uh
the
uh
it was just it was because of pricing
there were four or five different ones
the pricing the con the contracted
amount was agreed to the people
themselves were not agreed to
so it's not about the money it's about
whatever else it was so
and
because it wasn't just the case
so does anyone have anything else
regarding this lot that
last agenda item before we move on to
commissioner and staff comments
announcements i mean sir
no
all right
okay because of how this item is set up
i think
you know if the commission doesn't want
to pursue at this time of request for a
proposal for a facilitator then there'll
still be a vote on that okay it doesn't
mean that you can't come back in two
weeks and say you know what we want to
reevaluate that it would just be taking
a motion on whether
to do a rfp for a facilitator for the
trc as of your feelings tonight
okay
this is rivera i'd like to make a motion
that we defer
a vote and discussion on a facilitator
until a majority of the commission
decides that we need to revisit this the
subject missionary seconds
okay and i just want to clarify
considering whether the current trc
needs a facilitator
is different than whether the trc wants
to consider a facilitator using the rfp
process
consider
do you see what i'm saying yeah okay
okay yeah
so i mean really the motion would just
be looking at whether or not you want to
consider a facilitator as of this
meeting this evening
using the rfp process
okay can i take back my
motion um
i
move
that i'd like to make a motion that we
um at this point don't submit a request
for proposals for first facilitator for
the trc
second
okay okay roll call uh commissioner ali
yes
commissioner
daniel
yes
commissioner dillard
yes
commissioner gathua yes
commissioner johnson yes
commissioner harris
yes
let me see hold on i want to make sure
we have everybody
i don't see anyone in the attendees
yeah dropped off
okay
um commissioner rivera yes
and commissioner treyori yes
okay motion passes eight zero now on to
agenda item number 11 announcements of
commissioner's staff trc members shall
not engage in discussion with one
another concerning said announcements
um
so i want to start with
um
letter that
um thank you to eduardo gonzalez for one
um but
helped connect us with the
mali
truth and reconciliation commission
so for those of you who don't know
molly's the
my family's home country
um
eduardo's there right now
and so the president of their trc
sent a letter that we just received
earlier this morning
so it reads dear mr treyori
i am honored to address this letter to
you as president of the commission
of truth of verite justice
reconciliation dumali so truth justice
and reconciliation of mali to express to
you my brotherly feeling in which that
success crowned the work of the truth
and reconciliation commission of iowa
city that you preside over demali's cvjr
was set up in 2015 to investigate the
facts and root causes of the violent
crises that have affected mali since the
beginning of its independent life
our job has consisted of receiving more
than 22 000 testimonies in all regions
of our country
we have worked with civil society
to produce an effective redress policy
and we have held public hearings to
listen to the voices of victims
in 2022 we will publish our final report
with our main findings and
recommendations and we'll finish our job
i was able to learn about the creation
of your trc thanks to our professional
relationships with the expert eduardo
gonzalez
whom we have known since the beginning
of our work and who is a part of the
nation community of legal experts
transitional from the united states
through the news media we receive
painful information about raceful about
racial discrimination in your country
from our country mali we have fraternal
links with the african diaspora
violently uprooted from our continent
the era of slavery and which continues
today in the drama of refugees and in
the experience of migrants
be assured that throughout your tasks so
important for your city and your country
you will always count on our experiences
and our fraternal support
regards usman um
commander uh delorean national commander
of the national order
so
with that a few things just want to
point out one they started in 2015
and they're just finishing in 2022.
i think that's important in the fact
that mali didn't fall to the french
until the 1890s
and didn't become its own country until
the 1950s
compare that to how long the united
states has been around and how long that
we have for our commission
next 22 000 testimonies
worked with civil society
so that means people in power
and that's important as well of
the presidents and people in power
in mali
for years and years and years
lots of issues corruption
two coups in the last year a coup and
something else that some people may not
want to call one
um
but through all of that
seven years
they're going to finish
and we have them to lean on
in terms of support
asking questions how it's gone
and
i think that's just one really important
thing to remember
and
especially to just compare that to where
we are
now
but
what what it really is just continually
confirming for me is that
this is something i kind of wanted to
wait a while to say but
better sooner rather than later starting
to get more questions about it
i don't believe that this has to be
something completely tied to city
council or to the city government
is reading that they're working with
civil society you don't exactly have to
be with some great government or have
the best relationships whatever it is to
move forward and do the job
if people show up then it's gonna get
done
you can only resist the people for so
long
that's why the last president of mali
a year ago
was taken out of power
eventually the people speak
and everyone listens
so just
yeah keep that in mind and um
don't let whatever
little things happen here and there get
us down on it disbanded whatever it is
if you decide to leave whatever it is
completely understand
but also just know that that doesn't
mean the job is ever over
and with that i yield
this is commissioner rivera as uh we're
heading into the cold season i'd just
like to remind my fellow commissioners
in the community to keep in mind the
organizations in the community who are
specifically servicing our unhoused
neighbors
i see
mutual aid
shelter house
and different ways to reach out to
our in-house neighbors
who are
really great need during the winter time
so
um
be paying attention to what their needs
might be thank you
it's commissioner johnson uh
right now i am in a process of getting
things squared away
business-wise uh
however
as soon as things are settled
uh
every avenue that we possibly can to
help the community is the direction that
we're heading in and uh
however we can help out we are always
here and willing and have a small little
core core group that is willing to push
forward and help our community a little
bit more we're just going to be growing
as we go so
we always have a headquarters to work in
if we don't have this facility or
anything like that we always have uh
any any any facility i have i'm willing
to make sure that we can uh use that to
help fight forward and do what we have
to do to make things a little bit easier
so that's all i have right now
um
this is
um
eric harris um so i was going to make
this comment earlier but
i feel like it was more of a
announcement but it would have helped
with the conversation that we were
having about
how we're going to gather people or what
or where we're going to find people we
don't want to get too many people
or who how we're going to get them are
we going to use flyers are we going to
you know use actual admin attachments
well
something has happened
with me that would help
um
really great with what we're trying to
get done
so um earlier this week um i was offered
a job position
at the dream center as the fatherhood
life coach
that means i will facilitate a weekly
group with about 10 guys
and help them mediate things that they
may have going on in their life where
there's court battles
whether it's trying to see their
children
and of course while i work there i'm
going to say i'm going to look for
people to have going through things
and try you know to get them to help us
with the videos
i made the pledge um a few weeks ago
that we're gonna have to start doing
this on our own
and so that's why i
decided to take this job um i started in
the first week of november
and i'm gonna and i'm gonna talk with
fred about you know do do we have any
loopholes to jump over if you know these
guys are my clients
will i be able to get i'm gonna talk to
them just to make sure
that i can get because some of these
guys you know they got
you know like
they got they got criminal things going
on
they have family law things going on
they can't find jobs they can't find
apartments and they need help
with that so
so so i'm proud to announce that and i'm
also
going to do everything i can
to be able to help us find the people
that we need to talk to
and with that idea
anything stuff
no
no before we go to steph i think we are
like daniel though
this is commissioner
yeah um daphne first okay
uh commissioner gafford could could um
could it go
okay thank you
i
have three announcements one is that
a team of
from the african community network we
are still going ahead
in planning how
we will collect
facts and
truths from the african communities
we continue with our weekly meetings
which happen
on sunday at 3 00 pm
the
other my other announcement is
in relation to
the trc work
yesterday
was uh
i came from kenya moving into our city
yesterday kenya celebrated
what we call mashugzhadi
in swahili that means heroes day or
freedom fighters day
these are the people who fought
and a lot of them died
and that is why our flag has in it
because of the blood
that
was shed by these heroes
and green is for life the freedom that
we have
black
is for our skin color
white is
our international boundaries because we
are a republic 63 years ago
kenya became independent we fought
oppression and colonization
from the british
and from the white man
so as i serve in the commission i
remember even in my
current home today
i and the children that have brought up
in iowa city
are still
fighting that
and
right now kenyans in diaspora the
majority of them you'll find them
wearing
the kenyan flag
to remember that
and to remember that
the injustice and the oppression based
on skin color still continue in the
world
for people who
are not white
my other announcement is october
is
domestic violence awareness month
and
next week we are coming to
the end
of uh
the domestic violence awareness month
and there are three
events that are
we are closing with and when i talk of
closing
it's the
partners and allies who form the
coalition of domestic violence in
johnson county
the first event is on 27th
this is by monsoon organization which
which gives services to survivors
who identify as asians
and
on 28th we have an award ceremony
ceremony at the public library
this is by the
major domestic violence intervention
program
and on 29th at 6 pm this one i already
forwarded to the commissioners through
our staff
we are having
nissa is having an event an online
discussion and zoom discussion
led by our youth in china
and the major targeted audience
is our young male youth
because it's documented in the world
sexual violences
the statistics are higher as far as
males are concerned so
we
for the future we target the young male
and
but
everyone is welcome in the discussion
because we can all learn something from
each other without a yield
thank you
um
i wanted to
uh make a couple of quick announcements
if if that's
if i can take if i can have the floor
all right go ahead
okay um so tomorrow marks the second
annual
uh
katy day of service named after
um well daddy
is late iowa supreme court chief justice
you went out kind of um commissioner
daniel i don't know if you can
iowa that wasn't very progressive
now that we still can't hear you that
good
congratulated
from drake that's where he got his law
degree so there's a lot of
commissioner is it from here no it's
it's
because it was fine and then it
just commissioner daniel
can can you start over maybe pr i don't
know it sounds like something changed on
your end and it's very difficult to hear
you it's almost a whisper
daphne can you hear me
commitment to public service
and um
i don't think she can hear us
yeah
my thing isn't moving
she'll answer my phone call
a signal signal turret we can't i can't
hear you
hi can you hear me
no
we can't hear you but oh my gosh okay if
you start if you start doing the
announcement now you're good
okay
um
we'll consider that like a dress
rehearsal so uh tomorrow october 22nd is
the marcus k mark s katy day of service
and the katy dance service was dedicated
to the late iowa supreme court justice
uh justice mark katie who unexpectedly
died died very suddenly on november 15
2019
and he's best known for the
09 decision
that he wrote
and it was a unanimous court decision
that legalized same-sex marriage in the
state of iowa
justice katie was very committed to
public service and
drake law school which is his alma mater
has a variety of katy day projects that
they have on their website
people can take a look at and
those projects range from legal clinics
to food drives for people and pets
so it's worth checking out and
justice katie's commitment to public
service also ties to
the sad news that jan rutledge a
iowa city attorney
she passed away
recently and
she spent
nearly 40 years at i-legal aid as an
attorney she was very instrumental
in establishing iowa legal aids housing
advocacy including some very pivotal
pivotal cases in the 80s
and early 90s
regarding segregation and subsidized
housing
depressed citizens really got it right
when they said that jan never had
hesitated to remind us a full and fair
education is perhaps the most potent
tool there is for breaking the chains of
generational poverty because by the time
i joined iowa legal aid she was known as
the education
law guru and so um i wanted to announce
that her passing and then also
um say r.i.p and really uh
i i want to honor her memory um and then
i i
want to tie this all in by saying
october 5th was world teacher's day
and i didn't say anything at our last
meeting because i was here so i just
wanted to say it's a it's an official
unesco holiday and i want to thank
all the teachers for all they do um and
with that i yield
thank you daphne
thank you
kevin's got one more announcement sorry
um but i just also forgot to mention
that october is um filipino american
heritage month so holla at the filipinos
in our community
um
and they're great and i think you shall
should appreciate them thank you
hello
uh steph no announcement right
motion to adjourn
seconded
and
with that we're adjourned