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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTRC 20211007 auto transcript[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