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Home My WebLink AboutTRC 20211021 auto transcript[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