 As you know, today we're going to be reviewing a lot of the recommendations based on the disparities that we have discovered over the last year, but I do want to go over some points with everyone because on our recommendations, one of the things, and you all have a sheet at each of your areas, and I think we're going to show one, okay, Bob Ray, and it's this sheet right here, you all should have a copy of this, okay? One of the things that I do want to go over is based on the recommendations that we have, you know, today, and of course this is in draft form, and I'll repeat that, this is in draft form, these recommendations. We need to go back and do just a little bit of our homework, you know, the football season's here, and we're not at the goal line yet, but maybe we're on the 25-yard line, you know, within a goal range, but we want the touchdown, okay? We want to make sure that when we make our presentation to the mayor and council in December that we leave no reason to doubt to implement these recommendations. So we still have a little bit of homework left, and again, I want to thank you because this has been a little over a year of our time and energy and time away from family and work that you all have committed because I know you're committed to this city and helping to improve. But when you look at this, what we want to make sure is that our strategies, our recommendations align with the disparities, okay? Make sure of that, and I'm going to ask each of the committees to take a note of this. When you, on here, we're asking for any support organizations that can help support these recommendations, we're going to ask the committees to reach out to those partners that we're suggesting to ensure that we have their support. So, you know, the committees, y'all can break that up by your committee members, task force members to go out there to reach out to those partners just to ensure that they are going to support these recommendations going forward. One of the things that I've always said, you don't want people to read about in the paper or read their name in the paper, we need to get to them proactively versus them reactive. When we look at resources, we need to ensure that we have all the resources that are there that we're going to need to implement any of the suggestions that we have, any potential funding, any dollars. We need to look at dollar amounts, even though it may be an estimated dollar amount, but we've got to be as realistic as possible because, again, we need to make sure that this becomes in part of the city's budget. And if it's not city's budget, we need to look for foundation dollars or any dollars out there that can help us to ensure that these recommendations go forward. We also need to look at performance indicators because we need to make sure that we are based on our strategies and our goals and we have indicators in there to show that we've moved the needle, that we've moved a little bit of those disparities so that they are no longer here. We've got a five-year objectives that we need to look at and we need to be realistic, we need to be realistic of those goals, we need to be realistic of those objectives. We can write whatever fancy stuff that we want on here, but if they're not realistic, they're not going to happen and I think we all know that. And we don't want any of our work to be done in vain because we want to make sure that these recommendations get put forward. I'm going to turn it over to our co-chairs for them to make any comments. Bob Wright, do you want to? I'm going to say, number one, thanks to everybody here. This has been a year's commitment so far and by December it will be about that. I'm really impressed with the work that everybody's done. I really am. The fact that we've worked this hard so long and we've got these binders now with all this information that we've got and it's not even half full as the information we've received. So thank you for all you've done. I have said early on that if this was just a show that we will not go forth with me as a part of this process. The fact is you have done an incredible job. The committees, the chairs, all of them. I say thank you. We've got a body of work that will go forward. Whether the city council goes forward or not, that's on them. That's not on you. I think you've done a great job. Yes, as Rosa says we've got some other work to do, obviously. I'm very impressed. Thank you. It's all about doting our eyes and crossing our teeth. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm so lucky to be considered this. I'm so lucky. If Rosa gave an example of football, I think first and foremost the ultimate pinnacle of football is being elected to the Hall of Fame. And I think on behalf of all of us, we need to congratulate Bob Ray for his election there. So congratulations on behalf. You should continue your good work for many, many years. I'm getting old. Whatever. At least it's not posthumous. Oh! I said at least. Absolutely. So no complaining about age when you're getting honored for other people. So I also want to thank each and every one of you. I mean, I also want to thank the staff for all their hard work. This is definitely a great step forward. Now, if we can tie down what we are doing and sometimes I think a little less is more. If we can get everything, even if it's one less, but everything that is locked down so we can make sure that the city council follows us. I think it would be a great thing. And I see this as a step along the process and I look forward to taking that next step with you as well. So thank you all very much. Yeah. I would just add to that. I just, as I sit here and look around the room, it just feels so honored and privileged to have been assigned to work with you and have you on this team. Each of you because, you know, we represent a lot of hope for people's expectations. So thank you for not thanking those of you who were here when we talked about painting. Okay. So thanks for not thanking. Remember, this is not the final product, right? We all have to talk more and work more to get this refined. So nobody leaves the room thinking that this is the bottom line. And if you all can take that little sheet out that was passed out. And I want to thank Fernando. Fernando, I'll tell you, has been a pillar for all of us on here and Michelle and Angie and all the other staff. It's been remarkably, I mean, but I don't think we would have expected anything less because that's who we are. But do want you all to take a look at each of your committees so that you can see where we're in line and where we might need some more information. So as you review this, you know, make sure that you go back when you go back to your committees. Take this with you so that you can talk about it and discuss it and then get the information needed for us to review. One thing I will be asking our co-chairs, our co-chairs, our chairs, I'm sorry, our chairs for each of our committees. We do have a meeting set for September the 5th. We would like to move that up to maybe one o'clock instead of three that day so that we can all come together. And we'll get back with you, but I just want to make sure we mention that to you now so that if you can put that on your calendar, that would be great. September the 4th at one o'clock. The next thing on our agenda is the approval of minutes for July 16th. Our Poodle seconds, all in favor? That's been approved. Next is update on our working program, leadership training, Estrus Tucker. We've been struggling nobly with summer schedules, so now we're actually looking at September. As you know, we've modified the six-day leadership engagement training that was used in June with community leaders. Modified that to accommodate council requests to have an option of a two-hour block of training. It's not a lot of time, but we can focus, it won't be the exact same outcomes, but it will line up well. So what we're doing now is trying, we couldn't do it in August and that is five days at work. We're looking at September with a lot more optimism. Any questions? Assessment of disparities in provisional municipal services later? I received some recent information from NLC. As you recall, they were looking at our data. There was three things they were doing in this review. One, they surveyed all city departments to see where we're currently looking at data in disaggregating it. Secondly, they were going to identify four departments and they did. We looked at some data from the municipal court, police, neighborhood services, and the MWB area. And then based on that and some discussions, they were also going to provide recommendations on ways we can further improve our collection and areas we might want to further explore disaggregating some of the data. So based on that, they have looked at the data. They looked at it at a very high level and as a result of that, the departments are going back and looking at are there any disparities in the data. So they did it at a very high level and said, here's some areas to further look at. But from their review, what we're also going to point out to us that there are some additional things that we need to do and that is looking further and working with our departments to see are there some other areas we need to be disaggregating if that makes sense. Looking at some other cities that have model programs in place, Austin, Madison, Louisville, New Orleans, which NLC has kind of pointed us to them. What are some of the key measures that they're currently looking at and are those ones we need to be collecting? Are we currently collecting any race and ethnicity measures within our current databases and do we need to be doing some additional analysis on that? So we'll be looking and working with departments to further kind of expand on the work that the task force has already done on identifying some measures and what additional measures do we need to be looking at and reporting on the more active ones? I do want to acknowledge that we do have David Hook in our audience today with our city manager, so David, thank you for coming in. Welcome to committee reports. First on our agenda is criminal justice time. Before I begin, can I just make sure that I start bringing kind of what we want to present to him? I would highlight what your recommendations are, you know, as your draft recommendations are, so that we can review those. And that's what each of our committees will be doing. I just wanted to make sure that I was at home. Well, as you all know, this has probably been a conversation for the past few months, but our first recommendation was the creation of the Citizens Police Review Board. I know there has been a lot of talks about what does data support and balance that also with what the community has requested and asked for based on community town halls. And I believe, I should say, I believe that this was one of the most important recommendations that we could make. I think actually just using the line of what Ms. Johnson just said about national needs of cities, they said, look at what other cities are doing. Fort Worth is the largest city in Texas. It might possibly be the largest city in the country that does not have some form of Citizens Police Review Board. And I think it's important for Fort Worth that we want to become a major city. We have to do major city things. And implementing the Citizens Review Board is one of those things I think is important to not only regain the trust of the community, but also address a lot of the community concerns. If you look at the data that kind of supports that, we looked at the arrests. Minorities make up, African-Americans make up 19% of the population of Fort Worth in 2017, but accounted for 41% of all the arrests. Could it be a coincidence? It may be, but these are some of the particular data points that we looked at for that as well as being back on town hall meetings. The next thing we looked at, one of our recommendations was bringing back the police cadet program. I believe we believe Fort Worth is doing a great job in their recruitment of trying to have targeted recruitment of minority recruits by going to historical black colleges, going to the valley, going to certain universities that have focused on criminal justice programs. However, this is just not being successful. I know some things that can't be quantified with the data is I think that they're fighting the issue that the youth, millennials just aren't turned off by law enforcement jobs. And so trying to fight that stigma, reimplement this program to where so many senior officers were a part of the cadet program. I believe former Chief Mendoza was a part of the cadet program. But one thing that we wanted to implement is allow this program to extend to the high school seniors and try to work to maybe getting dual credit as a senior to participate in the program before they're able to do part-time and also to the TCC college. Forward program used to be required that you work 20 hours per week for the PD and I believe achieve 24 community college hours for the year. Previously they used to be paid $9 an hour. Now I don't know if that's a reasonable amount of time, but I think that would be a turn of my forward HR department if it is something that the city council moves forward with. The next recommendation was, I know you mentioned the diversity within the police department, but we actually was recommending quarterly reporting for the diversity numbers by unit, by rank, by patrol division. And the reason why we specify these is hopefully I have the numbers right here that within the lack of diversity within the first promotional rank of the 241 Corporate Corporal Detective, which is the first promotional rank. There's only 16 African Americans, 41 Hispanics and 10 that identify themselves as other. So that's respectively 7% African Americans, 17% Hispanics and 4% other. Also the lack of diversity in the specialized units. There were no African American officers in the SWAT unit, K-9 unit, criminal intelligence, homicide, major case, robbery, and only one African American that serves in the special response team. Now one thing to keep in mind is the challenge with having the quarterly reporting of the diversity by rank division and patrol division is it's alive that it's always going to be changing and the accuracy of it could change based off vacancies, open-end retirements, resignations, terminations, and just people being reassigned. I would like to also think that some of us walk in with Assistant Chief Krause, he's been extremely helpful throughout this whole process as our subject matter expert and also Chief Fitzgerald that they opened the door to Fort Worth PD and didn't hold back on any data that we requested and made anything available to us as well as provided subject matter experts. And in each particular whether it was about training, whether it was about academy, whether about, you know, I know there was an issue about G-Files. We actually had a meeting that we sat down and we talked about the meeting conferred and everything that the city can and cannot do with PD through the code. So we literally went through from being as a recruit from someone as a university to all the way through the appeal process with civil service and I think because of Assistant Chief Krause, Chief Fitzgerald and all the other senior staff that made this possible we wouldn't have been able to do such a thorough job and our recommendations. Thank you. Do you have any questions of time? I have one question. You know, this is great work. You guys did a fantastic job. But one question is how do we consider the Civil Rights Act of 1964 along with this because when it comes to identifying a person of any race or where they live, they're not able to make higher decisions based on that. And I think these recommendations are fantastic but will they be able to be implemented legally? You know, I'm not going to go to the legal side of the 1964 but I'm going to address the issue and I think this is one realistic issue about I'm going to speak to the diversity within the promotional rank and the specialized units. It doesn't matter how much you try to recruit, you can't make someone take that promotional test. You can't make somebody want to be a homicide or civil rights. You can encourage it but at the end of the day, that particular officer doesn't want to be a detective or doesn't want to, you know, take the test. You know, there's nothing that PD can do. Now, one thing that's also kind of, that's the other side of it that makes it kind of difficult is there's, you can make more money as a police officer just doing patrol as you can do your part-times versus being a detective where, you know, even if you're in homicide, there's a lot of hours and the work-life balance isn't quite there as if you do your night shift and then you go to your part-time and you have your two or three days off. So as far as disclosing people's personal information, I don't know if some of them, I don't know how much there is anyone like that. We was able to see the diversity in PDS. So let me answer that a little bit to help you. We keep demographic, so that much we know. So if we know your name, you probably know the rest, whether you're female male, where you live. So all of these, thanks to Fernanda, are being sent to legal to vet just so that if there are any questions about legalities, being a criminal justice, all the way to transportation, legal gives the opportunity to say, this may be a legal problem, so we are looking at that from a legal perspective. So goals are never a bad thing, saying you have to choose this person or you have to interview a person of a certain race or agenda who gets you in trouble, but actually having goals and really the third recommendation which is to do a quarterly report has you looking at demographics as the one thing you should never be accused of is ignorance. And so that way you can say, even if this is the way it looks, it allows you to know that that's the way it looks so that no one can say, oh, we just didn't have an idea that we didn't have a woman in the SWAT or we didn't have an African American in homicide, that kind of thing. And so that's never a bad thing. And one thing I'd like to add, I know initially what we were thinking about was more like annually but I think Walter brought up the good idea that making it quarterly so you're not kind of just rushing against the deadline but you're being intentional, kind of knowing your benchmarks each quarter to kind of know where you're at versus, you know, you come to the end of the fourth quarter and it's like, oh, we need to move some things wherever before we have to report. Are you also looking at who is applying? I think these are people who are in those positions but are we looking at so many applied? You know, not particularly, like I can't say officially that we, you know, pulled the number of applicants but I think in conversation there was a, I believe there was a homicide position that came open and only two people applied for it if I'm not mistaken. One person and then there was a sergeant in narcotics that opened and I forget how many, there was a lack of interest in applying for the openings. I remember from conversation the sergeant position was one of the most highly sought after position in narcotics and it just didn't have as much interest at all. But I think that's something that we could look at as the number of applicants as well because I think that kind of help shows that people more than others. How are we, how are people knowing, how do the offers know that it's open? Hello, I'm Assistant Chief Charter of the US Department. Do we advertise through postings prior to any opening? We also implemented a kind of a get a feel for the division so you're allowed to come and talk to the members of the unit to find out kind of like an open house and you're invited in to say this is what the responsibility will be. We do have a detective and training position sometimes when someone's maybe interested and if the personnel allow, we will send them to the unit so they can start learning from that so we'll encourage them for the next time. Like you said, Kai said, we had the homicide position in the historic area it's been very one of the top premier positions in the department and we had one Hispanic male who applied for it and he got it. But again, it's one of those things, how do we incentivize those positions? Do we do, you know, incentive things for other people? Because again, like Kai said, they're called out all hours at night and some officers aren't going to do that. So, yeah, we post them and we keep that hosting unit open for 15 days and a lot of units, they go and actively recruit so they will call the Hispanic that they need and they will call African Americans folks to apply to encourage them. And again, historically it wasn't like that. There's some of the good old voices to it and sometimes, you know, you heard through the grapevine that someone had this position but now we've changed the way we post, we've changed the way we even do the interview position where the makeup of the interview board has to be diverse. So again, we're trying to make sure that it's a fair process. I know in my interviews I sent my sergeant down to those interviews and he sits in there just as an eyes and ears for me to make sure the question is fair and make sure the process is fair. And I think most of the other agencies do the same. I have just a couple of recommendations as I went through this. One of the things that I'm sensing is that we're talking about the way we do it now. And if we set goals for increasing the diversity in all those ranks, I think we set the goal and then how they're accomplished in fact it's staff to make it happen. And some of the things they're doing will work but what we haven't heard is going outside the community and advertising, going and hire somebody from another police department maybe at that rank. I don't think that you have to go through the system to get to a certain rank. And then if you have two candidates and they're both equally qualified then we should go to the diverse candidate because if we're really trying to diversify those positions then we have to be more action oriented than we currently are. We got to think totally different. And if it's important then we should take that risk. And if it isn't important then we need to move along. Now I may be mistaken and as far as how much more emotional it is, it goes to the highest test score. So if there's six detective spots, it's going to go to the six highest scores or the six sergeant positions. I don't think you can deviate by demographics but I think you need to compare the contract requirements that go with it. Besides us that need to compare contract, actually the city is a 143 plan and under chapter 143 of the local government code it says how we promote. So under statute the meeting confirmed it overrided to some extent but part of being a civil service city is that that's one of the requirements is that for most positions you test into that position and there's a list based on the task. Captain has a little added in his wrinkled hand like an interview and then for commander they're all acquainted so they don't have to be tested but for the vast majority of promotional positions in the city and in the fire have to be tested. See that we're never going to get to where we want to go every week because how are you going to diversify the ranks, the leadership of the government department if you're locked in to just hiring within the department? How are you going to get there? One thing that I think you can't see and just to be clear to PD, when you look at the last five police academies they've been more diverse. I believe there's like 30% African-American, 30% Hispanics and there's also a balance between male and female and so that process until you see them on the street is almost like a two-year process. It's a two-year process from when you get the applicant so they get there to the academy and in order for them to promote to that perverse rank there has to be another three years. So you're looking at almost five years before you go recruit someone today to build a diversity before they're actually eligible to move up and that's just based off the years of the requirement. I think to be quite frank I think it's going to take a lot of the POAs encouraging their minority membership to want to take those tests and move up and want to be the base but as far as the senior staff I think you see a more diverse senior staff Chief Ramirez and other assistant chiefs but then you also look at internal affairs I believe internal affairs are completely reorganized within the last two years and so there's a lot of new faces in there from what there originally was as far as recruitment there's two of African-American officers that are the recruitment officers that go to do that are the face of what we're repeating when they're going on to campus when they're going to New York when they're going to the valley there's also the resource officers at the schools we met with a lot of the neighborhood police officers as well and that's a diverse makeup it's just the total body of numbers you don't have as many to pull for if there's a thousand officers and you have 20 African-Americans and 35 Hispanics the balance just isn't going to be there because you're dead on the road just off the sheer ground for sure but it's a lot longer process than what I would have thought going into it but the problem is still there the perception in the community is that the leadership needs to be diverse and given the current strengths that we have that I've heard now we're not going to get there this way so the challenge becomes then how do we get there because if we're bound by all of these groups no one can go outside and recruit into those promoted positions then how are we going to diversify the leadership we've heard nobody's interested because of the hours so we've heard all the reasons but then how do we get there we need to bring forward a recommendation that we get there and then the staff the leadership within the police department needs to figure out how to get there because it is real it's a real perception among all the people we've been talking to that we have no diversity in the ranks and just having it at the top level isn't good enough because those individuals can only do so much we can add 1200 or 1500 so why can't we put something in place where we go outside if nobody's applied internally why couldn't you go outside and get some groups for those leadership positions we do it for the chief again I think it's because you're bound by loss so the chief's position is a civilian position believe it or not and because it's a civilian position you're allowed state law allows you to do that so without a state law change you really are looking at a longer term process that you really are going to have to start at the recruitment level and then from the recruitment level build upon that to the promotion level up to the change it's longer than five years I would argue I would say that it is the city of Fort Worth you know the session starts up next January is the city of Fort Worth willing to amend the statutes the statutes change they're not there in perpetuity they can be amended we've done enough where the city knows what's going on I'm not talking about police we need to be talking about fire in every department that the city hired from the water department and on that there should be diversity we've done a job to make the city take a look at itself in the mirror and again the mirror is not just to reflect what you see it's to correct what you see and we're trying to get this so it is correct and I agree wholeheartedly with this figure that how do we get this we can't just say what the law is well the law was Bob Ray will tell you I've known what the law is and we certainly were able to change it the next session so the city of Fort Worth has got to be willing to go to Austin and make some amendments to the current statute I think what's hard about that I'm not disagreeing with you Cory but I think it's not just Fort Worth is bound by 143 it's any other city within the state that's under 143 so collectively if the municipalities but if Fort Worth wants to take the lead don't change it I think that's great Statutes are written that are only for one particular city they will go by population who is not more than and not less than with a number of man-made lakes they get so finite that they can craft it for this particular city is the city willing to go to Austin to make that change like this figure is saying let's not just keep doing business as usual it can be done is the city willing to do that to make it work for Fort Worth that's not a question to you but a question could that be part of the recommendation? it doesn't matter how hard the leadership try to diversify the ranks they can't do it because they're tied back to something and so to hold them accountable and make change isn't going to work in our current situation so we have to request that the situation be amended and I'd like to see any other questions of time? Charles, economic development so the first disparity that we were looking at in the economic development committee was employment status the unemployment rate almost twice African Americans and Hispanics so our first recommendation relates to that area of job training transportation, job background issues and hiring process so there's a lot there but all of these issues relate to each other and many of them were my on working with partners with ISD there's the college training metro and you can see seven specific actions that are listed here working with partner agencies to improve outreach to surrounding job fairs and job training opportunities working with our partners to identify the areas where their labor shortage is going to find ways to increase the training opportunities for these careers and our committee we talked about encouraging employers to ban the box so to speak for the persons that have been formally incarcerated we have listed as expulsion clinics I think that's expungement we're on the right term there but that's been successful we want to see that expanded and the warrant forgiveness as well so we know transportation we have jobs in our community but they're not necessarily adjacent to where our pockets of employment are so we would like to work with training metro but there are additional ways we can get public transit to provide transportation to those jobs talk about the incentives here but also in our next recommendation to bring jobs to low income areas the last one was to try to avoid the process of screening applicants out before they get a leg up before they get into the process really by screening out by race or ethnicity so maybe describe a number instead of a name as the applicants blew through the process those are those set of recommendations can I ask you a question first of all thank you very much I've read this with keen interest but my question is you write in recommendation 2 the incentives policy have you identified what those exact incentives are to incentivize projects is a great sort of statement but if we're going in front of business leaders who are going to the county what kind of incentives are we suggesting so you're on the recommendation 2 yes ok so that deals with our economic development incentives tax abatements tax rebates those kinds of things to make sure we're incentivizing the highest priorities and where we want it to be for people that have a project whether it be building an office building residential properties commercial whatever if they're asking us for incentives I understand what incentives are I'm just saying I think we should if you're going to put this in here I think we should be a bit more specific in what we're going to what we're recommending be offered to those firms or to those companies or to those whatever it may be should just say incentives in my view I could be completely wrong you know this is better than I do but just to say incentives it's not going to move someone forward they'd like to know what and I would take it that the city council would like to know what they're going have to be or suggest that they're offering someone else for a meeting here it's an idea of the more the more you do the more you get the wages that you're offering if you can get above the median or I don't know Robert you negotiate these how specific can we get yeah well I think when you talk about incentives the tools really are what you mentioned it's the tax bay it's the tax grants it's the tips it's like that so really it's those specific tools that we utilize to bring companies in and what I think we're trying to get to that particular one item as y'all said what is the short point there to incentivize these companies could there be something that we could potentially layer into those agreements that would tie itself towards addressing that that employment gap or trying to get it could there be additional levels of incentive that could be reached if your employer participation levels reached a certain point that's something that we're trying to pick through and consider how that works well didn't my suggestion would be I'm trying to think of this as someone on the streets or someone simple who's not a businessman like myself reading these recommendations and then yesterday's a draft they're going to ask themselves what are those incentives just to put what those are right here what you mentioned would go a long way to teasing someone with some mind about what what we are offering or what we are suggesting we can certainly do that thank you recommendation about the recommendation number one sorry I didn't realize what you said but on the the one where we talk about the employment rate and that it would be the same as a success measure I wonder I wonder about how are we going to get to offsetting for people of color did you have any discussion in your group about that how are we going to change that same conversation about if they're equal in their preparation can we set some targets for engaging people who are who we're trying to engage to change the numbers and it's not addressed in this one I'm looking at a success measure looking down a bunch of recommendations for number one was there any discussion it's my question there wasn't there was not a particular number suggested so we talk about the unemployment rate and we talk about the disparities that are current and encourage more hiring people of color but we don't talk about how are we going to set the goal for them well I think implicitly it would be for there not to be a disparity between why exactly in America in this band so if the white numbers 4.2% that's what would be the city one I'm not sure 4.2% is a great number but at least there would be where there would be disparity where the groups were at that level yeah but in the the comment is the application percentage and the applicants that move to the current state we're not sure what is your bias and not sure how we're going to track that I just think we need to look at that a little bit more I'm sorry Dr. I think it's great job don't really have a question but I just want to point out the board for giving this operation as a part of our committee we connect with municipal services and that's one of the points out the first year 2016 they only had 600 more taken care of and this last year it was over 6,300 they say it's just because of the change of the name of the one round that was a important for the city so I like that the third representation dealt with capacity building for minority on campus and looking at disparities the size and the number of minority owned businesses in Fort Worth is relatively low so we're trying to put the strategies to help us get more minority owned businesses and larger minority owned businesses so I think we've talked here a little bit about implementation of the mentor through the economic development department we've got Olson promises number two there and we're doing many of these things already in the economic development department that they would be expanding and emphasizing trying to do more a lot of this is based on construction let's not forget professional services or retail there as well because we like on both of those it's worth the business it was a little I was encouraged in seeing that there was some conversation about pulling people together to be at contracts that's what that's how they get together and they will bring in four or five smaller people and they'll go and be at the job themselves and I think that's where we have the opportunity it doesn't matter how many meetings are held by some of the chambers if you don't have groups that we can pull together to look at a project and how can they come together to be in that work we're not going to make any gains there so bonding is one thing and then grouping so they come together as one and then they can get some of those big contracts Rosa I know you know what I'm talking about some joint ventures joint ventures in together and put some skin in the gang and then go for those contracts I'm going to bring more of it on the forward side now but with my airport hat on I can tell you Dallas is beating us up bad because they have long ago figured out how to put things together and make these minority businesses stronger and that's what we have to do I don't know that it comes from the chamber that we go and approach that or if it's somebody that's project managing that whole process you know and they can do that themselves and you hold them accountable to pull these groups together and then bring in the airport and some of the bigger businesses so they can grab those contracts but we've got some serious gaps I keep sending them over here but they don't get the contracts and talk to me no more about that but I think you know in that way we might need just a project manager to help some minority businesses to get to get those contracts so Mr. Stern aren't you all encouraging that in a lot of ways I've talked to you about that last time yeah so one of the things that we're doing to live this to your point we've been having a lot of these with both our minority firms and our larger general contractors but one thing that we've kind of heard consistently across the board is what our GCs don't know a minority firm we don't know it's a relationship business and if you don't know someone you are hesitant to enter into some contractual relationship with them to do work and so the one thing that we can try to do for the past year is really make those connections between the GCs and our minority firms so one just makes sure we don't have that relationship so that's the start the second piece that it is is a mentor partnership program with smaller firms mentor them help them understand what they need to do from the bid process and our goal is that those relationships will eventually turn into joint bid opportunity so they can bid on some of these contracts so it's an incremental process to form them but that's exactly what you're talking about Thank you Thank you Todd I'm not sure if this falls into the same thing but I know with Arlington and their Chamber of Commerce and City then I think it will work out something It's 25% That's a minimum that's a that's a minimum they haven't achieved proper y'all have achieved it 25% overall so we have we have it's called the 25% aspirational that 25% goal is comprised of construction component which is about for the last time it was about 18% business services on the African-American side of 35% and then the SBE which is a race and gender neutral designation like that was somewhere around 40% so what's what's happening is while we have a 25% overall goal and we're hitting that number it's really being driven by the fact that we're kind of knocking that out of the park on the SBE of professional services on the African-American portion so the piece that we're still struggling with and being challenged with is that true construction percentage where again we're about some of the focus we didn't really drill down on professional services so much because we're really hitting those numbers to spend some time on this we really want to make sure that we're diving into the construction piece and that's where we have to go And there are certain goods codes that where we may not have minority businesses in so we need to encourage them you know people if they're looking to start a business that these are some areas that we are lacking you know representation on just minority covering women on business no women on business we do not have a WME portion of our organization when we're not getting steady when we're not getting well so we have a minority women so yes so minority women yes but they're calling under under our last disparity setting that was also based on your last disparity and there's a new disparity so we'll like work as members but at this point Arlington just passed their goal last year and with their new project out there they've already met it maybe but Arlington just adopted an MWD policy where the city of Fort Worth has had theirs for many more years than Arlington has I would say Arlington achieved theirs in one year and we've been doing it for 25 years maybe we need to raise it from 25% to 25% Arlington has an MWD policy not an MWD policy so look at those numbers WBEs white females make it about 40% so we have to keep that cognizant that you're strictly dealing with MWD policy and that's based on this bigger standard why don't we look at the construction piece how do we count the separate moments that's what I was going to say I was trying to keep quiet today but one of the things that we're talking about all this stuff you're talking about joint ventures and getting teaming and everything together and all of that is very important and it's good but the whole thing you've talked about their relationship but the whole thing relies in the hands of whoever's that person is that's evaluating and approving changes the representation is not going to change and so that mindset has to change too if they're looking for minority contractors to bring minority teams in who's on otherwise it's going to change no so each individual department that puts out bids for contracts there's a project manager and there's a team that assesses those bids as they come in MWD piece is part of that so we can set it on those bids there's a certain portion of that overall grade that's tied to how they meet component but it surely is the PMS of the specific departments to BWW water parks typically that have those bids and they actually do my point is how do you break that relationship when they've been existence for so long and keep going back to the same vendors that's the point that you're talking about and so how does the new partner ever get back looking at the same types of vendors over and over again and I'll agree with them that's an issue so how do we break that issue part of it is getting those vendors that they're using that there's a relationship with to correct them to utilize them and help them how to build that and get that relationship going so again I understand what you're saying because there's some issues there and make sure the BMS are diverse themselves correctly I don't think there's a lot anything else? alright next Bob on education thank you very much I would like to ask Arturo to articulate our first recommendation and then Sarah on our second and so Arturo I'll be back to you thanks Bob the two disparities that I'll present today I was focusing on the high school graduation rates the dropout rates remain a persistent problem African-American Hispanics they remain lower than those of whites and pink Americans those that do graduate the preparedness for college and career is just not there and so the high school graduation graduates entering the workforce are unlikely ready for the demands of many of the jobs that are unable to qualify for position to acquire post-secondary education and so the recommendation outlined today and how we framed it and so to kind of put it in context the National Dropout Prevention Center defined service learning as follow service learning connects meaningful community service experiences with academic learning this teaching slash learning method promotes personal and social growth career development and citizenship responsibility and can be a powerful vehicle for effective school reform at all great levels and so part categories to address high school dropout rates and so those four strategies revolved around foundational strategies which talk about early sustainable approach and the ISD is doing some of that work and some of the program to address that the second category is early interventions and I believe our second recommendation will address early childhood education and so forth the one that I'm going to focus on basic core strategies and that's where the strategy within the report brings the goal is to adopt high quality civic engagement as a strategy and a collective impact approach to improve college career and civil readiness and forward adopt and apply service learning as a high impact teaching and learning strategy to generate multiple positive outcomes from academic performance level of engagement and civil involvement and employment opportunities and all which contribute to college and career readiness and community dropout rates so in a nutshell should increase classroom participation we should address academic performance and the main focus is higher retention and so the first recommended action to address high school dropout rates again aligned with these core strategies is to focus on the K through 12 grades for Hispanic and African-American students and identify and create as necessary certified civic engagement programs that we can get back from the city standpoint these programs should include should increase academic skills and address social and emotional abilities as well as relationship development variables that contribute to graduation and so the key focus for this recommendation and civic engagement program should focus in minority majority various and focus and reflect on one of the four key printers of civic engagement and to kind of the leadership development so we quickly just defined some of these topics in tutoring service learning as well as sharing anything for back-to-school program providing clothes and things of nature and then of course building we can have housing in building and in building and in building and just some high highlights for development focuses within ISD and higher education institutions to identify expand or create the necessary resources that connect students to school and community resources that help them become barriers that ensure a successful transition from high school to college for a professional career through guided pathways and so the focus then could be on some existing programs that currently forward ISD has which cause and that's not being or adapting to those centers into something like a welcome center which is a little bit more broad and more expansive but focusing on key neighborhoods specifically connected to American and Hispanic and this welcome center will connect city, school and non-profit business community resources and have that access and so those are the two recommendations recommended actions and the portion of the of the recommendations would be to organize the college and career center readiness and the foundation then is to identify convened 75 leaders from these different areas from the K through 12 higher education institutions and then these community organizations and then again these community organizations could fall in a number of periods for students and parents and our libraries looking at other community agencies workforce organizations you know business for profit non-profit and try to clarify the above recommendations to address the college and career readiness and so within this summit given over to those two recommendations do that summit create these task force these subgroups service learning and then of course a collective impact because this is a big undertaking that will require a long-term day for all different areas and so in the report I described an estimated cost of what you would tell to put together a summit of this caliber and again identifying some key lead organizations looking at the local two-year community college and college and also some four-year community and looking at some Chamber of Commerce as well to be involved and so that entails my report in regards to addressing high school graduation rates and college and career readiness and Bob did you have anything else to add before? Thank you for all your words. Okay you're welcome has there been any conversation with health workers and they mentioned that when they go out into the community they have these payers they have information they have brochures but there's a population that do not even receive and actually he said black men do not take the information and it boils down to that they can't read and they're embarrassed about that so is there any focus or any conversation at all that would help address some of the issues that would arise where they can help define some of the framework but also have to be very specific to forward needs and if that's one of the needs then that would be one of the focus for the summer so it's one of the layers absolutely so I'll definitely know that it included in the request yes sir first of all to to have graduated high school one just entering high school if you go into a lot of the high schools the counseling offices you'll see a lot of different banners of colleges and then you'll see some pamphlets or military service what is lacking in many of those is probably the key component in the society we live in today and that is that career training right whether it be on computers whether it be with HVAC or anything else is there a component or can you put in a component of resource putting together a resource material so that the counselors who are working as hard as they can have that information to to give to a student because a plumber is going to make more a Harvard graduate who studies philosophy right and we want it's just it's a fact of life and we want everyone to be able to go in whatever direction they want but if our counselors don't necessarily know that we can't direct people to those resources I think we're losing out on a lot of great skilled and technical workforce because we don't have those that knowledge to give or to provide to the students we have a lot of that information often we have tried to package it in different ways and they often say they actually have access to that information they don't have time to read it but we do we do have that and that new trend these days is signing days or you know I could just be on the college but for getting a certification I know Arlington just recently did that I think Burleson and maybe a few other ISVs I think that's another kind of thing that's bringing more attention like we are and also William Russell probably we're hosting a big career awareness event out at AT&T on September 21 and the schools are all invited to that and that is a bigger trend too to pay more attention to the career awareness side but you're right there still needs to be just constant attention to getting that and still saying it's not anymore your saddest statement was that they don't have time to read it we'll leave that aside for a second but it's still the student the average student is going into the counselor's office is not necessarily going out to AT&T stadium and that's my whole my whole emphasis here is when he walks he or she walks into that counselor's office that counselor should be able to say you know what maybe you aren't interested in going to college and I think you also need to tell the parents because you know that but yeah we're putting a lot of books but I need to I agree you know one thing that I've always been curious about as far as like high school dropout right high school dropout rate and career readiness is is there an element to get the students to get the support at home because now it seems like we live in a society where some parents expect the school to teach children everything they need to know about life and have seven hours so how can we go to the communities and get a more proactive parents to come to PT and be agreed with their child for an hour so you know to maybe address the third grade literacy rate dropout rate is there any way to address that yeah absolutely that was one of the focus here was the out of school time and how can for example the city of Fort Worth leverage the community centers for the providers to that advantage to folks on the out of school time and that was one of the challenges that I listed on my report is the family engagement how to actively list the participation of families, parents and guardians in the out of school time learning I think is a challenge to your point that's a valid affair and so my focus was the out of school time and how we can leverage those resources for them and tie our second recommendation also ties into that as well from the early childhood standpoint and engaging those parents as absolutely as early as possible to powering them with the importance of education for their children and also for themselves and that they are constantly encouraged all students from this time my mother always encouraged them that higher education is the way to encourage children to in a way it's not necessarily that a shovel is programmed for your hand because you are a minority so Tim Yes of course I have a great work on this I think Education Foundation and everything so this is a big task but one of the questions I have is I noticed that some of the statistics are for ISD specific is this all for with ISD are we including schools as a whole you would think private schools or I'm really more especially interested in public charter schools is any of that in here? Not at this time but at the next point we kind of got some data that was brought through the forward ISD but you're right because some of the other things that we looked at were some of these other efforts that are currently taking place with the full credit programs these bands learning early college high school and of course the charter schools kind of fall into those areas and those are specifically two high performing students and so how do we you know those schools that are not making this system I wonder is there a way to encourage even the local level for charter schools for that so one of the one of the key focus is all so that's definitely one that could be a topic of discussion one of the summits for sure I know that there's more school districts in Fort Worth just for that I see and it may be for us to take a look at those because there's a lot of minorities moving into those areas as well and those school assistants are changing the diversity so we can see what they're doing versus what you know find out the best practices I was really touched on in your in your summary here the you know we have a lot of PTOs that just wonder if they have meaningful work and how can we push out to them the stuff that workforce is doing and all of the other initiatives if you will that people are engaged in I think we have all the pieces including upgrading the cultural diversity kinds of materials and libraries and iPads and all of the things that are going on I just think we have a plan to make well enough and these PTOs and a lot of them have really parent teacher organizations they can get their hands around some of this I think we can make a difference in that but I'd love the summit idea because it pulls everybody together moving to marketing strategy though to get there and then there's a lot of lots of work that you well know to get the right out of people to engage in it there's actually just a PTO conference at the gate or I think it's live and I didn't know that so who else I mean who needs to know that I don't think our communications is good from a community base as they need to be and one thing you know again going back to when we look at supporting organizations well make sure that we're reaching out to those organizations so that we get their support for our recommendations because we don't want them to read the paper that they've been listed as a partner and know nothing about this you know to have one other comment is I wonder what the guidelines are for the center I don't think they work I think they're so dysfunctional they don't work and is that a challenge where do they really work and if they don't work then why are we funding our kids to be because you know they're supposed to be helping them to get career information but you know when they fill out their facts and all of that I don't think they're working to your point that was how did we expand those that care colleges they have a very so that was a little bit more of a resource but I didn't know those are important so I'm going to do that for the question that you might thank you thank you next is Charles no sorry I have the second recommendation with the education committee and the recommendation regarding early childhood intervention and quality childcare we were attacking the data on kindergarten readiness and the disparities that exist there and we did site directly in the table that you seen ours is on page 28 and 29 site a lot of data that are Tarrant County data that show the disparities that exist in kindergarten readiness between African-American Hispanic and white students and they're very similar to the table that you see cited here we recognize that African-American students and Hispanic students perform significantly lower than their white peers on a kindergarten early skills assessment and current students in September as they enter kindergarten within the first two weeks it's given individually and it evaluates a full battery of indicators that show whether at the level of kindergarten readiness and so we targeted just a few of those skills that are evaluated and that have to deal with pre-reading skills and to be aligned with the Reef Forward Initiatives and Dr. Scribner and the third grade readiness with reading and also those were the areas of the greatest disparity when you looked at all the things that were evaluated so you see that there's 27% gaps in blending sounds with African-Americans between African-Americans and whites and Hispanics were 15% lower in blending sounds in listening there was a 7% gap with African-American 3% with Hispanics letter sounds 10% difference on both of those racial groups and in the vocabulary significant differences with African-American children 15% less ready and Hispanic students 17% I guess you could say less ready than white students at that kindergarten entry level so these disparities are kind of a sample but they were significant enough that that that does exist and also the research shows that the brain is developed by 85% already by age 4 and so that early childhood piece is so critical and the district has done some really targeted work with closing the achievement gap within those school age targeted areas of the district and all of the school districts in the county and the Fort Worth greater area and campus but the early childhood is so that was our target area and we also cited childhood poverty that low income black and Latino children living in Texas are more likely to live in high poverty neighborhoods that low income white children and again the data we just linked in to the research there because it was a large piece and also trauma and the adverse effects on that was our research base and again the links kind of provide the greater depth we can add some things to that if you guys really should so the strategy was to address these disparities basically to possibly impact early childhood intervention by systematically strengthening existing child care partnerships and furthering their research base were to ensure that all Fort Worth through the use of data best practices and strategic investments public support and sound public policies continue to focus on and strengthen equitable child care systems where children and families thrive so we have three basic goals they're actually listed as four and I'm going to off the cuff just combine two of them and make them three I'm sorry about that but I think it should be written that way I'm so sorry the number one area I was so fortunate to have worked very closely in partnership with the chairman of ELA on this work and so I kind of start off you know talking about something that's very near and dear to the work of the ELA the early learning alliance was founded back in 2013 and there's been so much talk you guys probably all know about the early learning alliance but it was actually formed in partnership with the city of Fort Worth so there's an existing bond there already and they are doing such comprehensive work in this area they have over 50 organizations that are fee paying members that deal with early learning they have access to all the resources and accessibility to measurements so anything that we do they already have in place the ability to evaluate and measure the effectiveness of anything that we add to their work so number one was focused on improving the quality of childcare so to improve the quality of childcare centers in majority minority neighborhoods so again targeting the neighborhoods where that majority minority exists so that we have opportunities and again articles are cited here the top four star rating is kind of what's hoped for with childcare there's a Texas rising star initiative and that organization rates childcare centers and the four star rating is almost unachievable because it's like state accreditation where people have to be agreed to be employed there so the goal is to have childcare centers and again early learning alliance is also striving to support with all childcare centers and so in targeting those neighborhoods we our hope is to A provide set financial incentives for childcare centers in majority minority neighborhoods that will encourage lower quality centers to improve through the Texas rising star rating system and again low quality childcare centers to come up to the two star rating with T.S.R. that's A then B is to align our incentives with existing incentives that are already in place provided by the Texas Workforce Commission they're already doing work here the Texas Workforce Commission they already do reimbursements to those childcare centers that increase their rating and they also subsidized with families as well like a program in place that we can just kind of add to and make better in support through incentivizing the actual childcare centers to increase their quality so that's what we need by A and B there and then C this is sort of a little free thing that you know I'm an educator and I would do anything for this maybe I'm just like an easy sell but in C we talked about creating a city of Fort Worth designation or recognition system for childcare centers to earn through accomplishing desired steps to both improve their quality through the Texas Rising star ranking and to ensure racial equity through that Annie Casey Foundation self assessment tool for racial prejudice so we thought we could incentivize childcare centers to gain this two star rating and also to have their staff take this racial prejudice self assessment that's a tool that's been successful as a reflective practice where organizations want to attack the racial I mean racial prejudice really and kind of be reflective in their practice so this is a tool that's been used for that very successfully so we thought if childcare centers can take these steps to improve in these neighborhoods their services that we could say hey you can be a city of Fort Worth gold star childcare center and Mayor Price will come out and ring a banner and ring a bell like blue dots I mean we did anything for blue zones that was so awesome to have the bell and the banner and the mayor yes we could do anything so and there's not a lot of cost in that so we thought maybe childcare centers would appreciate the opportunity to have a status so to speak with the city of Fort Worth if they were to increase their quality okay so then number two again this was a recommendation that we talked about with the early learning alliance and Todd Landry worked with me a lot of this as chairman of that this is something that they feel very very important and that is the administering of the the ASQ and so this is a test that is a questionnaire and it's just a questionnaire that they give to parents about their children and the ELA is already using this questionnaire and number three if you kind of skip down to number three that paragraph that really kind of tells what the ASQ is about and so the ASQ is the ages and stages questionnaire for two important purposes it automatically connects any family that takes that questionnaire the database goes into the computer automatically aligns the needs of that child with the appropriate services whether it's medical childcare or intervention services so it automatically pairs that family with those services if they take this ASQ so it's a really powerful tool for the sake of the families and for the sake of our purposes or ELA's purposes as well and other childcare providers it also is a data gathering tool so it helps target and funnel different service providers to those areas people and places where they're most needed so it kind of serves both purposes the ASQ so then our A through E under number two there is how can we go about implementing a wide spread administering of this ASQ assessment and it's you know through campaigns with childcare centers directly targeting families in those neighborhoods by maybe giving them some incentives at different gatherings conduct targeted outreach in those communities through physicians clinics immunization programs physician networks de-incentivized training of nurses and staff which is already being done if they go into clinic and train their staff on how to give it we can incentivize that by giving the nurses a gift card or something so they'll come in and receive training to administer that test and then E incentivize parents to say hey if you come and take this test you can have a gift card or there's some incentives there just small incentives so the parent wants to and then the last one number four which I think should be number three is was going to be a separate recommendation and we decided to roll it into this one and that is to create a web-based information portal focused on the availability of educational resources and wraparound services that assist in decision-making regarding educational support from early childhood intervention all the way through college and career so it's basically a large web-based portal that connects families with resources at the click of a button based on their needs and so there's already so much out there that would be really easy to pull that together but we did include it in the proposal because it would need a little push or a little organizational structure maybe some finances to pay for the time to make that happen so those are our recommendations I'm sorry the lawn winded on that again the lead organization would be the early learning alliance they're very much behind these goals and are just an incredible organization that already exists and so they've been reviewing this with me as well the workforce solutions of Tarrant County and the city of Fort Worth would come in for funding too so we of course put the city of Fort Worth enlisted several organizations there again now we haven't contacted all of those so we can you know take or leave any of those names as appropriate and then the resources section the last part here with the numbers we listed the costs as we predicted to be able to provide the incentives that were mentioned in the proposal incentive payments like just a cash payment we proposed if a childcare center would increase to that two star rating a $5,000 cash incentive to offset the cost of the improvements which would be you know training maybe facilities improvements and things like that and then to keep maintaining that trajectory we thought $1,500 for the next four years after to maintain that two star rating so that would offset the cost of the higher quality and then there were other costs there listed the financial incentive payments that would be increased year by year if they remained in there the $35,000 materials and support communicating marketing there we listed out what we projected there as some of the costs I don't know if you need to read all those if you're looking at those but and we we agree that it might take someone on a payroll of some sort to manage the implementation of this and so there was like a part time salary included there $35,000 it could be a project manager and I don't know if that could be sort of under the umbrella of an organization like DLA or that would fall under the city we weren't sure where that would be best placed but we we felt like the time that it would take to do all of these things and manage the project would probably require a part time salary at least and then the technology support that last line item $50,000 that was built into that web based development recommendation that we combined in at the end there with this recommendation number two and so there's other potential sources we wanted to consider because we know that maybe the city has access to other groups that could fund things like this neighborhood improvement funds tax pricing incentive or freezing taxes CDBG funds might be available perhaps the crime control and prevention district funds maybe or an opportunity the consideration of feasibility of a bond record that may already be happening Texas workforce solutions or court worth housing solutions are already involved in things like this so we thought that they might also be a source potentially and then success measures again the data is so accessible through the ELA there's a lot of data available but we thought a goal of increasing five of the centers that we identified and again we don't know if this is enough to shoot for if we could propose more centers but we thought five would be a good goal to start with and five centers to come to start rating and then if we could increase the administration of those ASQs by 20% more than what's already being administered through the early learning alliance and these other organizations that we could certainly easily measure the number of assessments that are given and that's already being tracked and then the data goes achievement gaps we thought if we could narrow those gaps from 27 to 15 down to 10 that that would be a significant decrease in those achievement gaps in early learning readiness so that was way too many work to all I'm so sorry Charles the first thing I want to say is whoever found Sarah for this I'm just going to start yeah yeah you fell asleep seriously I think I think it's pretty well documented that early childhood intervention is the most cost-effective expenditure of dollars whether you're trying to affect crime health poverty so just in general I think this is a great focus I've got some nitpicking on the costs and the potential areas for that so I take it that all this is you're looking at as an expenditure of the BLA not the city no no we threw these numbers down in the city so these are these would be city dollars yes but we listed some other options that was nice yeah just be a lot of the funds you're talking about do come or actually work for solutions for Tarrant County and this year there's a huge increase for child care in the areas of quality and that's actually what will be approved next hopefully next Wednesday by who includes the mayor and it is to go from two-star to four-star in areas like that the other thing is to help those who have no star become a quality center that's really yes and I can tell that was in there so there's money for that also and so a lot of what you're saying and it sounds like you're talking public care and Todd and yeah it's a line that I'll just send this to more I will tell you to see how much we will cover with our additional dollars than what the city and other sources would be great the other thing is in private years we have had to take families on and off on and off if your income changed at all we were constantly spending all our time putting you in and off the systems now you actually stay on for a year before that happens to you so that families can have some consistency with them and that in itself totally helped our system and the child care but we don't know exactly the results of that Julie Tim talk about the talk about the budget what percent of the budget goes to the child care and what number of dollars that represents so this year is probably over around 40 million 40 million dollars now most of that is for the direct direct child care for the working you know families or the other ones that qualify for that and now there's more money set aside for quality and that fluctuates from year to year what the decision is on how much we've got in quality but all three of our officials love quality and so I think they're going to be in support of that discussion go y'all oh yeah Tim thank you Sarah again amazing work in one month you're just kind of loose all the way I know that there's the read for work program which is there's a lot of private investment in that and I know they've done a lot of research and they have their proposals out working on that is that included in any of this consideration is that considered it's listed that the read for work is listed a couple of times in the proposal as just sort of an umbrella with the ELA as so it is kind of included the data measurement is mostly focused on third grade reading and so we really wanted to target early learning because the district doesn't get to do that as much so we thought the city could really go in and find those homes recruit those families match those services and increase the quality of job care and even because I know part of this is a huge push for volunteers in the community to get out and help families and then be a part of assisting families that just don't have time to tell their children and that's what I'm all about and the more that we can have our city to vote I think we mentioned even recruiting and training volunteers to administer that ASQ and that can be done by volunteers what we got to present is to the community I think we have to be real careful that we don't overlook those areas that are already in place I know you mentioned Carville Housing and Butler in those places in the report there so I think we acknowledge that and then talk about how we can help the program okay thank you any other questions next Charles go for it well maybe I'm not sure everybody really knows that the co-chair is built up we needed another committee we had this way in the process so I was giving the opportunity we got it all that last time so it goes back to our discussion you recall several months back but looking at an independent citizenry district commission as you'll recall the situation is because of a charter amendment election that passed was it 2016 2016 that said we will be adding two districts we have to go through the census process in 2020 then redraw the lines election actually showing those new districts would be in 2023 now transparency we were not asked to look at this this was not part of our charge that's one thing the other thing is this is where policy gets set for our city with it was on city council it almost seems to walk away from that discussion and not address it but it's a big thing and it's beyond what we can really do thoroughly here to meet our deadline so the recommendation we're making here is that for the city to appoint a charter review task force to specifically study and make recommendations concerning independent district commission so it is the council does it themselves and it's only human nature that when you're drawing the lines you look up number one how do I protect myself and how do I get reelected what neighborhoods support me which ones don't there are models out there in Austin, Texas is probably the most analogous situation to us that there is that it's recently done is it took the politics out and as the saying goes the to allow the citizens to pick their representatives instead of the politicians to pick their voters I there's no system I've known this well enough that it's going to be perfect but I think at the end of the day if we're serious about equity I think this is something that deserves to be looked at so that's the recommendation the council appoint a charter review task force to study and there's a timeline that will lead up to another election charter election in 2020 if that's the way that you decided to go okay so the other two more recommendations in this governance section one dealt with the mission of the human relations unit the human relations unit is that staff with Angie and people who work with her currently this would make that unit more robust and add to their responsibilities so restructure the human relations unit to provide early clearly designated oversight and management over the city diversity and inclusion efforts so we're part of it is I think our thinking was this task force is coming up with all these great recommendations too who in the city is going to be pushing to make sure those things actually get implemented it's going to wake up every day to that top of mind well it makes sense we've already got this unit closely lined in mission to formally make it their chart in our discussion one of the things that came out is we would like for that unit for example to look every year in the budget process before it is finalized to look at it through the lens of equity this is where we provide resources each year are we doing it equitably around the city or are we overloading we've already seen the disparities in our numbers in minorities in town have more than their fair share of poor streams for example well does this this is the budget that's coming forward does it address that when we do bond program same thing before it goes to the voters look at it through an equity lens to say are we treating all of the city fair so I know we could talk more about that that's necessary and you can be helpful with that the last was city employee training implement a training for all employees on an ongoing basis that looks at diversity issues in the workplace should address acceptance and respect accommodations of beliefs ethnic and cultural differences gender equality physical and mental disabilities generation gaps and language communication so we just want to make that built in as just a way we do business I think I'll stop there any questions up I'm just curious about the missions of the human relations unit that unit sort of like you're saying would oversee the like continuation of the work of the ad forms so is that an elected group or who maintains the balance of the dues on that group and what values they hold there's two different entities so that's where infusion there is the unit that is the city office that does the work that does the investigation of complaints and housing employment then there's the commission what they're discussing is the unit not the commission so there's a city employee the word I could say Angie Rush Angie Rush is the administrator of the human relations unit and the idea which is not so I'll serve you on Angie's part is to broaden the scope and possibly elevate the unit to the department status so that would have a much broader range of responsibilities and more authority to implement your recommendations and part of that recommendation was the hiring of a chief diversity officer that would be their everything they do would be focused on diversity would it be a standalone apartment or would it be a HR or would it be a standalone apartment right now it's a unit of the city manager's office any other questions about the license can you talk about I'm spending 10 hours talking 10 hours talking just real quick I appreciate what Angie does and this is target group yet at the same time this was rushed at the last minute and we've not really had a lot of discussion about this taking all that we're doing and putting it into the hands of a group that recommended to become the department it's concerning to me and I can I can only tell you from personal experience you know as a leader of religious issues here in this community when I began to become involved with the mayor's office I was immediately contacted by the human relations mission saying that yeah what is it called the human relations or human yes commission but I was immediately contacted regarding some things that are against my faith that they demanded that I start participating and I just I said that's not what I and I was pushed and pushed on it and I just want to say I know that kind of stuff happens but I didn't appreciate the city government pushing me as a volunteer in the community who's a very clearly religious volunteer to do things that are directly contrary to my faith so I just say that because that's been my personal experience we all have personal experiences or my opinion that's what had to be taken into consideration I think it needs to be clarified that your experience was with the commission not the human relations unit correct there's two different bodies to be honest with you I'm not quite sure I'd have to go back to emails but yes but they're they're working together so just my concern is like she said the values of the organization you know what is the agenda because the agenda was very one-sided the agenda was counter to everything my faith stands for and you know they're going to have their agenda but gee that was that kind of gave me a it just kind of was a bumpy start there and then when I tried to include their organization which was a volunteer members in what I was doing through the city no one wanted to participate because and I don't know they wouldn't want to participate and we were strongly encouraged by mayor's office to reach out to them and have them on I would send them emails phone calls all kinds of stuff but they after we said after I just like come back up on this issue that is counter to my faith they would have nothing to do with me so that's just something I encourage you to consider because I would have trouble elevating them to a high level of community to take all of our work and then move forward I'm sorry but you're not sure right I have to it's the fourth Texas dot go is where the email came from it's probably commission that's the commission maybe commission I know that because them on compassion for work and that we're asked to support their work in compassion. I'm not sure what I'd have to have a conversation with pass away because I really don't know but it wasn't the unit. The unit is enforcement and investigation and ADA coordinator and title 6 and so it wouldn't have been staff. I don't want to get into who did what. I just want to let you know that after that initial conversation there even though I continue to reach out to them to be involved for two years every month with phone numbers, email addresses, there was zero response and so then I just dropped it. I just dropped it. Well they don't want to be involved and they made me because I'm not pushing their agenda. But I thought, where's the partnership here? Well I'm sorry that that's happened to you. It's just a personal thing that made you totally isolated me. Exactly. Well that's why I think it's key to know who did what. To know who did do what. With all due respect for the conversation I thought we were going to be out by 6.30 and I have a call schedule that set. Okay. And I'd like to not only be prepared for that call but I'd like to give my report because I didn't know it was going to run over and I'm married and it's not prepared to do it. So is there any way to do it? Yes. Anything else? Charles. No. Okay. Okay so for the help to me, for the sake of time again I mentioned I do have to go in just a little bit but when I look at our four recommendations here we have education outreach and one of the main things that I wanted to point out with that is with increasing the face-to-face interaction in these identified neighborhoods with those community health workers and we kind of talked about earlier with the reading, the issues with reading and the information that they're being able to share just being able to increase that and working on different resources and activities and not organizations but activities that will support that increased education outreach. So whether it's an event, whether it's brochures, whatever it is, just making sure that those community health workers are out there or they look like us. So right now the recommendation on page 43 it says you know actually just having more African-American community health workers serving in that stop six neighborhood. So that's just not going to not only relationships but we would assume that a black man would take more information from someone that looks like him when you're talking about their health and well-being. So that's that one and we really just on all four of these, Tarrant County Public Health was really the going to be the lead organization and we do have Ann Collier who is our subject matter expert who is getting very helpful but we'll talk to her about that a little bit more as far as making contact with her and ensuring that they are, they will be that lead. Going back to number two active lifestyles I did have a few minutes to look over the transportation recommendations and under active lifestyles the same thing kind of keeps coming up about the sidewalks, the stray dogs, the light. And even with the access to providers I looked at the transportation recommendations on page 66 and those two on page 66 number three and four would definitely support the things that we're talking about as far as access to health care for these underserved populations. And number three says identify specific opportunities to improve transportation affordability, access and safety for minority communities through enhanced coordination between existing programs and agencies. We could actually do a quick copy case and put that under access to providers for health. And then even number four I would really want to look more into this one as far as I'm saying design and racial equity impact assessment tool for transportation projects. That is something that is major, just when these underserved neighborhoods being able to have access and we know that some of the bus stops are not in the neighborhood so we were just trying to get to the doctor's office and trying to get to the clinic as a feeding itself. And Mary do you have anything else? So I did kind of look at active lifestyles and access to providers under transportation a little bit because that is a, I don't say nucleus but that's something that's very important that falls under both of those areas. And some of the active lifestyles that we've talked about before was the quality of the equity as far as the different community centers and the different organizations in the different neighborhoods. So one might have this beautiful gym workout equipment while another one in another neighborhood, their treadmill is in the closet with the mop bucket. So just looking at the equities with the equipment and accessibility to the community centers. I'm going to talk about this kind of thing like we can't have a public health community center that's not happening for education and having health care and access to that. If those aren't utilizing the community, they're not equitable. And so utilizing those resources that we already have in our centers and partnering with agencies like care and clinic on the top to deliver those messages of health in those areas that are needed. I just have one recommendation. We tend to kind of want to own health care. And what I'd like to see on this one is some thought put into, once we go out and we give you your data and say your hypertension is a new diagnosis while we do a hemoglobin A1C and we know now that you're at sixth which makes you pre-diabetic. To give that information to the individual so they know where they are and then begin to let them be accountable for that. I think the reason we fail is because we want to own it. We want to try and steer them into this and steer them into that. And if we can just do more screenings and give the individual the information that they need and then hold them accountable for their own health care. I think one of the things that we did talk about is the community health workers really placing some of those people who can help that baby. Once you get that number, where do they go? What does that mean for them? But it comes down to a funding issue of who's going to fund that community health worker in the city. But to help you soon now, we can't get dollars for that or is that it? Is there a partnership that could be created with UNT Health Science Center? Maybe there's some conversations that we have to get some support from those that chase and support this. The point that I think we've wasted so much time chasing down Miss Jones and Miss Smith. And so all of this other stuff going, I'd like to see us put some thought into as we go out and do the screenings. And I've been a part of that for a lot of years. And then we chase down Miss Jones. Give Miss Jones the information she needs. You have a mass or you have whatever. And then maybe a follow-up call from one of the navigators to let them know. You know, we haven't seen you, but run after that. The way we currently do it to chase them down, to make sure they get it well. Now you have to build some accountability to the individual. And there's a lot of work going on in those vans. And I think we spent a lot of time focusing on 20% of the people while 80% do not get that service. We did the pre and post on that, you know, for those individuals. Good job. Thank you. Good job, Yolanda. All right. Anything, any other questions on health? Thanks. Sorry, Tony. Katie, housing. Housing. Thanks. I'm sure our other Sarah Jennifer do to our staff. I could be terrible. Barbara Asbury is amazing. And Aubrey Pegard has also contacted me. And we'll be meeting with us on Thursday. We have our recommendations here, but we are working on refining them and filling in these other blanks. And we will be meeting on Thursday to start doing that. So I want you all to jump in at any point. Our first one of the things that we heard again and again and again, the conversations in the town hall were affordable, safe housing in neighborhoods with good sidewalks and public transportation and safe lighting came up again and again and again. And the cost of housing in Fort Worth is through the roof. And so it has made the availability of affordable housing even more of a problem than it usually is. So one of the things the racial and cultural disparities to be addressed where the racial segregation in housing has increased in Fort Worth since 2010, 45% of African American households and 38% of Hispanic households are rent burden, meaning they pay more than 30% of their income for housing compared to 26% of white households. Hispanics comprise 59% of households who live against substandard or overcrowded housing. So our strategy to address this is city incentives for multi-family housing should be provided only to projects that to the maximum extent financially feasible provide housing units affordable households at 30% of area median income. And we've provided definitions for these terms on this page as well. And it should apply to all city incentives. And we've spent a lot of time talking with people with staff from the City of Fort Worth to get on the development department, the Fort Worth Housing Finance Corporation, the Housing and Urban Development, people who deal with their grants assistance, neighborhood empowerment zones. I mean, we talked to, I don't know how many people we've had come to cover us up with data. The City of Fort Worth is doing an awful lot already, but just the way we're defining things means that the people who need it the most are not getting help. And we think that simply redefining some of these things will make a big difference. We can get people to do that. And we've gone through and identified the likely opposition, maybe more school profits head up, and the resources needed. Obviously we will be talking and some of us talked with the Real Estate Council for the apartment association, the local housing finance agencies. And we've talked about a lot of the same things that economic development people talked about. About a ban the box on applications for apartments, because that is also a huge barrier in maintaining housing. Recommendation number two, I'm home by our assistance, again the same disparities. And in some of these, the City of Fort Worth can address mostly by creating partnerships and working with other groups. It's not necessarily the thing that the City itself can fix, but it can use its leverage to encourage other organizations to step up and fix. And for instance working with Lenders and Realtors to adapt the City's existing home by our assistance program. And I like to say this. Is housing opportunities still there? Are housing opportunities? David Albright is great. I mean that would be a plus to add them into something of this nature to help those home buyers educate them. And that brings us to recommendation number three, which is to increase awareness of the many resources that are already out there. The City is doing an amazing job of educating people, once they get people in the house walking alongside them on how to deal with living in a house and all the issues that brings up when you don't have a landlord to call. The City outreach in these areas is very impressive already. It's getting people to know that they're available. That's a huge part of what we need to do. And again I have just gone through this at a tremendous rate. So I give it an hour, but I cannot say enough about the health we've got from our resource people. And we will continue to work with them. I can say we have a meeting planned on Thursday to really throw down on the filling in. Because if we can't, to be crass, sell this to the City government, it's not going to... All our work is not going to do anything. You've got it. Get the mail on the head. Thank you. So the two, Sarah, I think you've captured most everything. Again, the focus in a lot of ways was the various different groups, but also making sure that people are working and what place that they go for. So they don't have to commute and spend all their time commuting. But they can work and play within a certain area and not be pressed under that area. And it's all tied into economic development. I mean a number of people have to work multiple minimum wage jobs to afford minimum... A one bedroom apartment in Terence County. It's huge. And there are actually nine more. So we are twins, which we cannot make development. Great job. A question about living in the parks. How do you get past certain requirements like if you're a registered sex offender and those types of parameters to live in certain houses? How do you get around that? I think obviously we have to work things like that out. A registered sex offender is a whole other category that someone who was a convicted felon has served their time and are now back in the community. Those are apple with oranges in many senses. So I think we have to figure out how to make that work. Because you're right. I mean obviously registered sex offender is a whole other category when it comes to housing. Any other questions? I think Carson was here with Envision. I'm sorry? Ben Carson came to the community and talked about the Envision program. Any mention of that from any of the housing people you've been working with on your committee? I don't. Envision? Envision? Envision? I don't think so. I was hanging out. The Secretary Carson came to Fort Worth a couple months ago. I think I was trying to, I don't know that we've discussed that specifically on our committee. That might be something I want to take a look at and see how we've made these models. We're looking for money. There ain't no money. Well that may not be any money right here right now. But I think it's okay. Oh yeah, I think you're there. And then we come to transportation. We have four goals on here. Our first recommendation is to create a transportation equity policy. Tied that into a five year action plan. One of the things that we've talked about is that we've got to embed an equity policy program. And everything that City does, whether it's TPW, water, anything that has to do with transportation. Streets, lines, everything. We've got to make sure that we're looking under a number of an equity plan. And so that's one of our first recommendations on here. And as you'll see, we want to identify opportunities to improve coordination between existing programs, agencies. To positively affect transportation affordability, access, and safety for minority populations. Developing a racial equity impact assessment tool to support the consistent review of transportation programs for equity impacts across the organization. Developing education and training materials for staff, stakeholders, and community. Identifying opportunities to utilize public-private partnerships and public-public partnerships to advance transportation priorities that directly access equity. We are behind on transportation. I think we all know that. So we've got to look at all our areas. And we can't always just look outside the loop of 820. We have to look at our inner cities so that we can get those individuals to the jobs that are outside the loop. And fill in the lines and so forth. We've got to find those ways of getting those individuals to better paying jobs that have better benefits for them and their families. Our second priority is the majority minority areas. And that's where you get into the poor conditions, the streets, lights, missing sidewalks. You know, one of the things we just passed a bond program. How do we prioritize these areas to get their improvements? And by them looking through a racial lens or an equity plan lens, that can help us to make sure that we are getting those streets fixed just as fast as we are in any other area. Because if the funding has been approved, let's get those streets approved as well. Because that's going to help those individuals with quality of life. The third recommendation is action crash reviews. And we want to talk about identifying or instituting routine after action reviews between involved agencies for all pedestrian bicycle crashes for which police reports are written. We need to be a little bit proactive because you've got bike lanes now coming out on a lot of our streets. But you also have, I mean, I see this on West 7th because I live over here by West 7th. And I can't believe anybody will drive down that street in a bicycle because of the traffic congestion. But they do. But we also need to make sure that they're safe. And I know there's a lot of talk going on about the bus routes along with the bike routes and so forth. So there's a lot of conversations being had about this, but we need to make sure that we are looking at that as well. The fourth one is pursue the next generation of transit solutions. We have to build transit today that's going to transition to the future because transit will change. We have virtual transit mechanisms, whether the autonomous vehicles, autonomous vans that, you know, you're looking at VIA and volunteer, you're looking at what's happening in Frisco. There's a lot of technology that's going to change transportation. I can't think of his name, Siva. He came to put himself a few years ago to talk about, and he wrote a book. He's from Stanford, The De-Regulation of Transportation through Technology. And that's going to happen. So whatever we do today, we have to build the transportation of today that will transition to the future. But we also have to look at the funding. We have to get behind funding for transportation. Right now, Trinity Metro only gets a half a cent sales tax. We need to get that raised to a penny. We need to look at other ways of funding transportation so that we can ensure that we have a better transportation system. And it's got to be a multimodal transportation system that we're looking at. Is that recognition? We are going to be redrafting some of our recommendations. I think it's really important that we think it ought to be raised to a penny. And we may recommend where we would get that since we're always at a limit. Yes. And it could be that there could be some tax amendments or tips that are retiring, but there could be money from those tips instead that are going to be going to the general fund that could be utilized in sending that money to transportation initiatives. But I'm not raising the sales tax. I mean, the crime district perhaps doesn't need a penny anymore. We could recommend that. Reallocation. Reallocation, yes. You're getting a tip on that. So did I understand you. Somebody had to say that, didn't they? We need you. Yes. An architect is going to be meeting again as well. So look at some of the things that we need to focus on and about doing our recommendations. So, you know, right now we've got a few more weeks to start looking at, well, I had it here, sorry. The sheet that Belando gave us, you know, of what we still need to complete. So if each of our committees will go back and take a look at this so that we can ensure that, we're doting our I's and we're crossing our T's so that we have all the information necessary. So when we go out to the public, we're better prepared, but also after that we're better prepared when we go out to the council. Okay. Any questions? Michelle, briefly, no video. Yes. We went to put together a short video that just kind of gives an overview of the recommendations and that will be online when we have the draft recommendations ready to go out to everybody in September. But in addition to that, I wanted to do a more of a, not a long video, but something that kind of gets your input on this entire process and why you got involved and what you've gotten out of the experience. Kind of a little documentary. So I'll be contacting you all to come out and have someone come out and interview you. I'll send you the questions in advance so you're not being surprised at hearing your answers. And then we'll put that together and we'll be able to share those little vignettes online, but then also have the longer video for people to see about this whole process. Because I think the journey has been really important and I would like to get your input on what that's meant to you. So that's one of the things we're going to be working on. The second thing that's on the agenda is about the, and I sent everybody an email today, the public meetings that we're going to have after the draft recommendations are accepted at your September meeting. And so I sent that out. There were some questions about the Sixth Patrol Division. That is on Riverside up in the Alliance area. That's our far north meeting. So I will send that email out again with addresses and dates if you all could just let me know your availability. I have a sign up sheet here if you want to do it, but it might be easier this hour to just do it by evening. Yeah, it's 6 to 8. They're 6 to 8.30. I know at least in housing. Yes, I have housing and I have, I believe I got another one today. I want to say transportation maybe. Do we have a place for the east side meeting? Oh yes, I just got confirmation at 3.33 today. And we're going to have it at the University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute, which is on Jack Newell Boulevard on the east side. So I'll send that address out to you to everybody. It's a good facility. The library is going to be under renovations at that time, so they're not going to be ready for it. You have a list of all the future meetings as well, and a list of the community outreach is starting from September 24th to October the 11th. So if I could be shown, let her know when you will be able to participate. Participate at least one. If you can participate in more, that's even better. So we'll have that. Closing remarks. I think the work that was done is just phenomenal and really enjoyable to just be a part of it. Thank you. Good job. Yeah, also, thank you. We said how did we get involved? When the four of us sat down, we looked at names. I truly feel that we have blessed that each and every one of you said yes, because I think each and every one of you are truly, I'm going to put it in a religious sense, an image of God, and together I think we're building a better image here in Fort Worth. So I thank you, and you have truly blessed all of us. I'm really, really pleased. Thank you all for all the work that you've done and for what you will be doing as well. We'll have a good evening.