 We will move to our Enum Report on Task Force on Race and Culture. They have our four co-chairmen, Rosa, Lily, Rabbi Bloom, and Bob Ray Sanders, Rosa Navajar, and Lily Biggins, I should say. Our co-chairing, and Estrus Tucker, who's facilitating us here also. Thank you all for the hard work that you've been doing. You put a lot of time into this. I've heard some really positive comments back. I've been watching most of these as, you know, your programs are typed and broadcast so we can watch them. And I know that we'll have some interesting thoughts today. So thank you. Rosa, I assume you're kicking off. I'm kicking off, and I'm sorry I'm short, so I got to lower this, even with heels. But first, I want to thank you, Mayor and Council, for allowing us to come and give you an interim report of what we've been doing over the last few months since we were created back in August 2017. But we want to talk about why we were created, what we've been doing, what still is left to be done and researched, and before we put in our recommendations going forward. So I'll go ahead and get started here. What brought us here today? You know, Fort Worth desires to take a pride in its racial and cultural diversity. You know, as we continue to grow, the diversity of our city is going to continue to grow. And we need to look forward towards that, so that we can embrace all the diversity of our city. And I know that's what the city wants. Mutual understanding, respect, and harmonious relations among residents of diverse backgrounds are essential to Fort Worth's long-term social and economic vitality. The City Council has expressed its commitment to promote equal access to educational housing and employment opportunities, and to provide municipal services equitably to all residents and regardless of race and culture. I'm sorry, I'm getting really dry today. On June the 27th, last year, it was said that the task force on race and culture was going to be created. Four chairs were appointed, and as Mary just pointed out, Lily Biggins, Rabbi Bloom, Bob Ray Sanders, and myself. We all received a phone call, and we all said, yes, to take it on the task, because we love Fort Worth. You know, we were born and raised here. We want the best for Fort Worth, and we've lived through the diversity changes. We've lived through the transitions over the last few decades. I can tell you how old I am, but I have seen the transitions. Well, we're not talking about that. But the co-chairs, we were allowed to create the other members, or to appoint the other members to our committees. And our next, we have appointed 19 other members. One of the things on the resolutions as it was passed last August was three tasks were given. Community conversations, assessment of disparity, and also looking at leadership training. And I will tell you, when we first talked about leadership training, we thought about leadership training with just the city leadership. But we thought we wanted to take that a step further and take that to the communities as well, because leadership is built together, not separate. One of the things on the resolution is that we would be dissolved no later than August 1st, 2018, and hence why we're here today to give you an interim report. This is a list of the 19 members that were asked to serve. And we do have some of them in the audience today. So if you could please stand up and be recognized here today. Walter Dansby, Arthuta Martinez, Terry Mustridge, Charles Boswell and Roxanne Martinez are here with us. The others, of course, had to work. But I will tell you, one of the things that we looked at, we had over 119 names given to us. But one of the things we took very seriously is that we wanted to make sure there was representation from all districts of the city. And that's why we've got great 19 people here. These have been some of the monthly task force meetings and some of the topics that have been discussed in our meetings. And we want to give you just the outline of all of those meetings. We've talked about the other Fort Worth police community relations. Valerie Washington, Chief Fitzgerald, thank you for presenting to us. We've talked about Senate Bill 4, minority representation on city council, fair housing, employment, public accommodations, to name a few. And then also coming into 2018, we have now talked about criminal justice, voter participation, disparities in municipal services. Based on these topics and our community conversations, we've also broken up in several different committees. And one of the things, and I want to mention who those chairs are, and we'll be talking a little bit about that, the reports will be based on these community's chairs and these committees findings that they have found thus far the disparities that are happening. But under criminal justice, we have Ty Stimson, economic development, Charles Boswell, education, Bob Goldberg and Robert Fernandez, health, Yolanda Harper, housing as Katie Sherrod, transportation as Nima Malik. And where you see on January 22, the initial committee reports are reported based on the conversations that we had at the very beginning, which would have been in 2017 and fall. This has been the public engagement. One of the things that we saw last fall is that we didn't feel like we were reaching to everyone. So we decided to host a few other community conversations, but we also made sure they were outside 820, outside the loop in other districts so that we can hear voices from those. So you will see the number of approximate attendees that attended each of our outreaches, whether it was a community conversation, whether it was a town hall meeting. We are still, we have a website where people, if they want to place comments, they still have the opportunity to place those comments, because we want to hear from everyone. We do not want to put a band-aid on an issue. We want to make sure that we can make the proper recommendations to move our city forward, because if not in 10 years, we'll be having the same conversation, and we don't want to have that. Top 10 issues, I feel like I'm having the David Letterman moment here, but these are some of the discussed community conversations. You will see the number of comments per this, education, racism, economic development, criminal justice, segregation, prejudice, political representation, public accommodations, employment, and housing, hence the reason why we broke up with the committees that we assigned. These were some of the frequently expressed comments. City is doing little or nothing, systemic, structural, institutional racism, failed to acknowledge the problems, continued to expand in deep and community conversations about race and culture, and that's one of the needs that we need to have. As some of you are aware, the four of us, when we were asked to take on this task, we all said we are willing to do that, but we don't want to have a show and tell and have something put on the shelf. We want to make sure that there's implementation afterwards. So as we go forward, our recommendations will have the process for those implementations. Quality of life, when you look at, again, these come back to the six committees that we have assigned under our task force, criminal justice, economic development, education, health, housing, and transportation. When it comes to municipal services, we are looking at police services, court services, home repair services, and contracting. When we build a quality of life for everyone, then the city wins. At this time, I'm going to ask Lily Biggins to come in and give her report on health. I too would like to thank the city council for allowing us this opportunity. It's a great opportunity, and I want you to know that one of the things we've discussed in our meetings is the courage that it takes from the elected officials to say, help us with this. You know, you're elected by the community, the communities that we all serve, and so I want you to know that there's a lot of expectation out there. The assignment that I'm going to present today, my hair got shorter, and it got darker. It got darker because Ms. Clairol and I are still courting. You've got to have a good friend. You know, the hurt and the pain has come through in the report outs that we've gotten, and as we've listened to the community. And I want you to hear me say that very clearly. When people stand before you and bear their soul in these town hall meetings and in the community conversations, it's a privilege to be able to be there to hear that, but at the same time, some of it's bought tears to my eyes because it expresses how people feel. And you know, unfortunately, you're elected, or fortunately, you're elected, so when we talk about the city, and they are part of that, you and us. So the one that I'm going to report out on today is the extent of criminal justice disparities. Before I move into this, I want to just thank all of you who came and presented. Everybody that we've asked to come and present to the task force has come. And you know, you come and you stand before a group and you share some of the things that you're not proud of either, and we understand that. But on the arrest, the extent of disparities that's there, and we wanted to quantify things so people wouldn't be able to say the data doesn't say. We use data-based information here. Despite, you know, only 19 percent of forest population being African American, 41 percent of all the arrest occurred within African American population. And the correspondent figures, as you can see there, is 31 percent and 30 percent for whites and 28 percent for Hispanics. So smaller groups, smaller groups, but higher arrest records. Nobody surprised by that, but now we have to, we have the data here before us and we're asked to do something with that. The other thing that came up was recruitment and minorities and females for training academies in the criminal justice system. So based upon the average for the six recruit classes, 13 percent of the recruits are African American versus 19 percent of the population. 26 percent of the recruits are Hispanic, but represent 34. Lily, you're going to get a little closer to the microphone. They're telling us I can't hear back here. You can't hear me. Oh my goodness. I was told I had a big mouth. It won't come any farther and I'm not taller, so I'll just speak up if that's okay with you. Yeah, that's good. Okay. And then we get into, and the data sources over to the far right column, as you can see, okay. So you can see that there are disparities in these areas as well. And what we've given you here in this graph is the extent of the disparities. 16 percent of the recruits are females, but we represent 51 percent of the population. And if you look at the next column, then we're talking about the specialized units, units that get lots of attention, some negative, some positive, but nevertheless, they're called specialized units. There are no African American officers in any of these units. And the SWAT unit has 26 total officers. You can see what K9 has, criminal intelligence, all of these are the units that are quote specialized. And there's only one African American officer who serve on the special response team and they're 44 officers. So that's something that we think needed to be called out. And you can see the data, the empirical data is there. The diversity of officers at first promotion rank, which is a corporal and detective of the 241, 7 percent total of raw number, 16 are African American, 41 percent are Hispanic, 17 percent, I'm sorry, 41 are Hispanic and only 4 percent are other representing our other diverse populations, Laotian, Taiwanese, Asians, that population. And this comes from the four PD personnel records, so it's fact. So go back up to the first one where we talk about the number of arrests. Causes of these disparities, as we've heard from citizens in the community, they believe that the law enforcement unfairly targets African Americans. And you can see from the data that there is some hint that maybe that's true. But target recruiting efforts have failed to generate much interest among minorities and that there are no cadet programs offered in the schools. In other communities, they have cadet programs in Arlington, even they go into the high schools and they try to get kids interested, even in middle school. Senior officers provide minorities with little and no encouragement that came from the audiences, not from the task force to take promotional tests. And there is a pervasive thought that as we are, we hire. So at the current rate, we'll never get the diversity within the divisions that we're looking to get them into because most of the officers are white and they're hiring white. Minority officers may not wish to be the only officer in a specialized unit. So I guess what that says is when we start to open that up a little bit more and be more inclusive, we're going to have to do more than one. The extent of economic disparities is the other area. And remember, these committees were formed based up on the feedback that we got from the community. We didn't just say, oh, let's do this one. But unemployment rate, if you look at the unemployment rate in our love, Fort Worth, you'll see that 6.1 percent, we've always bragged about how low of an unemployment rate we have. And you can see here in 2016, the rate for whites was 4.2, African Americans 6.1, and that goes a long ways. These disparities are generally consistent with national trends. So what that basically is telling you is that's not only just here in Fort Worth, but it's everywhere. The median income, if you'll look at that, you'll see that 63,000 for whites, 41,000 for blacks, and Hispanics, 44,000. So we have disparities in the pay rate, in the hiring rate, and that's what our citizens are telling us. Minority on businesses, this came from the forward business press, so we understand it may not be an all-inclusive list, but if you look at this, of the top 100 privately owned firms in Tarrant County, 14, only 14 are owned by minorities, and six of these 10 are owned by Hispanics. So what are they telling us then that the causes are for the economic disparities? The unemployment rate is negatively correlated to educational attainment. The more educated the workforce, the lower the unemployment rate, and college graduates with baccalaureate degrees tend to do better. We know that, and we also know from the data that we've pulled that most of those are white. Minorities are more likely to live in economically underprivileged or depressed areas, and that tends to create a cohort that continues to reinvent the disparities and lack of inclusion that dwell in those places. The other thing is the practice of hiring the way you are, which is many employers continue practices that while not explicitly discriminatory, they do create a disadvantage to minority job seekers. And when executives hire solely in their own networks the way they look, that really disadvantages a lot of people who've gone through our schools and have earned their way through those degrees, but still can't get hired. And access to capital tends to be a significant issue for minorities who are trying to start businesses. I'll now turn it over to Rabbi Andrew Bloom who will talk to you about education and the disparities and lack of inclusion as presented to us by your community. Thank you very much. I'd also like to thank the City Council for putting your trust in us. When you took four co-chairs, I don't know if you had any idea how well we actually get along together and when we disagree it's done with honor and respect, but I think all of us working together has been a blessing I know for me and hopefully for the city as well. So thank you very much. I also want to thank before I get into this a few people who are essential to the task force, but sometimes you look at the co-chairs and are the task force and not necessarily the staff who is essential to all of us and that is our fearless leader Fernanda Costa, Angela Rush, Michelle Gut, Estheris, and we also need to thank at every meeting. The marshals are there who are always giving us any assistance that we may need friendly and courteously as well. Each and every one of us here, thank God, is able to read what is up on the slides. Each and every one of us here is able to understand because of the basic education we have, the importance of education itself. I'm going to talk about how we need to do better in the educational services that we give here in Fort Worth. We know that Fort Worth is trying to get now 100% of third graders reading by 2025 and it is an important goal and hopefully something that we will reach because if we look at the charts and the disparities that we have received, we can see that third graders students reading at grade level in the Fort Worth ISD. Only 33% of all third grade students were reading at grade level in 2016-2017 compared to the statewide average of 44%. The percent of those third grade students reading at grade level is 62% for whites, 32% for Hispanics, and only 20% for African Americans. You could see that information comes from Read Fort Worth, the data dashboard. If we're talking about high school graduation, which begins in another few weeks, we'll all be able to go and see our students graduate. I know my daughter is graduating, but unfortunately not every student who is in one of the high schools of Fort Worth ISD graduates and that is something we also need to rectify. If we were to look at graduation rates in 2016, there is 88% for whites, 85% for Hispanics, and 84% for African Americans. I know just as we want 100% of our third graders to read, we as a task force, I know we as a city want 100% of our high school 12th graders to graduate as well. If we're talking about our futures, the futures for our children, we have to look at college and career readiness. The percentage of that is in 2016, 84% of whites were considered ready for college or a career, 74% Hispanics, and 67% for African Americans. Once again, the numbers do not lie and taken from the Texas Education Agency and without doubt, we can as a city and as individuals and as a community do better. Now, if we look at student disciplinary suspensions, here we see that of all students suspended in 2016, 2017, 55% were African American, 37% were Hispanic, and 5% were white. By comparison, the total student enrollment is 23% African American, 62% Hispanic, and 11% white. We see that the numbers do not match up here either. And in the Fort Worth ISD, we have 14 underperforming schools, and all those are located in minority neighborhoods. Now what are some of the reasons for these education disparities? And these are just a number of them. The first, as we can see, is community engagement, education, and awareness, the readiness for kindergarten, children who are in a communal setting and in kindergarten are better prepared for first grade, something which if a child is not ready for first grade and there is one ready for first grade, it already causes imbalance and disparity, something that we need to solve, access to culturally relevant materials, quality of curriculum instructors and instruction, equitable distribution of education resources, as well as exposure to learning environments and possible career paths, all these reasons leading to some of the educational disparities that I mentioned before. Also, we know that health is the most important thing in life. If we have health, we know that health is in actuality wealth. Money comes, money goes, but health is the most important thing that stays with us. And if I spend plenty of my time as a clergy praying for people, I think we can do much more also not only to pray for them but to help them in their physical appearances and their physical being and their physical health. And we see here that there are also disparities in things that we can work on as well. In terms of high blood pressure, 40% of African American adults in Tarrant County have been diagnosed with high blood pressure versus 30% of all adults in the county. Corresponding figures are 25% for Hispanics and 31% for whites. And that's taken from the Tarrant County public health statistics at obesity. 38% of African American adults in Tarrant County have a body mass. The BMI of 30 or more versus 30% of all adults in the county. Corresponding figures are 30% for Hispanics and 28% for whites. For the talk, there is a disparity, but we all need to be a little healthier and get some more exercise no matter who we are or where we are from. In terms of cognitive decline, 23% of African American adults in Tarrant County are experiencing confusion or memory loss. That is increasing in frequency or worsening versus 12% of all adults in the county. Corresponding figures are 6% for Hispanics and 11% for whites. In terms of diabetes, both adult and child diabetes, 16% of African American adults in Tarrant County have been diagnosed with diabetes versus 11% of all adults in the county. Corresponding figures are 12% for Hispanics and 9% for whites. And this is possibly the most distressing figure that we have. Infant mortality for all of us as parents, there's nothing more important than our children. I think all of us can agree on that. And 9.6 African American infant deaths per 1000 live births were recorded in Tarrant County during 2015 versus 6.2 infant deaths per 1000 overall. Corresponding figures are 6.6 for Hispanics and 4.3 for whites. I know that each and every one of us would want to strive that it's 000 across the board. If we're talking about the causes of health disparities, there are a number of reasons that we came to. One is limited access to healthy foods, which may be done due to geographic location in the city. We've been talking about food deserts, cost factors, income levels, transportation issues, or other factors. Lack of safe places to perform physical activity, which may be due to a lack of sidewalks, public improvements, fear of stray or roaming animals are other factors as well. Inability to seek medical care, which may be due to lack of funds, copays, deductibles, and other factors. Low literacy and lack of knowledge about health, finance, health insurance. Now if we're talking about 33% to third graders who can only read on level, how are we supposed to understand this later on in life if we're not helping them at that age move forward? Stress and lack of support, which makes it difficult to address health problems and behavioral issues, which may include depression, mental health issues, are others. We need to without doubt do much more to help make our city and our residents much healthier, both physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and in any other way that we can. It's our obligation as human beings to do that, and I thank you for helping us along the way to accomplish this. It's now my honor and pleasure to invite Bob Ray Sanders, one of my esteemed co-chairs, to talk about disparities in housing and transportation. Sure, Brian, Rabbi. Sure. Can you go back to slide 18, please? We can. Great, thank you. Lines two and three from TEA. Are those Fort Worth specific, or are those Texas-wide? Those are Fort Worth specific. Everything we're talking about here is Fort Worth specific, but this is where the data is taken from. Thank you. Those are own read Fort Worth's data dashboard. You can see each school by school and district by district on the dashboard also. Good afternoon, everybody. That's an old picture. I've aged since then. Haven't we all? Well, you and I are the same age, Mary. I didn't want to tell that, but okay. I, too, would like to thank you. The fact that I am still on this task force says a lot. It says, first of all, that we are making progress. And as I told the mayor and the city manager at the time I came on, if it was just going to be for show, I wouldn't be around very long. We're making progress. And my thanks to all of our task force members and our co-chairs. I'm here to talk a little bit and I'll do it very quickly about housing, disparities, as well as transportation. As you can see here, you've already seen the pattern. The pattern is that we have not made a lot of progress in a lot of these areas. And in some areas, we're about as bad as we were 30 years ago. And to me, that's sad. So where you go from here, it's going to be up to you. But we hope to present you with some recommendations later on that will move us forward. The extent of the disparity, residential segregation, the degree of residential segregation for all minority populations in Fort Worth as measured by the federal dissimilarity index decreased between 1990 and 2010 from 53 to 45, but increased back to 49 since 2010. Regarding 30% of households, I mean, regarding households that spend more than 30% of their income on housing, while 30% of all Fort Worth households pay over 30% of their gross income for housing, 45% of African American households pay over 30% of their gross income for housing. In terms of substandard and overcrowded conditions, an estimated 13,000 Fort Worth households live in overcrowded or substandard conditions, i.e. without complete kitchen or plumbing in their dwelling unit, these households 7,600 or 59% are Hispanic. Now the causes of housing disparities, like of affordable housing, and that's going to be a major test for us. Minority households' incomes tend to be below the average household income in Fort Worth. Of course, many persons of color live in neighborhoods where most housing was built prior to 1960. Older housing is more likely to be in a substandard condition and require more repairs. We move from there to the extent of transportation disparities, street conditions, and I know this is not a surprise to most of you because, I mean, you guys vote on this, right? And we've got a bond election coming up, don't we? I'll just throw that out. But majority minority areas, MMAs of Fort Worth, have 58% of street lane miles, but 77% of poor condition streets, 50% of built sidewalks in those minority areas, but 81% of poor condition sidewalks, and 58% of network gaps in the sidewalks, and 53% of installed street lights, but 66% of poor condition street lights. Now, I know we made a big deal out of stop six and a couple of other areas where we've gone in and we've put in sidewalks and street lights. The question is, why did it take to 2018 to deal with that? But that's, oh, that's not up there. I'm sorry. In terms of automobiles in the MMAs of Fort Worth, 57% of all households are in majority minority areas, but 77% of zero car households. Many of these people who live in these neighborhoods don't have access to transportation except public transportation, and we don't do a very good job on that, but as you'll see here. In terms of transit and ridership, non-angleracial and ethnic groups comprise 58% of Fort Worth's population, but 71% of local transit ridership. And I would urge you, don't do like Dallas did early on is when you look at expanding public transportation that you go out trying to get the people who don't already ride it before you deal with the people already riding. That's, again, another side. I'm sorry. I'm a commentator. In terms of crash, and this is something that surprised me, 69% of all pedestrian crashes and 79% of fatal pedestrian crashes occurred in majority minority areas from 2013 to 2017. During the same period in those same areas, 60% of all bike crashes and 86% of fatal bike crashes occurred in those neighborhoods. I don't know what the answer to that is, and hopefully we will come up with some solutions that we can present to you in the next few months. And then of course, in terms of funding, since 2007, Fort Worth has funded approximately 20% of the street construction and reconstruction need. Only 10% of the estimated annual operating need for the transit system, less than 10% of the sidewalk need, and roughly 1% of the bike infrastructure need. This imbalance tends to affect minorities disproportionately. Causes for transportation disparities? Well, needless to say, those minority neighborhoods tend to be concentrated in older parts of Fort Worth and therefore have older infrastructure that is more likely to be in deteriorated condition. Additionally, prior construction standards allow for certain things not to be built at certain times. We just didn't do it. And of course, as annual maintenance budgets fall short of the total need, those areas are disproportionately affected. Also, disproportionately affected by economic instability, and they have a higher incidence of disability and have a higher proportions of their population that are younger than 18 and older than 64. Furthermore, according to the federal government's low cost transportation index, the cost of transportation tends to be higher in those minority areas than in Fort Worth, January. All of these factors combined to explain higher rates of households without automobiles and greater dependence upon alternative transportation modes. And now, counsel, I want to just give you a heads up on this because everything didn't fit into this neat little six committee area. Other issues I can tell you that are being discussed. We don't know where it's going. We've got a lot more discussion to do. Other issues requiring further research. Assess the desirability of establishing. They said we're going to do it yet, but some members of our task force are thinking should there be an independent citizens redistricting commission to increase minority representation on the city council? San Antonio has done this and a few other cities around the country, but that's going to be out there. Also, a citizens review board to increase the transparency of police investigations. There are a lot of reasons not to do that as we've heard in past years, but some people think there's a reason to do it. And we're not getting into all the laws and things that don't allow people to do things. We're just going to bring you what we find. Also, we're looking at a review of the functions and effectiveness of the current human relations commission. Whether or not it should be stronger than what it is today and as strong as it once was. That's what we're looking at. Thank you for your time. Thank you. This is just an example of what we hope to bring to you when we do finally bring you the recommendations. So this is just, you know, it's left blank, but it's purposely left blank so that we can just get provide you that opportunity. You know, you all have already started your leadership training. I want to thank you all for taking advantage of that training from the National League of Cities because it is important for you all to lead by example. And so I commend you all for that. These are some of the dates that we've had. So some of these have already happened and Brian, Councilman Byrd, thank you for, you know, saying that you really have valued the information that you've been receiving. So thank you for that. One of the things that we've also looked at is engagement with our community leaders. These are the dates for those. And I will tell you, at this time we have flipped over one too many pages, 38 individuals that have registered to attend this type of leadership training. But I do want to offer the opportunity, if you all would like to host one of these leadership trainings in your district, please let us know because we can come out to your neighborhood associations or, you know, any of the groups that are in your district that would like to learn or participate in this training. We'd like to be able to provide that to you all. Okay. This one was an engagement of interested citizens that applied online. And we have 99 registrants for this one. You're going to have to pull the microphone down a little bit lower. Okay. So we have 99 participants already registered for the interested citizens. Our next steps as you continue, we'll continue to explore the extent and causes of disparity. We'll prepare a draft of recommendations. But before bringing that back to you all at council, what we want to do is take it back out to the community, the draft recommendations, so that we can ensure that we've heard all voices. And then if we need to make any kind of modifications, we will be able to do that before presenting that to you as a final recommendation. But what we're here today for as well as not just only giving you the interim report, we would like to ask for an extension to complete the work that we need to do. We know by the resolution this group was to dissolve as August 1, 2018. But we would like to have an extension to December 31, 2018. As you've noticed, there's a lot of work that has gone into this, a lot of the communities comments and so forth. But there's still a lot of work to be done as far as the research. And we need to make sure that we do our due diligence and do it properly. Because one of the things that as I mentioned earlier, we don't want to have this conversation in the next 10 years. We want to make sure what we do we embrace the diversity as we move forward as a city. I do want to thank you all for allowing us to come and provide you this presentation. But I did receive an email today that I do want you want to talk about a couple of comments on here. Estrus Tucker sent us an email today about work that was done in Mississippi and New Orleans. And it was funded by the Kellogg Foundation. And it talked about the strategy for growth of racial equity. But some of the key findings, there's a potential of economic gain of 135 billion per year if racial disparities in health are eliminated, including 93 billion in excess of medical care costs and 42 billion of untapped productivity. The U.S. economy would be 2.3 trillion larger by 2050 if the education achievement of black and Hispanic Latino children were raised to that of white children. 9 million potential jobs would be created if people of color owned businesses at rates comparable to whites. So those are, you know, that's coming from the Kellogg Foundation. I know Fort Worth and I know Fort Worth can be better than that. And we will be better than that by us working together. Thank you. And we will take questions and I'll ask my co-chair to come up here as well. So if you have any questions, we'll begin with you. Yes. I'm sorry, I'm going to bring y'all up. We are apart. You can gather around the microphone. Yes. Councilman Singleton. Yes, I would call Dennis, turn around towards your microphone. I'm sorry. Three issues that I would call. Keystone issues that if you don't do those, the rest of them don't get done. Or if you do do those or do address those first, foremost, put your resources in those three keystone issues that the rest of them are a bit, it's a trickle down effect. The rest of them are a little bit easier, a little bit more palatable, et cetera. Say whatever you want. I would say one of the top issues in my opinion, and the co-chairs may agree, may not, would be education. One of the things, and you know in my past when I was president of the Hispanic chamber, I used to tell our Hispanic communities we had three tasks ahead of us, education, education, education. We need to educate because if not, we will not have the workforce of the future. We will not have the quality of life that we enjoyed today. If we could educate our youth to the opportunities that are ahead, and even today, those opportunities are changing because of technology. Every industry will change in the next five, 10, 15 years because of technology, and the next workforce is going to have to have much more transferable skill sets than we currently have today. But that's my opinion. There was a segment on 60 Minutes. I don't know if it was last Sunday, maybe the Sunday before, that dealt with the disparity in healthcare and healthcare delivery among minorities. And they felt that that was a tantamount to, I mean, fixing the issue. In other words, everything else would be some sort of a trickle down effect if you did that. And you know, we have, you addressed infant mortality here, and we've been addressing infant mortality and the lack thereof, or I mean the high rate thereof in Fort Worth for 30 years. Yes, sir. That they are. And I, well, I'll tell you that that more than, more than, that's a bigger issue than this. So the answer is, we can't do what we've always done. Exactly. That's what I was going to say. We can't do what we've always done and expect different results. So we have to change that pattern. Yeah, remember, remember that you're being broadcast. So we need this on the microphone. Sorry. That's okay. So when you talk about healthcare, I think that the city has already reached out to the community through its blue zone project. And there's a lot of work. I was in the grocery store down from my church on Sunday, and they even had vegetables in the store. And we're not going to solve everything overnight. I don't think your constituents expect you to, but my number one priority would be feedback and make sure that people know that you're listening. Because, you know, if you, if you're not listening to the community, then who will. And so small steps or big steps, depending on what priority we list as our number one priority going forward. And hopefully when we bring back the recommendations, you'll be able to look at that and see how you would prioritize that list. So we can bring your recommendation for what we think, but you're the ones with votes and you're the ones who we hold accountable to help us to move this thing forward. You've entrusted us to go out and get the information. We're bringing it back to you. The actions are yours. Okay. I just want to add one thing. If we're talking about education, another 20 years, it's going to be the high school kids, students who are sitting here. It's not going to be us anymore in another 20 years. So if we want, well, if you're here in 20 years, then that will definitely be doing better in the health as well. So if we want the future leaders to be able to sit around this table and work for us for the next generation, for generations to come, we have to do better. And that begins with education and having the kids in the society be healthy enough to take advantage of all the educational opportunities that we can afford for them. And you might stop and think today, the kids that are in pre-K to 12, they're going to school. The workforce is going to be totally different by the time they get right away from high school. Totally different. Changing. And yeah, there's several. I don't have a question other. I just had a couple of comments. I attended one of the first community conversations that you all had. And I was looking forward to attending the community conversations, but I understand the importance of allowing this work to happen in a comfortable way that citizens felt that they could come and share the stories that you all described and how moving they were because of the honesty that were provided at those. So viewing that from afar has been difficult, but we appreciate the process that you all have carried out to do that. I think that a lot of this information and this data that you have provided here today is not a surprise to me. I won't speak for everyone, but I don't think it's a surprise. I've continued to try to share with people about this data-driven approach that we are working towards, but I think that these disparities are based on a long history of not providing those services in that data-driven prioritization approach. And so it's a difficult transition to make and it's a difficult shift to make when people are used to being in a position where they have had that access and they've been able to communicate the needs that they have in their own communities and gotten a response from their city. And then the neighborhoods that haven't had that access and haven't had that ability to communicate and advocate for themselves have been left unheard and underserved. And I think that that is a truth that we all need to face. And I think that going forward, we need to do these things in a data-driven way and a prioritization way that is more equitable. And I appreciate you bringing that to our attention, reiterating it over and over again and reminding us that that is the way that we need to do our jobs going forward. Carlos. I have a comment and a question. First of all, thank you all, you know, the chairs, the co-chairs, and all the participants of the Racing Culture Task Force. Some of the results that I've seen so far very compelling. They certainly have my mental wheels spinning, trying to understand better what the implications are. Now, I just need, I guess my question would be a clarification. And any one of you can answer it. As far as you're asked for extended time, is this to finish digesting the existing information and data you've collected, or is there more pending? Or is it both? A little bit of both. Because we've received a lot of information, but there's still a lot of research that we need to do, and we're still having individuals to come to each of our Task Force meetings to present. And when those presentations happen, good, bad, or indifferent, new questions arise. So we want to make sure that we're doing our due diligence and doing it properly. So it's a little bit of both. Okay. Thank you, Rosanne. And thank you all again. Kelly, did you have a comment? I thought you did. I want to say thank you. Thank you to all of the co-chairs, to everyone who has participated, the committee members, to all of the citizens who have been involved in this process because this has not been a very easy conversation. And it has definitely not been a very easy conversation for the City of Fort Worth. And it has taken each one of us to a different place that I don't think any of us thought that we were really ready to go and that we wanted to go last week in the NLC training, looking around the room with my council colleagues and our ACMs. You could just tell that each one of us came away from there with something that we weren't expecting to come away with. We learned some things and we kind of got in touch with our inner self that it makes you think about how we live and how we should be doing things differently. I know this is a tough conversation and to our mayor and to our city manager and everyone gathered around this table, thank you for having the guts to have the conversation because many people will not, especially elected officials, will not stand up and have this conversation. This is the conversation that many people shy away from because it does dig deep into the data. It does tell a story that doesn't always paint the city in the best light. But I'm glad we are having this conversation. I thought when we brought you all together last June, I thought are we really going to be able to do this in 18 months? Are we really going to be able to pull this off in 18 months? I'm glad to see you ask for an extension because as we were in our training last week, I thought we can't really do this in 24 hours that we have for the three days. There's just so much to take in. It's just been eye-opening and heart-wrenching to just think about where we came from, where we are, and to recognize that we're really no further along down this road than where we started and how much work we really have to do. Bob Ray, I'm going to remind you of something. When I first came to council, in 2013, I was sitting in front of the editorial board for the Star Telegram, and I was talking about street likes and co-compliance and all of these things. And so you asked me, you said, to who are you, the co-compliance council member versus economic development? And I said, I have to make my neighborhood safe before I can bring a business there. So I think it's very telling that you're the one telling me that story today when I told you that story in 2013. But it wasn't something that we were, it wasn't the conversation that we were really ready to have. But I'm just thankful that we are having it. I do support the extension, and I hope you all support it as well, because we have a lot of work to do. And we have four great leaders and a group of people who are helping to lead that conversation. And the national organization who is doing it and making people feel uncomfortable about the conversation, which is what we actually hired them to do, to help us dig deep down to get to the root. And we can't fix it all, but we can figure out how to make it go forward. And then we have to put it into action. Because if we just have this conversation and it becomes a report and it sits on the shelf with all of the other reports, then this has been a waste of everyone's time, energy, and efforts. And I don't want that to happen. So thank you all again. And thank you, Mayor and David and everybody for making sure that we're doing this and we're having this conversation. Gina, I want to say thank you. Thank all of you. My biggest concern now is how bold is this council going to be to push? Usually we get to a certain point, and that's our safe zone. But we're going to have to take some deep, deep dives off the ledge to bring about the change that we need. Case in point, we heard every Tuesday people coming after the video telling us anything they wanted to, and none of it was nice. And I can't say it wasn't justified. But one thing that bothers me is our practices. We do things the way we do them because that's the way we do them. Today's public doesn't get that. And so I made a promise. I tell you, last year no more sitting down, not letting people know what truth is. I don't think people come here. Here's something that may not be true, and go home and Google to see, well, is that true? We sit in silence and doing that makes people think what they hear is true. And often it is not. Barbara, you talked about street conditions. When I came in on board, Ramon Romero took me for a ride in my district. He showed me street conditions so that I would know how to explain those to engineers because I'm not an engineer. Simple things like, well, do you know why do you think those leaves are in that curve there? And I would say, oh, because the wind blew it. No. And so he helped me. But one point happened that made me go back to what you stated today. I took him down Booker T. Now, Lily, you know what Booker T is and Barbara, you ought to know. Booker T had imploded upon itself so much that I told Ramon, I said, we've got to get this street fixed. He said, Gina, that's an alley. I said, Ramon, that's a street. Gina, that's an alley. My dad's church was right here. I know people who grew up on that street. And so we were about to take a tour showing people stop six, making the case for improvements to take place there. And before we got there, it became a street again because they didn't want people to see the neglect. Now, people in stop six are gracious. We're gracious and remain gracious. But every once in a while, the same response would come, well, they should have done this 30, 40 years ago. Should have knocked down William's funeral home 10 years ago. Why did Durekwein catch fire in 1980 something and stay there until 2013? And so we have got to engage in practices that are different. We have a community this day and time that doesn't know how we function. They come here needing help. They come here for everything they can think of, even a social security card. We've got to be able to help. And communication is the key. When you talked about housing, I was looking to see who was secretary during that time. I thought about Alfonso. And he did have four years during that span. But I don't know what happened prior to to see why we made such inroads. But all I remember is Frankfurt and Marsh. And I'm sure you remember because that's when we were told you shouldn't warehouse poor people. I can tell you your work I know has been hard. I know sometimes you expected things from this council that you did not get. I've been told that. And I just ask you to hang in there with us. And when you see us getting to the ledge and not ready to jump, push. Because that's what it's going to take to bring about the change that we need to bring equity to this city. Because we are where we started from. We are who we used to be. Change is going to come one way or another. I had people on Berry Street Sunday. Have you all seen pictures? Scary. It looked like an overcrowded parade. They just decided to show up on Berry near the Seventh Day Adventist Church. People started calling 9-1-1, 9-1-1. They couldn't get out of their neighborhoods because people were showing up. People are angry. People are lost. And they need help. And they come to us. And I just hope we are brave enough to make the changes that are needed to bring about some tangible outcomes. And I say thank you. Thank you. Jungus. I want to say thank you to each of you as well and to your commission, the entire commission for the work you're doing. You know, it's interesting. None of us can control the color of our skin when we're born, but we can control what's in our heart. And that's what it's going to take for all of us. During the NLC training last week, I was going to say there's non-attribution, but since it was a public meeting, I can't say non-attributions, but I'm not going to mention any names. One of the questions that was asked was, by the NLC leaders was, and I'm paraphrasing, did we as individuals think that we could change the race relations issue? And I was a little surprised at the initial response, but the reality is you've got a council of nine folks sitting here and you've got a city staff that says, and you pointed this out, and we've got the leaders on your commission, but if it really falls down to the nine members on this council, if any change is going to take place. And if we don't believe that we can make a change in how we deal with each other with respect, then none of us deserve to be at this table for everyone that does that. We've got to believe we can make changes, and that's why you're doing what you're doing, and that's why we're sitting at this table, and I can tell you every one of my colleagues is ready to start doing what we need to do to make a difference. God bless you. Thank you. I just want to say there's a saying that says we cannot change the past, we can influence the present and the future. So if we keep that in mind, we definitely can change the directory and trajectory of where we need to be. Yeah, my mother always said you can't, you have to understand the past to change the future, and that's always been one of my favorite things too. I think the work that you're all doing is amazing, and I think this whole council would support extending it. It's not as everybody has said, it's not easy work. You've rolled your sleeves up and tackled it. You've had a lot of people yelling at you, a lot of people not happy, and a lot of language you probably didn't want to hear, but oftentimes that's what you get when you pull that band-aid off. It's a lot of hollering, and you know, we're now is our chance, because what we've done just as you said, Bob Rape, where we were 10 years ago, 15 years ago, obviously didn't work. We started our Reed Fort Worth education initiative, really started looking hard at it three years ago, and really founded it nearly two years ago now, because the data is so startling. If you don't change education, you can never help people move out of poverty and change a lot of these inequities, and the health piece goes right there too. Lily knows my pitch about health, I've been beating that drum for nearly seven years now. You guys, the affordable housing this council talks about, now we need those next steps from y'all suggestions for us to move forward. I do believe, Gina, that the council has to lead, but I don't think it's just the council and mayor's job. This takes the entire city to buy in. The school districts have to buy in, the chamber must be bought in, the business community has to be at the table, and all the neighborhood leaders have to be a part of this, because if we can make changes that aren't accepted, we can't just force things down people's throat. You absolutely have to have a buy-in. Hence, when we started Reed Fort Worth, Blue Zones, we started working on community as a whole to help us move those forward. I think we do the same thing here on equality and equity. It's not an issue that's occurred overnight. It's a long-term problem. The solutions will be longer than any of us would like, but we can find solutions and drive those forward. Some of them are as simple as one of the issues that concerns me. You mentioned the bike fatalities. Part of that is because no one in the lower income neighborhoods wears helmets. That's a simple, there are a few very simple statements that you can make a change that we work on and that we can really step up our efforts on, but a lot of them are longer solutions. How do we get that affordable housing and the transit in the neighborhoods where people really need it? I think you extending your work, coming back to solutions will go a long way towards helping. The bottom line on all of this is exactly what you said. It's economic impact for the city. For a city to lower their crime rate, to lower their cost or public service, public safety, you have to have equality and equity and that will change the future for Fort Worth. We're a great city, but we'll be an even better city. David and his staff have started an incredible look at data-driven, everything we're doing and it's also all being looked at now through an equity lens and I really think you're going to see a lot coming out, but we're counting on you to help us shape those initiatives to go in the right direction. I really do appreciate what you've done and I appreciate this council being willing to tackle it because it's not an easy subject to confront and the training we had at NOC the other day was an uncomfortable training but it left me thinking all weekend about different things that pop in my mind and where we were and how they've shaped things and how I respond to them and I know you all find that personally too but I think together we really can drive this forward and we can make incredible changes for everyone. So thank you so much for what you're doing and to your committee. They're just as much to be thanked because they're sitting there taking the same hearing the same thing that you are and having the response and if ever yeah have them stand again you don't have them all here you just have those who could take off and work. Thank you all. Early child care, education, health, it's all critical neighborhood vitality. We will get there.