 name is Fernando Costa I serve as an assistant city manager for the city of Fort Worth and it's my pleasure on behalf of David Cook our city manager to welcome you this evening to this forum with candidates for the newly created position of diversity and inclusion director and we're happy to have with us this evening several city council members led by our esteemed mayor Betsy Price and several members of the task force on race and culture we had recommended to the city council we create this position to lead a new department a diversity and inclusion department in the city of Fort Worth task force made this recommendation because they wanted to elevate the importance of diversity inclusion and equity and access as a function of city government in view of many disparities that the task force had identified the way that residents of Fort Worth experience of our quality of life disparities pertaining to everything from criminal justice to economic development education governance health housing and transportation therefore this position will play an important role in helping the city manager and the city council to make sound decisions about the equity delivery of city services and the equity investment city resources and infrastructure across the community we had more than 300 candidates expressing interest in this position from around the country candidates representing all kinds of diverse backgrounds and we are confident that we have found the six best candidates the six candidates who are best suited this job they have come here to Fort Worth this week we spent all day with them in various exercises this evening of course we'll have the opportunity for the public to meet all six of these candidates we'll have a panel of four racing culture coach task force co-chairs posing some individualized questions based on the backgrounds of these candidates and then we'll provide equal time for members of the public who are here this evening to pose unfiltered questions to the candidates so that you get answers directly from them afterwards we'll have additional time for the candidates to mingle informally with members of the public who are here tonight we have based these this whole format upon suggestions we've received from many of you who are here tonight you told us you wanted to have direct access to the candidates you told us you wanted to ask questions directly to them and we want to facilitate that kind of interaction our consultant to the task force on racing culture in a good friend of Fort Worth is Mr. Estrus Tucker who has done racial justice work around the country and around the world but his hometown is Fort Worth Texas this is his priority we're very blessed to have Estrus Tucker in our community he will serve as our moderator this evening therefore I call your attention to Estrus Tucker thank you Fernando and I am going to have to be very very careful because I tend to move and I have a very narrow space to move up here so if I lose my train of thought it's because I've gone too close to the edge but this is an incredible evening with some incredible people and is my great honor to introduce our candidates and you have bios each of you pick them up and I'm just going to ask them to to stand so you can see them again and you'll certainly be hearing from them and then I'll introduce our panelists and go over a few basic procedures to maximize the space and time for your voices for your questions and then hand it over to our panelists our former co-chairs is the appropriate title they've been encouraging us to use so to my immediate left Christina Brooks next to Christina Steven Francis next to Steven Stancia Jenkins next to Stancia Michonne Landry next to Michonne Shawnee barracks more next to Shawnee Ty Stimpson so to the candidates I believe it to get better but when you start off with applause you know that's a good sign and of course our panelists will be our former co-chairs of the race and culture task force to my immediate left Rabbi Andrew Bloom Rosa Navajar Bob Ray Sanders and Lily Biggins and I believe this is going somewhere on your 14th year in serving not exactly so I want to lift up just some basic guidelines we've asked that you sign up to ask a question during tonight's forum we've allocated an equal amount of time so the audience of community questions will have 45 minutes for all of those questions and in order for us to allow as many residents as possible to participate we have the following real simple guidelines I'll moderate I'll do my best without falling off the stage to keep us within the time parameters yes okay thank you thank you each person is limited to one question from the audience and you can direct your question to one candidate or allow me to to direct and I'm encouraging the questions to be to all as much as you can but not restricted the candidate will then have up to two minutes to respond if you have additional questions and we have some staff staff if you kind of raise your hand please get the staff's attention you have additional questions that will add you to the list will allow each person to ask one question to all the people on the list have had their turn or we have run out of time please keep your questions brief so that the candidate will have more time to respond so if your question needs a introduction a context a framing that's that's too long a question and I'll try to gently kind of keep you guided toward a good succinct question so we can get as much feedback from these outstanding candidates as we can then last also audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions during the informal meet the candidates after all the questions are complete and we will call upon people based upon the order that you signed up and now I'll turn it to the former co-chairs of the racing culture task force extras thank you this question is going to be for all the candidates and as Esther said you'll have two to three minutes to answer each question but please introduce yourself to and tell the audience why you are the right fit for the diversity and inclusion director role for the city of Fort Worth Christina can you start with it please good evening Fort Worth oh now let's try that again good evening Fort Worth my name is Christina Brooks I'm currently the diversity and inclusion officer with the city of South Bend and I've been shaped by Texas I left here as a high school graduate from San Antonio and went to Notre Dame on a full academic scholarship and some of you that was about 1988 your football fans you'll remember that was last year Notre Dame won their national championship in football that was doing large part to my presence on campus as a freshman very true story I was an academic tutor for the varsity athletics and varsity football team so I have no problem taking credit for that national championship season but I've been shaped by America as well I was born to two parents who came from the deep Jim Crow south my mother was born to an Afro Cuban who was disabled and his wife my grandmother died when she was 24 from a very curable disease because of an unequitable health care system my father was born to a very beautiful dark-skinned black woman and a white man whose identity has been shielded from from our family so I was raised with an idea of what it means to be underrepresented and to be voiceless and over the last 20 years of my career I have made it a point to fight for the underrepresented and the voiceless in every capacity that I've held whether that was in K through 12 education post-secondary and higher education in corporate America in higher in nonprofit and now in municipal government the last two positions I've held I created the office the current office that has been created it started out as an office of one with no budget again I'm gonna remind you you have three minutes to answer okay and so I've been able to complete a city-wide diversity and inclusion plan 63 items under budget and on schedule and this would be coming home to me I have family here in this area in Fort Worth to that work for the city of Fort Worth and I believe this is a the right time for me to come home and help the city heal thanks for the question co-chair Navarra I would like to introduce myself as a lawyer a public servant and a diversity professional who has nearly 35 years experience being a diversity practitioner and attorney dealing with civil rights ADA FM LA title seven type of law employment and labor law and I'm a family man with two children a wife who believes in listening my mother told me that you never learn anything when you're talking and so I've developed a good habit of listening to folks mostly that are older than me because you don't get old being a fool right and so that's the first thing that I want to do when I get this opportunity is to listen to what the issues are and the concerns are the community I think I would be uniquely suited for the role because of my legal background to handle the enforcement and investigatory issues that the human relations unit currently has to all to deal with and kudos to the city for elevating it to a department level of diversity inclusion but I was going through the 22 or so recommendations of the race and culture task force and I discovered that in my role as chief diversity officer for the city of Columbus I've basically touched on each one of these issues civilian oversight for police we helped develop the police and fire cadet program I did a 10 year plan to double diversity for police and fire so that deals with diversity within the police department job training apprenticeship program transportation to jobs we've done that trying to recruit more diverse police officers firefighters and construction trades workers early childhood education we have an aggressive pre-k early start program in Columbus service learning and engagement city year education and incentives to achieve wage parity capacity building for minority owned businesses I've been dealing with minority business enterprises ever since I started my career when I wrote affirmative action legislation for the state of Ohio for minority business set aside for the state independent citizen restrict a redistricting commission Columbus is one of the biggest cities without a water district election process so we've been working on that diversity training I've dealt with implementing city-wide implicit bias training there's all kinds of things on this list that I think I can add you to so that's why I think I'm well suited for the position now just to clarify the bell rings that I still have how many seconds left so when the bell rings it's over I thought I thought that was a warning bell I'm sorry good evening Stancia Jenkins and thank you so much for welcoming you to your city for this very important position and really this particular position if I think about being in I've been a DNI practitioner have done some level of diversity inclusion work for the past 17 years really the most impactful professional experience I had throughout my career is my 10 years that I spent in municipal government I and in city of Kansas City Missouri I entered as a legislative aid and actually staffed the chair of the planning and zoning committee and then went on and worked in the city manager's communications office and it was there that I learned the power of relationship and bridge building I learned about the power of coalition building to bear upon a problem and also unfortunately learned how institutionalized processes policies procedures can have an adverse impact on the very community that an organization is set there to serve that lit a passion in me and I continued my work and I went on and did community relations work for an urban serving university one to that I joined at a time where the relationship that they had with diverse communities or those that they were there to serve was not representative if you would step on campus it wasn't representative in the employees the access and services that we provided to the community that it resided in or to students either so for me taking on this role would be a perfect combination of using my skill set and diversity and inclusion we bought also instituted instituted programming within university Nebraska system across the four campuses we have about 14,000 employees and then we have a students faculty and staff as well to learn to have DNI diversity development and training so that we can create a more inclusive environment so that DNI practitioner experience coupled with the community relations relationship building partnership building as well as my experience in municipal government and understanding system and policy and how to interrupt some of those things I think would make me a uniquely qualified candidate for this position good evening my name is me Sean Landry and I am a resident of Fort Worth I was born here I attended Carol Peake Elementary I attended Alice Carlson I attended Morningside Middle School and I graduated from Arlington Heights High School very diverse obviously on both sides of the coin in terms of the schools and the systems here I advocate on a day-to-day basis for equity I have my own business and so I do strategic planning and resources and training for individuals and organizations that want to build an inclusive diverse environment and here in the city I have advocated from the standpoint of working with the Tarrant County Food Policy Council I've said on that council most recently sitting on the Tarrant County this Portionality Council working with leadership ISD to advocate for equity in schools and so I have been in diversity and inclusion for quite some time now as a small woman-owned business obviously supplier diversity and economic development has been important to me and leveraging capacity building for small women-owned businesses and diverse businesses and from a city of Fort Worth standpoint it's my city I want to make it better I want to make it more diverse I want to make it more inclusive I want to make it more welcoming and more equitable for everyone my name is Shannie Barracks more I use she her and hers pronouns and I have been a social justice and diversity and inclusion practitioner for about 20 years I've often said that this is what I was born to do as I'm the daughter of an immigrant that came to this country after being orphaned and you know just saw the opportunity in coming to the yet to the US to try to attain a better life that she didn't have in her native home country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines I got my start as a social justice practitioner doing community-based racial justice work with the YWCA triangle racial justice initiative where I learned the power of dialogue in bridge building the power of just speaking to each other and listening to each other and the power of perspective taking and just really immersing yourself in cultural humility which really has more to do with learning more about you and your perspectives and how those perspectives and experiences really can relate to building bridges with others I was brought to Fort Worth in 2012 where I served as the chief diversity and inclusion officer for Tarrant County College District under the leadership of the late great Irma Johnson Hadley who really has probably been one of the most influential examples in my life of what it means to do what Cornell West has said or justice is what love looks like in public there at Tarrant County College District I created the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion where I created a strategic plan for diversity and inclusion based upon a climate survey and I'm just a change agent so I really want to really use that change agency to build a city of change agents in the city of Fort Worth where all of us feel a call to action and feel as if the work that we can do for the city will matter so together that we are able to facilitate healing for the city of Fort Worth good evening why I believe I'm a good fit for this role as a director a diversity inclusion director is this this is home this is where I go home every evening this is where I raised my son with my wife and this is where I'm going to be before and after this position I think being an attorney here as a prosecutor every day I try to seek justice not only for victims but also for our community and over the past few years I have been in our communities working serving as the criminal justice chair of the race and culture task force making recommendations for civilian oversight of the police department and you know there's many of you out here today in the audience that I've worked alongside arm and arm and hand in hand to try to make Fort Worth the best place possible for not only you and I but for the generations to come after us and in this role as the director of the diversity inclusion department not only would I continue to do what I've been doing which is working but I would try to advance minority communities and just to make our Fort Worth the more diverse and inclusive city for everyone and that means implementing policies to improve economic mobility for minority and women and business enterprises and making sure that the we have an equitable delivery of municipal service but just also restore Fort Worth to what we all have grown to know it as this one community each one of us make up our own individual Fort Worth but collectively this is one Fort Worth and so you know our city is hurting right now and it's important for myself to use my bring my time my talents and my treasures to the city of Fort Worth and give back to Fort Worth who has given me so much and so I ask that you know whoever is ultimately selected that we advance Fort Worth and we embrace our differences resolve our issues and let's move forward together as we go to the second question I just want to make sure you know that there are some seats or at least about 11 seats right down front so and I'm a fear in the middle as well so please feel free to come down we're not gonna ask you a question if you come sit on this front the next question good evening everybody and thanks for being here with us today my question is to Christina Brooks and the city of South Bend has been in the national spotlight this year for the unfortunate events surrounding the loss of Eric Logan who was a young black civilian and a violent encounter with the white male police officer this event along with the continued rise of violent crimes in the city has only deepened the racial divide and distrust between law enforcement and your minority community members of South Bend as the diversity and inclusion leader what are you doing to bridge that divide and repair the relations within the two communities thank you I first want provide some context that the issues that have been in the national spotlight with the city of South Bend did not start with the advent of Mary Pete's campaign for the highest office in the land these are long-standing entrenched issues in the community and I don't think that the city of South Bend is any different from any other community across the country one of the things that I've done since I started the position in May of 2016 was to build relationships with the police department and not just the police chiefs but with the officers themselves and understanding the pain and the frustration that the community felt having voiced their concerns and seeing several iterations starts and stops of initiatives reactionary initiatives that with an election of a new mayor or different council members the attention turned from what the community had brought forward and so when I started working with the city of South Bend I made it my business to try to not just look at the residual effects of trauma but to get to the root of the trauma and to understand and acknowledge the pain and the anguish of the community and that started with developing interactions between police officers beat officers and specifically men of color in the community and specifically men of color who were of high standing having them sit in the room and share their stories with each other men of color who had been treated unfairly and officers who were sharing their stories about what they faced every day seeing dead babies and taking six-year-olds nine-year-olds who had committed suicide in their closet and when those stories were shared they humanized the other the officers became their neighbor and the men of color became their neighbor and so I'd like to do that here in South Bend bringing those two communities together yes my question first of all thank you all for coming here to visit us and to be with us in this important role my question is for Miss Moore you were in your position now in higher education at UNT you did a campus inclusion climate survey of which the data was going to be used to create a strategic plan and recommendations for UNT with all the incentives incentives offered the study only gain garnered eleven point eight percent participation of the faculty and the student body and administration responses do you feel that this eleven point eight percent participation rate is successful and can you build a program out of a small number if you see it as a small number like like eleven point eight and if you don't see it as six six just as importantly what have you learned from it and what can you apply those lessons moving forward lots of pieces to that question so when we did this was UNT's first ever campus inclusion climate survey and it was a effort where we use an existing tool and we actually had the highest response rate of any university that used that tool so it's very difficult to get as I saw even at Tarrant County College District to get people to engage sometimes engagement is a challenge but I think part of the reason we had the highest response rate of any of the universities that had used the tool is because we promised folks that we were actually going to use the data now I will say that you know sometimes when you ask a question that's going to yield very detailed answers sometimes people don't want to hear the result you're the real answer we are still analyzing the data it has been a journey in sort of negotiating with administration to really take the opportunity to look at ourselves who we are and who we're not and one of the things that I've said is that if you are not practicing active and intentional inclusion and equity then you are in effect practicing active and maybe unintentional passive exclusion and so what so what I would say is in engaging in these efforts where you are demonstrating to folks that yes your voice will be heard and your disaggregated voices will be heard so that it's the voices of color it is the voices of African-American males who are some of our have the most difficulty graduating matriculating it is the voices of our Latinx students and our and our DACA students that are often terrified to even go to class every day because of the current climate so what I would say is it's a call to change agency and it's also a call to say that if you raise your voice we will hear you and make sure that it is not diluted within the voices of others who may want to pretend there's nothing to see here my question is from miss Jenkins majority of experience with diversity inclusion programs has been within higher education of state universities most recently at the University of Nebraska system that has a student body approximately of 52,000 students and over 5,000 faculty and staff the city of Fort Worth has just been named the 13th largest city in the United States with the population of 895,000 people and growing and the minority communities are growing at the fast rate as well this major hurdles that you anticipate facing in making this transition from higher education to much larger and more populist municipal setting and how do you overcome that thank you for the question as far as scale I think I would rely upon my experience and municipal government in Kansas City, Missouri with the population just under 500,000 I know that scale will be an issue in addressing some of those diversity and inclusion issues and a lot of those practices I think that with the ability to desegregate take a look at move along some of those recommendations that have come out of the task force particularly as it relates to training and development building advocates also who can be utilized across the city and within departments to drive some of that we can make some real systemic change it's about broadening and giving the people the tools and resources that they need in order to drive some of that you're correct that a lot of the DNI training development has taken place in higher education but really it cannot be a one-off there has to be systems policies in place repetition of that a setting of an acclimat that's inclusive and a city government that's reflective a police force that's reflective representation on boards and commissions connected with the city that are reflective so that you can make the change from the inside out and try to move forward for the type of inclusive community that the city wishes it could be my question is for Mr. Stimson and I'll warn you that this question is going to be longer than your answer because there are three or four questions in one and I hope you'll remember them as I go through it you've had a decorated career as a prosecuting attorney for both Dallas and Tarrant counties and we're appointed as a criminal justice chair on the Port Worth Racing Culture Task Force in 2017 these positions have not had a direct role specific to developing and implementing diversity and inclusion so how do you feel these positions have prepared you to oversee all diversity and inclusion efforts for the city of Fort Worth what challenges do you anticipate in making this transition from practicing law to building and implementing diversity and inclusion programs and finally do you feel that due to your service on the task force that you will be identified as serving the city council's interest instead of the community. That's that's a very good question and I hope I unpack that and answer appropriately. I think my background as attorney both in Dallas and Tarrant County has given me understanding of how to approach legislations and how to implement policy. I think with within the diversity inclusion spectrum I think ultimately I'm a human and I want I was raised by the Golden Rule treat others as you would treat yourself and so you know I knew going in I didn't have the background as the other five candidates so what I did is what I would do in the legal field. I reached out to subject matter experts and tried to soak in as much knowledge and expertise as I could as I to be prepared to take on this new responsibility but I think also I've been connected to the people I've been if you look at the things that everyone has my bio I've done work in southeast Fort Worth stop six Las Vegas trail north side there's not a part of Fort Worth that I don't spend my time trying to give back and I'm sure my my wife doesn't enjoy how much I'm not at home because I'm not trying to make Fort Worth the best place for all regarding the question of whether or not my role in the task force would just be I forget the exact language that you use but basically being a voice for the city council I think that people didn't have the background experience of my my role on the as the criminal justice chair of the task force it was never a lot of pleasant conversations it was pushback but it was also productive conversations and I went in as not as a role as a prosecutor but as a citizen who who wants the best for Fort Worth and although it wasn't a popular recommendation of coming up with a citizens review board but I knew that's what my city wanted I knew that's what the community wanted so it was incumbent on me to put my name and my credibility online because I knew I wouldn't be able to look Dr. Bell and I if I didn't stand up for what was right and do what was right and so that's that's what all I'm about is speaking truth to power and trying to see see justice not for just myself but for everyone that's involved my question is for Mr. Francis it's our Stephen Francis it's our understanding that you resigned as the city of Columbus chief diversity and inclusion officer because the staff and budget were cut to a point that the strategic initiatives couldn't be supported or sustained was your resignation a forebearer to what will happen in Fort Worth if you do not receive the support you think is deserve previously you were at Honda where private sector oftentimes have significantly more money and more resources than public sector if given this opportunity to develop and implement the diversity and inclusion strategic plan and initiatives in Fort Worth how would you sustain these programs from this for this inaugural role and department on limited resources within the city budget thank you co-chair big ins for that question the experience I had in the city of Columbus was rewarding I had a blue sky very similar to the role that's being asked for Fort Worth to create a new department I also similarly had to inherit an existing staff that did not have all the transferable skills over to pure DNI and work so there's a lot of similarities they actually increased my budget to do a disparity study in the first year but that appropriation went away and I wound up having basically 90% of my budget going to staff or salary and the other 10% for everything else and I understand from talking to the staff that they're in a very similar situation here at the new office of diversity inclusion they're very transparent with us I would be challenged with budget constraints but I've been told with confidence that I can go to the appointing authority whether that's Mayor Betsy Price or City Manager David Cook or Fernando Costa or members of the community to ask for the resources that we need I'm a data driven person and I believe that you have to justify those budget appropriations and I'm used to doing that I'm used to pulling rabbits out of the hat wine from water and so I believe I can do the same thing here what you do is build bridges with other departments leverage their resources build infrastructure that will survive budget cuts so that people still have the responsibility and hopefully they'll be built in appropriations to those FTEs to build a legacy that this work requires but I will say this diversity costs money just like every other key line item that an organization has to run to be successful and until we equate diversity with value we won't be successful yes my question is for Miss Landry you've sat on a diversity inclusion company board you've recently contracted a short-term consulting projects you've been actively involved in helping plan and develop recommendations of strategic plans but haven't been held professionally accountable for law the long-term impacts and effects of those plans and recommendations how have you measured the return of investment in your previous diversity inclusion efforts and how would you measure success in this position and could you tell us what are the differences or how you see the differences between consulting to a board and running a department when it comes to let's say the same project what how would you attack it from both perspectives I believe the first part of that was in regards to the accountability piece in terms of ensuring that the city of Fort Worth and my work with the city of Fort Worth would be accountable is that correct did I hear that correct okay one of the things that I can say is as a business owner number one if your clients don't feel that there's value then you don't have clients and so I say that because I feel that it's important that whenever I'm tasked with bringing value to a client as it relates to diversity equity and inclusion I want to make sure that I'm assessing what the client needs adequately I'm helping to deliver on what they need and I'm creating metrics and data so that they are able to see the return on investment themselves the second second part of that was measuring I'm sorry it was a long how long for you long for me to read it as well the difference between accountability as someone who's consulting and accountability of someone who is has the position that you are entered for you for yeah so accountability to me is accountability there is no vacillation between the two I feel that as a person who is self-accountable I think that that's key and I feel that in this role you have accountability to the public you have accountability to the employees of the city so there is accountability there and I feel that if I'm not able to deliver if I'm not delivering on the things that I say that I said in place in terms of the goals then there's that lack of accountability that is there so yeah on these next questions let me accelerate them so that we make sure we reserve the full amount for the for community questions so let's see if we can get a one-minute response and I'll ask the panel to cut your question too because some of your questions are two minutes but if let's see if we can we can wrap it quicker my question is for miss Brooks in the city of South Bend you just completed a three-year disparity study they talked about that concluded that there was systemic institutional barriers to women and minority entrepreneurs the number of companies is only 15% and throughout the city of South Bend 12% of the companies were awarded contracts and bids tell us what specific goals that you have put in place to build capacity and build MWB business yeah so first of all the the disparity study that was just completed in South Bend was the culmination of a 32 year old promise the disparity study well the MWB ordinance in the city of South Bend had been written in 1987 and we never had a disparity study that could actually hold anyone accountable for producing results so for 32 years the residents in South Bend repeatedly asked for results and were never given any so it wasn't until we completed this disparity study that we were able to do that so with the completion of the disparity study um we've rewritten the law we rewrote the ordinance with the recommendations out of the disparity study that level the playing field for minority and women businesses and contracting and procurement for the city of South Bend the first of which is developing minority and women businesses through a contract a community benefit agreement with the top 10 employers this is a question for Ms. Moore and this is shorter than my last one your entire career has been focused in the nonprofit and education sectors municipal government politics and calls are very different from those your previous positions and industries so tell us how your past experience has prepared you to handle these situations navigate politics and promote the city culture among populations ranging from police and fire departments to impassioned and or upset community activists to the field employees at the city of Fort Worth I'll be brief higher education is a whole lot of politics so we'll start there that yes there are lots of politics and city government but you have constituents you have customers you have faculty who often sometimes may think they're higher than the law and the some of the parallels are that we have actually trained in several of my roles I've actually trained police officers starting out with the work that I did with the YWCA we created some connections in Raleigh with the police department we trained police officers at UNT and in the city of Denton and it was bias based training so that we are making everyone aware of the fact that we all have biases if we're human we have biases and it may affect the way that we are doing our jobs whether it's teaching or governing or policing this question is miss Jenkins today Nebraska is 10.5% Hispanic or Latino according to the census bureau that percentage has doubled since 2000 since up yeah since 2000 immigrants and other minorities represent the bulk of the state's current population one of the main challenges they face is finding ways to communicate the opposition of anti-immigrant policies to both federal administration and local elected officials as a community leader in diversity and inclusion measures have you taken to develop a message of inclusivity dignity and respect and to create strategies that make civic integration and re-engagement possible among all citizens of Omaha thank you for the question we first started at home as you all know we know the current state of affairs on a national landscape as it relates to immigrants as it relates specifically to our Latinx communities as well so making sure that our faculty staff students had a supportive and inclusive environment was important for us and that that message came from the top the then president was very forthright with signing on to other universities across the nation expressing their lack of support for the anti-immigration bills coming out federally as well we also had a number of campus conversations where we invited both in the community civic organizations and organizations that served our diverse populations to have conversations about resources that were available to them and to have those restorative justice conversations we also had to bring up a had to enact a freedom of speech policy so that students faculty staff whoever you might be know knew that anything that would be done on campus that would be that would create or go against the type of environment we wanted to create would not be tolerated my question is for ty you know that there is distrust among the fort worth african-american community with law enforcement we also have issues with sb4 with the latino community that came up we have 287 g with the tarant county sheriff's department all things that you know well from working as a prosecutor could you tell us how you would go about bridging our building bridges between the law enforcement and the minority majority communities specifically around these these instances which i just which we just mentioned because we know that they're very important to the entirety of the community thank you for the question i think it's important for us to allow our community a seat at the table before we implement policies and procedures rather than rolling out policy and then having the community accept it for what it is let's invite the community at the table at the beginning of the process so you can so you can develop allies and develop buy-in before we roll it out to the city and i think you know right now there's this is obvious distrust between law enforcement in our community but it's important for us to figure out a way to to let the police department know we support them but also hear the concerns of the community that that don't they don't feel safe and they don't feel trust so we need to work that out and i think we just all need to come to the table and just have that family conversation and just let all the you know let let it everything out but then know that once we leave this table we're going to move forward together mr frances you worked at honda america manufacturing for over 20 years and you established a d and i strategic plan and implemented some of those initiatives how does your previous experience translate from the private corporate sector to the municipal public sector thank you for the question there's a lot of politics in corporate america as well and we had to fight to establish a diversity committee structure honda across north america only had four company wide committees so we were able to diplomatically elevate diversity committee as one of those five corporate wide committees for the whole company we also the first order of business was for me to put diversity as part of the company wide business plan uh at honda they measure everything and they evaluated quarterly so if they evaluate and measure diversity progress that's a good thing and as you know what gets measured gets done and what gets rewarded gets repeated so we tried to build incentives in those goals and objectives so that people will be rewarded for their good work towards progressing diversity uh this question is for uh slandery well you've had success in your career you like the higher education degrees that the rest of these candidates possess how has your like of higher education affected your career path and do you feel like it's been a disadvantage to your ability to to promote so i feel that um first of all i will say that um part of that reason is because i have three children one of those children has a disability and i chose to be a mom first to my daughter and to take care of her in terms of her needs and what she needed in terms of uh not having the degrees i believe that one of the things that i feel quite honestly is that it's actually made me work twice as hard versus um not hard enough or equally too so for me personally you know i think when i may be giving myself a six someone else may be giving me a eight or nine you know and so i think it's actually caused me to work a lot harder but certainly i've seen um disparities um throughout my career and now we'll begin with our community questions and uh your names are listed as you signed up and so who's reading the names all say it again just call the number so i've got to keep it with the numbers as i go through all okay again with number one at two minutes and thirty seconds you'll hear these you know you have this is to the question so at a minute and thirty seconds you will bail you have thirty seconds for that so please don't ask the questions just a minute so question number one is the mic on and ask the number two and three come on up so we don't lose any time there as well go ahead reverend joey daniel return resident here in forward texas since 1999 since i was 19 i thought i was going to ask the ballroom centers the question that hey allies when we go too close to the mic mr ty uh stemson before police chief uh this girl was fired and made how many white officers did uh he have uh this one regarding excessive portion profile you know unfortunately i don't i don't have that information um i since i work for the da's office i'm not privy to the stop you right there it was 50 doesn't so is that that's the question thank you he didn't know the answer thank you next good evening me llamo norma garcía lopez as you see that this forum was even bilingual friendly for our immigrant community but i will say my name is norma garcía lopez um you know the city of footwork the popular we make the latino population makes up 36 percent of the city here in footwork and i'll be honest and be more more very frank the this candidate forum is not does not represent diversity um for me in my eyes um the task force ignored the immigrant needs in this city some of the city council members did not protect immigrants from s before that also included mayor price i want to know what experience do you have working with immigrants with the latino community and this this question uh applies to everyone and i will have to go home and translate for my parents after this thank you can i start uh the city of columbus has a new americans initiative and they have both the city of columbus and franklin county actively engaged in new american support resources language translation services both at the courthouse and at the other commercial institutions uh almost has the second largest Somalian population second only to minneapolis minnesota we've got a very high and burgeoning hispanic latino population so they've been very intentional about focusing on immigration our mayor did an executive uh order related to sanctuary city support he was very tightrope because he didn't want to lose the federal dollar support by claiming that it was a sanctuary city but he did everything that he could sort of that to affirm our support for immigrant issues city of south been implemented an id program for immigrant communities which allowed them to have access to city services and use their id to gain access to to things that everybody else in the city that would have a federally issued id would have and that's been a very successful program and it's expanded beyond the city of south bend into neighboring cities and we also are starting to work with the university of noterdame on immigrant entrepreneurship keeping immigrants in the city by helping them build and start businesses because we know that's the largest growing group that can support a local economy let me just say for the record on the first day of this task force got together when it was getting its mission statement and those things together we thank you you just took away 30 seconds i just want to say that we made sure that we did not say citizens we said residents that included everybody who lives in Fort Worth regardless of their status are we still being allowed to answer the questions okay and i was just going to say that at UNT we have a DACA task force where we created resources specifically for our students so that they knew where to go we had a knowing your rights forum for our students and even some employees who needed those resources and also we were the first university to use that campus inclusion climate survey that thought to translate it into spanish for our staff to be able to to give their perspectives as it related to the climate survey so that's what intentional inclusion looks like my question is to the panel and i'm wanting to know just make believe that this is Fort Worth it's very diverse how would you go about getting them to understand that making juneteenth a national holiday would be a unifier just ain't got nothing to do with statistics and all that stuff i need to know what would you do to get them to sign a petition we need a hundred thousand signatures and you don't have but one must do it how would you go about getting your city to participate i think for me you know i i celebrate juneteenth every year as it's a tradition that i've been doing since as far back as i can remember but i think public service announcements social media mass melons we put a lot of things we don't care about in our water bills so we can include sign up sheets and try to get encouraged people to sign up to sign a petition but i think fort worth is a city that's made up of a lot of different cultures you know where we take pride in being cow town in the stockyards we should take pride in our hispanic heritage we should take pride in our juneteenth another african-american holiday so i think just having everyone buy in and let's just let's get to it but you know we can only do so much on the sidelines we have to get in the game and play i would just state especially uh since the city of fort worth is so very diverse we all need to understand is latin x history that's my history too if i'm a part of texas juneteenth that's a part of that's a part of um of our collective history too resettlement of immigration that's what makes all of us a community so some education on um that shared history that we have and lifting that up and celebrating it giving it space to be celebrated as well as a community i think is important it can be a real unifier um my name is sedacita hartado ramos and i've only been a resident for two years at fort worth my question is what training strategy strategies do you use to get the diversity equity and inclusion message across especially to the resistant and disruptive participants that are required to be there so i'll i'll speak to that um that is the foundation of what uh we do at unt it's the foundation of what we did at tcc um sometimes we have had to train folks that have to get trained because something has happened you know and uh they clearly need some development um but what we do is again it's cultural humility look yourself in the mirror consider what your own biases and perspectives are consider things like privilege and equity and access and inclusion and think about how that is related to the policies programs and practices within your respective areas and use your spheres of influence to do something quickly uh i would i i would echo that too i'll just go really quickly even that some education about what diversity inclusion is not equity for everyone else doesn't mean less rights for you or less equity for you it's not a pie as the saying goes and so some explanation about what diversity inclusion is not and the benefits that come from from that as a community i think is very is very important again recognizing things like bias implicit bias whether it be selection whether it be home loans whether it be alone to start businesses all those things are important those micro aggressions and how that how those things permeate our systems so taking a look at first what diversity and inclusion is not would be a good starting point in meeting people where they are at and i would quickly add to that if you don't mind sure okay i would add to that in that you know there is a a need to normalize the conversation around race um i think that's important i think that people need to be able to understand um what behaviors actually coordinate and parallel with equity and inclusion and what that looks like and painting that picture of for individuals as well so painting a clear picture around the behaviors and what those look like for individuals i think is key too yeah okay this is the question that i have first of all i've been a i'm larry johnson i've been a forward for all my life first of all the the problem is we have poor leadership in the city that's number one so now i want you to tell me how you can come in here and think you're gonna make a change when all these people before you haven't did so i'd like to answer that if you don't mind um i feel that and this is my personal stance that it's a collective effort it's not just me coming in changing it's a collective effort and it has to be me working with you larry you working with me and us working together because that's the only way change will happen at the end of the day um one person can't move a mountain by himself right and so i think that one of the things that i've seen within fortward is the ability to collect and coordinate and pull together i just want to see us working all toward the same goal you know and if it makes better a better fort worth a better city then let's do that yeah sure i have to to echo that that it's this diversity and inclusion work um can't rest on one person's shoulders and if um you're concerned about city leadership and that's an opportunity for you to become leadership and leadership doesn't always have to have a title sometimes the most effective leaders are the ones that lead from the back of the room with no title at all that's right and you know i i just oh i'm sorry it's in the city you know i'm actively and you know if i if i may add on uh just briefly you know you you ask what makes us think that we can you know change everything when the current leadership structure in place hasn't moved the needle forward well you know i i believe i'm naive to believe that i can be the person to make change happen every opportunity i have to to serve there has been changed as followed soon shortly thereafter and i truly believe i'm a change agent and if and i need i need you to work with me if i'm in this role i need everyone in this room to work with me i don't need us just to come together when there's tragedy i need us to come together when there's the good times and bad times and indifference so that's how i believe that we can make a difference here uh i just want to add just one final comment you talked about leadership i'm a firm believer that managers do things right but leaders do the right thing i would come in and make sure that all the leadership team at the city of fort Worth is doing the right thing another thing managers do things better leaders do better things so we've got to figure out whether what we're doing is the right thing to do period and let's focus on what will actually advance the ball and really make a difference uh as you say mr young thank you next good evening my name is cleveland harris the question that i'm going to ask you is in education the scales don't wait the same when we talk about law when we talk about law we're talking about the lawyers know the judges know the police know but the common everyday citizen doesn't know there's a program called know your rights started up in philadelphia now this program which would be funded by the ccpd would educate our children under constitutional law local law and uh state law my question to you with the education system in four word texas being the lowest in the state of texas because you're dealing with racism so my i'm wondering is how do you fit in and pushing with it know your rights in the school system if i may chime in uh you know i'm i'm active in our school system i'm on the advisory board for the young man's leadership academy i devote my time and my attention to one entity okay okay and and if i could continue um you know i've gone into church's rising star where i've taught classes of knowing your rights leg churches okay well well if i if i may if you tell me where i need to be to teach this that's where i would go being out here for the longs but they're not paying attention i but i haven't been out here so if you give me an opportunity to rebel church and i haven't finished cleveland that's where you need to be but see you can't it's plantation side coast is what our people is going through so we i'm asking a straight-up question i don't want a hyper hypothetical answer i just want a straight-up question about the systemic racism that we're dealing with in the four word school system so i will tell you that um and shawn is or she was in the audience she was the former racial equity leader in fortworth isd right i'm sorry that was built off three brothers in this community me one of them and this brother behind thank you for that i can tell you that i can tell you that i have personally gone in and worked with fortworth isd and done equity training in fortworth isd you got to work with individuals i'm sorry you have received the flow show you just got a scenery see these things we've got to be beyond because the same things keep happening over and over again they make a show we take people ideals and when they take their bills then they stand up and get the awards so my question is what are you going to bring to the table that is going to be totally different from all of that than what we have been getting because like again i say it's systemic racism in the school system yeah let's see if we can focus on that on cleveland's last question what are you going to bring that's different given what has been well what i would say when you talk about the table and a lot of times we talk about giving people places at the table sometimes we have to bring the table to people right and and have to make sure that there is a seat left at the table that allows folks to sit down and have a voice now i'm not in fort worth i i don't know the history that you're speaking of but a system will do what it's designed to do and and and and if you but what i'm but what i'm saying is to disrupt letter answer to disrupt a system one must acknowledge that it needs disruption and that it's broken so i think that's the first step is just acknowledging that it's broken and doing something different clearly things have not worked as they have worked before you bring the table to the community and let the community tell us what it is that we need to do so it's not paternalistic is it on but i would go on to add to that i believe that fort worth isd is working to disrupt the the racism within the school system i would i would say that all right i would say that they are thank you thank you cleveland next as y'all know y'all ain't seen me howl over america y'all know my attitude problem is your attitude i'm gonna say again we come back with the same gem crow conversations that my father then went through it's 2019 we are too apologetic for those who stab us in the back give us a knife and make us feel guilty and then tell us to forgive them it's time out for that the day of the caltow stepping infected i don't care if you belong to the booleh i don't care i see you i know you that's your problem is your attitude can't play them games no more i got children to raise so what is your revolution well people ask myself i got to raise children and tired of this muster in the room has take a vow to destroy my people and they doing it every day look at this school sister no grocery stores in our communities and you want to use the word diversity don't put my people as a modest no more sister we are part of a human race the beginning of a human race we are people of aboriginal and african descent when you put that word minority you're talking about right women to me so don't use that word we are people of african descent we need to be acknowledged as part of this human race not a minority that's a game that's a trick bag so i want to get rid of this plague this virus this plague or what is your plan for this afro-american agenda that needs to be laid down and forward we don't need to be sitting at our table we need to get our own table understand so what is your answer in your solution to this issue that we've been plaguing this in this city all right wants to take that if i if i'm understanding your your question correctly you're asking what we will do to change a system that you haven't seen change in after years and years of it is is that accurate ma'am my daddy's gonna be 80 years old so that tells you my age things went through a whole bunch so i won't have to deal with this my grandma was alive when jesse washington got did the way he did in in uh wakehold texas and i still see the same things going on the systemic lynching of people of african descent we're the most hated people on the face of a planet earth our young men are missing organ stealing thanks trafficking organ stealing and you sit there and tell me to embrace some individuals have done nothing but degradation and you tell me to be diverse sister if you don't have a plan go back and reassess yourselves because fear and god don't belong in the same place and so therefore if you don't have an answer just say brother i need to read read reassess we ain't playing that game no more my evolution is my revolution i got all my power to the people so if you can't roll like us we're going to roll right over so if you don't come with this type of plan because my daddy went through too much we know better and the playbook is there and y'all know whether it came from mega mardin macklin adam clayton play out y'all know so it's no excuse what got you stifled is because you are scared can i ask you a question ask a question thank you i think he's late but the question out pretty good so your response so my response is before you can love somebody else you have to love yourself you have to love yourself and when you love yourself you're going to do things differently if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result we have to do things differently and that means love hate does not hate doesn't work it escalates love is the only thing love is the only thing that can multiply and when you begin to love yourself first then you can start to look at other people with respect to respond as well to the question i'm i'm gonna do evening my name is ebony rose i use she her her pronouns i am a resident of district three and my question is for the entire panel in light of the current climate in our city especially as it relates to citizens of color being victimized by the city officials and staff sworn to protect them i would like to know if any of the candidates for this position are familiar with the concept of restorative justice and if so have any insights on how the tenets of this approach to community healing might be utilized in our city that's exactly the question that i was trying to answer earlier one of the programs that were implemented in south bend after the eric logans death at the hands of a police officer is trauma informed community and restorative justice which is a program that encompasses several different areas not just education but also economic development housing transportation and it starts in the neighborhood and it's centered around mental wellness and mental wellness in the community in the neighborhoods and making sure that people in the in the city of south bend have access to resources because it's it's tied to everything and so we're in the process of becoming a trauma informed community and underneath that umbrella is restorative justice we've used that on the university nebraska campus too i know i mentioned earlier you know shortly after election we had quite a bit of discord across campus and particularly after the anti-immigration bills came out legislatively and had students saying to each other displaying behavior that wasn't part of the environment that we wanted to create at university of nebraska so sitting down with those students and having those conversations and really sometimes what it comes down to working across these issues are being able to disagree civilly and having some shared outcome as well so i am familiar with the concept and we have used that across campus too but particularly um as it relates to some of our DACA students immigrant students and having conversations around the impact on that individual and as and that community when that behavior is in place first of all let me welcome y'all and say thank you for coming out i want to thank the public for coming out in the community my question i was going to leave my question for just one person i feel like it's a panel question let me tell you i'm a father of a 10-year-old black male what would be the first thing hear me the first thing that you implement to ensure that my son and i are safe on the streets of forward texas and for your answer bring it down a few registers look around you look in the room who's in the room don't talk where you're up here bring it down so some of these people can understand what you're saying i'm from the heart please don't politic me don't ref traditionary me to death okay let let me start here the uh i've worked with the black police officers association in their street law program i have no faith in the black police officers association in the city of forward texas okay okay okay uh but but the bottom line is street law needs to be proliferated throughout the city to educate our brothers on how to conduct themselves when when there were a rash of police shootings of unarmed african-american males our slogan was don't don't resist submit stay alive so we don't want we don't want you to litigate on the street because you'll be dead we want you to we want you to litigate after you go home alive i'm a lawyer i can give you the law later on but don't try to litigate on the street with the police officers because that's a recipe for disaster the the other thing i can say is it starts at home we as parents have to educate our young men what to do when they're in the car what to do where to have their license and registration how to talk to do everything they can i know that that doesn't still keep some people alive i'm saying that there is a menu of things there's no panacea and we've all got to figure this out together thank you was another respondent to that question yes i have two sons uh one is incarcerated and one is in college and so i grew up having those same i i i grew up having those my husband and i had those conversations with both of them because at the end of the day i wanted them to come home and i wanted them to come home alive but if you're asking me as a practitioner what i would implement here in the city of south end it's going to take forth worth i'm sorry um um is making sure that we are educating the law enforcement officers here on how to engage human beings and not just people of color and having them understand that just as much as it's life or death that they feel we feel that too and so that's why i had mentioned that we have to humanize each other and understand at the end of the day everybody just wants to go home they want to eat dinner with their family and you want to be free to raise your children and so that would be my first priority is making sure that that takes place and that education takes place here in fort worth thank you and shannie and then we'll go to the next question what i would say is i would flip it and while we know the reality of the fact that things are different for black males what i would flip it and do is say how about we start with um police officers um engaging in mentoring programs where they're actively mentoring and getting to know young black males so they see them as children first police athletic league okay and and so that that would help to humanize so that before you look at a child as a potential um criminal which is sometimes what is done that you are reminded that that person is somebody's son could be your son if they were just born with a little bit more melanin uh than than yours thank you let's see because i'll the last question just one question for first yeah i was a great question i usually conduct myself a little better than this thank you i need to explain something mr frances it's going to take 10 seconds please 10 seconds 10 seconds talk about how we're supposed to conduct ourselves sitting in the car driving when we get pulled over but how do you conduct yourself when you're sitting in the privacy of your own home and a police officer doesn't knock on the door comes right outside of the house and shoots you through the window of your home in front of an eight year old child tell me how do you teach your chance to react to that please thank you my name is benson bargees i'm a criminal defense attorney here in court work the audience is clapping because they understand that in no arena besides the criminal justice system do the issues of racial injustice come to the forefront so my question is to you mr stimson how do you as a prosecutor as someone who lives in fort worth how are you currently listening to the voices in fort worth that will enable you to hit the ground running to implement change if you've got this position i think exactly kind of what you said is that i'm in the community i'm already listening i'll continue to listen and i think one of the big reasons that interests me in this position is i continue i could continue to be outside the city hall and not not use my voice but i decided that it's time for me to not sit on my hands and use my talents and use the the access that i have to actually change policy up if you know anything about me as a prosecutor you know that i just don't look at a case file by a case number but i look at the person you know being a black male and be growing up in the community i grew up in a lot of people end up on the other side of the table it's the reason why i wanted to be a prosecutor so someone's family knows that they're not just getting judged because of the crime that they did did but they're also getting viewed as the person that they are and just knowing that prison isn't how you go about rehabilitating someone but there's other avenues and so as this role as a diversity inclusion director the same approach that i use as a being a prosecutor would be the same approaches let's look at the bigger picture and let's see how we can resolve this for for works for everyone and not just for benefiting one party thank you it's the reason why i'm not the only criminal defense attorney in the room here to support you thank you next question we're we're wrapping it up now good evening my name is cast minceal from the east side of Fort Worth my question is if your disc committee is going to be elected whoever's going to be elected to make this committee how do we know as citizens and lower income for that to be black Hispanics what they consider middle income communities won't be silenced by the white money that runs the city of Fort Worth just my question the question was in a low income that consists of black and Hispanics can y'all hear me now okay in a community where there are blacks and Hispanics which is considered low income majority of the time how can this committee assure us that the white money that runs this the city of Fort Worth won't hush you and contain you in a silenced out voice like they've always done thank you if if i may answer that question if the way you phrase it white money white money has never made me who the person i am and i grew up on public assistance so i just know what it's like to grow up and and be in a community and growing up without with limited resources and so as i've elevated myself with education i want to give back to the communities where i grew up and where the people who aren't fortunate enough for the same opportunities that i have know that they they too their kids can have the same opportunities and so you know i'm not a person that can be a silenced by influence of power because i you know being an attorney i know my bar card works anywhere in this state of texas so if it doesn't work out with the city i'm going to go back to my house and for work and continue to do what i was doing in the community thank you thank you next the next my name is kathy hall and i grew up on the east side to pride grades with a poly high school um our population the 54 of the population here in fort worth is latino and black and in light of in the shadow of a tautiana jefferson who was shot and killed in her house and sb-4 and 287 g i would like to hear this question to miss jinkins and miss more can you give us some of the best practices for working with a police department to initiate real change working with those populations let's say first the representation of the police force needs to change in addition to um some training or development needs to happen within the police force the first time um that those officers that are actually there to serve and protect interact with the community shouldn't be a policing situation um and so i think a lot of that when you're able to change representation within the department i think that that would be that that's the start of some real change who is actually um leading those departments um who is matriculating up into uh roles of captains sergeants all those things need to be taken into consideration to change the narrative and change and bring those perspectives that are absent into the force and then change that interaction with the community and i just go back to bias awareness to me that is ground zero for um any kind of change whenever i do any kind of bias awareness training i have folks take the implicit association test there's a weapons test that you can take that um shows you how much maybe you associate people of color or not with with weapons and it's a pretty accurate test um when i talk about bias awareness i show my my own biases and say diversity lady has biases so if we could acknowledge that we have biases and that it is going to impact how we interact with each other that's a start that that's how i've seen people's perspectives open you know as you know some folks say denial ain't just a river in egypt i mean so sometimes you just have to be out of denial about you know what lies beneath thank you my name is arch mayfield i'm an educator uh first of all thank you all for your interest in this job a particular and for taking on the task particularly for the out-of-staters if you're still in town tomorrow night I invite you all to come to city council uh for another another take on what's going on uh some of you are there pretty frequently my question has a little bit of a piggybacking on miss mckees there's a perception that the city leadership influencers significant city influence city leadership influencers if not city government is not yet convinced that we need this position how would you work behind the scenes most of you talked a lot tonight about how you would work with the citizens and city government how would you work behind the scenes with city leadership influencers to address that that skepticism anyone well i steve you you can't work behind the scenes this this is a transparent upfront in your face issue and at the city columbus the mayor used to say we want to have an outside-in approach to diversity equity inclusion we start from the outskirts of the city and corporations non-profits community-based organizations have to get on board with a baseline standard of culture competency equity et cetera proficiency and they close in on everybody who's not on board until they cause them to either leave if they're not on board or relocate so so either you're with us or you're not that's business that's civic that's academia that's law enforcement so it's a common approach that's united in solidarity that says fort worth is not that kind of place if you think it's that kind of place this is not the place for you to live so it has to be intentional it has to be inclusive and comprehensive one of the things that i've been able to do which is in large part why it never makes the news is because i build relationships with people and i don't do it because i want it on the front page of the newspaper or that i want it to be on cnn and in order for those so i think i think um a large part of what you what you haven't seen about the city of south bend since uh the what made cnn and msnbc is that those people that were voicing their frustrations on national television are now working side by side with us to fix the issues and we did that by having conversations in my office and at the local coffee shop thank you good evening my name is eva sandova bonilla and i am the chair of the human relations commission for the city of fort worth i'm sorry i didn't make the reception but work gets in the way diversity costs money i like that yet the commissioners and many of the citizens in fort worth filled discounted we are powerless the human relations commission meets the first monday of every month but we are not important enough for a city manager or an assistant city manager to attend our meetings the citizens come and present their problems yet we we and and organizations and we as a commissioners vote and make recommendations that we make gorgeous recommendations word word it correctly and we turn these recommendations to the city council and the mayor and of course the city manager but they don't even have to acknowledge it and we many times we ask our direct well our assistant director angela rush who's y'all have met have you heard anything about the recommendations we made and she says no not yet we never get a response and so i want to know what do you think about that policy and what do you think needs to be changed i'll speak on that i'll if you will um earlier we had a reception and at another location and you know one of the things that we talked about is whose voice is missing out of the room right and who is not being heard and quite honestly i've been to city council meetings i've seen you know the demands and i've seen everyone's frustration around what's going on and to be honest with you i'm frustrated you know as a black female you know i don't like the fact that citizens and residents don't feel safe you know and i want to feel safe in my city just like you um and one of the things that i think that is important to um to bring to the forefront is that if you've got great recommendations and you've got changes that can be initiated to make the city better those need to be heard they need to be listened to they need to be taken into consideration just like anyone else and so i say to you you know those voices are important and they do need to be heard regardless of who it is you know um and so my job would be to hear those voices and hear what's being said and recognize that those things and those problems that are being addressed and being um listed tonight and said tonight that some change comes out of that three questions three minutes that's a a minute a question not three minutes of questions okay i'm wanting you to know that if anybody has had problems with police i have but there are young policemen who doing juneteenth took it upon themselves to mentor the young fellows over at uh od wide high school sent them to las vegas for the finals and all they called it opal's hoot team but i've had problems like you've never heard before in 39 my home was bummed and we lost everything because we had moved into a white neighborhood but i guarantee you every policeman on this force is not like those people were then you need to know that thank you opal miss opal so my name is celeste dux let my dinner get cold coming up here to talk with the y'all and uh i ain't really heard nothing uh the stance was yet i mean that what brought me here uh first of all the city of footwork ain't gonna do nothing that that they don't have to do understand what i'm saying and you have the it's like the city wouldn't something jump off it's like that's like let's play for it like a game of chess and the the citizen footwork uh with a force into a game of chess only with a checker skill set you understand what i'm saying and so they gave us this one piece but this one piece that they gave us is not equal in value to the piece that they took and i want everybody understand that so we don't jump and move down to the next thing i want to know get back to that thing to what what we're going to do about that thing before we move on to the next one what's what's that thing the issue about it sir tatiana say that again tatiana i've always been able to go to the police department and i've always been able to go to the police department and to uh i've always been able to go to the police department and let them play never to be here for them again they don't get back to them like what they didn't did now is created a buffer i can't even go to them no more and we're gonna blame it on y'all but y'all just the buffer go between so how do we stop that from ever happening again hold the paper up that's the question i'll tell you honor jefferson what role do you see yourself playing making sure that that doesn't happen uh you know for for me it one uh i have to send my condones obviously to the tatiana jefferson's family for the tragedy that did happen to her and how would i go about preventing something like that for happening against anyone in fort worth but anywhere i i think i have to use my background and my experience to where i just can't lose my criminal justice background by coming to the city to where whomever ultimately is a part of the who becomes the police monitor or who becomes on the citizen's review board i have to work hand in hand to one not only educate the public of the procedures and the laws that are in place but also the individuals that are going to be in place to to help restore that trust because there's not trust right now no one within the city feels trust for the pd and so how do we how do we fix that and like y'all saying that y'all have these meetings where we have all these get together or getting us together with a bunch of police officers having clumps to go make a bud right that's that's not gonna work no i absolutely agree you know it can't it can't be lip service it actually has to be tangible results and so you know if that means going back into the training of how our new officers are being trained then that's what we need to do but you know i'm of the opinion i think we're past the point to where we need to teach our blacks black sons of how to interact with police officers why can't police officers know how to interact with our communities and so we need to work with uh trying to figure out some type of peace to to to assist police officers in their duties but also keep our our community safe yeah i think in addition to uh well i don't know the facts and the investigation is not done but i believe there was not the they didn't follow procedures okay so if that's true we got to make sure that those procedures are followed in the in the future among that in addition to that there's training all those other things so there's not just one issue the investigation has to thoroughly be conducted to make sure that whatever procedures weren't followed are put on the front page so that it doesn't happen again and every single officer has to be aware of those types of procedures and the the the requirement to follow them to the tee last question angie crawford um resident of fort worth particularly to miss more in miss jenkins um i hear many references tonight about you working with us all the candidates the residents will move the needle i think we can hear we're ready the barrier this this progress has is especially in acknowledging bias in racism is the city government considering that this very city government will be your employer what skill set do you bring to the table to work with those who do not embrace diversity and inclusion in city government yeah and since you posed it to us um i've said this a couple of times today that i think one of the things that i bring to this and and i've been told this by a number of different people from a number of different perspectives and backgrounds is that i really invite people to look at themselves i think that's the first part is when you hold a mirror up to folks and give them an opportunity to look at themselves think about how their own perspectives and experiences limited perspectives sometimes we live in a bubble and we don't know that we're in a bubble until we realize we're looking around and we're the only one in the bubble right so it's having that skill of bringing people to the table just by looking at yourself and then developing some bridging capital among colleagues initially within the city so that we're all on the same page and we can realize that through that perspective taking we need to now look at the perspectives of the people in this room right in addition to being employees of the city looking at the perspectives of people in this room so we can develop some some bridging capital and you have to build authentic i would say by continuing to have those dialogues and asking the hard questions sometimes how's what you've been doing and working out for you and where do you want the city of fortwood to be headed and at some point the rubber meets the road i know you talked about the outside end at some point maybe this isn't the place for you and i know someone mentioned earlier too not becoming part of the system i mean each of us here on this panel we're here too because we see the opportunity to come here and effect change positively and so um that whole issue of panhandling or um being someone else's mouthpiece that's not what we're here for and we haven't committed 17 plus years 20 plus years doing this work to do that but those ongoing dialogues and conversation around that shared goal i think is going to be critically important and sometimes you have to meet people where they are sometimes you don't know what you don't know sometimes you know and you don't want to do better and that's a whole another conversation you have to build authentic relationships with people before you can tell them the truth and before they will receive it and so when you talk about how you'll move the needle if you don't have an established relationship with somebody and you try to tell them here's who you are it's going to fall on deaf ears so you have to establish a real relationship and that goes for both the community and with law enforcement and when that happens then you can communicate and and put a mirror up and make sure that they're self-aware. Now if we're courteous and adjourned in a way that doesn't knock anybody down we have just enough time to dismiss ourselves after Maddie's very brief question. Thank you. We it's very clear that the urgency of a response has to do with those very first criminal justice recommendations but there are more than 20 recommendations having to do with so many other things that impact the lives of people here in Fort Worth education and transportation and housing and I want to know who it is your understanding will set the priorities of what you will deal with after you deal with that number one priority which is the criminal justice one which has this this whole city up in arms I need to know what other what are your priorities after that and who do you believe sets your agenda for those priorities well I ask that you be very brief great question keep it under 60 seconds but very brief. I think that in developing an equity plan for Fort Worth external community stakeholders leaders you know United Fort Worth whoever wants to be involved needs to be at the table along with internal city of Fort Worth stakeholders those key departments that have the resources and authority to make change so it's a collaborative effort that will sit down and set the priorities for the plan. Thank you Stephen. The second priority has to be addressing poverty when people can't pay their electric bill and they can't make rent and they can't buy food get angry and so if we're not addressing the economic development the inclusive economic development of a community then everything else is is pointless and so that has to be second priority. Please please listen to Mashaan as he gets she gives her. For me it would be health I think that when you think about the social determinants of health and how that impacts communities particular communities of color and the disparities that are there I think the health initiatives are very important and needed whether that is putting some policies in place that will help to eliminate food deserts and to help to ensure that people have equal access in different in different areas of the town no matter what that looks like I think is important so health is very important for me. Please join with me in applauding our six candidates and last but not least join with me in applauding our outstanding courageous clear-minded powerful questions of our community we are adjourned