 We're going to begin first and foremost, welcome everyone and welcome to our guest. Rosa has lost her point, so she asked me to chair the meeting and I told Bob Ray that I would entertain a motion to adjourn before we started, but first of all we thank you for taking the time. I just want to tell a quick antidote, there was two educators who were talking and debating what is more important learning our action. So what is more important learning our action? And it came after going back and forth to conclusion that learning is more important when it leads to action. So I know all of us have been learning quite a bit up until now and I know that all of us are anxious to get to the action items of helping write our reports and get down to where the disparities in equities are and I thank you all ready for everything you are doing. We all thank you for everything you are doing in order to take our learning and put it into action. We'll open it up to the other co-chairs and we have forbidden Rosa to speak because we don't want her to get any more under the weather. Actually I want to point out saying anything today, except I pity Rosa, I'm running into all these people who lost their voices this week. Anybody else Rosa? I mean something's going on. Honestly I haven't lost mine. Again I hope, I know that we have a strict agenda and by open leading laws we publish that agenda and we should stick to that agenda. At the same time we've got things going on in our community over the past week. That if we don't talk about tonight we need to talk about it some point and that's what I'm really concerned about things that I think this group should have known about but we didn't know about at least two or three things and I hope we can get to it at some point. I'm not really ready to go up the agenda but at some point we got to talk about some of those things. So with that I'll shut up. Thank you very much Rosa. I'd just like to thank everybody for being here and once more don't lose focus on the great work that we're doing as a task force. I think that we're focused on the right things. I would agree though things keep happening that fit into one of the categories that we're looking at for the other. So just stay focused. That's the only way we're going to get this done. And we just need to quantify the things that we're looking at and keep moving. Just keep moving forward. Thank you. I believe that everyone received the minutes from the February 19th and February 26th meetings in their emails. If there are any corrections we will entertain you that this time if not I will accept a motion to accept the minutes as received. Don't move. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. We now get to number four of our agenda and that is update on public engagement and we hand this over to Michelle and Esther and thank you already ahead of time for updating us this afternoon. On March the 8th we held our second citywide town hall. We had 123 people attend and talk to the task force members. Thank you to everyone who is able to make it. We're now completing a final report that will include the comments from the community conversations, the continuing the conversation meetings, which we had 14 of those, and the final city hall, I mean the final town hall meeting and we'll be getting that to you all probably by the end of the week. So does anybody have any questions? Right now the meetings are kind of at a holding pattern and I think our thoughts are that once we have that draft plan it will be another opportunity to go out and engage the public and get their thoughts on some of the disparities that are identified and also maybe some preliminary recommendations. What Michelle said? One thing we did, as you know, we did the town hall meeting live. We had it streaming on the website and we also have that file uploaded. It's on YouTube and it's on the workforce website. Thank you. The website itself is excellent. There's all sorts of documents on there are the files of meetings. If anyone asks any of us where we should get information, that is a great place to send them. Okay, we can move on to update on assessment of disparities in municipal services and Linda Johnson. We thank you as well. I'm going to provide you with a quick update on our work with NLC as they're looking at some of the disparities in municipal data. As you all are aware, all city departments submitted a survey on the data that they currently disaggregate by race. And after that initial review NLC identified four departments that they wanted to further look at their data sets. That's municipal court, economic development, which is the MWBE program, neighborhood services, and the police department. So they've done some initial review of the data. We do not have any of the results of their review yet. But last week two of their members, Ariel Guerrero and Chelsea Jones, were here to visit with six departments, the four that I just mentioned, plus library and traffic and transportation. They were here to put a little context around their data so that they were interpreting it right and understanding it. They also wanted to discuss some of the current data challenges that departments have in identifying the various opportunities to collect and disaggregate some of their data by race. So they asked departments how they currently, they wanted to better understand how departments use their data to measure their services and then the challenges they're having with collecting that data. So in mid-April there will be submitting a report to us which will show their data analysis of the data that they looked at. And also they'll be providing recommendations to us on how we can improve the infrastructure and processes that we have that will help support us further disaggregating data within these departments. Thank you. Are there any questions? I'll go to an update on leadership training and I'll hand this over to Fernando. Thank you. You'll recall that when the city council created this task force on race and culture, the council assigned three basic tasks to the task force. Those tasks included convening a series of healthy community conversations about race and culture. Also analyzing disparities in the delivery of municipal services with respect to race and culture which we have expanded to include a wide range of topics relating to quality of life. And third to advise the city manager and the city council on training for city officials about race and culture. And this task force decided that we should provide a broad oversight over that process and expand the audience for the training to include not only city officials meaning elected officials, appointed officials, city department heads and assistant directors, but also community leaders and instant citizens. And I'm going to ask in a moment Estes to talk with us a little more about outreach to community leaders and what that might involve because I think it warrants further discussion. But if you look on tab number one in your binders, the red tab number one, you'll find what we call in an informal report an IR to the mayor of the city council. It actually appears in the packet for tomorrow's city council meeting which just went out late last week. And it describes the entirety of the leadership training process that we propose to undertake in the next few weeks. And so you can see the schedule appearing on page three of that written report. You'll see dates for the city council appointed officials and assistant city managers. That's one group. They would have three training sessions described as leadership 101, 201, and 301. The same training opportunities would be provided for department heads and for assistant directors of the city department. All of that training would be delivered by the National League of Citizens on the dates that are indicated. In addition, Estes Tucker has contracted with us to deliver training for community leaders and instant citizens and has provided a large number of dates when that training or engagement would be available. And so I'm happy to entertain any questions, Mr. Chairman, about training for city officials. And otherwise, I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Tucker to describe the engagement of the community. I don't see any follow-up. Follow-up to the training? Yes. I mean, it doesn't just happen over a day. Yes, there would be three all-day training sessions. Three all-day training sessions at the end of which you can see the schedule appears on page three of three. And by the end, and the description of the sessions appears on pages one and two, leadership 101, 201, and 301, I can go into those descriptions in greater detail if you wish. But the idea is that having gone through this training, city officials from elected officials down to department heads and assistant directors will be more aware of disparities and how those disparities can come about, so that we might work to reduce or eliminate them and be more cautious about how we go about delivering city services to our residents in a way that's not only not discriminatory but is equitable, so that the services are delivered in accordance with the need done necessarily in an equal fashion to all sectors of the population. As we go through these trainings, we are confident that the National League of Cities have results where they've done this in other places. They have come to us highly recommended for that reason. Just my question was, have they been successful and have you seen success in other places? That's why we're... Is there any... We'd be happy to get information for you. That's a valid question. We'd be happy to get information about the results that they've achieved in other cities. I'm told that they have achieved good results, but I'd like... I need to provide you with some substance to honor those. So your question is more around track record? What's the track record? Yes, ma'am. I just, you know, we're hiring them. They've been here from day one. And so I've asked the question before, and what is their track record? Their success rate? Have they been successful and have been successful in the municipality like before work? And did they face some of the same conditions? What makes it right now? I think that's a valid question that we need to follow. We'll follow, but I'll see. We'll be happy to provide that information. And, you know, I think just an excellent answer has been mentioned, how do they measure success? What is that being measured about? And I mean, it seems very obvious to me why we would want city officials to take this training. When we say interested citizens, what are we talking about? I mean, I can think of a list of people I think would benefit from this training. I'm not sure any of them would sign up for it. And that's my question is, how do we reach, who are the interested citizens we're going after and why? And how do we get most of the white population of the city to take this training? I can tell you how I interpret that. I interpret that of people of influence. As what? People of influence. People who, once they're trained, they can go out and influence others. It's the way I interpret that when I submitted the names that I submitted. There has, the people have to buy in to prove we'd like to come in. And one way to get buy in is to invite people to the conversation. And we're not going to get that group of people in a town hall. We may not get them in a community conversation, but with the personal invitation from some of our elected officials, we might get them to come and engage with us. So, following up on that, if I make a list of recommendations of interested citizens, I may be interested. The invitation would then go to them from our elected officials? Yes, from the mayors, I understand. Is that right? That is our intent. And I don't want to steal any thunder from them. Our intent is to have, as you can see in the written report, we will have training for community leaders and we'll have training for instance citizens. The instance citizens could be anybody who is interested, who expresses interest, whether they've been identified by the task force or the city council or not. So any resident of Fort Worth who would like to participate in the community engagement is welcome to do so. All they need to do is sign up. Now for the community leaders, the recommendation, again the SS will explain it, the recommendation he gave to us at our last all day work session was to have each task force member nominate three individuals in the community whom we would invite, whom we would invite by means of a letter from Mayor Price to participate in one full day or two half day training sessions about race and culture. And similarly, we would allow any instance citizen to register free of charge for the same kind of experience. In addition, and ordinarily I would ask Ms. Navillard to comment about the link, because she'd like to speak to you. She took the initiative last week of reaching out to Mr. Matt Rose, the chair of the NSF, who has agreed generously to convene a dozen or so diverse CEOs in the community to engage in the facilitated discussion about race and culture. So it's important to reach out to folks in decision making positions. It's important to reach out to folks who are not otherwise going to become engaged. We understand that need. And for that reason, we're asking each task force member to nominate people. Some of you have already done so. And if you give us more than three, we're happy to accept more than three. And we're also asking the city council members each to nominate up to five citizens for the same community engagement. But again, I'd like for Mr. Tucker to explain our objective so that you'll be able to understand better how this process relates to the overall purpose of the task force. Just two things before we turn it over to Estres. One is there's also the possibility of us extending, as Rose just whispered, an invitation to all those who came to the community conversations to continue their participation in these community conversations. Second, we have guests here who are here almost every month. And you're more than invited. We'd love for you to be able to participate not only as observers, but as active participants. So if this is something that you're interested in, please let us know. We'd love to have you as well. Yeah, I'm sorry about one other comment. I really appreciate all the work that's been done and the fact that you've got all the training entertainments that we actually are looking for additional committees to be set up to look at. But we also have on the table, we will have on the table the things that we have already built down and the biggest change, not having another committee meeting or anything, the biggest change is how the city council looks at this and whether they're willing to make changes in their services, their policy, their philosophy. That's what it boils down to. Absolutely. And may I add on this, not to cut off Estres and write a talk, but once he starts talking, I'm going to be able to cut him off. And I know I don't know who all got my email from last week, but I'm in agreement, I think, with Walton, something Corey said a couple of months ago. I think we need to hear from the business leadership for sure, because without the business leadership by in on whatever you recommend, nothing's going to happen. At the same time, I was concerned and I raised this at our co-chairs meeting the other day, asking business leaders of the ones we know to sit in a training session for a day. It's not helpful, because, first of all, I don't think they would come to that. Number two, and if they did, I'm not sure what we'd get from them. In my mind, the best thing that we can do is something I think Corey, you recommended while back, it's not necessarily have them come here, but once we come down with our findings in each of these categories, invite those that Matt Rose and others may bring onto us and sit them down, not for a day, but for an hour or two. I mean, if they're great business leaders like we think they are, we present them our findings and say to them, how do we solve these issues? Can you help us? And again, giving them a chance to respond in that manner. And I realize, nationally, the cities, estrus, they have this template in trying to get people to think positively and objectively about some things. At the same time, I think, as someone said a minute ago, we're at this corner, we're winding up our fact-finding and we're ready to get the solutions. I want the business people to help us with the solution, even if we don't agree with them in the final setting. But when we finally submit something to the city council, we can see at least we presented it to some business leaders, some other community leaders. And I guess that's where I'm from. And I know that this came up at our holiday meeting and I wasn't exactly aware of what they meant by training session of business leaders. So I'm just concerned that we're going down that we're ready to move to recommendations and then involve those stakeholders in our community to buy into it. That's where I am. I'm just wondering about whether or not this is necessary at this point. I wanted them, business leaders, like you said, to come and tell us what they've done and what they intend to do to have them all ready. Those are the employers. So that's what I want to know. And the training this, the session, who trained these trainers? Who trained them? For the one proposal for the community leaders training. So I'm the trainer. And I can give you kind of a list of credentials that I've been training and facilitating for a long time. So I can give you my credentials. But I'm the one doing the community leaders and interested citizens track. And then we can ask for the same thing for NLC. What's the process of training these business leaders to do what's right? Oh wow. That's what I want to know. What's the process of training them to do what's right? And go ahead. How long do I have? Yeah, let me just, before you go. First of all, I'm not sure we are training CDOs. I think if we can educate and enter a discussion that might be a better term of what we're trying to do. Yeah, but also, yes, without doubt. To know what they are. I'm being part of a, I'm trying to help bring out road safety and inclusion here. But also to know what they are doing. So I think we have to understand our expectations before we go in and say, okay, we're going to train you. You do this, you do that. I think that we need to talk about word smithing. We need to have our word smithing down before we go into those expectations. But we'll let Esther go to that. But beforehand, on behalf of all of us, Esther, we want to congratulate you on being, to Interim Director, Executive Director of the Center for Courage Renewal, we congratulate you. And we know that you'll do a great job there. Thank you. And they're blessed to have you. Thank you. Thank you. And I was very proud to have you, to have Mr. Reath on behalf of Santa Barbara, we ask that you say word, and Esther's will elaborate. But Mr. Abahar and I met last week with Mr. Rose and it is not about training the CEOs. It's about engaging them in a discussion involving the leadership of this task force as well. I have to say, Mr. Rose was rather appointed to use his example in signing some of the disparities that he sees in the community with respect to race and culture. If you're not familiar with his background, he and BSF were among the founders of the North Texas League, which is a program aimed at promoting minority executives in local companies. They saw a need roughly 20 years ago, and BSF took the lead in bringing corporate CEOs to the table with the time mayor, Kenneth Barr, and others who saw that Foreworth needed to provide more leadership in promoting minority executives. That organization is now led by Regina Bivins, who happens to serve on the city council, and they've done, I think, meaningful work over that period of years. So I'm simply signing his credibility. I don't down his credibility, but a CEO, I want to know what he's done personally in his business, and I don't intend to be a forward in Mr. Rose's side, but what he's done and what he would like to see. I'm sure he will be happy to do that, and we could ask the other CEOs similarly to respond. He took the initiative to point out that Foreworth has a major problem. This is his opinion. I'm going to do my best to characterize it. Rose, you can kick me if I mis-state it. That the perception of Foreworth among CEOs across the country and among minority executives who may want to come to work for BNSF and other local companies is not what it should be. That relative to Dallas, this is the example he gave, relative to Dallas, we're perceived to be something of a backwater. We're not seen as progressive. He said he doesn't have any facts to corroborate this perception, but he says this is a perception that he sees widely across the country. That Foreworth has a low profile, and that's consistent with the finding of the recent Economic Developers Treaty Plan. We have a low profile where the 60th largest city will proceed to be the 45th largest. We have a very low profile, and to the extent that people think they know about Foreworth, that's often not accurate. And the perception with respect to the extent to which we welcome diverse executives, the perception is negative. We're not perceived to be a welcoming community. That's the perception that Mr. Rose described to us. That we have a lot of work to do. And that among the factors that he sees as underlying that perception that makes it difficult for him to recruit minority executives to be NSF, that among the factors are education. That our public education is not up to par. And second, public transportation. He says that many minority executives draw conclusions about the progressive character of our community by the quality of public transportation. Those are the two factors that he cited, education and public transportation. And he said that he has experienced some degree of frustration in trying to recruit minority executives to Foreworth, not necessarily to North Texas, but to Foreworth because of that perception that we are not welcoming to minority. We can agree or disagree about the validity of that perception, but that's the perception that he has observed. He wants to lead a discussion among other CEOs about the perception and the reality of diversity in Fort Worth. Eventually we're going to let Esther speak. I've revised it 12 times while I'm listening, but it's all very, very good. Let me just name, jot it down, Corey's question, Katie's question, Walker's question. Those are powerful lenses to look at this work and the plan, and I'm going to respond to it in an overarching way. If I could highlight or summarize what Fernando just lifted up from Matt, and some of you said, we try to create a space for buy-in. So with that CEO, what that leader said is powerfully aligned with so much of the data of disparities, some of the feedback coming from subcommittees, some of the overarching assumptions that many have in this space, and not every CEO is going to touch that. Some CEOs will say the opposite of that. So it's not just about picking and choosing any level of business or community leaders, you want the buy-in. So you can't train a CEO or community leader or an interested citizen to do the right thing. You can create a space where honesty and goodwill and commitment to the common interests of our city collectively is welcome and then invite people to show up. That's a core of what was framed as community leadership training, what's listed as community leadership training. That's the core of it. So it's not about training adults. Adults don't train well to change behavior. A lot of our assumptions as reflected in community conversations and in some of our deliberation, we have some ideas and concepts that we think are powerful and often they are, and we know some people that need to sign up for it. Right? And somewhere in this small world, there's a core that somebody thinks you need to sign up for it, right? But the truth is that doesn't bring out our best. So these processes rely upon incentivizing and inviting. Cohortion won't work. Making someone or cornering someone won't work. They've got to feel the need. They've got to relate to it in a way that they can respond honestly. And if we have five people who are responding honestly from their lived experience, from their ideas and their commitment, we can get more done than 50 people who are just showing up and are not really committed. Okay, so I had to frame it like that because of all the rich conversation. So let me remind you of a metaphor. And I'm not going to be long. I'm almost finished. Remember the metaphor we offered the first day? It feels like somebody's even behind me because it says, I want to do this. The metaphor of the elephant and the five blind men, do you remember that? Elephant, depending upon the part of the elephant that they were except, each of them having a different part, each of them naming what their experience is worth. That's what we're doing. We're living into that. And the solution can't be advocating one part against the other. The kind of racial and cultural equity plan that Fort Worth deserves based on our voices, your voices, is one that's inclusive of those five perspectives as an illustration. So how do we, in a sense, paradoxically build on the different vantage points and insights at your name, not either or it can't be one or the other. We've got to find ways to integrate and to blend our learnings and our perspectives for a set of recommendations that advances racial and cultural equity. So the first thing I did was to reframe this from a community leadership training to community leadership engagement. We're not training adults. We're creating a space where they can share their perspectives and their experiences and together co-create something that moves towards solutions. And I love your opening quote about learning. Learning is more important when it leads to action. These engagements have to point toward action. The recommendations that are emerging in your subcommittees are some of those actionable areas. The second piece is incentivizing, and that's where these recommendations, these nominations come from. To nominate people, not just someone off a newsprint, but someone you have ideally some connection with about their lived experience, about their leadership relationships and capabilities. And that goes a long way. Some of them may not be able to make a given date, which is the next part of it. We try to frame a flexibility of date recognizing, as Bob Ritz said, a whole date can be challenging. So we've got several scenarios of half days. We've got a whole day starting in the afternoon and going in the late evening. We've got weekends, we have weekdays. There won't be a perfect menu to reach everybody we think should come. Some will choose not to come. Some will, calendar won't allow them to come. But we've laid out a diverse menu of optional dates to involve. I'll just run through 10 other things to say that I'm not going to say. But let me just say this, that the quality of training that goes on with the leadership, the city leadership training, and we've looked at it, there are elements, in answer to Walter's question, I don't know all their content, but there are certainly elements of this that relate to best practices in cities similar to Fort Worth that have had some measure of success. I can't say all the details, but that's what I've looked at. Pat Lewis, and something that was sent to us at the same time as Fort Worth and a couple other cities that we used as examples that I think are similar. See how I pulled those down from cities that I had been to and that NOC had done some work. So there are some correlations. We'd have to get a little bit deeper to what Walter was lifting up. But I think that there's some potential evidence of efficacy with some of the practices and trainings. But I think the real key is that we're trying to cultivate common language and shared understanding on both sides so that we can talk and engage all the spectrum of community and business leaders and city leaders around practices and strategies that advance racial and cultural equity. That's the intent and that's the purpose piece. I would just add to that that given the economic development work that Mr. Sturgeon has been doing, this is a perfect time to talk to Matt and Mike Berry and all of those individuals because what's important to them is important to us, is the economic growth and sustaining growth, and the great businesses to this community. And so while they may not have targeted some of the things that we have, what's important to them is important to all of us. And what's important to us, it has to be important to them. So I think the economic study that's been done and all of the things that came out of that should drive their engagement into this work. And I believe that it will. I really do. To represent the community as it is and he wanted that to be stressed. So I think that's a positive... He's always stressed after a game. So, Fernando, what you're saying is that Fort Worth has an image problem. The bigger one is trauma. From Sturves. The bigger one is trauma. Where are those people that created that image? Where are the people that created those images? They should be a part of this. This. This as well. And I know Fort Worth, we have a... I guess the state appropriates so much money. We could put a big sign out on the freeway that says, welcome to Fort Worth. So maybe we should have some influence on what goes on that sign. And not where the West begins. West begins where the East ends. Not nothing like that. But Establish 1849. Re-establish 2018. All are welcome to Fort Worth. And it's just something simple. We don't keep them on. Everybody here doesn't have a truck. Either we have to. So if we're going to do with the image, it really needs to be something concrete. And nobody's questioning Matt Rose. Yeah. I mean, he's the example. He's the limited example. It's all those other folks, including those who came before Matt Rose. And we're ahead of businesses here that shape the image you're talking about. Where are they? Can we reach out to them? I'm sure we can come up with some names who those people are. Well, the... the universe that Mr. Rose has asked us to explore is going to the executive round table. I understand that Robert is a member of that group. Maybe you could describe the composition. He wasn't going to talk. Well, it's a closed group, for one thing. It is made up of current and former CEOs that are invited to be part of this group. I would say that there are more participating that are former CEOs than there are current CEOs because we've lost a lot of resident-type CEOs in the city to whatever started many years ago. But there are individuals that are representative of this group. I would say it's not a good representation because it's not diverse. What's the purpose of this? It was started... I'd have to go back to Ann Rich. It's how it all started. I don't want to go into that. But I'll discuss it with you some other time. I think that would be a good topic. We're getting a bit off topic here. Are there any other questions in terms of the leadership training itself that Estris or Fernando could answer? We'll provide additional information in response to your question. Thank you. So we're still asking all of us to give at least three names? Yes. And you need name, address? Yes. Whatever you can provide. From number and email. Okay. They're really getting into that training once they leave there, what they're going to do is they're going to have a lot of employees. What's their take-away or homework to do with who they represent? I would say that that would be mostly determined by them as individuals. And their experience in this process. A significant part will be engaging them around practices to help facilitate or extend that kind of engagement that advances racial and cultural equity beyond the space of our time to their community groups, to their businesses. So that's part of the intent and the whole. Anything else? Okay, we're going to move on to item agenda number seven. That's briefing on powers and duties of the Human Relations Commission. And we'd like to invite Chris Trout to come and give us his presentation. We thank you ahead of time. And I believe that can be found under CAB to the Brown tab. I'll hang it again afterwards as well. Very good. Thank you. First off, everyone here, all right. Can you get a little closer? I'm just getting a little closer. All right. My name is Chris Trout. I'm with the City Attorney's Office. I'm the Senior Assistant City Attorney. I've been with the City Attorney's Office since June of 2011. And as mentioned, the PowerPoint that I'll be going over is that tab two in your packet. First off, what topics are you going to cover today? We'll talk a little bit about the history of the Human Relations Commission, also known as the HRC. We're going to talk about the applicable city ordinances. We're going to talk about the HRC as a FEMA, a Fair and Point Practice Agency. We're going to talk about the Human Relations Commission as a Fair Housing Assistance Program, or a FAC. We're going to talk about the powers of duty and the authority of the Human Relations Commission. And finally, we're going to talk about the Human Relations Unit and its relationship with the Human Relations Commission. In your PowerPoint presentation, there is a fair amount of historical information about the HRC, and I thank you again for your rush for providing much of that information. I'm not going to go into great detail about that. I'll leave it for your application as you read the PowerPoint or through PowerPoint. But basically, more than 50 years ago, back in 1967, the City of Fort Worth and the community saw a need for a body to help the City of Fort Worth and its citizens and issues of discrimination in the community. So that was in 1967. So what I'd like to do is skip ahead 50 years to the present and tell you where we are right now. This is the current state of the City's ordinance with respect to and discrimination. And it reads, it is hereby declared to be public policy of the City that all of its residents and persons subject to its jurisdiction should enjoy equal freedom to pursue their aspirations and that discrimination against any individual or group because of race, creed, color, sex, religion, disability, age, natural origin, familial status, sexual orientation, transgender, gender identity or gender expression is detrimental to the peace, progress, and welfare of the city. Now what you will see as you read that protecting classes is that the City's ordinance protects more classes of individuals than federal or state law does. You also you've also made interested to know that when the ordinance was passed there was also a public policy declaration that came out, that was passed along with it that said all of the residents and persons subject to the jurisdiction of the City of Fort Worth should be free from any type of discrimination based on those classes which originally the list was much shorter the list has grown longer as things have developed as community development has took a year but it's important to note I think that the City of Fort Worth was one of the first cities in Texas to adopt its own anti-discrimination ordinance So in 1967 City of Fort Worth established what is now known as the Community Relations Commission back then it was known as Commission on Community Relations and as I said that was in 1967 more than 50 years ago and the purpose stated at that time was to advise and consult with the City Council and City Manager regarding matters involving discrimination and to recommend the City Council measures designed to eliminate discrimination and prejudice and promote and encourage communication in the community in terms of bettering community relations The HRC was our Community Commission on Community Relations at the time we now call the HRC was also tasked with holding monthly meetings to hear citizen concerns regarding discrimination and have regular meetings to receive that information Now to this day the Human Relations Commission carries out that function by having monthly meetings their meetings are held on the first Monday of each month now and members of the Commission there is a leaven and they serve as the eyes and ears of the community to bring to the matters of discrimination prejudice and other issues in the community that are troubling and the HRC in an open meeting discusses those concerns that are brought to their attention by citizens or by commissioners themselves or by the members of the Human Relations Unit who will talk about it a bit one of the things the Human Relations Commission does which I will also talk about later is it makes fact-finding decisions in fair housing cases now as I said the original ordinance back in the 1960s was changed over the years in 2000 additional protected classes were added including sexual orientation and in 2009 the ordinance was again revised to include gender identity and gender expression in fact the ordinance you will see has been amended six times now let's talk about the commission itself there are 11 commissioners appointed by the city council to the Human Relations Commission that large and they can serve three consecutive two-year terms they serve as volunteers they are not given any compensation and in terms of the membership of the commission under the city code it provides as nearly as is reasonably possible the membership of the Human Relations Commission shall be fairly representative of the population of the city that is how the city council can determine how that is accomplished currently these are the commissioners and the Human Relations Commission there's one place vacant, place nine and the chair right now is Evo Bonilla and it's important to note like I said before that the commissioners are all appointed on an at-large basis that is their place number does not correspond to any district number within the city council a lot of ordinance commissions within the city do correspond to the districts of the council members the Human Relations Commission does not they are all tasked with representing the community as a whole as I said the commission meets on the first Monday of each month over the Hazel Harvey Peace Center for Neighborhoods the Human Relations Commission has five standing committees three of them have been in place for a long time too or are new the committee is composed of the officers the chairs of the standing committees and the media cast chair and their jobs are by oversight of the commission the employment committee is comprised of HRC commissioners and they are responsible for addressing matters involving fair employment practices and discrimination employment the housing committee is also composed of HRC commissioners and they are responsible for those areas of the commission the Human Relations Unit related to fair housing as I said the committee also serves the hearing panel when requested to make that findings in fair housing cases to newer standing committees by the mayor's committee on the versus with disabilities and that is comprised of 11 citizen volunteers even not commissioner and those members of the mayor's committee on the versus with disabilities they are appointed by the mayor's office and the input is from the HRC the purpose of that committee is to ensure that all persons with disabilities have full access and opportunity in life to the facilities and services and the employment of life that those who are not in the exotic disability also the new standing committee is a diversity and inclusion committee and that committee is comprised of 23 city employers each city department and the purpose of that committee is to promote a general sorry to promote a greater understanding of diversity and inclusion within the employee groups of the city of Fort Worth the HRC is a creation of the city of Fort Worth city council the authority of the HRC is solely within the discretion of the city council the HRC only has those powers that are granted by ordinance to the commission only the city council can add to or take away from those powers of authority and those powers and purposes are found in city code section 17.18 when they read the following situation shall have the following duties number one to advise and consult with the city council and the city manager on matters involving discrimination based on age, race, color sex, religion disability, national origin familial status, sexual orientation transgender gender identity or gender expression the same list of protected classes that are in the ordinance secondly through HRC the commission has the power to recommend to the city council and the city manager measures designed to eliminate prejudice and discrimination in the community thirdly the commission is authorized to promote and encourage communication between and cooperation of all groups in better community relations so by as a consultant to the council recommend measures to the council and promote and encourage communication in a nutshell the purpose and powers of the HRC separate from the HRC is the human relations unit and that and the commission is supported by the human relations unit the administrator of that unit is Andy Rush and that unit is really part of the city manager's office and includes a team of four human investigators index specialists and support staff and you'll see here a human relations unit deals with enforcement issues with police and warehousing practices community engagement and outreach getting at the court out in the community listening to the community and also ADA compliance with the American Disability Act compliance so now enforcement or duties of the HRU those people who do the work hit where the rubber hitched the road as they say they have the authority to enforce laws and conduct investigations regarding discrimination in the areas of housing, employment and public accommodations as I said before the human relations unit is a FIPA fair employment practices agency the HRU operates much like the EEOC does people probably EEOC operates to help ensure equal employment opportunity throughout the country the HRU operates as a smaller version of the EEOC investigating trying to conciliate complaints of discrimination in the workplace the HRU is also a fair housing assistance program in fact the HRU operates under a contract with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate and resolve complaints the HRU also operates under a contract with the EEOC to investigate fair employment cases the HRU includes a staff of investigators with support personnel who will receive complaints work towards conciliation with the parties that is trying to resolve the issues that are presented to them and conduct investigation and issue a determination of cause and take that forward that conciliation cannot be reached except a housing the Federal Fair Housing Act and other federal laws prohibit housing discrimination based on race, color sex, religion, natural origin familial status pregnant women and children of the age of 18 and disability and that's all that is defined in the Fair Housing Act the city's Fair Housing Award and this goes even further than that and also protects more classes of people including sexual orientation gender identity gender expression and gender transgender these Fair Housing Laws cover almost all types of housing transactions you can imagine sales, leasing, private homes, apartment complexes duplexes, whatever you can imagine including also mortgage transactions and financial transactions related to the application of real estate so basically anyone who is treated differently can help their executive class have identified either the Fair Housing Act or the ordinance who have a claim that they can bring to the HRU as violation of the Fair Housing Act and the HRU would investigate that and take action so those investigations by city ordinance let the city show in section 1790C the HRU that is administrative of the HRU who has the power to issue subpoenas for documents and testimonies now this authority comes from the authority granted to the city and the city manager in the city's charter so that authority is then delegated to the HRU administrator non-compliant with the subpoena issued by the HRU administrator is punishable by contempt that's limited to a $500 day fine can't put people in jail the HRU administrator can issue subpoenas only in Fair Housing investigations non-employment matters and not in any quite matters or public accommodations the HRC itself the commissioners are not given the authority to issue subpoenas it's only the HRU administrative and again non-employment and non-public accommodations complaints only in Fair Housing investigations the HRC's role if the HRU the unit finds causatively that legal discrimination has occurred that issue can then be presented to and determined by a three person panel of HRC commissioners that is if both sides agree to that process either side either the planet or the color respondent that is the person who's alleged to conduct the discrimination either party because they know I wouldn't go to District Court and that they can handle it that way both sides agree then three members of the commission will serve as a panel to determine whether a discrimination has occurred the panel here is evidence and members of the decision either has caused discrimination or no cause and those members who sit on that panel are members of the members of the commission who serve on the extended committee for housing if cause is determined in that issue can be litigated later in the court that doesn't happen very often there's only been one time in the seven years that I have been here that we have had an HRC panel determine a Fair Housing case this doesn't happen that often because of the efforts of the HRU in resolving matters before they get that far after the talking matters everyone is satisfied and I'll tell you then either in employment cases or housing cases if a matter is going to be resolved you might find that the employer or let's say the landlord is going to change the policy degrees of change of policy or pay is the inflated some money but almost always and this is the most important part of this is that the HRU insists that the employer or the landlord or the accused of discrimination undergo training by the HRU and presented by the HRU to make sure that these kind of practices don't happen again so then we talk about employment cases I often believe that the federal laws such as Title VII the Americans with Disabilities Act also the Age of Discrimination and Employment Act those federal laws protect people from discrimination the difference in treatment based on their race color or their age if you're over 40 and disability again the city's employment ordinance goes even further and protects discrimination based on sexual orientation gender identity gender expression and transgender those are broader than the federal or state statutes and simply said an employer cannot face the decision to hire, fire, promote or demote a person based on any of those protected classes the HRU does and in those cases I mean is conduct your investigation determine whether cause exists and leave that discrimination has occurred if cause is found then try to resolve the matter if they can't resolve the matter then if you usually go over to the EDOC for further action and the EDOC can then decide whether to follow the lawsuit against the employer now the HRU also deals with issues of public accommodations the city has a public accommodation ordinance section 17448 of the city code that makes it unlawful for any business any place of business to deny advantages, facilities and services offered to the general public to anyone because of that person's race color sex, religion, national origin age, disability sexual orientation gender identity, gender expression and channels of gender those same protected classes you'll see repeated in housing employment and here in the public accommodations as well and this address is the the restaurant who says certain people cannot eat here or have different different facilities different classes of people that is pretty good by the ordinance and also by the federal law you'll see two more than just conduct investigations and meetings and things like that they also reach out to the community so in addition to the enforcement the human relations union is also involved in many communities engagement out of these activities and I've listed a few of these on the board here they handle the they present the movies that matter that are every quarter or so every couple months and I've been to see one of those presentations it's very, very engaging and very enlightening and it's very well received by the community they participate in community events or parades and gift dealers they have presentations to various community groups and they handle workshops as well with issues of discrimination and fair housing and how to treat people how to treat people well now my final substantive slide is ADA compliance now recently the city's ADA coordinator responsibilities have been brought under the umbrella of the human relations unit and as you know the American Disabilities Act requires that municipalities designate an ADA coordinator to oversee and coordinate ADA compliance including the development implementation and oversight of the ADA transition plan now a lot of that has to do with both public issues and the facilities of the city-owned facility their accessibility for persons with disabilities as I said that's the end of a substance of my first stage and I'm certain that we have to entertain any questions anyone has before the questions I want to thank you thank you let's go just thank you also for your presentation question is the, I know it said that you guys have been responding to and updating the city manager and the city council in regard to the issues with discrimination throughout the years that is a function of the human relations commission is there anything as far as written documentation of those conversations it's one of I mean it's not I'm not saying that no one is doing anything I'm just curious if there are patterns that were occurring throughout that are not new which we would all contend might be so and then is there something I think part of that and how you guys have been structured because it seems like we've been tasked with similar responsibilities that have been successful and how you guys have been set up and what has not been successful as far as recommendations that you have made to the city okay and it doesn't need the answer right now but in the presentation there's some similarities in what we're tasked for and what you're tasked for and I think there's opportunity to learn from one another so that we clearly understand not just this year but also in what we've learned this year that hearing from you guys from the patterns and trends that you've seen too would that be possible I'm sure that would for that to answer every Gordon commission was required to submit an annual report so they do submit an annual report to the mayor and council they also make one-off recommendations so for example they did make a recommendation that the city joined us before lawsuit and there's a recommendation another one that's coming up we also have several recommendations coming up from the mayor's committee on persons with disabilities that will be submitted to council now the question is what happens then now I think the right question particularly is about what has been looked at as recommendations as far as what has been discussed and are there similarities I can't assume there have been and what the HRC has had in conversations and recommendations and what this particular task force has heard as we're preparing to make recommendations can we get that information yeah I can provide it the one that comes to mind off the top of my head has to do with source of income we did discuss that we looked at that to see how Austin was faring with source of income as a protected class because that has to do with vouchers and the availability of housing so yeah there is some overlap there is there the ability then possibly I know because that's a lot of information but looking at these committees recommendations maybe have already been done with criminal justice, economic development education, public housing and transportation to give us an indication I can tell you just I have not seen anything that's come out until economic development criminal justice there was some there was some request for meetings with the chief about two years ago they were hiring the HR gives presentations on diversity and hiring we've had police and fire come and give presentations on their hiring and they've made recommendations to police like maybe you should try other recruitment practices Esther you could there for some of it I'm trying to think if you have the recommendations we'd just like to see them yeah that's it it's great work I just would like to see what has been documented that have been recommendations and maybe these particular areas that we're in committees for so that we're aware of them and we can learn yeah one of the things to remember is that human relations commission human relations commission meets as a public a public entity so it follows the Open Meetings Act and nothing can be done by the commission unless that is voted upon and by majority vote agreed upon had an open meeting so the communication that occurs between the commission and the city council is limited is limited by that to get together and have a chat so you have resolutions going back and forth from the commission to the city council saying here's something we can take a look at and I think we've had some of those over the years I think I'm just interested not but then also if you had to be addressed it or not so they made a recommendation I can't tell you why I mean if it's submitted to council that would be a council decision but I can show you I can tell you what's been submitted I have a couple questions related you know the charge is a little narrow more narrow I think in some ways than our charge overlaps but is more narrow one of the questions I have is given it's an advisory group and noting it's a public they have called public meeting rules a public act does the council seek out this commission for advice on issues that come up even outside of the scope I'm going to show you pictures right now but for example Jackie Craven rest that's before other things because again to I think Terry's point there's some overlap or at least you would think there'd be some overlap but then when you look at their definition it's narrower the other question I have relates to the diversity inclusion committee that's made up of 23 senior employees where each department points representative interface at all with any other group particularly with HR within the city because I think in some ways that group not knowing exactly what their discussions are their city and what do we need to say again some of the common things change from within you know if the leadership of the city has to walk the talk I guess that's where my first question the diversity inclusion committee is brand new I mean brand new they've had two meetings there used to be an older committee called the diversity advisory committee that there was like six or seven people and it just floundered and sort of petered out over the years and so we decided when they group mayor's committee under HRC they also moved that older diversity advisory committee under HRC and then we sat down and met with a group that was interested to come up with what are we going to look at, what are we wanting to do they're looking at everything from professional development to HR issues to just actually right now their big push is to let people know that they're there and to celebrate the diversity of the workforce because we have not done that we've had groups like we've had the MLK group have an event but we want to bring everyone together and celebrate all their diversities so they really are just hitting the ground they've already got a work plan for almost to the end of this year and the committees are starting to meet so they're actually I expect good work out of them because they are so engaged and it's a very very diverse group the previous group was not so diverse, looked a lot like me so this is a much improvement over to what it was and much smaller and then we had some departments that may have had at the time, two or three individuals from that department and none from other departments and as a standing committee that diversity and inclusion committee would report to the commission itself at that month's meetings one good question and I don't even mention it in life but you said there have been six changes to the ordinance over the past 50 years and I know some of them were obviously good changes because they added to the protected classes are there any changes made to the ordinance that weaken this commission that come to mind I think I don't recall all six of them but I think they generally do changes over time that's the sexual orientation kind of gender what was the purpose of what was the committee established in 1967 well, if you think about it it was going on in the 60's and Fort Worth was part of a realization I think in various communities that there were racial issues that needed to be addressed and needed to be addressed in an organized way so that's my understanding of why the commission it was in particular I already knew the answer actually the first year of voluntary integration that's right but also we're in the same spot 50 years later but there was also a major demonstration outside of Titty Hall by black citizens on the lawn outside of Titty Hall which sparked similar conditions so God holding you another 50 years and you want to ask that question what happened in 2017 may I ask another question I've just got to point out the photograph so I was right thank you did you hear that over and over again I have a question since it's not known here the city council has the motion to be fairly representative of the population of the city so off the commission that exists right now how many African-American we had two until recently we had a resignation so I'm looking for another African-American and we have I can break that all the different information down and provided so vacant place nine is African-American that's what I'm looking for apparently we don't have any Asians or Muslims out here I'm sorry I do know that I'm sorry geographical areas does not come into play in this is correct that is correct HRU reports the city managers office HRC advises the city council yes how do they interact what kind of reporting does HRU do to the commission once again you're just going to brush for that because she's the one who coordinates those efforts I actually do an administrative report every session let them know what's going on with the human relations unit and vice versa I go back and have staff meetings and talk about what's going on in the commission I think Fernando this is correct I am the only city employee that's evaluated by commission I'm evaluated by the city managers office and by the commission so we report back and forth whatever they want to do I have to try to assist them in doing that you know like if they want a recommendation I'll have to help prepare that recommendation so it's constant I'm basically in an exchange often with most of the members you know like when Estros is on there he can attest it's just constant phone calls back and forth talking what we need to do where we're going is there anything you would like to see the strength in the commission I think the commission works well as is you sure as a legal advisor I think I would say that is could it take on police issues should it it depends on what you mean by police issues discrimination within the police department and discrimination by the police department discrimination within the police department within his own employees and in the community a couple of things that are peculiar with this police department is that they operate in the civil service which is chapter 143 of the local government code and there are certain protections that exist for things like police officers or firefighters employment records and disciplinary matters or matters that don't rise to the level of discipline matters that don't rise to the level of discipline are confidential by law that's very clearly stated in chapter 143 so to give people access to that information in order to look and see how is discipline needed out by police chiefs let's say or what matters are considered and what aren't that problematic because of those confidentiality provisions that are by law that we have to align by as the commission ever recommend a citizen review board well that's kind of what I'm talking about the citizens review board would have those same restrictions upon it of confidentiality that's in the state law maybe I could ask that question if a citizen believes they have been discriminated against by the police department where do they go with that do they go to the HRC do they go to the police department how is that and they wouldn't go necessarily to the HRC because they are seeking relief from that they could talk to city council member or end up filing a lawsuit against the garage by the police against the city and or against the police officers involved and one thing I forgot to mention on the issue of discrimination within the employment of the police department anyone in the police department who feels like they have been victim of discrimination can file a charge to the EEOC and proceed through them through that agency to seek redress of their situation they can't go through you to me personally or the HRC they wouldn't go through the HRU because the human relations you did does not deal with employment issues involving city employees we can take the complaint but then we defer it because we do not want there to be a conflict of interest we don't want that individual to think that we are going to decide so what we do is we defer it to the EEOC just so that you know the police department has every city department prohibits discrimination their state law against racial profiling and so if there is a complaint of that that does go from police it goes to the internal affairs and they investigate it from a police perspective so you can have your civil rights lawsuit because some of the discrimination would be a civil rights violation but if you are looking for a interpolated administrative procedure it will go through to the police department any other questions oh for a third time thank you very much and we appreciate it just a follow up just a quick comment and Chris excellent job as always and Andrew this is about your question Bob Ray I think that has there been changes in the ordinance if we are looking at what HRC does and what it has done it's not just the ordinance I think what would help us see possibilities of that particular body is to look at structural changes HRC from the time Rosa chaired through what I chaired it to now when Rosa and I chaired it was a city department with the department director with a different budget and what they have now so you can look at those structural changes and positions and that will tell you about the capacity one story about the capacity of the commission so the commission has less influence with the council than it does now well it's a totally different structure before 2010 we were part of the community relations we had neighborhoods under us we had communications under us we had human relations under us we had the mayor's committee at that time and the youth advisory board during the downturn they cut a significant part of it they cut the community health piece they said that that was a county function they moved the early childhood learning to libraries they pulled neighborhoods out and they became an office we were no longer a department now I'm sorry it's the city manager manager's office executive management made those decisions we do function a little bit like the department I go to department head meetings and such but we do not have the resources that a larger department has we the majority of our funding in human relations comes from our grants our contractual reimbursements from HUD and EEOC the majority of our operating budget is that and therefore it's limited to what we can do it has to be housing related it has to be employment so there are definitely some limits on our funding absolutely can we get just a line of changes sometimes documentation that we can see the patterns that have been adjusted in ten years because you're talking about more than ten years you're talking about the downturn assuming you're referring to 2008 I've been with them I've actually been a part of this for seventeen years maybe past seventeen years I was with them I did the budget too so I can figure that out there's no line so we can say alright well thank you very much we're now going to move on to the committee reports I know that Ty had to leave so Chief Kraus is going to give us a report and I'm just going before it is even past mentioned that the law department has said that because the committee hasn't addressed the issues of the also being indicted that we cannot bring this up at this meeting but can be put on to the agenda for the future is that correct? I move that that be on the agenda for the next meeting any objections? Chief so our last meeting of the criminal justice committee was February 28 we had two other meetings that had to be cancelled because of the scheduling conflicts since that time at the last meeting we went over several internal disparities within the police department specifically specialized units and specialized detective offices that are underrepresented with minority officers and we looked at why that may be the cause and what we can do about that so we also looked at regarding diversity of field training officers and data sources both internal the policy and the personnel records to show where I can diversity in some of those units we also looked at certain units that are very diverse within the police department and we questioned why they had more participation in that and we're also going to look at think about looking at the city Marshall and the municipal courts that falls under the purview of criminal justice and have we heard back from the sheriff this is the county seat for work and he needs to have a seat here so we can see where his head is that there's no one to know where the station is we have invited the sheriff on multiple occasions and various meetings to reach them does anyone here from the media can someone please go ask why he hasn't responded because this is getting laborious now I'm not going to fight my tongue this is getting laborious he's been asked he should be here by now this is ridiculous sheriff Wilson can come he can come we talked about consistency in training in the field consistency in the field training and we also looked at in the earlier meeting we looked at our training regimen from the field training to the field training and the inserts and the loss of fields and the recruitment we talked about recruitment too yes sir and recruitment is if we can get the recruitment piece bigger better to more match the diversity in our city that itself a lot of the internals fairies that is on the agenda for the next for our next meeting on Monday hopefully that will be part of that that Ty did request some information on the last two years worth of administrative investigations that we have to go over I'm specifically concerned also about the loop closure when you get a call how does that what is the process to get that responded to to close the loop I was going to say I was at that meeting it was a productive meeting I was just wondering because I heard I don't know if it's true is Valerie in Washington no longer over the police department correct have you been given a reason why the city manager the last announced reorganization of the city manager's office with respect to the departments that report to different assistance to the man and one of the organizational changes was to move the police department from the purview of Valerie in Washington to the purview of J. Chopin so chief the city manager did the city manager I mean I haven't heard this publicly did the city manager explain why he made that move he made a variety of changes for example three of the departments reporting with me were reassigned and three others were assigned to me and he made similar changes with respect to all four of the assistance city managers widespread for the purposes of the Morty Moore horizontal management were by the less consequential who the assistance city manager happens to be departments department heads run their departments the city manager's office the city manager and the four assistance city managers collectively make decisions that affect the entirety of the organization but he didn't say why I don't know why specifically he reassigned the police department he intended to make widespread changes and as it happens the police department was one of the many departments that shifted to probably half the city department shifted from one assistance city manager to another and that happens you want to any other questions for the thank you chief grass very much Charles economic development I believe we've met twice since we last reported to the full group last last Wednesday we've been doing a number of things one of the more important ones I think is actually reviewing the current initiatives of the economic development department because they have a number of new initiatives that we are fully supportive of but that many of them are in the other stage we've also had input directly from Mr. Thornton Kim to one of our meetings I asked Kim directly what's the one thing in the area of economic development that he would recommend that we as task force would recommend to the city council he said to fund the strategic plan that the big 600 page document that got introduced to the council two months ago whenever it was so it's sort of my mind anyway that seems like a very legitimate thing you've invested in this consultant report to tell you where to go with the economic development you need to follow through with it he said there's some obligations on the private side and he says as the forward chamber they're stepping up to fund their piece of I think you look at it also to do the same thing it's I'm reminded that we've had the same conversation with respect to transportation we've had the same conversation with respect to the 3D report in the police department of these are prior recommendations that have been made but they largely have not been implemented so we don't want to be in that same spot right so something to keep in mind as we go forward any questions Robert Bob is traveling so he's not here we've had one we're starting to hear from our subject matter experts we haven't known the one on Thursday as we're refining and these subject matter experts are the ones related to the draft so that process will continue we have at least four I think four more individuals identified that we need to hear from before we can really solidify our draft report questions thank you you alone just not here Mary? yeah I can yeah our last meeting we met with subject matter expert Braydo Quinn who dealt with Project Fort Worth a lot of our last discussion was focused around nutrition education food access, food desert and Fort Worth and then something that came out of the specific conversation was where health and wellness fall within the strategic plan in the City of Fort Worth comprehensive plans and so that is one of the action items that we looked at between now and our next meeting we did kind of narrow down to identify the top health disparities that we're kind of going to focus on infant mortality, obesity hypertension, diabetes and then the fifth one just being overall access to care and so there's a couple of different programs that the subject matter expert recommended and we will be looking further into those because the next big thing that we're looking at is where does health and wellness fall within the city's plan thank you very much any questions thank you Katie, Halsey we, following our all day work session we discovered it was incredibly helpful to meet with members of the other subcommittees because there's so much interceptionality in housing and development housing and criminal justice and so we are having a joint meeting tomorrow with the three committees and we're hoping we can tease out areas that perhaps economic development can start focusing on so that housing can stay work tightly focused on issues affordable housing is a huge issue and particularly is now that this housing level because landlords and they don't need vouchers they don't need to there's no incentive getting people out of homelessness the biggest cause of homelessness is people fall behind on rent and are affected the biggest predictor of being homeless is a previous incident of homelessness so economic development is a huge part as is transportation so having the three of us come together to talk I think will be incredibly productive and allow us to focus more clearly on areas that they can make recommendations on and we can make recommendations on effectively do you want to add anything to that Jennifer or terrific thank you I look forward to hearing what the subcommittees talk about their conclusions great idea transportation so Jennifer would you like to well I would say Judy and I and Arthur were at the last meeting two weeks ago this week a lot of groups have gathered a lot of information we had a great team from the city presenting to us last meeting around conditions and transportation related to streets sidewalks all those infrastructure piece really digging into the data so I think we're working towards the possibilities of getting towards those actual recommendations that's been a great resource sorry but we have a transportation committee with the board we've been informed to participate in that we're going to start meeting every two weeks we do have a meeting on Wednesday and somebody from the transportation committee would like to participate you know well I have to say before this meeting we had at four a meeting with the city staff and the chairs of the subcommittees to go over some of the interim reports and what is going on and I know all of us want to thank each and every one of you who is on a committee and we're chairing the committees for all this great work that you guys are doing on behalf of all the co-chairs we also want to thank the city staff for everything they're doing in helping guide and be a resource to the committees what you are what we're all doing here in the subcommittees is definitely going to influence the future of what works so thank you all very much if there's no further on that we'll move to future meetings leave that to you on your agenda you have information about upcoming meetings your next regular meeting is scheduled for Monday April 16th the third Monday the month and as we indicated to the committee chair it's a four o'clock meeting it's important for the task force to complete work on its interim report at that April 16th meeting we're asking all the committees to submit their information about the extent of disparities pertaining to their topic and the cause of those disparities by Wednesday April 11th so that we can disseminate that information if possible to the full task force in advance of the April 16th meeting so time frame is short for completing the initial work of the task force committees and identifying those disparities and the causes behind them and thereby allowing the full task force to complete the interim report at that next meeting on April 16th so we have much work to do between now and then the interim report is scheduled to go to the City Council Tuesday May 1st at their regular work session at three o'clock we would encourage all task force members to be present as a show of solidarity we're asking the four co-chairs to share responsibility for presenting the report to the full council at that time I don't think I can over stress the importance of having completes and accurate and objective data about disparities to reinforce the credibility of this task force and I want to echo the remarks of the President and Chair about the great work being done by the committees because the committee work really lies at the heart what this task force is doing we appreciate your leadership thank you any closing remarks from co-chair I just want to once again extend personally not only my thanks to our thanks and you've got an email about a Passover Seder that I'm putting on a citywide Passover Seder for the entire community and please if you'd like to comment it's not too late just let me know and we'll be happy to post you once again thank you very much and we're adjourned