 Everyone, we're going to get started. We did have forum and hopefully some others will be coming in. I know Normanda Harper could not be here tonight. She is taking a trip. And then Mary M. Frias did text me earlier. She's got stroke throat. So we said stay away. We love you, but we understand. So I want to thank you all. Something to go to line two on opening remarks. We've had a long journey over the last year and a half. But I want to thank you all for your commitment, your time, your energy, your expertise in helping us get here to this point where we'll be reviewing the final recommendations to go to council. I'm going to turn it over to Lilly. I feel like I would just echo that. It's been a long journey and we've stuck with it. And I don't want to thank all of you for doing so. Hopefully we'll get some good results. On December 13th, 1999, with the day I was ordained, I had to pick a verse to go on it. And I picked some 119 verse 35 that says, God guide me on the right path for the path of human story because that is the path I have chosen. And then it sent me off a path. It said the same thing on July 17th, 2017. Because that was the first co-chair meeting. God guide me on the right path because this is the path of equality that we have chosen. And I say it today as well because this is the path of us trying to set the city on. And I have to say I felt blessed being ordained. I felt blessed at our first co-chairs meeting. And today I not only feel blessed but I feel thankful, thankful for all of you who have been able to work with and become friends with. And truly I think God has put us on this path and I thank God. I thank God personally that I've been able to walk down with all of you. So thank you very much. Usually I just say amen to him. Which I do, but I'll add a couple of things because I noticed that the mayor is here and she leaned on me a bit. I never do that. You always do that. She leaned on me a bit to be on this task force because as you all know, I had doubts. But I want to thank you, Mayor, number one for having the vision to do this. And it's been a journey. As they said, it's been a long journey. But as the bookie-byte turns you say, but he didn't bring me this for a leave. And I kept telling people, and you quoted somebody, I'll quote Frederick Douglass who said, for there is no struggle, there is no progress. For power concedes nothing without demand. And nothing we're doing here is a demand, but we do have recommendations. And what I would say to David Cook, who also twisted my arm a bit, both of you, the mayor and the city manager, depending on what we do here tonight, we'll have a responsibility that I hope that the community holds you to. Not that we're not demanding anything. We're making recommendations as you asked us to make. But if nothing comes of this, if nothing comes of this, I'm not saying you have to implement everything we suggest, but if nothing comes of this, this city will have failed. We will have failed. And I'm just saying, for the record, I'm ready to get through with it. I really am. Tell us how you feel. Because I got old. I'm the same age as the mayor, just in case y'all didn't know. I've gotten old and I would love to see something change in the city before I leave it. And I'm through. Well, and I think we as co-chairs have said that this is the beginning for the city to work, to bring and bridge our communities together. So next on our agenda is remarked from the mayor and our city manager. So Mayor Price would like to hear from you. Sure. This is a big news show you have. I'll just go down there though, because I like to look people in the eye and talk to them. You can come in a little later. They can hear you. But I'm not going all the way to the end of the podium. That's too far down. And I rarely get accused of having a local mode of voice that you can't hear. I can't believe how people would actually talk about what he said. You know, really, I just want to thank all of you. What you've done, you've done a tremendous job of working on this. And I did and did believe most of your co-chairs to do this job. And I'm particularly glad that I'm laying up my brain. And everybody, after we explained what we wanted, came along very well and was willing to, I don't think any of you, co-chairs or any of you members realized that it's going to be as long a journey as it has been. But it's a very worthwhile and truly has been an incredible journey and, as Bob Ray said and we all know, if we don't do something with it, then shame on all of us. Because I think that we got to a place where we were doing what we've always done and we know that the definition of insanity just keep doing what you've always done and results. And I don't think that we're to that point for work. I think your work you sent me off the sidelines as a citizen who really cares who's willing to tackle the tough issues has set an incredible amount about where we go. I think the recommendations are going to be taken very seriously by council. I know they will. I don't think. I know they will. I know David and staff that take it back, bring it forward most of the chance for people to have it and get it taken. Obviously there will be some on council who don't want to accept them all there will be some who want everyone of them but I think that we can come to a great working relationship on them. So much of what you're recommending has already been done or is in the process of being started. Early childhood education is in a great spot. We are really beginning to move forward and stay tuned. This year there's going to be a couple of really exciting announcements on early childhood education where we are particularly in a couple of communities that really are deserts for child care, quality child care, not just child care quality child care. I think our Healthy City initiative has gone a long way. We've had the pleasure this weekend announcing that we got our blues on this education. And somebody said this is such a big deal. It's a big deal. And you haven't seen the statistics. It's really a big deal because when we started our blues on this work Gallup comes in and they surveyed every city every major city every year anyway on well-being and beds at half for 15 years. And when they surveyed us five years ago Fort Worth was number 185 out of 190 cities on the bottom of the totem cup. We stored almost at the bottom of not filling the communities. And I'm proud to say this year's Gallup well-being study showed we were number 58. And our largest guidance have been made in the SOPSICS poly area and the near and far sign, our lower income areas. And really, those areas we thought were going to have a really push the hardest in that we had made the most guidance in those areas. So we're starting well, and I'm pleased with our recommendations to work on public communities. Our affordable housing piece, like all cities were way behind on affordable housing rentals and everything else got ahead of everyone. We've got some major solutions. We've been working very closely with our partners at HUD and Turner Housing and several other to see how we can. And our new recommendations every one of our recommended products will have some look at affordable housing to try to incentivize developers to work on that. We're working on mass transit. We commissioned several months ago an update with Niagara consultants who did Trinity Metro study to see what can we do that's innovative. We put how much in the budget this year, David? About a million. About a million for innovation and transportation. You have to get people interested in trying to get them on transit. But you have to make it easy for developers and we love that you're implementing that. And our economic development strategy, I think, has many great things that will help us on it. I know the civilian oversight of the police department is one of the ones that you have really wrestled with. I think your recommendation to look at this and study, see where the best practices are, but to really do something goes a long way. I think, I know council will take a look at that and will work on that. The redistricting process a lot of talk already going on about that. What's the best process to handle on that. But I do say that at some point you simply have to have citizen input. Probably maybe not full control, but at least a partial blend where people do have some input on it. But we take very seriously your work and I think we owe it to the citizens for them to have a chance to see. It's unfortunate that the instance that led to your creation happen. But on the good side, oftentimes God puts things in our way that we don't want to deal with. That we don't want to see and He's going to force you to open your eyes and take a hard look at them. And I think that's what this community has done. And I think we're a city of compassion. A city who comes together when an issue is raised. And this is an issue that we can't address. No child's zip code should determine the future. Walter certainly say that sometimes. He said it too. No adult should struggle with their past indiscretions, whatever, or the fact that they didn't grow up in an area where they've had the advantages that some of us have. It's up to us to try to work on all those and really make an effort. And I know that your recommendations are going to go a long way towards helping with that. We already have an idea on how they move forward with a group to begin to implement that. I want to discuss it again because we will discuss it with y'all at some point. But I've got some things working. David's aware of that. Fernando, too, of what we might do to reconstitute some things and get a group who is solely responsible for implementing your plan here. And you're seeing that it's equitable for all. So mostly, thank you. I know this has not been easy work. I know you've taken hours of planning. I've set through council meetings that lasted 12 and 1230. I can imagine doing it over and over where you've had meetings that went through three hours more, maybe four and ran. And not always happy people in front of me. And you didn't sign on just for the good times. You signed on to the better of our community. And we are eternally grateful for that and looking forward to accepting the report and seeing how we begin to go about implementing that. Thank you all. I'm not going to get to stay with you because I've got to go to the neighborhood meeting and I've got to do a ribbon cutting to the North Side Health Community Center, which is another big plus in a community that doesn't have health care access. We're opening both those where there is a new health care clinic there tonight. Thank you all. Questions for me? Thank you. Thank you. The first is the thank you for the time you've committed to this effort. Yes, we twisted our arm. And for the rest of mine, just thank them every time we saw them. Because I know that, again, the time you're going to get involved in the work that wasn't used was, we said the long journey, let me just grow in, difficult. Right? So we asked you to please go out into our community and talk about race and culture. Identify disparities or inequities that might exist in the city. And then recommend how we're going to change some of those. That's not an easy task. The whole conversation about race and culture right off the bat is not an easy conversation. Right? And then we asked you to do that throughout our community and identify those things and then recommend to us what we ought to change so that we can make a different future than what the current state of Fort Worth looks like. And there are so many positive things about the city of Fort Worth that we need to keep doing. And there are perhaps some things we need to take a very hard look at the city of Fort Worth and say, hey, are we going to go about changing those things so that the future can be different than our current state? So I've read the recommendations. What I appreciate that is in those recommendations is really an identification using data of what some of the disparities are. Right? It's hard to argue with data. When you say there are parts of the city, whether it's affordable housing, whether it's public health, whether it's education, whether it's economic development or criminal justice, there's some data that shows that we have some room for those disparities or inequities in the city. And we don't. We would basically want that to continue. Right? So then the question is, what are we going to do then differently to change it? So there are recommendations in there that suggest how we should do that. We are going to take that very seriously as you heard the mayor talk about because there are some things we definitely need to change. And others, no doubt. But starting with data on how we have disparities and inequities in the city that we need to address makes it a little bit easier to deal with. I won't make it an in-passion, but it's on data and we need to change some of those things. The other thing that I recommend reading in there is had the city manager will do... And then there's a date. By such and such the city manager will fill in the blank. And I take that very seriously. We will take those recommendations actually first. I want to get ahead of it. We look forward to receiving them. And then we will take it very seriously and have a plan in place to move those things forward. Some can be moved fairly quickly. I think you can tell which ones might those be. And some might take a little more conversation, a little more discussion, that every single one of those recommendations will be taken seriously. And we'll have some mechanism to get a report that back to you and to the community of large because we really owe this to the community of large. You were the most persons, I think, to the community to bring the recommendations. Because they're really what I wanted to be the first to form those. Thank you for the time. Because I know the time commitment was great. And I know the effort that everybody put in is meaningful. And again, we look forward to seeing you on December 4th. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next on our agenda is the approval of events from October the 15th. Does everyone have a chance to review those? Do we have a motion to accept? Second. All in favor? Aye. Number five, review and approval of final recommendations. For now. Thank you very much. If I could ask you to turn your attention to tab one of your binder. It contains two items. It contains a one page summary of committee provisions for September 24th draft and recommendations of the task force who will recall at your last meeting who decided to proceed with the September 24th draft and review that draft with respect to all the public comments that we received in the open house meetings. And consequently, all the committees reconvene and discuss their recommendations again in detail with respect to those public comments. What you see at the front of tab one and also on the screen is a summary of revisions from all the committees. I think I can say in general that revisions are relatively minor in scope. But I think it would be worthwhile to go through them so that everyone's well acquainted with them. Of particular significance is the criminal justice committee and as I summarize these items that the committee chairs or committee members wish to elaborate or comment that that would be appropriately appropriate. The committee wanted to specify a preference to create a civilian review board with different models of civilian oversight but to provide information about the other models of civilian oversight so as to recognize that it's one of several which the city may wish to consider but the task force does express a preference for the civilian review board model. We also added or reinstated arrest data as a measure of the review board's effectiveness. Todd, do you want to add anything? Okay. I imagine so. I can't believe that. I have a question for you. You changed the title from oversight to review. The title is still civilian oversight. Okay. But within the body of that section it makes specific reference to the civilian review board as preferred model. Back to economic development the committee had no changes. Charles they were satisfied that the public comments did not warrant any changes in the recommendations. The education committee changed two of the recommendations service learning and civic engagement explaining how civic engagement can result in academics and success as well as the title of the high school walking centers to college and career centers to provide greater clarity and to rebrand the ghost centers which currently exist as college career centers to clarify their purpose and success. Bob any comments? Under governance the government committee did make changes on all three of the recommendations. First with respect to the independent citizen redistricting commission they wanted to add data on disparities and voter participation. That was a figure that we actually did not have and I want to thank staff from the planning and development department that did extensive review of data from the terror county elections office and we were able to determine the percentage of voter participation in the city generally. And neither figure is impressive now in the recent midterm elections we saw some extraordinary participation rates in some counties opposed to 50% participation but participation in municipal elections historically has been visually low. If you look at the last mayoral election which was contested about 8% participation citywide 8% in minority neighborhoods that figure was closer to 7%. Neither figure is a bragging point. Now the committee is recommending some very modest objectives of 9% for minorities as well as for the general population but I'm hopeful that it will be much greater than that but that's one of the changes that the government's committee recommended. With respect to the mission of the human relations unit they wanted to specify the formulation of an equity policy as a responsibility of the proposed assistant director and chief equity officer if this is a new authorized position that we would be asking the city manager to recommend to the council for creation through the fiscal year 2020 budget. And finally in respect to diversity training the government's committee wanted to add training not just for city employees but also for elected and appointed officials. For the city council and for members of the board and commission Charles Rose and the others want to add to those comments. In respect to health changes relatively minor changes in three recommendations health education and outreach adding Texas AgriLife extension it's a listing of support organization active lifestyles citing examples of all this programming and again adding Texas AgriLife as a support organization finally under healthy foods adding the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a partner. In housing in London is not here I don't know if there's anybody else from the health committee who wished to comment. Sir? Did you say health or housing? Health and housing is next. Housing did make two recommended changes affordable housing incentives policy adding a requirement that projects receiving incentives must accept rental assistance vouchers to make those vouchers more broadly available citywide and in respect to resident awareness the housing resources including certain specified topics within the scope of fair housing education and Cady's here if you wish to I just thought I misheard you I meant to say health health and finally transportation they wanted to specify in the translation equity policy and five-year action plan that the policy would be a part of a component of the city's overall equity policy which would be formulated by the human relationship so that is a summary of the committee of revisions in the banter happy to answer any questions if not I'd like to turn your attention to the next document under tab one and that is what we're calling the November 6th draft of your recommendations that is it is virtually identical to the September 24th draft with the exception of those revisions that we just described on the previous paper so that is the November 6th draft and it would be appropriate should there be no questions about it to entertain a motion approving the November 6th draft as the final set of recommendations from the pastor does anybody have any questions I just want to make sure this is a recommendation we have made to the council yes these are the substantive recommendations and in the moment I'd like to walk through the slides that you will be using to convey these recommendations to the council Katie clearly the mayor and the city manager have seen these recommendations oh yes I guess I was naive or a little surprised about that since we haven't presented them and they weren't really finished yet well there are the draft recommendations that were circulated to the public they saw the same things that the public saw so I have to say what we heard here tonight sounded to me an awful lot like a rebuttal and an explanation of why what we're recommending isn't necessary it's just an observation not a judgment and mine too for that one because the recommendations have been reviewed by a certain group of different folks and so we've even received letters or at least emails from someone that was recommending something different from what we had proposed already and so my concern is as we go forward we're really truly going to support what these recommendations are considering when someone else is already viewed and they've got their opinions circulating on it is that a question that's the statement and if you'd like to expound on it I'd be happy to to attempt the response and I think you'll see it in a moment that we're asking that the task force co-chairs in presenting these recommendations to the council would be echoing what they just said earlier today that action on these recommendations is vitally important that's the question these recommendations have been reviewed and considered prior to us going forward to the council they've been considered that concurred with the public review yes they're keenly interested well I know about our public review but I mean a special group of folks have viewed these and made recommendations because we did receive we did receive where there was another opinion that was given to us of what we should actually do well the co-chairs could meet with a group of business leaders twice to get to get their thoughts about the drives recommendations and we're talking about cultural we're talking about racial cultural diversity disparity was there anybody in that was that a group of what work looks like if they met with it it was a group of business leaders that did not reflect the diversity of the community which they recognized immediately the people around that table they were all white men and they recognized that and they recognized that but the other thing is to your other point in fact I spoke to the first minister of this church yesterday who asked about our process and I told them that we as a body were almost done I mean today we would make our final recommendations then it's going to be up to them some of us would stay involved obviously but and I didn't get from the mayor the feedback I'd be getting from the city and I may be wrong and I don't think I'm naive but I could be wrong is that they're willing to go with what we're recommending now they got to figure out how to do that and as I said before we're not demanding anything these are recommendations well I know there's power but there's money but there's votes so when you look at that and you think about the 25 business representatives that are there that are previewing this stuff even before the citizens got a chance to look at it I just hope that everybody is really willing to step forward and really look at it to make service changes but I think what we have to make sure is and I think we've been trying to do that tell me if I'm wrong everything we've done has been on the website we've been trying to tell people that they can go and see it and I told them because after tonight what will this be on the website tomorrow morning this will be on the website anybody who wants to see it can read it judge it go to it and again I don't expect the city to do everything that I want but I if they do less I mean severely less than what we're recommending this city is in more trouble than we could imagine and I just have faith that they won't do that now again I haven't had any private conversations with the mayor or the city manager but I publicly stated before if they ignore this if they just put it on the shelf and ignore it we got a serious problem and one of the things that we were promised at the very beginning is that this would not be put on the shelf that's why the forward bus committed to saying that we would agree to co-chair one of the comments I've made and I hear what you're saying I'd just like to make a comment about everybody having seen the recommendations I was sharing what's going on there a minute ago about his response letter you know we said at the very beginning we mean to everybody in this room that we want to be transparent the meeting we had with the business leaders was intentional because what it does is it says this is what we see as issues by the community not by us but by the community from all the meetings we had what are your thoughts nobody in that room said anything negative it was how do we plan to do this and that and one of the comments that I made to the business leaders was when you control somebody's employment you control their life because they are in a situation where you have a lot of influence what are your commitments we had Berlin to Northern Santa Fe for instance talk about how they were hiring people with backgrounds they want to help and when you look at the room you're talking about companies that have 26,000 30,000 employees you can't go out and impact the whole community the way this will without getting input from all levels they're not going to come to these meetings they won't come to the community conversations but we wanted to get them engaged because they will have a critical role in helping us to drive to execution where we put together so no one has tried to veto anything in fact they were asked to present their comments about some of the recommendations that are out on the internet they've been out there everything we've done is busted so you had people say maybe we could do a little bit more here maybe we could promote hiring a little bit differently I was really encouraged by we also got the buy-in from Fort Worth ISD on the police cadet program and TCC and UTA I was just responding to the fact that we were talking about transparency that actually happened no we weren't transparent to the group we talked about the meeting with the community leaders so I don't sense anything your last comments I noticed the same thing that we're talking about but I didn't see it as part of a hierarchy I saw it as getting another group like a focus group or a separate group is that accurate? yes not part of a you needed this before you could go on to this had to have an opinion where we could get there into it but I didn't have to say an initial reaction as far as the makeup but it is good to have business to look at it we wouldn't buy in from all groups on all levels to finish my attempt to answer Mr. Dan's question one of the recommendations that I think the co-chairs will be making to the council in December is to have the city manager go back to the council within three months by March of 2019 with a game plan we're implementing all of the recommendations from the task force and highlighting those recommendations that have been most prominent in your discussions and I don't think any other recommendations have drawn any more attention than has civilian oversight of the police department and so and redistricting and a handful of others but to give you an example within the last few months the city manager asked a consultant the matrix consulting group from California that's working with us on a study of the police and co-compliance staffing he asked them to amend their scope of work to add a study on civilian oversight by the police department this group of matrix consulting group happens to be national experts on police staffing and on civilian oversight and they are prepared to present an impartial study and I've spoken with the principal the CEO of matrix consulting he says he's prepared to to support civilian view board or any other model that the city may select and so we're prepared to proceed immediately in studying a civilian oversight model looking at the three major models that are described in your recommendations and considering whether one of those three models or some high grade of those models would be most appropriate for work involving various community leaders business leaders state leaders folks in minority neighborhoods who are most directly affected by the inequity involving them in the process of evaluating these different models and working with the police associations and the police command staff to recommend a civilian oversight program that would be appropriate for our community what's going to be the result I don't know that would be up to the screw working with the city manager that's an example that I want to give of how I believe the city manager is committed to acting upon these recommendations I think he intends to pursue it to the extent that it's feasible one of the things that this three month report would call for would be an assessment of how the recommendations in the aggregate would affect the fiscal year 2020 budget we have a preliminary assessment that's been prepared by our budget staff and we'll show it to you in a moment it appears under a tab too but we'll want to look at it more closely the city manager will want to determine how much of that funding he's prepared to recommend in the 2020 budget so he's committed to do that so I am confident that he's going to take these recommendations seriously I think different people can hear different things I heard him say he's prepared for things and I just need to interrupt just for a minute when you talk about what they said it's because they've been reading these documents and what I heard was they're already thinking about what actions they're going to take how positive is that I mean with the community leaders the bigger employers what else would we how else could we have how else could we have gotten their input what would you have recommended to get those individuals input and feedback on the recommendations so if there was a better way to do it let me say this my question was when the timing when it was done it was only completed in recognition but again y'all have seen things that I haven't seen so I understand that it's all been stamped it's all been stamped it's all been a draft since the beginning so it's not fine I'm fine with it and I'm pretty picky I'm pretty picky we don't have to keep going over this that's the question I know something that wasn't mentioned here did happen and so I just want to check in just to put it out there we want to make sure we follow through because I received and just like probably you received an email which goes to the contrary of what we had put and given the reasons why we should have this or that already and it came from an important person in this city what specifically are you talking about when Andrew and you wanted to pass the information on to me so just to put it out there what was it there was the chief sent something out to us the chief did send some comments with his own recommendations about civilian oversight and I don't think the committee agreed with it and what the committee put forth is not what the chief has recommended I think we also submitted some comments from a former mayor Kenneth Barck Mr. Barck had his own views about civilian oversight that we're not consummate that's a powerful letter from a former mayor he was part of this group of business that has the bias of the 25 guys that are that's my point and so I'll leave it at that and so we are confident that this is going to be taken for what it is it's going to be serious to look at as we move forward so I'm fine with it you've already brought that out and that's the point that I wanted to make and so when you have an audience like that you have that kind of power in the room you have somebody that's powerful that has a concern or a different idea of what this committee has and it's already put in writing you cannot tell me that the rest of them have seen it and the idea is there so again we are going to as a leadership here we're going to make sure that these recommendations go forward and be transparent as we go forward so that those kind of things for one individual can determine whatever happens absolutely as a place to the former mayor I mean some of us quickly understood that he has a relationship with the POA the police so I don't want to get into all of this but he's had power and he may still have to power it didn't affect me because it didn't affect any of us because we're still wanting to go with the recommendation that your committee had to put together and support that I'll tell you what we need the help of the people in that room and the fact that they were willing to look at the recommendations and they hadn't all seen we asked them to look at it and give us some feedback from their level and they all did and I was just really impressed with the commitment they made and how into this process they were and they came and met the first time when we introduced the concept and if they're into it then they came back again when we invited them I would like to move forward they really did a good job and we reported that to the screen I'd like to improve they did a good job you said that we needed a motion it would be appropriate I think Rabbi Bloons made a motion to accept the final recommendations they did November 6, 2018 do we have a second all in favor all in favor okay next on our agenda is review and does any oppose I think we saw lines from everybody okay we're not until December 4 review and approval a final report to the city council Fernando and that's under tab 2 as it was mentioned earlier I'd like to share with you in the previous form the draft recommendation that the task force was headed to the council on the 7th and 4th and I'll run for these slides quickly perhaps pausing a few that are significant the intent in this briefing is to review a background on the appointment of the task force for those who may need a reminder who haven't been involved review highlights for the main person to report that was a significant event that I think served to establish the credibility of the task force until that time I don't think a lot of folks considered this task force to be doing didn't know what this task force was doing and I think when we presented a report on disparities the extent of those disparities and the cause of those disparities and how we then intended to proceed toward recommending actions addressing those disparities I think it caught the attention of the community but this task force really was something meaningful to review some of that background on this occasion then the Hardley report is presenting a summary of the findings and recommendations and finally discussing fiscal impact municipal services and next steps toward implementing the recommendations and so some background on the appointment going back to June of 2017 with the council called a special meeting on this topic the resolution that was adopted on August 1st 2017 this is the composition we currently have 22 members of the task force four co-chairs and 18 others you'll see your names on the slide we want to explain why the task force went back to the city council and requested an extension of your deadline you originally had a one-year deadline to complete your work by August 1st of 2018 you asked for more time to December because you wanted to involve a broader segment of the public in a broader range of activities you also wanted to broaden the scope of your study as you'll recall when you were initially asked to undertake this work you were only supposed to overseas a few 30 conversations not hold any town hall meetings not have a lot of the public engagement that you actually undertook and you were only going to look at a few municipal services you were not going to look at the broad range of issues that you eventually looked at but you decided to hold a town hall meeting that was not in your charge and in that first town hall meeting you heard from folks speaking with a great deal of passion about their lives and for work about the quality of life the day experience and for work maybe very different from the quality of life that we experience because of the inequities that are critical for race and culture and I think this task was a move by what you heard and you said we're going to look much more broadly at all of these and you decided to establish six committees eventually seven looking at the sources of all those inequities all to your credit and so you need more time to finish that work you also want to have a more thorough public review of your draft recommendation that has taken weeks if not months to undertake we undertook a lot more leadership training including training of interested citizens across Fort Worth and therefore you requested the extension which the city council granted so just to review of that background review of the top ten issues that were identified through the community conversations also a review of some of the major final needs from frequently expressed comments that were made in the public meetings that the perception that the city was doing very little or nothing to improve racial relations racial equity and cultural awareness the nature of the problem is systemic structural institutional racism and that we have failed to acknowledge the problem thereby compounding it making victims of racism feel unheard and causing perpetrators to feel empowered and I need to continue these discussions the public meeting to review the draft recommendations and then then we have a chance to get into the senate committee topics in some depth and the co-chairs have agreed to slip them up as they did before in the initial findings and so we'll ask each co-chair to present at least two of the topics and with respect to each of the topics we'll be asking the co-chair briefly to come in the extended disparities the causes of those disparities to focus primarily on the recommendations of the task this is where we want the co-chairs truly to focus their attention what are the recommendations the 22 recommendations and then briefly on succession what are the ways in which we are going to measure the reductions in inequities over the next five years and into the future and so moving quickly we'll ask to cover criminal justice again extent to the causes of disparities the recommendations will focus on civilian oversight the cadet program and the diversity within the police department and some of the measures by which we determine our success so we'll then ask the speakers to cover economic development disparities the recommendations and then the success the loom has agreed to cover education and governance and so the education recommendations the governance recommendations and then Mr. Sandwich has agreed to cover the three remaining topics health, housing and transportation again focusing on the recommendations themselves and we'll wrap up with Ms. Dambajars who will cover fiscal impact, municipal services and next steps this is our preliminary assessment by the budget office that it would cost close to $3 million in next year's budget to implement all the recommendations that the task force has made $3 million in retrospect I think you'll agree this is a relatively modest cost estimate but it's still significant and whether the city can allocate $3 million in a time budget remains to be seen but you have been very malicious in making recommendations you have not made recommendations that would be irresponsible quite responsible in considering the cost of your recommendations and so this is I think a very modest request one that can be taken seriously by the council and I think much of the credit of the task force if you had recommended $50 million of actions by the city council in the 2020 budget I can assure you you would have been done in a right way I think $3 million is due whether it be done or not of course is a function of the budget process can we have what percentage of the city budget $3 million is it would be a very small fraction of the general fund budget the general fund budget is about $700 million so if you run the numbers that's less than half of 1% I think expressing it that way that's great great minds would it all be due this year this is this year this is the first year there are other recommendations that will involve expansion in future years you took a snapshot of fiscal year 2020 and the first year recommendations will be more costly than future years so just in one year it's roughly less than half of 1% of the general fund budget adopted by the city council and then you see expenditures to be incurred by other entities across including the Texas workforce but mostly city forward also it includes a 7 full time authorized staff position to implement the recommendations scattered among the different departments, economic development having the biggest impact with 3 full time positions and then 20 part time positions for the cadet program in the police department relatively inexpensive you'll recall that we hired National League of Cities to facilitate some of the training and also to conduct an analysis of disparities in delivery of municipal services they were not able to complete all the work that we assigned to them and therefore our staff is now completing that work it has not been reviewed yet so that is work that remains to be done and we'd like to complete it within this 30 this 3 month time frame within which we're asking the city manager to report back to the council implementation of the recommendations so we're asking Mr. Abelhard to talk about the work that remains to be done which is only a brief mention yes $100,000 and the language of the contract was broad enough that they could claim to have done the work we asked them to do we were not satisfied with the performance we reported our own happiness to the CEO of National League of Cities but they met the minimum requirements set forth in the signed contract and we had no legal basis to withhold payment we actually asked them to complete their work and they said they had done what they had been obligated contractually to do we weren't happy with that response but legally we didn't have a basis upon us to withhold payment and we didn't want it to break here that's unfortunate because I imagine they could have gotten other clients other cities from their network but that's their loss and we decided we decided we decided it would be easier just to finish the work and not call the work that remains to be done I'm going to create an organization that the city wants to contract all right and then next steps we were asking the city council on December 11th the subsequent city council meeting to adopt the resolution accepting the task force finding the recommendations and authorizing the city manager to proceed in implementing the recommended strategies and actions so that's a resolution that will appear on the December 11th agenda of the city council we would encourage those of you who can be there on the 11th to remind the council about their support for the records and then by March 2019 in that three month period we'd be asking the council to receive a report from the city manager on the status of implementation including particular emphasis on some of the more prominent recommendations provisions for civilian oversight of the police department we want that to be priority number one tell us what you're going to do to provide civilian oversight of the police department and get the council to act on whatever recommendations the city manager by March would prepare to make I can't think of a more effective way to force some kind of action some kind of decision by the council are you going to do it or not within three months appointment of a charter review task force you heard Mayor Price I think it's fair to say she was less than 100% ready to proceed with the recommendations about redistricting and you're not recommending specifically that we require a redistricting commission you're only recommending that we appoint a charter review task force to study this issue and come back with their own recommendations on the feasibility and desirability of independent redistricting commission I think that was a wise way to refrain and I think if you get an impartial group of citizens studying the issue they may very well come up with the same recommendation that you wanted to make about creating this commission so that's one of the action steps reorganizing the human relationship to have some entity in the city government that will be driving the implementation of your recommendations as part of the commission right now we have the human relations unit it's headed by Andy Rush and most of their time most of their resources are devoted to investigating claims of discrimination with respect to housing and employment and public accommodation they also staffed the human relations commission a building chair of that commission others have served on the commission for many years Estrus led the commission and so that's an important function but we're saying that the human relations unit can do a lot more to promote diversity and inclusion and actually to drive the implementation of your recommendations as their principal charge so that's an important step completing that assessment of disparities in municipal services and finally having the city manager conduct his own assessment on the impact of these recommendations on the 2020 budget and determine what he's prepared to recommend I think if you know Mr. Cook you know he is a budget hawk he is very deliberate about the budget just as Mr. Boswell was when he was our city manager he's very careful about what goes in the budget and he's going to scrutinize all the task force recommendations to determine how much of the three million dollars he's prepared to include in his recommended budget so we're asking him to make an assessment and report on it by March and then by December 2019 to have the city manager actually publish a first annual progress report for the community to see what we've actually done to move the needle on the various disparities that you have identified so this is a run down of the recommendations and the report that the task force is beginning to the council please read this on the floor does anyone have any questions is it possible when this assessment of disparities in municipal services is completed can we indicate there's further budgetary impact to close that that would add to this report the question our future holds as far as the group and go forward with this group but I guess my question is when can we be kept apprised of the milestones as they continue I think that we can make a recommendation to especially today our city manager that he updates this task force on the progress that's been made we've even done so far as to create a report card like a dashboard so all of the reductions or increases depending upon which recommendation all of that will go into a dashboard where it's monitored by the city council members and of course by the city manager that's there and in this particular this particular work and it will be on the website as well so that the community can take a look at that as well and my hope is that everybody on this will stay engaged I don't plan to I'll just be honest but I'm hoping the rest of you will be paying attention and all of these I say I've been dealing with this for 40 years y'all and I'm tired so I want to get through it but particularly you millennials whatever times I'm expecting you to hold the council and repeat to the fire and again and I'm using some of those recommendations to the person they applauded including and especially I mean they applauded most of on the registry commission because they understand you just got through the election so they understand the importance of that so I think once it gets communicated to our public they will be involved and I hope most of you will be as well if you heard Mayor Price earlier this evening she did say she's getting thought to how we might bring together the right folks to oversee implementation of your recommendations and I expect that she'll be calling on some of you to be part of that I think especially because we have an election coming up to spring right and they should be made aware that this should be an issue in that election right as part of the election process I have a question to clarify did I just hear Barbara Sanders so you didn't plan to stay involved in this? yeah that's what he said you can't run into a room that believes that I'm believing because you're looking at me now so it's a booking I'm through I'm through any other questions going on to line up 7 our future meeting oh sorry we'll take the motion to approve the presentation that will be all in favor any opposed eyes have it line up 7 future meetings as you all are aware on December 4th we will make our presentation to city council we need you all that can attend we welcome that on December 11th we really would like to have you all there if you can come please RSVP because we're trying to keep a section open so that we're all together okay so let Fernando or Michelle know that and in closing remarks I'd like to say thank you all again for all the hard work that you put forward to approve these as our final recommendations and when we go out of this room let's stand together on those final recommendations so that we support each other's work and time that's been put into these recommendations ask Lily to give closing comments well I would just add that a perspective is really the driver for a lot of things you know and so hopefully you feel that your perspective on what the issues are and put some of the recommendations or other recommendations coming from your groups and from our group collectively and that we own it you know people see things differently and that's okay I think it's good to challenge each other and if we beat you down we'll often we ask a question sorry about that good I don't have a word good you know we just I think sometimes you know we question each other and we should and that's what's been this group works together is because nobody's ashamed or afraid to step up and speak up so I would just say thanks to everybody for the great job that you've done I look forward to the presentation and if you have any time please come and support us as we present to the city council in that pre-council meeting it can be pretty intimidating even for some people like us so if we look at your faces in the audience I'm sure we'll feel a lot better so if you can come and then to the city council meeting to the December 11 city council meeting it's your work you've done and you deserve to be there and so we need you there okay thank you yeah I want to thank you all as well I think one of the first meetings I mentioned that the worm piece in Hebrew has the root of a unity and I think we have brought some unity together hopefully we can bring some peace to the community but bringing peace to community doesn't mean just quieting things down it means bringing things forward and hopefully we can move the needle forward but once again we've taken one step and this is not the end but just the beginning the springboard for the next step so thank you all very much and I look forward to all of us continuing as part of the city part of the community and as friends moving things forward in the future I've said enough so I'll simply say thank you to all of you and especially to those that I got involved in their process you stuck with it and I appreciate that very much I just hope that you'll keep sticking with it so I'm done thank you all but also I mean we always have some closing comments but I'd like to hear from you all Bob would you like to say anything about your experience you know for me I think being probably the newest newcomer to Fort Worth in the group I've been here for a little over five years it was enlightening both in a difficult way of learning of the systemic disparities that do exist and the challenges that do exist and the attitude of many within the minority majority communities of the lack of attention that the city has given to their needs over the years but at the same time I was incredibly inspired by the many many people that we met along this journey who are doing incredible work throughout the city and particularly in the area that we did a deep dive in within education we have some real heroes in the city that we can be really proud of and we just have to figure out the best way to elevate their work highlight their work leverage the people that really care to provide a better opportunity for all of our citizens to the four chairs Bob Ray, Rabbi, Rosa, Lily to Fernando, to Estros to all the city workers, thank you your commitment to the city to all of our well-being has been truly appreciated and it's been an honor to serve with all of my teachers if I just might say something but the CEOs made a comment about how many things were being done well and forward in fact he said we do so much and now we're getting this we're not doing enough and I think the group kind of answered this question differently they responded that we're not doing enough maybe but my comment back was when one member of the community and heard we have to help voice for them because what's important to them has to be important to all of us collectively and when one of us is raised up we're always up so that was the response to him but they weren't all about Ian they thought why are we doing this because you know we do so much the so much isn't enough it's not enough as you say Tony? I don't say too much I know we haven't given us the opportunity at the last meeting but one thing that I'm just going to comment on is my final remarks with Bob Ray to mention something that I agree with him on he has been in the fight for 40 years and I think it's incumbent upon myself and my generation to take the time that not only Bob Ray has started to do but other individuals like our four co-chairs and a lot of other individuals and so I know when I sit in this seat that I know not only represent myself but I represent my generation in the next wave of leaders within our community and I don't take that obvious effect and put it on the scene Yes, I just think this group has been so much fun it's like an eclectic kind of a mosaic representation in my community I'm really excited to see the dynamic of just us, you know here and I love that that there was an outreach to all the parts of the city and that they're marginalized or listened to and there was really a voice given where maybe there hadn't been a voice before and I hope that that continues and I feel so inspired by I don't know just the community and the partnership and the collegiality that we found and the folks that we can continue to create that voice in the community to listen to everybody and to be heard so it's been really an amazing honor I'm so proud of our mayor for being proactive and calling a task force to take on such a difficult topic Thank you Katie Well it's been a privilege to be part of this I think for me the town the conversations in the town halls were the most important piece and I guess my biggest hope is that the people felt heard not that they just had a chance to talk but that they felt heard and I think one of the ways we've proved that is fighting recommendations part of me, you know I feel like the woman I saw on one of the marches holding up a sign says I can't believe I'm still and I've edited that comment but I think like the rabbi I want to offer us a blessing that I hope will carry us forward as we go into the next months tracking this work May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths and superficial relationships so that you may live deep within your heart May God bless you with anger at injustice oppression and exploitation of people so that you may work for justice freedom and peace May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain rejection, hunger and war so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their anger to joy and may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world so that you can do what others claim cannot be done to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor Amen Yes, it's been a honor to serve on the Task Force It's been a great journey and a great great experience for me as well I'm working alongside some great people I'm a strong believer that I didn't get a group of people with the same purpose so it's going to be some great things so I'm proud of you guys for the recognition Thank you I did touch on some things all that's been said Bob Reagan, you made that comment I actually thought I have pictures of you helping working and talking to our young adults when I don't know whether it was probably all the way back to when my grief was counting the judge but definitely Judge Vandegrave of you working to talk to young adults about what they could be and I still believe, I guess I'm foolish that we can be an impact we have never had enough dollars to provide the training the work experience that we would like but we try to touch as many lives as we can actually this has made me think of more ways to connect with people and maybe stretch some of those dollars more. I love connecting things with Drizor but staff crazy but I appreciate it all all the comments and I've learned a lot I still learn a lot appreciate the co-chairs and also big big thanks to the staff I know all the committee work I've always been impressed with the work they did in the interim between each of those committees so thank you Jennifer okay so I thought you were going to hit me last but that's okay sorry I'd like to echo with my colleagues have said I've met some incredible people on the way especially through the community conversations and people that I wouldn't have the opportunity to work with otherwise I think the biggest thing is to say continue to learn continue to challenge what we all think we know and then also continue on with what we know we know and you know I'm a big believer in being the changes you want to see in the world so that's why when this came up and I reached out to first and others to be on this you know some said I was a glut for punishment so I guess that makes me feel too charged but it's been so long and I'm going to echo this again of the folks that thanking the staff some incredible folks that we worked with on the special transportation and I learned a lot and look forward to seeing where this goes next well this was the first thing I volunteered to do for the city since I retired 10 years ago so I picked a doozy you know but I appreciate the opportunity I sold myself to Bob Ray I appreciate his confidence in picking me I got a lot of staff again this was a hell of a process I'm just telling you somebody who's been on the inside doing this this was terrific work Robert and Fernando and Michelle and Angie everybody that contributed to this it's just amazing and sorry I just think the final product would not have the integrity it does without that very thorough process so we do owe it to the staff and the leadership, the co-chairs to make it possible so thank you all thank you just the fact that I'm really encouraged by both the optimism and the passion in this group I think it does reflect who Fort Worth is I am somewhat apprehensive as to whether in fact voices will be heard according to what's reflected here I think a lot will depend on the voice that we project and obviously the passion that we do it with but I have found out that the people here will encourage others to be the same and as a result I think with God's grace we'll move forward and with His mercy we'll get it done first of all I want to thank you guys for the work that you've done I know you've had to put a lot and putting it up with me is not possible we love you I'm going to ask a question I still remember our breakfast in Esperanto I remember our breakfast in Esperanto but anyway I've been really encouraged by what we've done and what I see here it also reinforces something that I began five years ago in Fort Worth HD and that was bringing this to Fort Worth HD and hopefully what they're getting out of it and doing with it will be doing the same thing that the city as a whole the other point I was encouraged to to hear the mayor talk about early childhood because at that same time we began early childhood and built facilities out because we did not have the capacity but then I feel as a habit to take care of every single child in the district which is something we have been going on now and it's been expanded so I feel very encouraged by what we're doing I think that we have the right people in place right now to make sure that we have a good followers group and I know you've done an incredible job and I really appreciate the fact that you really paid attention to us in the governance committee to make sure you had a group that was set aside and I gotta tell you Charles I really appreciate you because whether you understand what you did seven years ago when you talked about the other four word it resonated throughout this whole process of making people start thinking so you should be really thankful to us so thank you I still refer that because I still have a copy of that I still send that out to people to remember that inside the lit there is another worth that we have to take notice of so thank you again thank you all and the staff I mean Fernando y'all have done a layman's work and I'd like to give you the last words for the staff I really appreciate your leadership your service to our community you've actually doubled our workload for the year we're actually great also we have a little celebration down the hall just to wrap up and say it was a little something to say thank you I would like to say thank you to Gary who's been here at every one of our meetings putting the video together and getting it up by the next morning so I see that we've won it and he's been with us every month so I appreciate your work on that and also for the community that has been here with us and sitting behind I know Jim has been here at every meeting and I want to thank you and all the others that have participated to come out to these because I know you both will have better things to do than to listen to all of us but please stay go down to the hall and we have just a little celebration to say thank you y'all are the citizens y'all are welcome