 I want to thank you all for being here today and I know it's a hot, it's not even, it's not even summer yet, but we have work ahead of us and we're very thankful for your commitment. I do want to start off by just saying that, you know, today we have two presentations with us today. Some of the things we're going to agree on, some of the things we may not agree on, but we're here to listen, learn, and learn how to work together going forward, together as we all do here in the city of Fort Worth. So thank you all for being here. The rabbi cannot be here today, so I'm going to read you a little statement that he sent to us, and it just says, friend, good evening. Let me wish you blessings for tomorrow, for today's meeting. As I mentioned, I will be unable to attend due to Jewish holidays. I look forward to hearing about the discussion. Please relate to the opening co-chair's comments the following, and I'm reading his email. Good afternoon. I hope everyone is well. Unfortunately, I am unable to be with you today, as I am in the midst of celebrating the Jewish holiday, Shavon. I would like to thank everyone for the honor that you are extending to our invited guests, each other and the entirety of Fort Worth. I hope that we will all keep the words we are made wise, not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibilities for our future. And that's a quote from George Bernard Shaw. In the forefront of our discussions, for building a shared and responsible future is within our grasp. Let me wish God's blessings to us as we continue to build a responsible future for the entirety of Fort Worth. So I think this says a lot of what we will be doing today, but I also want to give our co-chairs, Lily and Bob Ray, a chance to make a few remarks. Oh, thank you. That was very well done. I just want to thank everybody who joined us May 1, downtown, when we did the presentation at the City Council. We walked away feeling encouraged and wanted to share that with you. Some of you were there, and I think if you wanted to add anything, you certainly could. We had a great meeting and left some of them. Left some of them asking, what's the next step? What do we do now? So we have full attention on the things that we elevated. Hopefully you spend some time where you get the final product and that if there are any changes or ads and all, you will build on that because that's exactly what they got. So good encouraging news. Thanks everybody for being here today. I'd just like to say that some of you know that I was skeptical of coming into this process because I wasn't sure if the city meant what it asked us to do. After we presented to the council the other day, I was really impressed that they were impressed that we needed the council. But I also heard feedback from people who didn't trust this process beforehand and I was criticized for people saying, we know you guys are not going to do anything. And they still decide that at the end of this process, but in the middle of the process, what they decided was what we had already done, what you had already done, what you had already done, made a statement. Those findings that you presented to the council said, we know there are issues in Fort Worth that need to be dealt with. That surprised a lot of people in Fort Worth including critics, people criticizing me in the process. So that was a major hurdle, I think, that we got over. That we presented something that the city acknowledged as being credible among other things. Now, as I said, the big problem is what do we do next? The solution. Yeah, and that comes to you. I mean, you committee chairs, you people on the committee. Hey, come back with some real solutions that we can present to the council. Will they follow this? I don't know. But the reaction we had from the mayor and the city council was very positive at that meeting that we had. So I was impressed by that. And I think we will have a finished product that will help guide this city. And maybe many others. I was reminded just this week that the Human Relations Commission, which was founded 50 years ago, because I was with Dr. Dwayne, the first black member for Fort Worth City Council, who was presiding at the time that commission was formed. And he said, you know, the first, they heard from about 50 cities around the country saying, how did you do this? How did you create a Human Relations Commission? And Dallas was the first city to ask, send me what you have. My hope is, is that in addition to our own city embracing what we do, there will be cities from around the country who will say, tell us how you did what you did. So I think we're at a good moment here and I didn't mean to talk that long. So I just want to thank all of you for everything we've done with what we're nine months in. We've asked for you to give a few extra months. I apologize for that, but I think it's for the good of what we're trying to do. So thank you. Thank you. I would like to ask if anybody that was there at the meeting, the council meeting, pre-counselors, y'all have any comments about what we all saw? Charles? I just want to say I think all four of the co-chairs were an outstanding job of presenting. You didn't hold any punches. You just laid it out there straight. And I was impressed that it was well received by the council. Almost all of them had positive feedback and I felt encouraged just like pumpkin. Good. Anybody else? I'll also say we did ask the council because as you know that we have some leadership training going on. And we asked the council if there's any of them that would like to have some of that training for their districts to please reach out to us. And we have had a couple of council members reach out to us. Kelly has been one of them. And then Brian Byrd has been another to do some leadership training in their districts. So I want to give you all that information. The next on our agenda is the approval of minutes for the April 16th. If you've all had a chance to review. Several errors. Yes, there are several errors. Any minutes? Okay. Can you let's review them? Sure. On a few minutes. There are three. We're at Sheriff Weyburn. The first statistic that's given 80% did not have a high school education. According to my notes and according to the video that I reviewed this afternoon that number is 90%. Second statistic, 80% did not have a father-in-law life according to my notes in the video I reviewed this afternoon that number is 90%. Third statistic, 25% of the prison population is under the care of MHMR. After I looked at my notes and reviewed the video that number is 40%. And I also believe there's some... Yeah, you can review the video also. I feel free to. Also there's some other important information to share because he talks about prevention. Which would be really good to be in here because this is what we're wanting to see. Because he also says that 70%, for my notes and for the video as well, 70% of those who are fatherless and have no diploma, 70% of those who are fatherless or who have no diploma will end up in the care of MHMR or in the county jail. 70%. And he also says, he said that he really strongly recommended that we work on preventative action, which would be working with the state of Texas to cut the red tape so that people can adopt. I think it's very important to what we're doing here. Rosa? Yes? I just need some feedback from the task force. Our staff was asked to go through training with the city secretary to make our minutes more succinct to match what minutes are really supposed to be. And because of that, these were much, much shorter. If you want us to go back to how they were, I'm fine with that, but I just want you to know why they were quite a bit shorter this time. Because the staff that is responsible for doing the minutes were told that our minutes were more of a transcript rather than minutes. Of course, and I totally understand how you should deal with minutes all the time, but one of the other things is shorter doesn't mean reducing the numbers. Sure, sure. And I think that 25%, you mentioned 40, there was 25% are diagnosed, 15% were like not diagnosed. 40% is out of the care of MHMR. Okay, I'll double check. I'll double check because I looked back and I wanted to say it said 15% were not under, but they thought that there was some connection or something. They're undiagnosed. But I'll double check. Anything else before we go on further? Jill? Oh no, fine. All right. One of the things that we might want to do is take a look at where this falls in our committee structure. So it could be something that we provide, Todd, with your committee so that you have this information. So it goes on to your recommendations as well. Okay. And I don't know if this is appropriate time to bring this up. I know we're tasked with the city of Fort Worth and going into the county statistics. Is that an avenue that we want to venture off in? Or even going into the city of Fort Worth? We were tasked for the city of Fort Worth. I would just ask though. I would add to that the one most impressive thing about the presentation is that it was data driven. In addition to the format and, you know, fax count. So I would say city of Fort Worth to the degree that we can get more data. I think that speaks because we're not in isolated. We operate under town. Does that make sense? Yes. And I'll also add that and particularly since now Fort Worth prisoners are going to be housed in the Tarrant County jail. And I would add to your comments Tim that the sheriff didn't know a lot of things that I thought he should have known. Or at least didn't give us information on that. That we still need more information about Tarrant County. That to me that's important. I mean Fort Worth is the county seat of Tarrant County. And again, it goes back to that maybe something that your committee could, you know, get that information. Katie, you had your hand up. I was going to say almost the same thing that Barbara just said. We can work a lot. So at this time we can table these minutes until our next meeting so that Angie can have time to go back and, you know, make sure that, you know, all the numbers are correct and so forth. Maybe add a few other data points on here. Sure. Can I take a motion to table these minutes for our next presentation? Second. All in favor? Next on my agenda is a discussion about equal access to public accommodations, including enforcement of dress codes, codes by bars on the West 7th Street. As I stated earlier, you know, we're going to hear some things that we're going to agree upon and maybe not agree upon, but we're also going to talk constructively. We've got some guests with us today that are going to talk about the Bar Association. These are the leaders there in the West 7th. We have Tino DeFranco with Westie Bar, Marcel LeBlanc with Velvet Fox and Brian Falk with Bar 29-0-9. So we'll go ahead and open it up so that you can, you know, let us know a little bit about what you all are doing on this topic. Do you want to read our opening statement there? Tino, do you have that with you? Sure. My name is Tino DeFranco. I'm the president of the West 7th Restaurant Bar Association. Is that better? I'm also one of the owners of the Whiskey Garden Bar that's in the area. One of the things we would like to say just to dispel any rumors that are going around is we do not racially profile or discriminate in any manner at all. Not on our customer base, not within our employee ranks, not within our owner ranks, not within our management ranks. It's just a false rumor. And that's what I'm here to address, you know, address the concerns. Now we do have reasons that we do deny people. We deny people for, you know, reasons of safety, reasons of appropriateness, and for dress code. And the dress code is not discriminatory in any manner. So I'd like to say that I'm glad that we're having this discussion because I think it's important that we do communicate because sometimes things are assumed that aren't correct. So that's why we're here. Hi, my name is Marcel LeBlanc. I own Velvet Box. We are the only retailer in the core area south of Crockett that's independent in the bar area. And when I read the article about varsity, I never bothered to ask James if it was true. I thought like a business owner. My first thought was how could the Fort Worth Weekly, who he gives advertising dollars to, ambush him with such a one-sided article. I've worked with all of these bar owners in the core area at some point in time. And first and foremost, we are all entrepreneurs. We have invested our life savings in the core area and want to see it do well. We take everyone's money as long as they are not intoxicated or destroying our property. Safety is our number one priority. My following statements are about community and my direct neighbors. I'll tell you a little bit about how I met James and Josh, the owners of varsity. When they first moved in with their incredible popularity, I had people that were climbing up the backside of my building, destroying my property and moving the gas line to the point where I thought the building would blow up. So I went and introduced myself to the gentleman at varsity and they walked over and saw the damage that their patrons were doing to our building. And they retrofitted the building according to my specifications and they never sent me a bill. In addition, bar 2909 who moved in directly to the east of me was putting a lot of pressure on our parking. We are one of the few people in the entire core area that owned the building and have our own parking. And it was greatly inhibiting our business. So I went to the owners of bar 2909 and explained to them what kind of things that were happening to us. And so we worked out a deal where they help us to pay for a parking lot attendant to work on security on the weekends when the traffic is heaviest. So this is how our neighbors work together for the greater good for the community. And that's all I have to say. Hi everybody. My name is Brian Paul and I'm one of the partners in bar 2909 and part of the West Seventh Restaurant Bar Association. I've been in the industry for a long time since 1982. So I'm definitely one of the older people in the industry down here. And been a part of a lot of different associations and been a part of different clubs all around the country. Anywhere from North Carolina to Nevada to Colorado and all over Texas basically. Came to Fort Worth and started doing business here back in I guess it would have been 2000. And the one thing that I really love about Fort Worth and what really made me feel good about being here and being part of this community is in the restaurant and bar business there's a lot of competition and people that compete hard with each other. And a lot of times relationships with different bar owners are very coarse and not very friendly. The thing that's been wonderful about down here is when we joined the West Seventh Restaurant Bar Association we really didn't know what to expect. And what's great about here is all the club owners get along very, very well. They communicate very well. They share concerns in the area on what's best long term for not only the association but also for the city of Fort Worth. We work hand in hand with a lot of different facets of law enforcement whether it be TABC, whether it be the fire marshal's office or Fort Worth PD, gang tasks force and everything in between basically. And we've been a part of different meetings with the stakeholders and stuff that are the property owners in the area. And I guess to wrap things up, I just want to say that I'm just glad that we're part of an association that communicates and if there's any issues that need to be dealt with I know that this association is more than capable of dealing with it. That's all for me. Do you have a limit on the number of minorities you've won in your establishment at any one time? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Let me say this, and again, I've never been in any one of your meetings. I just grew up in Fort Worth. I've covered these situations for many years. Would it surprise you to say that many of your dress codes are straight out of the night from 30 years ago when bars in North Dallas and downtown Fort Worth had the same ones and they were meant to discriminate against blacks and Hispanics? Would that surprise you? Yeah, it would surprise me. Since we had the meeting with the gang task force and stuff in Fort Worth, I would say that the dress codes that we have at this point in time seem to follow some of the warnings that they've been giving us. I'll just ask one more question. I'll shut up so that you don't need to ask. Have you seen a Facebook posting? This is something that the Human Relations Commission used to do where they send in to these establishment people of one race who are admitted and there they come in with the same attire, somebody who is black or Hispanic and they're denied, which, I mean, there's a Facebook posting right now and I don't know who they are and I didn't read it with me and I don't believe everything I see on Facebook by any means, but the fact that people who are white wearing the same thing that people are black get admitted and people of black don't get admitted, do you think that happens? If that happens, it's an isolated incident. That's not indicative of our... Who decides that? Who decides? All the business owners, as a matter of fact, before any of the incidents that they brought up about varsity came about, we already got together proactively encouragement from Fernando about coming up with a uniform dress code because we agree. We want it to be fair. We want it to be universal. We want to be all on the same page. That's one of the reasons we formed this association, but is it... We wouldn't discriminate against one race for wearing something for any reason. If we don't allow that, we just don't allow it. But if... A couple things. One, can we get a copy of this dress code that you've adopted? It was just my apologies. It's a blank it took from being out of town. When was it? Does it say when it was adopted? We are still finalizing it, but one of the... This is where we started. If some of you remember, Kung Fu got into some trouble in Dallas and the Justice Department got involved and the Justice Department changed their dress code and approved the dress code. Now we based our universal dress code on that Justice Department approved dress code. And that's where we started. Here's an example. Here's an example. Sometimes there's dress codes that are appropriate. For example, I have a pool in my bar. You can wear swim attire in my bar, you're encouraged to. But some of these other bars aren't going to allow you to wear swim attire, it's not appropriate. So you'll see that on my dress code, but you won't see that on theirs. Some things aren't appropriate for Fred's that might be appropriate for me, if that makes sense. Is there going to be a complaint process? So if someone's denied access for any reason that there's some way that they can... We enter a complaint with it. Tom? Tom, thank you. One of the differences between the Justice Department approved dress code and the dress code that you all have, there are apparently four differences and I'm just wondering why. No biker cuts are best. It's on yours. Accessing visible tattoos. Specific brand style shoes. I need Jordans or Timberlands. Accessing visible jewelry. Can you explain to me what safety... how those are conducive to productive banning us or conducive to a productive, safe and fun environment? Yeah, I'll be happy to speak on that. In Texas, there's... when it comes to different biker facets and biker gangs, you have the Mongols, the Outlaws, the Pagans, the Sons of Silence, Hell's Angels, and some other, you know, and Banditos and so forth. So what cuts are is basically their tags or their colors and stuff like that. So it's gang-related. But we still enforce that unilaterally. It was just a few weeks ago where we had... there's also a police chapter called the Iron Pigs, of all things, that they're a motorcycle club, and they don't get access either because we just have to stay consistent with it. In regards to the... what was the other question, ma'am? I'm sorry? It was a specific style. Shoes, Jordans, excessive visible tattoos. Tattoos is something that was brought to our attention to really watch out for by the Fort Worth gang unit primarily. And there's different things that you're going to look for. You're going to look for different things like cobwebs. Cobwebs signify a lengthy prison term. A teardrop means that they have committed murder. Five-point crown is the Latin king, so if you see a crown with five points, we look out for that. Three dots means my crazy life, which is also something that happens in prison. A clock with no hands means that they've had significant prison time. If you see double lightning bolts, that's the Aryan Brotherhood, and the lightning bolts, they stand for the SS. Then if you start seeing different area codes, like 817 or 713 or 512 or anything like that, that signifies where that facet of the gang is located. Facial tattoos, we watch out for those especially, because then you're talking MS-13 and you're talking Aryan Brotherhood at that point in time also. Do we get a lot of that down there? No, we don't, very little to be honest with you. But it's still stuff that we pay attention to and do our best to keep the area safe. From being in this industry for a long time, I've seen different areas that have had a lot of challenges, and it wasn't too long ago when you look at what happened down at Deep Elm. I don't know if it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago or whatever, but it was a thriving area and it ended up getting a very large contingency of the wrong crowd down there. It pretty much put Deep Elm in a very, very rough position for many, many years. It was literally tear gas at night, and some of the club owners down there were literally putting bottles of water and coolers outside their front door so their patrons could wash tear gas off their faces. We're very fortunate here in Fort Worth to have a robust nightclub scene and a very safe nightclub scene. And I would argue also, I'm very, very confident as a matter of fact, and we can't speak for all the bars or anything like that. We do have a good relationship with most of them, but more than anything, I think that the West Cemetery is one of the most diverse places in Fort Worth. I mean, I don't know how many on this panel or in this room go out to the West Cemetery at midnight on a Friday, Saturday night. I see more diversity there than I see anywhere. We're in the business to make money, but we're also in the business to keep everybody safe. If somebody comes up to our doors and they're dressed properly and they're acting properly, they get access. We like to make some money. The excessive visible jewelry. That started back in LA years and years ago. And when it started in LA, it was probably back, and I will agree this is quite a while ago, like you were talking about. It was probably back in the 70s or the 80s when the gang issues were really, really huge out there. And that's where a lot of the baggy clothing and stuff came into also, because when people would come to, when the different gang members would get arrested, they would, to avoid having to do long prison terms or anything like that, they would literally take everything away from them to prevent them from hurting themselves, due laces and belts and so forth. And that's where it became a, a signification of real baggy things. And jewelry was part of that. It, you know, one of the things with the jewelry is, you know, it was considered the more the merrier, whether it be real or not, and the shinier the better, and that was part of the gang attire back then. Yes, my question goes back to the question. I don't think you addressed about the specific brands that you used about Jordan and Timberlake. Why particularly those two brands? Yeah, it's, once again, I'm no expert on any of this stuff, but I try and do the best I can to keep updated with it. The, the Aryan Brotherhood, MS-13, what they're going to try and wear is they're going to wear Cortez, I think they're called Cortez shoes, where they're basically kind of a Nike, and with a, you know, Nike swoop, but not high top. Some of the other gangs, they call it kick-ups, in which, and those are primarily, is very white and very new, high top tennis shoes, whether it be Jordans, or whether it be Adidas, or Pumas, or Converse, but being new, you know, is the key. That's something that a person does look out for. And also, also Timberlin, Timberlin works shoes also. So, that, you know, I've had a career in handling gang persecution, and I've never seen the Aryans, particularly where Cortez, in particular, Jordan brand shoes, and banning Jordan brand tennis shoes and Timberlin's in particular, what type of individuals have been turned around primarily by these two brands being excluded? And then I will also ask that you consider Spears as a particular brand, or Cowboy Western Boots, a particular brand to try to look at a particular gang affiliation when you're trying to return to a patron. Go ahead, Tina, if you want. Yeah, it's not, again, it's not based on race. It's based on the full presentation of what they're wearing. And yes, we turn away everyone. I'll give you an example. I own Jordans. I don't go out in them, because most places don't accept them. Here's another example. Five years ago, when I had a bar, we didn't allow Adidas three-stripe white shoes, and that changed because it just kind of went away as popularity. We didn't allow polo boots, and that changed because it just went away as popularity. What we've noticed is that the dress code is dynamic over time. Thirty years ago, like he said, I couldn't get into a bar with visible tattoos at all. As a man, I couldn't get into a bar with facial hair. I couldn't get into a bar if I had earrings. I couldn't get into a bar if my shirt was untucked. But that's all changed now. So it is dynamic, and we do address it. Are cowboy boots? No, I don't look at it as a risk, but for example, going back to the tattoos, I didn't know this, and I've been in this business for 27 years. When the gang unit came to us, do you realize the Cowboys logo, the star, the Cowboys logo is co-opted by some of these gangs? That's my favorite team. You know what I mean? But I have to look out for that. I have to see. I might not turn you down, but there's some, there's sometimes the full picture when a guy comes up and he looks a little nefarious, he has some of those other tattoos and you see a cowboy star on his hand, you might go, oh man, I don't know. But it has nothing to do with his race. It has to do with the way he looks. Let's go one at a time, Yolanda. Question for the chairs. Did we have an opportunity to reach out as far as an invitation to the owner of the Varsity Tavern? Because it sounds as if these are representatives that they were not there at the incident. So I don't want to hear a second hand about a situation. Did they not respond? No, we did invite Varsity Tavern to participate in this discussion. They respectfully declined because they are the subject of a formal complaint that's currently under investigation by the Human Relations Union. Can you guys talk for a second about how frequently patients are turned away? Is it a daily thing, a weekly thing? Can you quantify it a little bit, number one? And second question, how much time do you spend communicating to your staff about how to go about enforcing the dress code? It is, we have a pre-shift meeting every shift on the weekends and those are our popular times and that's discussed every single shift. Every single shift. How regularly? We turn away people quite often but it's not based on dress code. There's a lot of reasons we got to turn away people. People that come in with, try to use fake IDs. People that come in or... Based on dress code. It's every weekend. It's every weekend. What would you say? What would seem to be black or brown? I don't know yet. Do you think you should? No. Why not? Because in that behavior then, aren't we in that what we're fighting against? No. That's why you're here. That's why we're here. I'm turning away a person based on my belief that there could be trouble. I'm trying to pre-empt that. Thank you guys for being here today. I hang around that area quite a bit. I had a corporate apartment in the lofts of Web 7 for five years. Very familiar with the area. Very familiar with the shift between day and night. I'm a member of LA Fitness there. I'm there almost every day. I'm waving at Marcel. I don't go into your business. I've had plenty of opportunity because I'm there a lot. I'm just there. I had plenty of opportunity to talk to just about any person I could find younger who would go into these businesses. And I asked various ones, just on my own, of all colors, have you been turned away? The answers came back every single one of them said yes. They all said I also asked the questions you felt like any of this is racist. Some of them said yes. Most of them said of course not. Those are the people that I just sampled. I just was talking to people at the gym, talked to the people at the parking lot, talked to the people on the street. I run into a lot of people know me around there so I'm not, you know, they know I'm not too scared to be out here. I'm too old to be over there. But I did just go ahead and do my own surveys. Every single person that I talked to, every younger person who's tried to get into one of the businesses have been turned away at one point or another. Which just means that it's being enforced. It's being enforced across all, you know, colors. I can't say whether there's, you know, certainly I don't know whether there's racism at play or not. But in the event of an employee, I have employees, you guys have employees as well. In the event that you have an employee, some of that you've hired, and they make a bad judgment call like that. And it can be beyond a bad judgment call. It could be racist because I can't judge person's heart. They might be racist. I can't judge the heart, but sometimes the actions speak louder. And in the event when something like that does come up, what are your procedures? How do you deal with employees who you can see, they're going to cause you problems, because I know you guys are small business owners. The last thing you need is, I think like Marcel said, less people coming in and spending money. You do want people coming to spend money, although I'm not going to spend money in any of your places. But, I know that you're about doing business and you want to do business, you run small businesses, and it's small businesses not easy. How do you deal with those employees? Firing. Have you guys had to fire people like that in the past? I did in a few bars I worked in Dallas, for sure, but not here in Fort Worth. I would like to say that, even though I'm a retailer, I still have to deal with the overflow from people at the bars. And we do sometimes not allow people on a regular basis Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday to come into our retail establishment. And it's incredibly hard and we, you know, it took me, I probably interviewed 100 security people as my parking lot attendant before I found someone that would be appropriate to represent my business and the level of service that I like to give to my customers. And it's, you know, he's in his 50s, he's got kids, you know, he's lived life quite a bit. And it's very hard. I mean, when you think about safety and, you know, because I have all women, young women that work for me, and then at that hour of the evening they're drinking and we ask people or deny entry to people, as many white people as ethnic people for misbehaving or not dressed properly or not having, you know, their shoes on or anything like that. But it's really hard because when you're in that situation a lot of people that work for us or younger people, they don't always make the best decisions and they do the best they can while trying to follow the rules and sometimes you can't foresee how they're going to interpret those rules under a stressful situation. But, you know, that's our experience. I mean, I can answer the phone every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday going, what do we do about this? And I'm like, well, that's crazy. I never even thought about that. I've even had friends where I've had to call and say, I'm sorry, but you're not welcome or if you've had any type of alcohol consumption whatsoever. And those are people that I know. I mean, it's just not okay to behave that way. So I think it's a really difficult job especially if you're hiring people in that pay range and that age range for them to make all the best decisions in the world and represent the values of the actual owner. And I think when people make mistakes, it doesn't represent the entire business but, you know, it just does represent that they've made a mistake and it's how we fix it that matters. Well, I'll turn and then Katie. Yes, I have a couple questions. What do you consider the average age of your clientele? Between like 25 and 40. I agree with that. And are you aware that Jordan also made tennis shoes just for coming shoes, not a basketball shoe? Yes. So you deny those two? Not all the time. Sometimes, if it's a, like I said, sometimes when it's an all-white shoe or an all-black shoe, it's more of our focus. Well, you know there's a difference in focus on what groups of kids actually buy those shoes, right? I do. And I know we'll get it wrong sometimes. I agree with you. An African-American kid or an Hispanic kid who I'm most of the time? Well, you know, the African-American kids, Asian kids and the gangs do wear those shoes. They're popular. Yeah. But there are different types of shoes. There is. And again, you know, five years ago we didn't include Air Force One's but now we include Air Force One's. You see what I'm saying? Sometimes it changes. It just depends. Katie? Yeah. Miss LeBlanc, you mentioned in your opening you said sometimes we feel like if we don't get the news like we should get it sometimes because maybe we feel like because we've got to add some place or something, but you used the term you were ambushed. Why would you use that term? When I read the article I felt like it was a very one-sided article. I mean, I just that was my opinion was that not me personally, but I felt like the business owner was ambushed because they've worked with Fort Worth Weekly on several projects and with advertising. So have I at some point in time. And I just thought it was not a well-rounded article was my opinion. So I started the weekly first? Oh, sorry. I read it in the store. I read it the first article that I read. I don't know what the chronological order of reporting was but the first one that I read was in the Fort Worth Weekly and my point was that was that not that James is I never even occurred to me to think that they as business owners were racially profiling that that was my that was the point that I meant to get across. Having worked with those guys when they moved into the area that I just never occurred to me that they would be racially profiling. That was not my first thought. Given your emphasis and your description of the difficulty of hiring a proper security guard for your business and finding someone that understood and would uphold the values of the owners let me ask you two gentlemen since our business is slightly different from yours who is responsible for enforcing this dress code on a day-by-day hour-by-hour night-by-night basis how are they hired and what kind of training are they given? Well the dress code isn't enforced all the time because 97% of the time we don't even have door guys so anybody's able to walk in So when do you decide when to enforce it and when not to? We do it on the weekends when it's most popular because in our experience the people that are coming to start trouble or coming to pray on our customers and they do they're going to dress a certain way and does that mean they don't come in when we don't have door guys? They do come in. I notice that too but when we have those kinds of crowds you have to be careful and it it jumps up on Fridays and Saturdays when we have door guys how do you hire your door guys and how do you train them? We hire door guys based on people that walk in and apply for the job based on relationships we've had with other bars and then the dress code we put in front of them and then they sit with Fort Worth PD as well Fort Worth PD when we have door guys Fort Worth PD is always present always. We never have a door guy and Fort Worth PD is not working hand in hand with them so they work together with Fort Worth PD and the city and let me put it this way the two officers I've had at Whiskey Garden for three years on Fridays are Hispanic. The two officers I had at Whiskey Garden for three and a half years on Saturdays are African American. I seriously can tell you those are some strong-willed men and they're not going to tolerate any kind of behavior discriminatory at all. They won't they don't put up with it but they do recognize there are some dangerous people that are trying to get into our bars and they help us point those men out. Just one last question. There's no formal training of your door guys. We discuss it at length every single shift in regards to formal training obviously we have meetings with them. When they're hired we don't just go okay here's a list to go to the door and understand that. They do get training we'll sit down with them and have meetings for a couple of hours right off the bat once they're hired and then we'll do refresher training on a continuous basis and primarily we'll do that whenever a new person comes in we'll usually set them all down as a group we're very fortunate we don't have a lot of turnover at the front because basically we have three people that handle Fridays and Saturday nights and a Thursday also so we don't have a real large door staff but communication is pretty easy and it's a constant thing all the time our managers on a nightly basis are probably talking with our doorman continuously throughout the night because it's a very moving very fluid situation and they check with us the whole night we're all mic'd up they ask they ask every night is this okay is this not okay so it's a continual communication about the very subject every single shift on a Saturday night during peak season when school's in and so forth it's not uncommon it's a bar hopping area the west 7th is a real bar hopping area when you have a bar that's located miles from people you're not going to deal with a lot of issues that we do here but when you have 15, 16 bars that are all in a very close area most people don't go into a bar and hang out all night in the west 7th area they're going to stop and have a cocktail at a half a dozen bars throughout the evening so it's definitely a bar hopping area and when you have that you'll have a thousand people come through your door in a four hour period of time and when you have something that's you know when you have a three, four thousand square foot building max and you have a thousand people that are coming through in four hours between the hours of well let's call it three and a half between ten thirty and two it gets crazy it gets crazy and it's not easy it's really not easy and do we get things right all the time obviously not there's too much there's just too much going on to get it perfect every single time the only thing that I can assure you from the bar owners that I know I don't think of anybody that's doing anything to discriminate and I can't answer for all the bars or all the people I'm not in their meetings but I just think that the west 7th area is one of the most diverse places that I've seen in Fort Worth and all my years here and there's everybody in the world that's coming into these bars everybody is we encourage everybody to come by I mean come look for yourselves I'm not going to convince you with my words I'm not going to be naive to that come by and see for yourself you're more than welcome to or if you want to get online you can get online in Instagram Whiskey Garden there's 5700 pictures you can look at those photos yourself Instagram any of the bars I'm confident that any of the bars are going to represent all cultures and all backgrounds I can definitely tell you from an African American perspective I do not want to come to the west 7th area because of the way they've been treated at some point or another I will not say it's your location but in the black community we do not come I won't say we because I'm going to come and I might come under cover I might come on some chores and just come see but I just to let you know we've heard that dude and you saying that West 7th area is the most diverse I'm going to respectfully disagree with that statement because I just I've seen it I do I have hung out I live downtown so I have hung out down there on the weekends I see it it's not the most diverse okay on the weekend again I can respectfully disagree but again just knowing just let you know the African American community a lot of African Americans do not come down to the west 7th area because of the way they've been treated and a lot of them do I mean we do we have regulars that are African American I would say just to caveat off of what you said I have been there I've been there with police officers we've gotten kicked out for crazy crazy things and I will say majority of the time we go we run into more issues with fraternity type boys or groups guys polo shirts we excuse ourselves I don't see anything in here saying Jordan's Timberlands and whatever shoes they were sparrows or flip flops or what not and then also I wanted to say something about you mentioning clean Jordans I feel like anybody who goes out for a night on the town wants to look clean you want to have clean shoes on I understand that and again sometimes it is subjective but it's it's not it's not I just don't see just being observant I just don't see a lot of those groups of people being denied at the door and a lot of them were majority of the people we turn away are college students we're not a college bar I don't want to be a college bar I don't care for those kids behavior either I won't go because of that but I'm just saying I don't see them I'll tell you this if I see a group that you describe coming up and they're just a little boisterous and they're loud and I turn them away I don't have to give them a reason I'm just like you're not welcome and I do it a lot Thank you all for being here I know that you've had an earlier meeting with for Longo with you all the Semestrian Mars Association and you all come and you talk to us because we do want to work with our community business owners to take workforce opportunities for individuals but also a place for everyone to be able to go out and enjoy whether it's a cocktail a dinner or whatever over there on the Semestrian I live over there in so seven and so I drive through there all the time and I do see diversity there I just don't know where they're going because I'm seeing them on the street as I'm driving walking to and from so I have seen the diversity that you're talking about but again I don't know where they're going but you know bottom line is that we want to thank you for taking the time out to visit with us and we look forward to working with you all to make our West Semeteria a more successful business area Can I say something in closing my email and my contact that's my direct cell number if any of y'all want to get in touch with me have an issue you want to discuss or if you think do you think you should change this that y'all can contact me directly and I would love to hear your feedback okay what percent of your business is minorities I'd like to I don't if you wouldn't look at that just begin to I would say that in the cross section of minorities in my business is probably greater than the population of America the percentages are greater as we work here I think you know that we race and culture focused and want to make sure that there's equity and that's such a big area now starting at small is huge now and reflects on all of our work absolutely so when you have people who come in from out of town and you want to go and take them from somewhere that's vibrant they're not going to hit Angelo's every time they're going to hit second straight and so I think the responsibility is there as a part of this community and I would like to respect the request that you begin to put a system in place where you do know the answers to these questions you know what is the percent of your business and if they walked away from your business what would that impact be I accept that responsibility, I do that me too, I think the impact would be large the Human Relations Commission provides that thank you thank you all the next thing on our agenda is a discussion of Portland's office of consultation in the role of the community many many Ramirez is the new president of the Portland PAA and he's here to visit with us today before he gets started I know the outcome in the room is one of the recommendations that we've been looking at as a citizen's advisory committee so we may hear some points about that many may not, I don't know but we're here to listen observe and discuss with them some opportunities so that we can make the right recommendations going forward so many, I'll let you introduce your good afternoon good afternoon I'm Manio Ramirez, I'm the new president of the Police Officer Association joining me is Vice President Carolyn Gilmore and Nestor Martinez he's a board member of the 4th POA and he's also the president of the INLEO our Latino Peace Officer Association I'm glad Fernando invited us up here I was happy to accept the invitation and Jay also extended an invitation while ordinarily you would expect the POA I didn't understand why I absolutely get that as representatives of our police officers, as the body of our police officers we have to have a conversation, we've got to have a voice in this conversation so I'm happy you guys invited us we're open to questions I would like to ask a question of how does the POA work with any of the training programs that consist with diversity of the police force of hiring but also on how to deal with issues that are whether it's in the American community Hispanic community, any ethnic groups how do you work with them in the cultural differences in training so training is primarily the responsibility of admin, of management of our chief's office and our training division and all that, but our POA we have quite a bit of involvement in our communities nowadays we've actually taken, this is the first year we've ever put in our budget actually money for community outreach to get involved in our communities it never was there before and you'd have officers do individual acts that they just felt out of the kindness of their heart to do in their communities but now as a body we've recognized that we have to have that community outreach because the greater involvement we have as an association in our community that's the less complaints officers are going to have that's less physical confrontations they're going to have because they see us out there and they see us as equals because we see our community as equals also so I think that's a shift that we're really trying to push this leadership team in our POA and I think that it's been really effective over the last few months I've seen a great shift in how it's operated from years past so I'm glad with what I've seen and I think we're just building on it Walter? Number one I appreciate you guys being here I know that one of the things that we're dealing with and we would really want to and I'm not going to ask a lot of questions here but we've been trying to contact you guys to come and meet in our committee more sometimes and we haven't gotten that and so I know that you've seen our report there's a lot of significant things there and we've visited other parts of your organization but you guys have not come to visit with us yet so we'd like to we don't have time to do it here it's too much of depth but we'd like to make sure that you guys understand when we meet again or at least accept our invitation to come and visit and sit down with us with our committee on criminal justice can we get that commitment from you? Oh yes sir and I think that there's a lot of things that we've got to talk about whether it be our city leaders whether it be our community leaders whether it be committees that are put together from our city leaders we've got to have a hand in that conversation so I don't recall turning down an invitation if we did I apologize but this is the first invitation I've gotten personally to come to this task force I'll accept it I just want to make sure that we will be calling on you again because we want to go with each entity the things that we're finding we're trying to find out from each group how they feel about it and what some of the results are and Walter going forward we will be hearing from the LAOA and the Hispanic POA also in the future we have initially tried to set those meetings up initially in our task force I was kind of surprised that it was a meeting as a whole versus me and our criminal justice that was kind of useful to us I'm sorry I'd like to comment on that I don't mind and once again my name is Carolyn Gilmore I've been a Fort Worth officer for 21 years I live in the city I was born here in this city so thank you for serving to make it better I wanted to comment on that on that invitation sir we were going through an election process so Manny was not brought up to speed on that now I spent 12 years in patrol 9 years on the east side all midnight patrol I spent 8 years in narcotics I purchased street level narcotics and worked all the way up to the DEA I'm currently assigned to the gang unit but before I came to the gang unit for a year and a half I was one of the procedural justice instructors I taught PJ-2 and PJ-3 as in my also I was my peers elected me knowing I'm teaching PJ knowing I'm behind that message training our officers I'll give you a little personal background 16 years ago I married a fellow officer he's a black man I was able to share some stories about implicit bias things that officers didn't realize really happened and just today we had lunch today and the waitress asked if we needed to split the check and I said no we're married he's paying for all of it now she's not a she wasn't a racist but she had whatever implicit bias she had that perhaps we were on a business lunch it's happened several times we'll walk into a restaurant and they'll look at me and say just one no he's with me he's paying things like that being able to share that with fellow officers and them say I had no idea that that happens so back to the invitation I exchanged several emails with Ty and actually had an opportunity to talk to him on the phone for about an hour one morning in a totem I'd like to pump the brakes on that because I have to admit and to these guys we were friends before we got into the association stuff we've never had those awkward hard conversations amongst each other the POA boards we have it we all go eat lunch we all go hang out we tell little stories but if we really had an awkward hard conversation on what each person from each organization is feeling and what their perceptions are and so my apologies to this task force for delaying that meeting but I felt it was necessary that we had that conversation amongst our membership before we came here speaking about how someone feels when we really haven't even posed those awkward questions it is awkward that really defeats our purpose in a way because we've gotten together to talk about things we don't get a little clear understanding of how each one felt individually so that really defeats our purpose of what we're trying to do because one thing about bringing it together you may do some things right now to bring yourself together but you're really not because we don't know what the real facts are we are together we are more together I mean 20 years ago a female married to a black man officer get elected overwhelmingly by the membership and my two opponents were white males and so that was a huge step Spanish system law that's not the one my point is just that we would hope that as we met individually each group's perspective as to where they are currently now and so if that's something that y'all are working on when I look and I read the star telegram it doesn't seem like y'all are together because they're different programs we get it right I think they're here to talk with us so we can start a conversation but I've also heard them say that they're willing to meet with your committee died and I think that would go for the other two POAs say the invitation was a wake up call but our conversation amongst each other was longer than we did I just wanted to be clear Officer Martinez and Sergeant Martin they were all on to me and believe me in Officer Martinez we exchanged email and maybe had a phone call as well and I think Officer Gilmore correct me if I'm mistaken wanted to get together with the other two police officer associations y'all have a talk and then come together meet with our task as our individual committee I think that's how everything is at play so I wanted to make sure that it is clear that an invitation was extended and accepted on behalf of all the respective organizations but at that point I think they want to collectively talk prior to coming together is that fair? I think realistically and I'll kind of touch on that if you don't mind we are one POA so we are one bargaining unit the Fort Worth POA now we also have the BPOA and we also have the LPOA by different names now but we are one body and I think we've actually fought that internal battle to become one body again because those groups were formed because officers didn't feel like they had fair representation without the POA so to further divide and say we want to speak to each group individually now I understand it's a fact finding mission I completely understand and I apologize for messing that up but for our purpose this board's purpose our POA board's purpose we're trying to bring everyone together ourselves so to have that conversation together was important for us because we are one POA I think add to that too just for everyone's there's Sergeant Barton who's the president of the BPO he sits on your board as well so they're all on the same POA board so that's that's my question that was my next question you mentioned that the other POAs were formed because there was not representation from the main POA and you're trying to make that feel like it's one again but we do know that there are issues and concerns from each one of those groups so for us to give a talk to each one of those groups individually there might be some things said individually that won't be said collectively just to add on that this has been at least a 10 year process for us to come to this point to where we are sitting on the board and when I say that I've been a president for at least 6 years prior to my election now but there was issues then we've been quoted in the paper we've had discussions with chiefs against police chiefs this and that and the other but to where we're at now it's very unique because we were never there in the past so as far as us kind of delaying if that's what you say that we were doing we weren't delaying it we were just trying to get to the point where we understood what this panel was about and what we were trying to accomplish as a mission internally with our department now you can ask us all day long about how our association feels and I'm going to answer that but keep in mind that it's very unique and dynamic now as far as where we're at as far as a POA board and an NLEO board and a BPOA board because we do have members on as a matter of fact Manny's a member of my association and Carolyn is as well too so that kind of gives you a little bit of about how that works so right now you're looking at the first Hispanic ever elected to the executive board of the POA the first female we have the first black female who's also our secretary now in the executive board we have I believe it's three African-American members of the POA board of directors that are elected by their peers and two other women I mean so we're diverse if you look at boards past just look five years ago and it's not there you look 10 years ago and it's even further away now I don't want to say that that it was a problem back then and all that but that's part of the reason why we're here is we have to sit there and have that conversation and recognize that there were reasons why those organizations were formed because it used to be one POA and then it had to split so that's sort of and I think it's telling that we got elected by our peers and everybody knew full well that I had come up in the inlay organization but yet I'm elected president of the Fort Worth POA I think everybody understood that we are one POA we are one body of officers and we have to represent everyone fairly black white purple pink it doesn't matter if you're a cop and you wear the badge we represent you equally now what is the POA's position and stance would you like a citizen review order? I see I think that that question I would like to have that at a different time I mean I think I don't know if I could give that a just answer without facts and talking to the to the membership in depth about it anything that we would say would be personal opinion we represent a body so I think if we had a meeting about that separately offline or maybe come back together at another time and talk about that issue it would be more appropriate I don't want to I don't want to short change the answer that I would give well what I wanted to do is I want to clarify a few things just so you make sure you just so you know what you're listening to when Mr. Dansby asked about when he said it defeats the purpose what we were looking for is what are the differences between the three POA's and so wanting to meet with each one and then and then sit back and say okay well here are the differences so you've already done that but I wanted to make sure you knew that that was where he was going when he said it's already you know you've already completed the purpose and congratulations on pulling that together I guess my main question goes to Officer Gilmore and it has to do with who who do the police officers work for who do they see as their customers the citizens 100% you know and thank you for that on the back of all the cars it says protect and serve and most of the things that we hear either anecdotally or people have gone forward that got us to where we are and you all know where you know where we are has to do with that not being translated into the field so the other thing is this is the way we train but then the older guys say that's the way you got trained but here's how we really do it so what is the plan to deal with some of that as you train are you talking about when the rookie is getting the field and they're told hey that's not the way we do it they call them the old kids I think any job that you do when you go through training and you're given books to read you go through the motions of things that you're supposed to do and then you get into the actual position there's always going to be a co-worker who tries to teach you how to work smarter not harder and my explanation for that is those officers such as myself I was a field training officer I trained people a lot of times based on my experience what was actually going on in the field when you're in the field training someone you have to remind the young officers coming out they're no longer in a controlled environment everything that they do at the academy all the patrol scenarios all the officer survival scenarios they're in a controlled area they're in a controlled situation that dissemination is not going to kill them the punches in the face are not going to kill them but when you're in the field you have to let them know and make them aware that you're no longer in a controlled environment now by no means do I condone misconduct or feel like anybody should it's not fair to any officer to teach them a shortcut that's not by policy you're not doing anybody any favors I don't think anyone supports that if you can do your job easier and still adhere to policy then you're pretty good at this job and I will applaud our chief's office and our management team for the new FTO program that they've gone through in the last few years is they link up with NPO's neighborhood patrol officers while they're going through field training so these rookies aren't getting cut loose and being sent out with an old salty dog patrol guy to tell them how it's done he's actually going riding with a neighborhood patrol officer on the front end and back end of his deployment to find out what community policing is all about before they start taking those hot calls and being exposed to the real nitty gritty of police work so I think that's a shift that's happened in the last few years and I've actually seen it in some officers I just came out of the detective's office and I've seen it the attitudes of some officers in the last five years has been much different than the previous five years and I'll add to that too I'm myself in NPO in North Division and getting those rookies right out of the academy and bringing them into our field of expertise which is basically working with the community that we serve every day whether it be going to these meetings whether it be going to schools whether different concerns within a neighborhood that's what we show them first to get them to understand that it's not all about just putting people in jail and going after the criminals that are there but you deal with citizens that have regular complaints everyday complaints that are of all of all diversities of all ethnic backgrounds so that gives them a time to get down a little bit and think about what they're doing and that they do have to treat people like they would like to be treated just quickly if I'm not mistaken the reason there are members from the other associations on your board is coming out immediately you did that because you were going to be the one group that was going to be the bargaining group and that required having those members on the board I wasn't around whenever that first contract was negotiated but I don't think that it was a requirement no they were already this old bargaining agent I believe right but in order to be more acceptable as a bargaining agent you needed them on the board as I recall the way things happen when NLEO first started back in 2004 we saw a lot of things that the DOA wasn't providing our Hispanic community we went out and we ventured and Chief Vermeeris was actually one of the ones that started our organization back in the day and we wanted more of a fraternal organization we knew that the labor organization was going to be strong and we needed that body as just one within our department but we wanted a little bit more within our organization so that's why we formed NLEO I was just going to say no under the meeting come far there was no requirement of representation but that was actually a voluntary act done by the police officers association right about the time that there started to be outcry from our LPOA and our BPOA about issues that they were having that they did not feel that the POA was addressing correct and over time obviously the meeting brought us up I just want to ask this one quick question and first of all I want to say congratulations for your election and I expect you to be a token even though I feel that in some ways the POA felt it wasn't necessary that they needed a change at the time and that's good but I want to know is how does the POA assess the leadership of the chief of police are you asking for an assessment you've already given one haven't you publicly have you given an assessment of what do you think of the chief of police your organization I have not I don't believe I'm talking about the organization have they sold it on something about the survey that was sent out whatever how do you access the chief of police's performance was it done on the POA's leadership or was something done with that that was on the prior leadership but it was the POA and you were members of it listen I'm not going to take the opportunity to cop out I'll give you my opinion that's what I'm going to ask you partially just because you called me token but I did you called him a token I said you weren't a token you said you were a token and I take offense to that as a Latina because he's Latina I said I know you will not be a token but he was a token then you heard it differently than a lot of the Latinos in this room heard it because we heard it as music I heard it you didn't hear that to come back around and this is a and this is a personal opinion alright in any leadership team any leadership you know tenure they're going to have failures and they're going to have successes now I wasn't the leader of the organization whenever all of the voting was going on and all of the high profile incidents or those things but I will tell you this ever since I did take over we've had a few high profile incidents and they've been handled 180 degrees 180 degrees different just in the latest one where was that over on each side whenever the police department came out and released that body cam footage right away ordinarily what would what would you have expected the POA to do though Bob Ray would you have expected us to agree with that decision probably not in the past but yet we did because we recognize that in that instance it was already out there the narrative had been painted and the only way to reverse course is to put it all out there and to actually give the right side or the whole side so I think the decision is important between management and labor and I think in the past there hasn't been that now that's not to say that I think that everything that the administration has done is perfect I don't think that at all I think that everybody has that there's been some mistakes there's been some missteps and obviously everybody's seen those and everybody's pointed to those and they'll probably continue to be no matter who's in charge of the department so right now I think we're focused on what we're trying to build and less focused on trying to poke holes in other folks performance we're focused on coming together in association and focusing on ourselves so I don't want to come up here and get on my soapbox and talk about things that have gone wrong I want to talk about some things that we're doing right with that said you led to my next question if y'all have already met and had some discussions what are some of your priorities that you've gotten as a group together as a group realistically it just expand that community outreach like I said it's spreading throughout our officers they see how this board's operating and they elected us for a reason like I said they see how we're operating and they see that we value that community participation as an association and we recognize that it's important and it's also coming to that end around to where all officers in our organization feel like they're welcome there shouldn't ever be the time where I have to call Nestor because Manny's not going to represent me or I have to call Rod because Manny's not going to give me a fair shake that should never happen in our organization well you said community outreach I'm talking about this board's community relations what are some of the I guess the goals that you may have there I mean obviously you've gotten some as a whole you've got some bad press overall and so how do you address that to get the community feeling back with one step at a time and I'll tell you we're already taking those steps just last week they were having complaints over in the stop six area they were having complaints that folks were flooding the streets and causing traffic hazards and nobody was able to walk and it was dangerous for the kids around there so the management over there the sergeants, the tenants and all that they were discussing strategies of how to shut that down do we go and stop everybody from walking and all that or who called me and said Manny I have a good idea I think that perhaps we can insert ourselves into this situation let's set up a grill and let's make ourselves part of this community event that they're having on Sundays and let's cook food for everybody in the community how do you feel about that and I said well it's going to cost about a thousand bucks but let's do it and let's see how it works and it worked well I was thinking more so along the line of a strategic plan one of our things that we've always been really strong on promoting is diversity within our department and promoting people like yourselves to actually encourage the young people of our community to sign up for our department and a pie and actually do the work that's required out here in these communities so that way the city of Fort Worth Police Department does match the diversity of the city that it's serving so that's that's what we try to promote constantly we give scholarships and we do all sorts of stuff for schools and give back as much as we can but without the citizens helping without leaders like you guys promoting our department and encouraging like I said these young people to go in that are right out of college to apply for our department if they have a calling for service then we're going to be able to provide that for them not only just we shouldn't in my opinion we shouldn't have to go to other states we shouldn't have to go to other cities as a matter of fact we should be able to pick up our officers here within the city of Fort Worth and I think that's all of our jobs to promote that as well and a lot of that's just it goes back to the core function of why POA exists and that's working conditions and trying to promote a good working environment here and the better your working environment is the better you can draw good folks to work here we want our officers to live here and work here I think 40% of our department doesn't even live in the city and I think that's an accurate statistic and that's outrageous so the issue is how do we get those folks to come back to our community and live where they work and like I said at the end of the day we're a labor organization and we exist to protect the rights of our members and I think it's sort of an end around process to benefit our membership by doing community outreach that's not the obvious solve right the only way to solve is when somebody comes out and says an officer did something wrong you stand up and you beat your chest and you say no he did nothing wrong but I don't think that's how you operate in 2018 you can't do that because you can't defend bad behavior you can only defend due process rights that's it I have a question you talked about recruiting one methodology you said out of college when did you start as an officer when did you get involved I've been myself I've been in the department for 17 years I started right out of the military so yeah that's when I started I can't speak my question would be then what are the plans as for your recruitment and do you think you should be starting a little bit earlier like what we've seen in our plan even something like what we used to have we used to have a cadet program or something that where they actually worked with and help them go through at least two years of college and then go into the workforce I think that cadet program is fantastic and I was actually a cadet when I was coming up so the program works obviously and I think we're actually starting a little earlier with POW programs and just exposing the youth in our communities to our profession I think that that's an important piece that we've already started doing now to take it a little further I think we also have to talk about staffing issues so officers don't want to come here and work so hard because they know their spread so thin so if you want to recruit folks and show them it's a good place to work you've got to have enough officers to fill those ranks too because I mean we're short staff let me ask you this how many recruiters do you think we have full time for a city of our size yeah that's that doesn't make sense to me I want to be on the retreat note so if you're talking about the POW program and having a plan for that place if you start these kids off and I'm glad you mentioned that to us I do know officers that are police officers started out in the academy and the academy has been going for quite a while and I'll give you something on the POW I'm actually a past board member to start the POW that we started here in Fort Worth but right now we only have one officer that's dedicated to that full time so we literally have to ask people to volunteer their time to participate in that that could be a great program if we had the staff for it but yeah our city is way behind on staff issues as far as the amount of people that live here whether it's to come work or to come play on the weekends we just don't have enough anybody else have another question I just need to make the final statement I was going to make a statement I want to make it clear to Manny and Martinis and anybody else in here including me first of all if I was going to call somebody a token I wouldn't back into it with the name people thought that they were going to place me in a position to be a token but they were sad at the stake let's get on the subject of what we're going to talk about I want Manny to understand that he is head of this organization this time and that you have our support needless to say if something happens and I think I ought to be criticized I will criticize you as much as I criticize anybody else I've ever known in that position including the last guy whom I do not appreciate at all that's just me but so I just want to make it clear I did not call your token will not call your token I decided that you are but then I will let you know all it makes sense to me so I apologize if you thought that's what I was doing Rosa thank you all for being here and thank you for clearing that up because a lot of us heard something differently but thank you all for being here we want to work with you all one of the things I would suggest especially on the topic of the citizen advisor committee as you meet with the criminal justice committee with Ty and his committee members maybe you all have a discussion with them and I know that you will reach out also to the LPOA the black POA as well so that you can have that same discussion with them so that way we hear the comments and pluses and minuses from each of your associations but also as one I just have one question and really a consideration from this group perhaps you could prepare something some questions that we could pose to all three of our boards respectively and come back collectively that would be a huge help why don't you all meet with Ty first to talk about this and then if you all decide to do some C survey that goes out to your membership then they would be between the committee and you all I think the original way that we have a plan where each three come at an individual time so I think that would be better but what I'm saying is what she's asking is not our membership, our boards being on our board alone they have five we on that association and BPOA has about five they're going through an election process right now they'll have a new president I'm an open conversation of all three of our boards like hey this is what the group wants to know how do you feel about that that's what I'm saying I think if you meet with Ty you all can develop those questions in his committee and try to write our own questions then you meet with Ty and then let the committee give you the question oh perfect we're grateful for that and thank you for having us today thank you guys for your support you guys are all leaders in the community and that's why y'all are on this task force and I want to let you guys know I do respect the work that y'all are doing I mean I think it's good it's really good to even have this conversation I mean I think you all recognize and I appreciate that guys well and just carry that message home to y'all's constituents officers are good give them a hug give them a handshake I think you're well aware that it's taking time for us to get to this point we fought hard for a lot of it but we are in a good place right now as far as our conversations and the dialogue that we need so much in our city one comment I'd like to thank you for being here it's actually it takes all of us working together and all of the associations working together I think though that the missing part is what do you need and so go back to Walter's comments about a strategic plan because as we finish our work we'd like to know what is it that you really need to be able to impact the officers that you impact the other thing though that I want to talk about is getting to the heart and as we train our police officers they should live in the community with us and be our neighbors and a lot of them are but a lot of them aren't as you already know but if we don't get to the heart of them then they're going to continue to be seen in an adversarial relationship and I would hope that as you put together your strategic plan that you will look at how do we mend the community and the officers that are coming out how do we create officers who feel like they have a purpose when they hit the streets then we want them safe we don't want to be at odds but if we continue to do what we're doing we're putting each other at risk communities, the kids aren't embracing the officers the way they used to and maybe we do need that because that program started again but just put your heart into it you live here just like we do just make sure that we're working together to create that community and in Ty's work that he's doing he's leading there's six committees and as he's leading that committee if there's something that we need to elevate he's the person who's going to bring that to our attention and if you need some help from us let us know what that is and it's only through working together that we're going to get this done but purpose driven officers are needed right now thank you well good afternoon this would be pretty quick I will couldn't lift it that's fine now that we figured out that Bob Ray heard Yanni and Rosa heard Laurel so this is really going to be pretty quick I think everyone received an invitation from Fernando and I actually went through this training last month and I thought it would be a good opportunity Police Department has been conducting opportunities for citizens average citizens and interested folks to go through some of the training that they actually provide their cadets to provide their officers and one of them is really situational awareness and de-escalation it's really about how to deal with different situations that they sometimes go through and it's not a real long course it's three hours one to four and it's only if you want to stay that long the first piece is really conversation and videos where you get to see the different situations that occur what the officers did right what they did wrong what would any ideas from the folks that are there that could have maybe changed the way things weren't and really I think one thing I noticed that the trainers that are in the room they actually get information from the folks that are talking to them lay people I was in there with a lot of our city attorneys and they were asking specific legal questions from their perspective I thought it would be a good idea it's the next one scheduled June 7th from one to four and right now we're just inviting folks from this task force they don't want it to be really really big because it would take long so if anybody's interested I think Fernando sent out an actual invitation it's at the Bob Bowlin facility so I was just here to reinforce that so if anyone's interested he might want to attend I always close the register for that so they can have an idea of how many folks are going and get you on the list if you would respond favorably to me to the meeting notice that I sent to you to say accept and we'll relay that information to Jay and Jay I know I asked Fernando this question but that's the day of the four chambers luncheon and so some of us may be coming afterwards so we may not be there for the full time if you just let Fernando know and then we'll get the information to PD about that the second part of so an hour and a half is that the second part you actually can go into the training facility and be put into a situation as if you were the police officer if you want to do that part but I just thought it was a good it's a good way to have a conversation about some of the training techniques that the police officers receive so you can get a good idea on how that works I think Robert had a question are there other dates that we buy people to attend? I can probably have one set up for later in the summer but right now that's the next one that's available Jay we actually have three more dates already set oh already set okay we can get those out yeah we'll get those out so you'll get those too Fernando so you'll set those dates up thank you that's all I had thank you next on the agenda is update on leadership training Fernando Nestres I can comment briefly on leadership training for city officials city council city managers departments and assistant director of the city departments we've had one round of training already I think those who have attended the training will tell you that it's on the agenda and direct second round of training the city council will be training all day on Tuesday May 29th that's at least tomorrow public safety public it's under tab 2 the agenda has been posted and the third round will be June 14th for the city council one of the official assistants there so the comments we've received so far from the council members as well as from the department has been generally positive I won't say that they've been unanimously positive there have been some folks who have to the to the directness of the training that's something that we can reasonably expect and I think it shows that the training is addressing the difficult issues in any forthright manner these issues are not easy and we don't expect everyone to react in the same way so that's training for the city officials I think equally about more important is the training for community leaders and interested citizens and Esther Tucker is leading the way and you'll see on that same tab we've had 3 community trainings of community leaders based upon the nominations of about 39 registers 2 small groups have been completed these are pretty much all day 7-8 hours and then this past week complete the first one for interested citizens we didn't have as many as we registered but more than half, probably about 25 and we rose in response to your invitation to the city council we actually have 4 council persons who indicated interest in a kind of a custom design training for their constituents it's Kelly and Brian and Jean oh Kelly they're going well and again drilling down to equipping them with particular leadership engagement skills involving some of the shared language around racial equity and then looking at particular disparities and findings from them on the board is there any way that we could do it more aggressively with what they're actually experiencing I mean I don't think we've been exposing the training market that the nation's leaders it would be a benefit it would benefit me to know exactly what they're covering what they're going through I know we don't have time for an all day deal but at least 45 minutes or an hour or something for these meetings so we can actually understand what's going on because I look at this and the last time this was blown up I did have most of the leadership agree on me about the results or what they were going to be affecting and I just like to know what they're doing did you provide us with some of that for the summary or are you talking about the national league for the city officials but normally we would be the first ones to go to the training so we know what everybody is to get but we haven't seen what's going on welcome you said you would stay away from their meetings but you are welcome to attend their meetings I'm talking about having something here where at least we're exposed to the chill I had a lot of I was expecting that to be part of the process I can attend one of these others but would it be for us to attend one of these the interested residents for the community leaders if you want to see the national league of cities training I would encourage you to attend either the training for the city council or the training for the department heads or assistant directors because the content is similar if not identical discussion may be different I'm just saying expose us to what they're seeing that's why I was asking is there a way of us getting to summary we can certainly try to do a summary for the training somebody asked me if I was going the first time I blanked on it I'm sorry, quote was going to say again and then they said time is so precious to me that between task force subcommittees agreeing with my colleagues here that it would just be nice to at least get the overview so we speak on it, speak on it be versed even if we don't go through it ourselves the crash force format we'll be glad to follow up very quick on the leadership training that's provided by NLC for the city officials are those three separate each class are they different they're virtually the same they're virtually the same as I say the discussion may differ from one group to the next but the basic content is the same the discussion at the first meeting for example revolve mostly around the history of racial discrimination in the United States going back to colonel there and up to the president and how do we talk about these things how do we adopt the common vocabulary the next session deal more with how we deliver city service in respect to different needs of different people in the community and we'll move in the direction of how we reorient the policies and procedures in respect to the equity and so I think we'll see that we're discussing the hard issues the council members I think will tell you that they have found the discussion to be eye opening some have counted that they've never thought about issues of race and culture in this way so it's been a kind of awakening for a lot of them we will follow up and get Johnson to that information any reports any criminal justice any questions economic development Charles yes we normally talk on Wednesdays we will not be meeting conflict with the place we have it but we should meet again on the 30th and Robert Stearns, our chief staff person is helping to formulate recommended strategies for us that address the three areas that were the areas of findings which were employment, unemployment disparities income disparities and the number and size of minority owned businesses so at least Taylor some recommendations for us education, Bob or Robert Bob had to leave so we have continued to meet twice a month our last two meetings in May we have presentations from representatives from the Rainwater Foundation it's the Richardson Foundation two organizations that fund and see a lot of education related programs we are going to get their perspectives on what the community can do in its own way to support some of what is already going on and also for them to give us ideas of things that they might have come across that they did not fund but that we could take advantage of so we got some very good information from both those representatives and again we continue to meet twice a month health we have had since our we've turned it in kind of wanted to see from this group that there's a direction that we can keep going after we meet every two weeks any questions to our comments on the interim report I'm just going to say I think as we move toward solutions that's going to be it whether committees need more input from community vote great but I don't know where it's going I mean yeah we're going to depend on the committee to come up with recommendations that we'll all talk about and then do a final report to the council so we're going to win a dollar tell us really so as many recommendations we do want to limit we've said that before we do not want to limit any more recommendations we might prioritize some of them but we don't want to leave anything out we have a deadline that we're working backwards from the end of the year but when do we I'm not trying to read probably sometime I would say in July August time frame so the reason being is once we have those recommendations what we want to do is go back to the community and let them hear those recommendations because we want to make sure what we heard from them is things that we're recommending um we're going to go back to key stakeholders as well with that information so that way we can come back as a group and if we need to amend anything we will have the time frame to do that so did you say August so you want our recent July August I'm saying July or August maybe we do agree on a time frame maybe we need to talk about that okay why don't you all come up with uh by our next meeting which is a jig give us a time frame that you think you can have your recommendations all complete because I can tell you July but you may think you want to go back and hear something else from another resource group and so forth so we can say July our July task force meeting that we want your recommendations by then if you want to do that but I know is that okay yes ma'am I would do that I would suggest let me see if I can try to put your work in context we are delivering a final report to the city council no later than December early December early December our last regularly scheduled meeting would be in November now I think you want to allow probably two months for public review and comment and discussion about the comments he received and any modifications he was to make in response to those comments I would suggest you get your draft recommendations out in the public by September which is to say by August consistent with what you've just heard from Rosa by August each committee should have some draft recommendations ready for discussion by this full task force because ultimately the recommendations won't be the recommendations of the committee they'll be the recommendations of the full task force and you can allow plenty of time because one committee may recommend actions A, B, and C and you know full well the full task force may want to recommend D, E, and F and so I think it makes sense no later than the August meeting of this task force for each committee to come forward with its draft recommendations if you have something about July that you want to share frame that with you because probably December 1st is the city council meeting and I don't know if they have another council meeting happening or not we're aiming at the 2nd to December 4th is the city council work session where you would be presenting your report 1st, Tuesday and December so how are we going to send it back out to the committee? we'll probably want to discuss those questions but the co-chair of the full task force once you have specific recommendations by specific we mean you've costed it out you determine who want to deliver it you determine how you're going to measure results and then you get it out to the people who are going to be affected by it and let them respond to it so if you're recommending something that's going to involve action by the school board the school board needs to have a chance to respond is it dual? it's going to require action by the chambers of commerce it's going to require action by faith based organizations whatever of the any non-profits that's out there whoever is going to be responsible for implementing these recommendations they have an opportunity to review it and say yes it is feasible yes we can do it otherwise we're not going to have credibility we need to vet these recommendations and then it's got to be responsive we need to be able to trace these recommendations back to those findings we made some findings about disparate treatment of citizens how do these recommendations directly address those identified disparities we had a form that the committees should be filling out so that we have some of that information together because I know we're talking about this separately but are we getting those forms back from the committees? it's been an inclusive I think we need to make sure that we move forward getting that those forms completed from each of the committees so that when we have here we have something to reference otherwise we're saying that you're meeting twice a month and we're not referencing any information that you all may be receiving and learning from you then we as a full task force don't have that information available to us we'll be glad to prepare an updated form that goes into greater detail about our expectations so the committee will know exactly what to submit thank you Katie did you have anything to add? well we this one meeting until after this meeting because we needed exactly this information so we were waiting for it so that when we do meet again we've already started talking about what is not in that detail but we've all ideas have been floated we've discussed some of the staff of feasibility so we've started that process but this is what I was waiting for was formatting and timelines transportation our next meeting is going to be on June 18th here and again third Monday five o'clock here and then December 4th is our city council presentation co-chairs do you have any closing remarks? absolutely no well I want to thank you all for being here I know it's a week before three day briefing and it's hot outside but we do have these individuals that came and were able to talk to us and I think they're willing to work with us and work with HRC to better their presentation or the assumptions that are out there in the community we know that there is some things happening out there in the community some may be exaggerated some may not but we need to find out exactly what is happening so that we can correct those measures and move forward thank you all for getting me we'll see you next time