HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-09-21 TranscriptionPage 1
2. Proclamations
2.a. Domestic Violence Awareness Month
Teague: (reads proclamation) Here to accept this is Alta Peters. Welcome.
Peters: Hi. Thank you so much. It's Alta Madea Peters. Thank you again so much to the
City of Iowa City for all of your ongoing support of the work that we do. It's hard
to see. I did hand these out to you all as well, but a few different numbers that I
like to report when I come to visit you all. We are quite proud of the fact that 96
percent of the individuals we've helped over the past year have reported feeling
safer because of the work that our advocates do. That is something to be proud of
and certainly the work that they do could not be done without the support of the
City of Iowa City. A couple of other numbers that I'd like to draw the Council's
attention to is the number of individuals served within Johnson County in the past
year despite the pandemic forcing people to isolate at home and being unable to
reach out in usual ways. Our numbers still remained high. We served 1,519
individuals in Johnson County alone. Of those numbers, 1,145 of them were from
the Iowa City community. That is nearly double what it was the previous year.
That is something for us to really consider as we move forward in the coming
years, addressing the pandemic and how we support victim survivors that are our
neighbors and friends and colleagues. The number one way that victims find out
about our services is through word of mouth. We encourage everyone on the
Council, as well as listening tonight to reach out to us to provide us with spaces to
do prevention education and community outreach. Some of those activities will be
going on in October during Domestic Violence Awareness month. It's not listed
because we've just got the date ironed out yesterday, but our 15th annual Shop for
Shelter, which you may have recognized some of our volunteers handing out
shopping lists at local area grocery stores will be occurring on October 23rd this
year from 9:30 to 1:30. Just a half-day to provide some in-kind resources to those
most vulnerable. The goods that we receive at that event provide resources for up
to nine months for those that reside in our emergency shelter and use our mobile
advocacy. That was a date I wanted to point out that wasn't on the original
handout. I would love to take any questions or address any thoughts or concerns
you all might have.
Teague: I know this council really do appreciate all of the work you all do. I have a
proclamation that I want to hand to you, so I'll be right over. Let's give a hand for
all the work that they do.
Teague: I am very appreciative for all the work that you do in this community.
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2.b. Fire Prevention Week
Teague: (reads proclamation). Welcome Fire Marshal Greer.
Greer: Thank you, Mayor Teague. Thank you, Council, for what you do. A little bit of
history on Fire Prevention Week. It's observed every year during the week of
October 9th in commemoration of the Great Chicago Fire, which began on
October 8th, 1871. It didn't get put out till the 10th. It caused a lot of damage. The
horrific conflict ration killed more than 250 people, left a 100,000 homeless,
destroyed more than 17,400 structures and burned more than 2000 acres of land.
In 1925, President Coolidge proclaimed Fire Prevention Week a national
observance, making it the longest running public health observance in our
country. During Fire Prevention Week, children, adults and teachers learn how to
stay safe in case of a fire. Firefighters provide life-saving public education in an
effort to drastically decrease casualties caused by fires. In a fire, mere seconds
can mean the difference between a safe escape and a tragedy. Fire safety
education isn't just for school children. Teenagers, adults, and the elderly are all
also at risk in fires, making it important for every member of the community to
take some time every October during Fire Prevention Week to make sure that they
understand how to stay safe in a fire. This year's Fire Prevention Week campaign,
learn the sounds of fire safety, works to educate everyone about the different
sounds the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms make. They are two different
distinct tones. If you have a beep that goes three times, that's your fire alarm. If it
beeps four times, that would be your carbon monoxide. That's some of the stuff
that we learned through this year's Fire Prevention Week. When an alarm makes
noise or beeping sound or a chirping sound, you must take action. We want you to
practice fire safety all year round, not just for this week. We want to make sure
everybody's safe. But you know, we're talking a little bit about learn the sounds of
fire safety. There's people out there that have hearing disability or are deaf. There
are some smoke alarms and alert devices that you can use for people that have
hearing issues. They have some that are have strobes which allow them to visually
know that there's a fire alarm or even a bed shaker for at night. With that, the
pandemic has kept us from doing a few things with our Fire Prevention Week
activities, but there'll be some neat stuff coming out. We had Communications
and Jack and Ty. They filmed some stuff today that we're going to send to the
schools, we're going to send out to the community. Even though we're going to
miss out a lot of face to face, we're going to get some stuff there for you and
hopefully everybody stay safe from fire. Thank you again.
Teague: Thank you Fire Marshal Grier. We're so happy that even during COVID, there is
a way to still engage. Thank you again.
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3. Special Presentations
3.a. COVID Update — Johnson County Public Health
Teague: We're on to item number 3, which is a presentation by a COVID update with
Johnson County Public Health. We're going to invite Sam Jarvis, who is the
Community Health Division Manager. Welcome.
Jarvis: Good evening to the Council and as always appreciate the opportunity to provide
updates on a regular basis to our community. I believe the last time that we
provided updates, we were looking at, I believe 30-40 some cases a day. Since
then and since really the end of July, we have seen a stair -step increase in our
cases. At the moment right now we're looking at roughly anywhere from 50-60 a
day. The past seven days, we've seen about 565 cases. Some interesting things to
note about that is that a good majority of those are, 2/3 are 22 and older. We are
still seeing some adults, certainly not in the school system or college age test
positive. Again, we cannot emphasize how important it is to get vaccinated to all
of our community and we continue our efforts for communication and providing
opportunities. Supply is no longer an issue, it's widely available. We continue to
try to be thoughtful in our methods of outreach and trying to meet those who are
in the movable middle, or what we refer to as a movable middle who might need
just a little bit more encouragement or information to make that choice.
Recognizing there are some that we probably will not be able to reach and
certainly will choose not to get vaccinated unfortunately. But, other notes with our
case profile, we continue to see it spread in unvaccinated households. Once we
reported before, where at times persons would be able to successfully isolate in
their own home. At this point in time, knowing that the Delta variant is so
contagious, we are seeing that spread pretty quickly in unvaccinated clusters. That
also includes our schools and daycare. We've been paying close attention to those
and working with our community partners and those work groups that we have
established and touch points to continue to provide support. Then really strategize
different ways that you can continue to provide mitigation measures in those
situations. I think the one thing that's on everyone's mind right now, certainly our
federal administration early September had noted that September 20th, we would
hear more about boosters for the general population. Really we've done a lot of
information and trying to keep everyone informed that that was really a planning
date set by the Biden Administration and that just last week, last Friday actually,
the subcommittee at the CDC had just only reviewed the data for boosters. We
know that there's at least one more meeting this week for the Advisory Committee
on hnmunization Practices or what we refer to as the ACIP. They're meeting over
Wednesday and Thursday. We do hope to know a little bit more about what the
strategy will be going forward. Many folks probably have that date on the
calendar and wondering what that will be and certainly recognize the confusion
that it's caused with the different dates and the different cutoff points for
everything whether that's with Pfizer and Moderna or Johnson & Johnson. We
want to be intentional and very thoughtful about our communication going
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forward. We are awaiting that information and please know that we plan in doing
a lot more communication about those efforts because we know that's on a lot of
folks minds every day. I think weekly we've seen new updates from Pfizer,
Moderna, Johnson & Johnson about sending their data to the federal government
to review for 5-11 year-old and things. It's on all of our minds. Please know that
we're watching that closely so that we can inform the community. In terms of
other vaccine updates we continue to be the county that has the highest rate. The
State's recent update on their dashboard does break down at different age ranges
from either our total population, 12 and older, 18 and older, and 65 and older.
Each of those categories, we continue to have high rates. We're happy to see that,
we appreciate our community recognizing the importance of vaccination, but as
always, we try to increase that rate as much as possible. I believe those are really
the high points that we wanted to share. Happy to answer any questions about
vaccines, cases, hospitalizations or other trends that we're seeing locally.
Teague: I know that you mentioned that the average right now is in the 50s. When I looked
at it on Friday, I believe it was 57, was the average of those that are testing
positive for COVID. One of the questions I have is with the vaccinated
individuals, sometimes they may not feel the symptoms as well as self -reporting
in a way within the schools. Is there any thoughts that we might be under reported
either small amount that statistically don't make a difference or were significantly
under reported?
Jarvis: That's a great question. I would imagine that many of us would think that we're
under -reporting. I think there's just enough fatigue, where persons are thinking
they're mild symptoms are their allergies and not getting tested. That's very likely
the situation. But again, we do want everyone to know that testing is available and
free to every Iowan through test Iowa. Ourselves at the health department, we are
a pickup site for test kits. They're certainly available at other locations as well, but
that is likely the case. Again, a part of our messaging, even the slightest
symptoms please consider depending on your exposure status or certainly your
high-risk activities, those other things to consider too. I could also imagine a lot of
folks are just if it's mild symptoms, it may not cross their mind after 19 months,
specially if they are vaccinated.
Teague: Thank you.
Weiner: What is your view about rapid testing? There are countries, and there are even
some states where rapid testing is sent to homes and it's available to schools, it's
available free. My personal sense is basically we can't test enough.
Jarvis: Absolutely. I wish we had a better testing framework like that here in the state and
nation, but I know that the more recent trend or phrase or mantra with testing is
test to stay and that does involve rapid testing which is not as widely available as
we'd like. I think the case example is what's going on in Massachusetts. They've
done a really wonderful job and I know that they've been highlighted for their
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testing strategy at the moment. Utilizing the rapid BinaxNOW cards and
everything. Unfortunately, they're not as available here. Those are cards that are
provided to our long-term care facilities and they've utilized those for less
surveillance testing as well. Again, Test Iowa has the PCR saliva kits and we're
definitely encouraging folks to order those and have those available for
themselves.
Weiner: I also just wanted to ask if you've seen any uptick after a couple of very crowded
football games.
Jarvis: It's not as dramatic as what we were concerned about, but again, as always, we've
seen a small stair step increase. The other thing to think or to know is again, we've
got a pretty high vaccination rate in our communities. That's also probably
providing some protective factor, which would make sense. We certainly we'd
like to see our vaccination rate higher but again, the events can occur but we don't
know the burden of disease or transmission unless people test.
Bergus: Sam, I think last time you were here, you were able to keep up on contact tracing
and investigations. What's the status of that now?
Jarvis: Thank you for the question. Yeah, it has been increasingly difficult with this case
burden. I know that we had sent out a notice to our committee partners and the
school districts primarily that at the moment we've paused contact tracing in
junior high and high school. Primarily one the time it takes to contact trace within
school and classroom. So there are school nurse partners, and then certainly the
time lag adds up to get the information from our partners for us to make contact
with those folks. I can put it in a better perspective if contact tracing is still an
abstract thought. But have you ever played phone tag with a single person during
their workday? Please try to imagine that 50 or 100 fold throughout the week and
everything. The time does add up and the time spent on one case certainly takes
and detracs from other cases. It was a hard choice to make and I know that the
team was concerned and disappointed that we've had to restrategize but we know
that primarily most of that age range is able to get vaccinated. That's certainly the
note that we left with our partners, that is fust and foremost the best layer
mitigation. We continue to do contact tracing in the elementary schools though,
but it is getting difficult. Certainly the fatigue. Persons not wanting to pickup or
walk through the process of the disease investigation adds up as well too.
Teague: Thank you so much.
Jarvis: As always, I appreciate the time of the Council.
Teague: Thank you. Yes. Thank you.
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4-9.
Teague:
Salih:
Thomas:
Teague:
Public:
Teague:
Public:
Consent Calendar
We are onto our consent calendar, which is items 4 through 9. Can I get a motion
to approve the consent calendar removing Item 7.g for separate consideration?
So move Salih.
Second, Thomas.
Would anyone from the public like to address anything that is on our consent
calendar that is not on any other specific item on our agenda?
Would that fall under the TRC or separate?
That's later on the agenda and I'll invite people up at that time.
Just to clarify, is that just consent agenda or public [OVERLAPPING]
Teague: No, this is the consent agenda which have items under the consent agenda. So if
you want to speak about any item under the consent agenda, now is the time for
the public to speak. Great questions. [LAUGHTER] Hearing, seeing no one from
the public, Council discussion.
Taylor: I had just a quick minor editorial comment, Kellie under 4.b, the formal summary
of minutes, and 2.d, under that was the National Senior Center Award. It listed
Angela McConville. She did accept but it just says Senior Center Chair and it
should be edited to say Senior Center Commission Chair. Do you understand
that? [LAUGHTER]
Fruehling: I do.
Taylor: Thanks. Sorry about that.
Teague: Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Motion passes, 7-0.
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10. Community Comment (items not on the agenda) [UNTII, 7 PM]
Teague: Item number 10, this is community comment and this is an opportunity for anyone
in the community to come up and have to speak on any item that is not on our
agenda. There is a sign -in sheet on the side table and we ask that people sign in
and we also ask that you keep your comments to three minutes. We do have a
timer over here. That will do that and I'll open up community comment until
07:00 PM unless we end early. Yes. I also want to specify the TRC item is on the
agenda and that'll be up later. Welcome. Please give us your name and your
address.
Pfohl: I'm Judy Pfohl, 2229 Abby Lane. I came to introduce myself. Apparently, I
should have done this two years ago. You've appointed me to be on the airport
commission. One of the things they said is be sure that the council knows who the
airport commissioners are. I just wanted to say hello. I've been in Iowa City since
I got married in 1974. I've lived in student housing. I've lived near Sycamore
Mall. I currently I'm at Tinakai neighborhood. Actually, I'm the president, which
is off of Mormon Trek. I'm very familiar with the airport with flies over us all the
time. My house is close to it. I'm not a pilot. I do not fly, but at the time, it was
suggested that somebody from one of the neighborhood organizations would be
good to have them involved in the airport commission. I've been on it and this
year, I'm the secretary of it. [LAUGHTER] I just wanted to thank you for
appointing me. I'm enjoying it. I'm learning a lot and be sure and check the airport
website. We have a really good website we've created that gives the history, that
tells a lot about the effect of how the airport is good economically for the city, and
it's a beautiful spot if you get a chance to look at the website. Thank you.
Teague: Thank you. Welcome. Give us your name and your address, please.
Sargeant: Tracy Jon Sargeant, 33412 Lane Ave. Kellie, if you'd be kind enough to.
Freuhling: It's actually on the laptop there, upper left.
Sargeant: Okay, perfect. Yes, it is. As I previously stated, my name is Tracy Jon Sargeant. I
am the Founder and Executive Director of the Multicultural Development Center
of Iowa, which is a non-profit organization that focuses on economic development
and diversity in STEM. I'm also the co-founder of a newly founded collective
called R.E.Connect, which stands for racial equity connect. Like to talk to you
today about the collective, who we are, and why we decided that we needed to
form this group. The collective is a group of black, Latinx, indigenous, immigrant
Asian people of color lead non-profit organizations and businesses that are all
committed to facilitating economic development that's truly inclusive and
representative. With racial equity as our guiding star, we aim to cultivate
community connectedness, access, and prosperity for and with socioeconomically
vulnerable and underserved Johnson County residents. We're qualified
professionals, leaders, and organizations with areas of expertise that are abroad
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but interconnected. They include business development, STEM education,
strategic planning, mentorship, food security, civil rights, poverty reduction,
community organizing, immigrant and refugee support, youth and family services,
and more. We took a page out of the SBA playbook and have adopted a hub and
spoke model. I apologize, that's really small, so I will help you understand the
various logos that are represented. At the center is my organization logo, MDC,
Iowa because it's just too long to say Multicultural Development Center of Iowa
over and over again. Then Astig Planning, which is one of our co-founders and
we are co -hub. We then have Global community food pantry, immigrant
entrepreneurs summit, Iowa city bike library, LULAC Chapter 308, Dream City,
Banjo Knits Empowerment, and we have additional groups that will be joining
and are going through their internal approval process right now. We chose the hub
and spoke model because we believe that creates an opportunity for us to come
together and to truly collaborate. Most of us are small organizations that you
might not define as legacy, non -profits, or legacy organizations, but we feel we're
closest to the problem and most qualified to address and make the change needed.
Thank you.
Teague: Thank you. Welcome.
Jordan: Hi there. I'm Angie Jordan. I'm at 1125 apple cart and I am a spoke on this Hub
and Spoke wheel with my for-profit Banjo Knits Empowerment, which is
entrepreneurial support and community development. I'm excited to be part of this
team and a member of this collective. Tracy was saying those closest to the
problem are those closest to the solution. I'm going to stay on task here because I
have that time who know me know I can go all over the place. But the term racial
equity has entered into the mainstream consciousness and vernacular.
Organizations are scrambling to adopt that DEI, which has already become an
acronym for those of you who don't know what DEI is, its diversity, equity, and
inclusion. Folks are scrambling, organizations are scrambling for these initiatives,
but many are not having the impact needed for the real sustainable change. For
too long, our voices and perspectives have been missing. They've maybe been
missing for lots of different reasons. Being dismissed, being tokenized, and even
being co-opted by some of those folks in power as their own ideas and thoughts.
Though we have had a front seat to inequities that exist in our community, we are
rarely offered a seat at the decision-making table. I do want to just put in there,
we're offered sometimes a way to be a volunteer or to sit on a board, but not in an
authentic safe way that's representative of us and of how we want to be on our
own terms. We believe we cannot achieve racial equity by doing business as
usual, allowing those who have traditionally held positions of power to dictate the
road map for change. As experts and leaders in this work, it's time for this
collective to be front and center in the pursuit for more equitable, inclusive, oh my
gosh, I'm having trouble with that word, before our local economy. I'm going to
slow down my talking because usually, this is, I just wanted to take a moment.
There are so many benefits as to why this collective should come to be and be
supported. These are just a few of them. There's access to trusted advisers within
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connections that have these connections already established in the community.
Our collective members are culturally knowledgeable and already doing the work.
We're already doing it. Some of us for free. We don't have to recreate the wheel in
this collective. This collective would have the ability to actually, and I'm just
going to underline that, actually bridge the gap in underserved communities. We'd
be able to target and outreach to socially and economically disadvantaged
individuals, and it would be an efficient and effective use of public funds with
reduction and duplications of services. With 10 seconds left, I want to also say
that established organizations that are in those power and privilege spaces are also
wanting to be nodes and partners with us already.
Teague: Thank you. Welcome.
Fixmer-Oraiz: Thank you. My name is V Fixmer-Oraiz and I am at 437 South Governor Street. I
am part of this collective. I'm just going to advance into slides. My pronouns are
they, she, and siya. I'm the CEO and founder of Astig Planning, a local
community and environmental planning firm. I'm also a co-founder of the
Collective. before I get into the ask or what we need from you, I just want to say
that I think this Collective really does align within the seven priorities of the city,
especially when considering advancing social justice, racial equity, and human
rights. With that, what we really need from you as public support for what we're
trying to do obviously, financial resources or something that everybody's been
talking about and certainly we have represented here. I did want to highlight and
promote the city staffs on presentation in terms of BIPOC business support
infrastructure and the estimates there were some of the things that we've been
talking about, physical space, accelerator programs, start up and expansion grants.
This collective has these elements already integrated into the things that we do,
the programs that we have, and the capital improvements that we would like to
seek. We have an estimated collective budget of 4 million, which aligns with what
city staff have also outlined. As you can see, I've aligned with that above it. That
also, is not only just about the American Recovery Plan Act, it's other funds that
are available as well that we'd like to be a part of and really also to commit to
rethinking public-private partnerships. This SBA model certainly is advantageous
because you can support multiple organizations and businesses through one single
avenue. But what does it mean to have that public-private partnership? How can it
work both ways? A willingness to guide and advise our collective. We already
have some insights from the County. Keisha Fields has been joining us and
helping us with our pathway to where we're trying to go. It's been very effective
to have somebody there. We really seek that from all of you and city staff to make
this truly a partnership. What are the next steps? Obviously, identifying the public
funds, which I've already outlined a little bit. But there's obviously current
programs that we already offer that we would just like to make sure that are
aligned with what the city wants to do. There's already synergy there. We worked
with many of you and we'd like to see more of that happen. Then more formally,
we would like the opportunity to present a proposal for our ask to City Council
for discussion. Thank you.
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Teague: Thank you. Saved by the bell. Welcome.
Honahan: Hello, Mr. Mayor and City Council people. My name is Jay Harold Honohan III,
I'm not my father, so I'm not coming down representing my dad, I'm representing
me. I live 420 North First Avenue, Apartment number 204 and I work at the
University of Iowa. I'm coming down here to talk to you guys about I understand
you changed the bus schedule about a month ago and the bus director told me that
the reason why you changed it is because they wanted more frequent bus service,
which I get that in a bus service is very nice here in Johnson County, in Iowa
City. But what you've done by changing it, the University of Iowa was one of
your biggest employees in Iowa City and you changed three routes on the East
side of Iowa City. By changing the hours that the bus goes by in the morning,
you're not enabling the people that would take the bus to work, you're not
enabling them to get to work on time at 7:00 AM in the morning. Thus, they can't
take the bus and you're putting more cars on the road. I would like you guys to
consider changing some of the routes again so that you can enable the workers to
take the bus and get to work on time by 7 O'clock in the morning. Thank you for
your time.
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11. Planning and Zoning Matters
1 Lb. Fringe Area Rezoning — 5110 American Legion Road SE. (CREZ21-
0002) Letter to the Johnson County Planning and Zoning Commission in
support of a rezoning from County Agricultural (A) to County Residential
(R) for approximately 5.37 acres of property located in unincorporated
Johnson County at 5110 American Legion Road SE.
Teague: On to item number l Lb is Fringe Area Rezoning - 5110 American Legion Road
Southeast. This is a letter to the Johns County Planning and Zoning Commission
in support of a rezoning from county agricultural to county residential for
approximately 5.37 acres of property located in unincorporated Johnson County at
5110 American Legion Road Southeast. Can I get a motion, please?
Salih: Move. Move for approval.
Teague: Moved by Salih.
Weiner: Second.
Teague: Seconded by Weiner. Welcome, we'll have staff comments.
Sitzman: Thank you, Mayor. Danielle Sitzman, Neighborhood and Development Services.
Sorry for jumping the gun there on the agenda item earlier, even the experienced
folks here can occasionally get things wrong. [LAUGHTER] This is an
application from Axiom Consultants applying on behalf of Chris Lehman,
requesting the rezoning as described in the title for approximately five acres. If
this rezoning is approved, the applicant intends to divide the land into
approximately three single-family residential lots. The area in question here is
shown in the white dotted outline. The existing land use is currently a county
zoning for agriculture. The requested rezoning would be to a county zoning that
does allow residential. Currently, the land contains one single-family home. It's
covered with grass and trees. It does not have a flood hazard nor any steeper
wooded terrain on it. Again, this is showing the location of property in the right-
hand side of the screen circled there. The property is subject to our fringe area
agreement in area B. It's outside of the city's growth areas. You can see, it's on the
far edge of our fringe area. The purple fringe area there. Because the property is
within the city's two-mile fringe area though, it is subject to that agreement. The
city makes a recommendation as is indicated in the letter to the county board. I'm
showing that again a little bit closer up and it's where it lies within the fringe area.
It's in again, fringe area B outside of the city's growth boundary. Again, they're
requesting residential development. Staff does use two criteria in reviewing the
fringe area rezoning, including compliance with the comprehensive plan and the
existing neighborhood context. The Fringe Area Agreement is a component of the
city's comprehensive plan. It applies areas outside of our current city limits, but
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still within an area of influence that we'd like to have the ability to make comment
on depending on whether it's inside or outside of growth boundary, slightly
different comments are made. With staff does rely on that Fringe Area Agreement
for guidance in these cases. As far as compliance with the county's comprehensive
plan, the future land use map of the county's comprehensive plan does designate
this area as appropriate for residential, shown in the yellow box in here. You can
see the slightly bluish outline or the property in the center right of the yellow area.
The proposed zoning designation, we can play with the county's comprehensive
plan. As far as neighborhood compatibility, the applicant is requesting, again, a
residential zoning that would allow for essentially three single-family lots of
approximately one dwelling unit per acre. The surrounding areas largely
comprised of farmland and rural residences of a similar type. This is a particular
portion of American Legion Road. It's home to a moderate collection of such
homes. The collection is the largest grouping of homes found throughout the
fringe area. Given these pre-existing surrounding, staff does find that the
requested rezoning would result in a use that is in character in context with the
existing neighborhood. As far as steps in the development process, we're here on
the orange highlighted step, which is a rezoning. This would go through a
subdivision process as well to create those lots, which does have additional touch
points with the city for making recommendations both through the Planning and
Zoning Commission, and yourselves. Based on the review of the relevant criteria,
staff recommended approval of the proposed rezoning, and the rezoning does
align with the county's comp plan. It is in character, as I mentioned, with the
surrounding area. The draft land use policy direction is currently being updated so
we acknowledged that it's not entirely consistent with current Fringe Area
Agreement, but staff is working on revising that agreement, so that would bring
this into alignment. That's been in the process since the county updated their
comprehensive plan. We were made aware that there were some points in the
county and the city's fringe area that were no longer consistent with each other.
After September 2nd, 2021 meeting, the Planning and Zoning Commission
concurred with staff by a vote of 7-0, to also recommend approval of this
application to tonight. The fringe area agreement draft, this being revised will be
making its way through the Planning and Zoning Commission in October and
should actually come to you in the next month or two. We're hoping to resolve
those conflicts and get that agreement updated. That concludes my staff report.
You have any questions? I'm more than glad to answer them.
Teague: Any questions for Danielle? Is the applicant here? Do you know, Danielle?
Sitzman: Yeah, the applicant is here tonight. Mike Welch with the Axiom. He's happy to
answer questions if you have them, but he does not have the presentation.
Teague: Thank you. Would anyone from the public like to address this topic? If so, please
come forth and we'll allow you up to three minutes at this time. Seeing no one,
council discussion. Roll call, please. Motion passes 7 - 0.
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12. Facilitator Agreement for Ad Hoc Truth & Reconciliation Commission —
Resolution authorizing the procurement of Facilitator for the Ad Hoc Truth
and Reconciliation Commission.
Teague: Item number 12 is facilitator agreement for Ad Hoc Truth and Reconciliation
Commission: resolution authorizing the procurement of facilitator for the Ad Hoc
Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Can I get a motion to approve, please?
Thomas: So moved, Thomas.
Mims: Second, Mims.
Teague: Moved by Thomas, seconded by Mims.
From: Just a brief introduction. At your last meeting, you authorized or approved the
budget that would enable the hiring of a facilitator. Since that last meeting, the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission has met, received a presentation from the
proposed facilitator, and unanimously recommended approval of that facilitator to
you tonight. I believe that was an 8-0 vote. The representatives from the facilitator
group are available via phone. If you have questions of them, we'll be able to
patch them in, and there may be members of the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission here tonight that can talk about their deliberation process as well.
Teague: Thank you. That was our City Manager, Geoff From. Anyone from the TRC want
to say anything before we get started? We're going to ask for the public to come
up and please sign your name and then we're going to give you up to three
minutes to speak. Welcome, please give us your name and your address.
Martin: Good evening. My name is Selena Martin. I am the President and CEO of Help
Hope and Love Foundation, 4440 Preston Lane and 1550 Deerfield Drive. I do
have a quick question. Did I hear that they already passed the facilitator? Was that
passed and voted on?
Teague: What I'll just tell you is that the council is here to give the final vote.
Martin: Okay. Because I was just changing and just felt, oh my goodness, did I miss it?
Sorry. First of all, I would like to thank the Mayor and the Committee for their
commitment to having discussions on systemic racism. Unification is so
important. Even, well, we have varying opinions, we can disagree respectfully.
We need everyone to feel welcome to the table to discuss, so thank you so much.
First, I will start by saying, please start the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
over, or have the community come together to state how we should proceed to
accomplish the goals of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Also, we have
local experts, we do not need to reach outside of the community at this point for a
facilitator for $198,000. We have people that are committed and grass root in
Iowa to help to get this going. I would really ask that you -all reconsider, open
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back up to the Iowans for our specialists and experts to apply for this facilitator
position. Those are the only things I have and I just want to thank you all so much
for hearing that.
Teague: Thank you. Welcome.
Sargeant: Tracy Jon Sargeant, 33412 Lane Ave. I didn't know I was going to have to follow
Selena. That was obviously very passionate and convicted opinion. I share that
opinion. I've spent the last several years trying to work in various forms of
addressing systemic racism, trying to address racial equity. I'm deeply concerned
at the idea of using a firm out of state to do some work. I work every day with an
individual that I believe is incredibly qualified to do this work. I'm not sure how
that was missed, but I would encourage the council members to strongly consider
the talent that we have here in the state, specifically in our local community. If
you remember the presentation earlier, there was a comment about, those closest
to the problem are typically closest to the solution. I think, those of us here in this
community that work on racial equity on a daily basis are the most qualified to
help address some of those issues. I would encourage the Council to consider that
in their vote tonight. Thank you.
Teague: Thank you. Welcome. [BACKGROUND]
Porter: Hello. I'm Supervisor Royceann Porter, 136 Appanoose Court. I would just like
those that are members of the Black Voices to please stand with me while I read a
letter from us. Then, if you want to say anything afterwards, you can, but I would
ask that you -all stand here with me while I read this letter. I am Royceann Porter
and I am here with other members of the Black Voices Project, to oppose the
hiring of an out-of-state firm to provide the leadership for the Iowa City Truth and
Reconciliation Commission. The current membership of the TRC, as well as the
majority of the City Council, is out of sync with the wide cross section of the
black community that does not support this. This firm, Kearns & West, does not
have any connection in our community or with members of the black community
in Iowa City. We have no reason to trust them to guide us to a public airing of the
truth of our experience in Iowa City. Within the black community, our lived
experience and our ancestors before us have taught us to be careful with who we
trust. It takes time to build a relationship and it's not possible for an outsider to
gain that trust in a matter of a few months. A few months is all that remains of the
original TRC charter, since it has spent nearly a year in organizational chaos.
There are qualified professionals here in Iowa City who can take on the
restorative work needed to accomplish the goals of the TRC, and who already
have connections in the foundation of trust within the community. You as a
council have already heard this message from our own Mayor Teague and our
Mayor Pro Tem Mazahir Salih. By insisting on pushing forward with this plan to
spend nearly $200,000 to bring in outsiders to lead this work, you are showing
extreme disrespect for the black leaders elected to our community. They have
their finger on the pulse of the black community. Listen to them. You may be
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frustrated to see your well-intentioned commission not producing the results you
expected, this is hard work. We all acknowledge that truth. It will not be made
easier by bringing in outsiders. At this point, it is time to regroup, reappoint, and
reconnect. They just gave you the reconnect with the community. Thank the
commissioners for working through a steep learning curve and helping us all learn
some hard lessons about ourselves and our community. We believe it is vitally
important to seek the truth of the black community in Iowa City, and advance
reconciliation for many wrongs, past and present. To avoid future wrongs, you
need to take these lessons and start again with people and processes that honor
and respect the many truths of lived experiences of black Iowa City.
Teague: Thank you. I did allow that to go a little beyond the beat, because there are
multiple people that won't be speaking. [NOISE] Welcome.
Townsend: Wow, I feel so lonely. [LAUGHTER] I'm Orville Townsend, 713 Whiting
Avenue. I come before you this evening to ask you to stop and reset on your
commission. I request that you disband the current commission and start over.
The reason I feel this way is because this commission is a result of chaos in our
city. I think we reacted to chaos and we made decisions to just put things in order
so that we could be comfortable. This is not about being comfortable. You have
guided our city. You've done a wonderful job. But it's because you look at tasks,
you identify tasks, you identify what needs to be done, you put your plan in place,
you look at the outcomes that you want, and then you set about trying to establish
them and achieve them. I think we can do that here. This amount of money that
you're talking about spending is not going to help white and blacks become more
familiar with each other. It's not going to create situations that put us together. But
if you stop and you decide you want to take a different approach, you can make
positive things happen. But please don't let your final end be result of an
appeasement to chaos in our city.
Teague: Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Welcome.
Smith: Hi, Pastor Anthony Smith, New Creations International Church, and Johnson
County Interfaith Coalition. I think enough has been said. I can't say any more
than what has been said by the people that have already been before us. But, I will
say this. I believe that this project should be put on pause. It should be rethought.
These are the people that are doing the work in your city. Why would you go
anywhere else to look for solutions when these are people that had been put in
their heart, their soul, and in this community for years. There's no reason why we
should look in any other direction than within because we live here. This is our
community and we know how to fix ourselves. To be honest with you, it is almost
a slap in the face to say that we can't figure out how to fix our own community.
We know the answers. We don't need anybody else to come from any other city,
from any other state, from anywhere else. If you want to spend some money,
spend some money talking to us and you'll find the answers that you need. Thank
you. [APPLAUSE]
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Teague: Welcome.
Traore: Mohamed Traore, Chair of Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I just want to
start off by saying thank you, everyone, for your words as far, and for your
opinions. But I would just like to ask if any of these opinions have been given
after listening to our full two-hour interview with the facilitator group because it
was made very clear during the lines of questioning and we're very careful with
the lines of questioning to ensure that this was a process that they would have
input on. But anything that would actually be settled and go into the concrete
process will be voted on by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Additionally, in our meeting last week, we debated for I think a little over an hour
about the prospect of making sure that we did have community involvement
throughout the entire process because it was something that we're all very worried
about. The reason that conversation last week went so long was because we were
also not really knowing if it was appropriate to move forward without more
community input. Then at this point, we then heard that when it came to this
actual group, that they have successfully worked with communities all across the
country and also in other parts of the world. They are still continuing to keep
those connections. We interviewed their references, something else that we took
the time out of our days to do. These references all spoke highly of them. People
across the country speak highly of them. I don't understand why it is that we are
not listening to the TRC meetings and hearing that this facilitator group is not
going to have the ultimate say-so on how things are done that the TRC and that
the community will. I also wrote an op-ed a few weeks ago, calling for everyone
in the community to actually participate in this process. I purposely wrote this op-
ed for release prior to the interview with a facilitator so that they could speak on
this because we want the community to be involved. At no point since the TRC
that was reconstituted has a Black Voices Project actually been at a TRC meeting
that I do know of. There's nothing against them. I just want to know why we can't
have a dialogue and why we can't work this out because I would like them to be a
part of this process and I do believe that they should have some more say in how
this goes. But I also think that there are over 70,000 other people in this
community that are going to be affected by all of this and that we do need to hear
from. For me, myself, I think that we all need to realize that each of us is only one
voice in this process and it isn't just one group or another group, no matter where
they're from, that's going to dictate how all of this pans out. It comes down to
everyone in all cross-sections of this community actually coming together,
working for truth -telling, fact-finding, and reconciliation. Because as we were
told, this reconciliation process is not going to end with this commission, it's
going to go for years on end. Thank you.
Teague: Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Welcome.
Johnson: Good evening. Cliff Johnson, also a volunteer for the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission. I feel like as a boxer, I know what a punching bag is, and I feel like
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that's where we are at this point. Pretty much just a punching bag. As of right
now, I feel like we're volunteers who are joined up to do something. As a
volunteer who joined in after whatever chaos took place that I had nothing to do
with, I feel like a lot of punches have been thrown unnecessarily in our direction
where we're trying to step up to the plate and take care of a lot of the issues that
are around. I have not heard one phone call at all during any of our meetings to try
to reach out and to connect and that's what I thought as a city we're suppose to be
doing. We're trying to reach out and connect to each other to try to make a better
city for all of us. I don't understand why no one has been in contact with us yet
has such harsh criticism over people who are volunteering and stepping up to the
plate. There is a lot of groups I have been around for a long time and I appreciate
each and every single one of them and I am very thankful that they're around. I
would hope that the same groups could work with us in making a better future for
all of us rather than we just replace again. A reset button constantly gets worn out
and then nothing gets anywhere and everything falls under the carpet. I feel like it
makes no sense for us to reset again and again and again and especially in far as
I'm concerned, unprofessional ways of handling situations that left the opportunity
for me to step in in the fust place. I fully support my fellow TRC members. I've
watched them myself beforehand and after in the community put in a lot of hard
work and I feel like it gets ignored. I would hope in the future, we can work
together on things a little bit more. I would like to stand by. I really don't believe
we should be terminated. It doesn't make sense to me, not if we're trying to move
forward. Who we have right now, they're on standby, I have not found any reason
why someone from outside can't help. I do understand we do have a lot of great
leaders here and you are very appreciated, absolutely in every sense of the matter.
However, there is no reason why we shouldn't have extra help and especially with
people who have dealt with these issues all over the world. There is more than
Iowa City here and there's people from all different places here as well and
constantly coming in. Outside perspective is not a bad thing. At the end of the
day, we're all supposed to be on the same team not throwing punches at each
other. Thank you.
Teague: Thank you. Welcome.
Currin: Good evening. My name is Anthony Currin and I live at 11 Metric Road. I guess
I'm a Fringe person of the Fringe part of Iowa City unincorporated. However, I
had been selected to be a commissioner and the original iteration of the
commission of truth and reconciliation, that Ad Hoc Commission. I resigned and I
stated my reasons very clearly. I come from a tradition that says, "To find your
leader, you don't go to the person that calls themselves a leader." No. If the person
is calling themselves a leader, they could be an activist, they could be a concerned
citizen. But to find out who a leader is, you watch to see who's following. We will
never follow this Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It was ill-conceived. I
have tried to be civil and I have tried to speak to the persons who created the
resolution. I have tried and it has fallen on deaf ears. It is a slap in the face to this
community that we have a City Council that is being led by BIPOC people,
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however, this resolution was created without their input. It was not from the
Mayor, not from the Mayor Pro Tem. You have right there a microcosm, a slice of
an African American and an immigrant who could talk with you and perfect a
more better resolution. No black people had any input in this. As a matter of fact,
I know a very prominent recognized leader that begged and implored you. "Please
don't make it all BIPOC." Again, it fell on deaf ears. So no, this is doomed and as
good stewards of taxpayer revenue, I asked you to disband the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission because our community will never follow them
because they were not from the community being raised up, they were handed to
us and we were told to follow them and this is not a good steward of tax -based
$200,000. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]
Teague: Welcome.
Fixmer-Oriaz: Thank you. 437 South Governor street. I'm the CEO and founder of a local
planning firm and we do environmental and community planning and we're really
focused on racial justice and social equity. One thing I just wanted to bring into
the conversation is something that we had talked about earlier which was infusing
resources into liters that are already into the community. It seems as though I just
want to acknowledge the long work that goes into that and trying to find a
facilitator, trying to do all that stuff. As somebody who doesn't every day, I know
how hard that is and I know that there's been a lot of work and I just want to
acknowledge that on many sides. I think that if you're looking to build trust, if
you're looking to build support within the community as to what you're doing, it is
difficult to bring somebody in from the outside. Even as much success as they
have, that can be a very difficult task. Well, actually what I don't hear a lot of is
healing. I think that that's something that is core to actually gaining and building
that trust. So when you're looking to have facilitators come in, or if you're looking
for leaders who are actually willing to do the work, we actually need to be talking
about healing. I would just put that forward as something to consider when you're
looking at a very costly facilitator experience and I'm sure they're probably very
good at what they do. At the same time, I do think that we have those people,
those proclaimed or unproclaimed leaders in our community that are closest to the
problem and also could use those resources quite frankly. I think that it would be
a good path towards starting that healing road if we could think about the folks
that are already here and how to support and build that community right in Iowa
City, right in Johnson County. That's just what I wanted to bring into it is like a
lot of healing and a lot of love. I think that there's been a lot of chaos, there's been
a lot of pain and I think that we have leaders here who can lead a process that will
really make a difference in our community, so thank you. [APPLAUSE]
Jordan: Angie Jordan
Teague: Welcome.
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Jordan: Hi there. Angie Jordan 1125 Apple Court. I wasn't going to speak tonight. I had a
lot of things I wanted to hear and follow up with after the meeting but I do feel
moved and I don't really know what I'm going to say. But I will say that I
typically think of the interesting, the healing, the love, the icky, the gross, the
hard, the I don't want to do the discomfort. All for me fits into curiosity. My most
powerful conjunction and those of you who know me is and. There's but, there's
or and those get used a lot. Again, I don't know exactly what I'm saying here but
I'm asking the council in all decisions, TRC, but in general, with these buts and
or's when you see those, please look for the and. Where can we have it all? Where
can we have the outsider perspective and tap our resources in a sustainable way?
And..And..And... Where can we have the trauma beheld? The old trauma, the new
trauma, the recently recreated trauma, the self-imposed trauma and how can that
be with the healing and the future? I'm not coming here with answers, I'm just
asking you all to be curious and looking for the and, and I don't know where that
is. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]
Teague: Would anyone else like to address this topic? Only one time but yeah. Please step
over here. There is a sign -in that you can do after one of you can speak first and
then you can sign in after.
Franks: You go ahead. I'll save the best for last. My name is Bernadine Franks. I live at
2500 Muscatine Avenue. I worked for Faith Academy, family liaison. I've also
worked in his community as a substance abuse professional (can't hear) Prelude. I
was there when it was Mecha. I was a Manager for chemical dependency services
at another hospital here in Iowa City as well. I've been in a number of and I was
also served as Elder at our local black church here in our city for a number of
years. I've been in this community for a long time and I've seen a lot of things.
I've worked with a lot of professionals who in my opinion would be more than
experience for this job. I've heard the term passed around, it will be a slap in the
face to have someone to compromise that. I would be personally offended and
feel as if I had been slapped to have somebody to come in. As many professionals
as we have in this community that I know of personally that are more than able to
do this job. I thank all of you that have done work in this area for the time you
spent, for the hours you have labored thus far but I am asking now that you
reconsider bringing somebody else from the outside into our community to do a
job that we are more than able to do. Not only do I ask that, I pray that you do
that. As a Christian woman, I believe that all things are possible according to
Mark 9:23. If you only believe. I believe in my Mayor, I believe in this council
and I believe in the members of the community. I couldn't have said anything else
that Royceann did not already say. I thank you for your work and your time and
your dedication and all that you have given this community. Pastor Tony. I thank
you for coming out tonight and join that. People have other things that they could
have been doing but this is important to them. They took the time to come out and
speak on this. I only have an opinion. I'm sorry that my opinion is not the same as
someone else here who would want somebody to come into the community but
we have the right to disagree. But I'm disagreeing with him strongly that we do
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not need this other committee to come in and do what we're able to do. I thank
you in advance for.. You know what? All of you are members of this community.
Not only am I aware of what the members of this community do, all of you are
too. All of you are more than have seen the people that we have and the caliber of
people that live in this community. You know what they are capable of and that
we don't need anybody. Please reconsider this.
Teague: Thank you. Thank you.
Frank: Thank you. [APPLAUSE]
Coleman: Well, my name's Marian Coleman. I guess I've been in the Iowa City community
since dirt. I'm pretty familiar with what goes on now. I must say I live in the
County, so I'm really not able to participate in much that goes on with the City
and City Council and commissions. But just a little background, I was equity
director for the Iowa City Community School District in this district for 40 years,
25 years as federal compliance for the Iowa City Community School District.
Principal at several of our schools. I learned when I was working for the School
District that we don't make policies for outside communities. When I dealt with
something called Halloween one year, I had folks from all over the country
sending me hate mails saying, we were the mind control people and we did not
respect tradition. But we do respect tradition. When we were working in the
School District, every school had different culture. The people who led the School
District had to realize that they had to blend all those cultures together in order to
make this community what we wanted for our children. I don't mind not being a
part of City commissions. I know I could be a part of Johnson County
commissions, but I want to be a part of what we do now. I have worked so hard
and as equity director, I notice exclusion of people in leadership position. Right
now I'll tell you, you probably heard it before, I'm the only African American
administrator to ever retire from the Iowa City School District. Wow. Now, that's
because we don't listen. A part of what Black Voices is about is helping us to start
to listen more and to pay attention to what people are saying. I don't know the
person that is supposed to come in from the outside, but the learning curve is
going to be huge. There are so many people with so many attitudes and ideas and
political beliefs, that we're going to have a very difficult time trying to decide
what we want that person to focus on in addition to that person getting himself
acclimated to this community. Yes, we do have people from all over and we are
blessed and fortunate to have the University here. They bring in lots of folks that
we learned from. I work with ESL students. I had to do visas, I had to do all kinds
of things. I had to decide whether it was a visitation visa or something that we had
to do, but they were alien students, so by law we had to have them in our schools.
We don't have any laws regulating how you make decisions because you are i
body of very intelligent, hardworking people.
Teague: Thank you.
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Coleman:
Teague:
Coleman:
Teague:
Salih:
Teague
I wish that you would not.
Thank you.
Make a decision knee-jerk
Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Would anyone else like to address Council at this
time? You've already addressed Council, sorry. Would anyone else like to address
council at this time?
I have a question for him. Anyway because we can ask the City Manager or the
Truth and... TRC.
You can ask the TRC a question, yes.
Salih: Yes. Mohamed, thank you first for everything you do. You said early, we're going
to bring somebody from outside, but that doesn't mean we're not going to use
people locally? Is that means the 190 something almost $200,000 will be the same
budget?
Teague: Can I just interrupt only because the TRC they don't have a majority here. Just be
careful when you continue. They're not here to really engage.
Traore: I'll only comment on what has already been agreed by the commission.
Salih: Okay. Yeah. Because you already said that, so I'm just asking to clarify that.
We're approving budget for almost 200,000 for the facilitator. My understanding
when I listen to the discussion that you have with the facilitator that this almost
200,000 will go to them and all of them are not local. When you say you're going
to use people local, are you thinking about adding, hiring another people locally
to do the job beside? That means you're going to pay them money outside the 200
that you're going to give to the facilitator. If that means the people you're going to
hire have to do things locally, will there be another people different from those
outsider?
Traore: Yes. This has been covered since our work session, our last week's session with
you all. That's why the original two budgets had the line items in there for
payment to community collaborators and organizers because we have been
cognizant of that fact since we have begun this conversation. The only reason it
was removed from this budget proposals is because we are aware that you can
vote on specific line items and choose to reject the entire budget if the entire
budget is brought in. The facilitator would then be available to assist us with
bringing a better budget forward that is more clear, that has better steps laid out so
you can then make a decision based off of every line item and how it is planned
out in terms of months that each disbursement would need to be made.
Additionally, we can also have a concrete plan on how everyone can also
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participate and also figure out how exactly they would like to participate rather
than having a budget line item on there, of just saying community collaborators
and participants and not knowing exactly how we would compensate them for
their work.
Salih: Okay. My other question is, are you and the commission aware that the one
million dollars is not for TRC only?
Traore: I'm only as aware as I can be from what I've continually asked all of you since
March. Since Eleanor Dilkes actually was still with the City, had been asking
exactly how much of that million is allocated for use by the TRC. Today, I still
have not received a concrete answer on that. The only thing I do know is that I
have been told that if there are other budgetary needs required, that we we're
allowed to request more budget money from you.
Salih: Yes or no. Aware that the one million dollars is not only for TRC?
Traore: Yes. I am aware. I'm just not aware of what amount you're all wanting to allocate
to the TRC because that is still not been made clear.
Salih: Okay. Fair enough. Thank you.
Teague: Thank you. We really can't get in into having people come up a second time to
speak. Sorry about that. If you've already spoke, we're still in public.
Townsend: It relates to what you're talking about. I have a question.
Traore: I'm only answering questions from the council from what the TRC has already
spoken on and already spoken on with the City and nothing else. All of this has
been public information now for either weeks or months depending on when it
has occurred.
Teague: Thank you. Would anyone else that hasn't had a chance to address, would like to
address the council at this time? Welcome.
Dillard: Hi, everyone.
Dillard: Hello. My name is Chastity Dillard. I am a TRC member. I'm out of breath
because I'm running late. I just had work, but I just wanted to reiterate what
everyone has already said that I absolutely believe that we do need a facilitator,
especially a facilitator group of this caliber and the strength in everything that
they have proven and put to us on the table, we need this in this community. I
heard a little bit that people are concerned that we're not going to include the
community input, but that is not the case. We want to hear from everyone. I just
joined the TRC in May. It's been going on for almost a year now and we're still at
the same place. It is very imperative that you allow us to move forward and do
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exactly what we need to do so we can make this community as great as we need it
to be. This is all I wanted to say. Thank you.
Teague: Thank you. Would anyone else like to address this topic at this time?
Townsend: I'm Billy Townsend 713 Whiting Avenue. I think we've been here before. My
husband and I have both been on lots of commissions here in Iowa city because
we have a passion for making this the best community that we can live in. It
bothers me that you join a commission, that's a volunteer position when you come
on and then you ask for salary, [APPLAUSE] you ask the babysitting. Now you
ask for $200,000 for a facilitator to come in and fix the problem. We all know
what the problem is, we just need to get along better. I hope that the City Council
will take it on good faith that we start again. This time with representation from
every area of the BIPOC community, not just the younger generation. There's no
one on that commission that's anywhere close to where my husband and I are.
We've been in this community, myself over 30 years, him over 40 years. I think
we need to regroup, start again and do it the right way so that we can get the job
done. [APPLAUSE] Thank you.
Teague: Thank you. Would anyone else like to address this topic before I close public
comment? Thanks to all of the public that have come up and spoke at this time.
I'm going to open it up to council discussion.
Mims: I'll start. I would feel nobody wants to say anything at this point. I feel like quite
frankly, we're in absolutely no win position right now as councilors. Let me
explain why I feel that way. When we started with the TRC, we were getting a lot
of input, a lot of pushing to do things a certain way. A lot of, don't tell us how to
do it. Let us figure it out, we don't want this totally managed by the City. We want
independence with this commission, etc. I think in that process, I think we made a
mistake. But I'm not sure if we had done it differently, we would have found
ourselves necessarily in any better position. We put together a commission with a
resolution that was supported by this Council, regardless of who drafted it, was
supported by this Council that basically laid out what we wanted for end results
but with not any structure to it. That's really different because when anybody is
appointed to any of our City commissions, typically they are walking into an
environment where there are existing members with an existing structure with by-
laws in place. So they come in as one or two new members may be at a time and
get acclimated into that whole process. Here we dropped nine people into a room
with no structure, with probably the most difficult job of any commissions that we
have ever appointed. We went through the turmoil of that commission with
resignations, with putting them on pause, with appointing new people, and now
trying to move forward. What we're seeing is obviously a significant division
within the BIPOC community about what we should do and how we should move
forward. With those people who are on there and have been working on it, feeling
like we should continue with the process that has been going for months after we
restarted, they're making progress. With other people in the community who feel
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like that's not the way to go we should shut it down we should start all over. We
as a City, put out a proposal, the request for proposal for a facilitator for this
commission. It is my understanding and I would assume our City staff has done
thing every by all of our regulations and state laws, etc to put out an RFP. Is my
understanding we got one response to that RFP. We did not get a response from
any person or organization locally. I don't know why, but we didn't. I sit here as
an elected city council member thinking to myself, we have followed a process
and we have an applicant or a response to the RFP from an organization that has
an incredible reputation nationally for doing this work. They go into lots of
communities where they have no presence. They come in as outsiders to facilitate,
to help the people in that community to do the work that needs to be done, the
people that have relationships and know the community. I look at that and the
process, and so to me, it seems logical to continue to move forward with that. Do
I wish that we had had multiple responses to the RFP? Do I wish that we had
multiple local groups who had put their expertise forward and said, "Hey, we can
do this." Absolutely. I absolutely wish we had had that. We did not. My concern
now as I sit here is to a certain extent I see the Council in an absolutely no win
position. If we vote for this, I think we see a very divided BIPOC community and
particularly, I think it's to a certain extent a generational divide. We have people
who have worked in this community as activists and volunteered on commissions
for decades who have done an absolutely fantastic job, and I thank all of you for
that. I've known a lot of you for a long, long time and I support and appreciate the
work that you've done. [BACKGROUND] I'd like to continue my comments
without interruption from the audience, please. We respected your comments I
would appreciate that same respect. I do not see this as an easy decision.
[BACKGROUND] I absolutely do not. I see this as a division within our
community that no matter which answer we give, there is a side of the community
that is going to say that we are absolutely wrong, we should have done it a totally
different way and they are absolutely justified in everybody's own opinion. As a
city councilor, I believe in process. I believe we gave an opening to everybody to
respond to the RFP and to offer their expertise in this process. The point I'm
sitting at right now to my fellow councilors, depending on what I hear from the
rest of you, I am hard-pressed not to go ahead and support the hiring of this group
to come in and facilitate so that the TRC can do the work we've asked them to do
and we still will be asking for and needing the input from the community
members. If we shut this down, I'll tell you right now, I'm done as a councilor. I'm
done with trying to work on any kind of a TRC. I got about four months left. It's
like, you all figure it out because we've had a process in place, we've tried to work
through that process. If we turn this down now, I don't think there's anything this
council can do that's going to be accepted by the community as a whole.
Teague: I really appreciate your words, and what you said and I hear you. I really do. It is
a challenge that we're in. Something that was mentioned by one of the newer TRC
members was that, they feel like a punching bag and I hear you, I agree. When we
reset the TRC at no fault of anyone, we thought we were pausing because there
was turmoil that we knew we couldn't continue with the TRC as it was. When we
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came back, we didn't have the foresight to honestly start it all over. If we as a
council cannot see, the thing that is most important is healing within the BIPOC
community. That is very clear to me. There needs to be healing. If we are going
to move forward, I've said it time and time again, we need to restart, re -imagine
how we get the goals set forth by the TRC. I am not giving up. I am fully
dedicated to the goals of the TRC. This is real work that me and all the people in
this room, we lived through this systemic racism. We want change, we want it
now, but we won't be able to get it the way that things are now. Healing is
imperative for us to move forward. You know Angie Jordan, who we all love and
respect talked about the and and the but, not really knowing the answers right
now, don't have anything to offer, but to come and listen. But the one thing that
she said is we need the plus that's the healing. We can't ignore that there is so
much turmoil and we need to move forward. The other thing I have to tell you,
I've listened to the TRC meetings and I want to tell the TRC members, especially
those new ones that have come forth. I've seen how you all engage and I so
respect it. I really listened to you all and I see how you interact. I do believe that
there are some dynamics maybe happening. I'm a leader, so I notice dynamics
among groups that might be happening. That the unification that is needed
because we do see the division, I really believe that we have to deal with it and we
cannot go forth. On this vote of the Kerns and West coming in to provide this
facilitation work. It was not until we started having a conversation here where
councilor Thomas said, we really wanted a project manager to come in and help
us with this process. As he was talking and I was learning some of the things that
they could offer, that's when it became very apparent to me what was gone before
the TRC should have been coming to Council at the beginning to help us develop
the whole structure of the TRC. Their expertise could have, because at that point,
I have to tell you, Mayor Pro Tem and I were grieving George Floyd, we were
also grieving and wanted to also make sure that we had time to express that we
want change, we want it now. There was a lot going on. But we didn't have the
foresight to bring in people to give us some advice. We went to some seminars
online because everything was high COVID on how to move forward. There's no
fault of no -one's. I think this council, I know each one of your heart's, every last
one. I know your heart at wanting the change that is so necessary for this
community. I will tell you tonight that we need healing. The facilitator is really
not the topic. It shouldn't be the topic, but it is the topic, it's the item on the
agenda. I would implore all of us to not vote for this tonight. Let us then come
back and have some community input on what steps are next because if we don't
have the healing, we will not be successful as a community with this TRC.
Taylor: Thank you Mayor Teague. It's hard to follow that. But I would like to state, fust
of all, I want to thank the members of the public who took the time to come
before us to speak on this. I appreciate your comments and have very deep respect
for each of you. You know which ones you are. As councilors we were all a 100
percent in favor of the creation of the TRC. However, it's been obvious that this
group has needed help with direction and clarity towards achieving their
objectives. It just hasn't been done and it's been almost a year. But at what cost
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should that come? That seems to be the big question here tonight. When I was
thinking about that question in my mind, I kept hearing the phrase Councilor
Mims often said regarding many other items, fiduciary responsibility. I'm
surprised that I haven't heard that because I don't see that as this. That means to
prudently or cautiously take care of money matters. I don't see that with this. The
longer that I have taken to think about this proposal, the more questions I have
about the process that took place in the selection of this company. Normally when
we start an RFP process, there's a period of time when the request is posted. With
all due respects to Councilor Mims, I'm not clear on what that process was for the
posting of this RFP. I don't recall seeing it and was it a national search or how did
this come about? Also with RFPs for City projects, we like to see more than one
bidder. Oftentimes, a selection is not made when there's only one applicant. We
also see comparative bids for the cost, and we didn't see that. To me, this bid is
over what would be appropriate for the time -frame that we have left is just a few
months. Just doesn't seem rational for this cost for the short time -frame from now
until next June. Considering the proposal fee from this one firm, I would
encourage a broader search as soon as possible with a more transparent and
competitive process. Preferably choosing obviously someone from local, the
process. [APPLAUSE] I will be voting against it.
Fruin: Mayor, I feel like I need to clarify the procurement process that the City staff
guided the procurement process as we would any other process. The TRC did not
create the process themselves. We guided them through that, we put that through
our normal channels. We published that notice like we would any other process
and in this case we had one response. You've seen a number of these on projects.
There are times where we feel like we don't get sufficient responses, we'll go back
out and we'll try again. There's other times where we feel like the one response
that we get or the one bid what we get is sufficient and we move forward. I just
want to clarify that this wasn't a new process or a process that was conceived by
the Commission. It was guided by the same professional staff that guides all of
our procurement processes here at the city.
Salih: Geoff, can you just add like how long was the process for? Like how the
advertising time.
Fruin: I'd have to go back and get the exact dates. My guess is that it was probably
somewhere in the 3-5 weeks in terms of getting proposals back, but I might be
able to find that out here if I look it up.
Salih: That's okay.
Weiner: In the spirit of the and of Angie Jordan, I think it might be at least useful if we
have the proposed contractor's proposed project leaders or facilitators on the line
to ask them how they approach communities that they clearly do not know and
why they as a firm believe that this sort of work is a highly specialized work and
how they have managed to do it in other communities. We've heard a lot from this
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community, from many people who are highly respected in this community. We
know that there's a great deal of healing that needs to happen both within the
commission and without and within the community. But I would actually be
interest in the some hearing from this group. Because presumably they have been
listening to this and they have heard the concerns and the pain and the healing that
is needed. Given all the discussion that's going on, that seems to me it would be
only fair at this point.
Teague: I would just say that as I mentioned, for me it's really not the facilitator.
Weiner: That's the item on the agenda.
Teague: It is the item on the agenda, you're exactly right. It is the item on the agenda, but
there is much more that's happening here than this item on the agenda. I
personally don't believe now is the appropriate time for them to respond, but that's
my personal opinion. I mean, not to invite them to respond.
Mims: I'd be glad to hear from them.
Bergus: I think we need to hear their perspective. I agree with you Mayor, that what we're
talking about is not just the facilitator. That's been clear from the very heartfelt
and very helpful comments that we've received this evening. I'm one of the
individuals that Mr. Currin was referring to who drafted this, I acknowledge that.
I did so with input from a number of people. I think what we're talking about for
the facilitator as well as for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is to
provide a framework for the community for healing. That's the intent. That's what
the resolution requires. That's the charge of the commission. We tried a facilitator
once before and we vested our trust in the commission that voted eight to one on
the first facilitator and he chose not to execute that contract and so we tried again.
At that point, the first process was not a competitive process. We then went with
the competitive process to have the requests for proposals go out and be open for
a long time. I know that the commission took very, very seriously the fact that
they only received one response. But I think this divide that we're hearing and that
I'm so grateful that all of you were willing to voice and be vulnerable and be open
to us here tonight because I'm sure you all had other things you wanted to do. But
I think this divide is the kind of thing that the professionals we're talking about,
the contract that actually is on our agenda for consideration tonight. It's the kind
of work they do as professionals. I think that's why it's important for us to hear
from them.
Public: But they will fail if we don't partner. [inaudible 01:47:50]
Teague: I'm going to just respectfully ask all of the public to keep your comments to
yourself please. Thank you.
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Thomas: Well, in terms of hearing from the consultant as we've been discussing, this is the
item on our agenda. It's been a long, difficult road here and in terms of honoring
that process, it does seem to me appropriate. I would certainly be interested in
hearing the consultants comments at this point.
Teague: We do have a majority. Can you get the consultant on the phone or did you want
to speak first, Mayor Pro Tem?
Salih: It doesn't matter, no. We can hear.
Fruin: Yeah, we'll just check with our communication staff right now. If anybody from
Kearns & West is able to speak, feel free to jump in right now.
Fruehling: She's working on it so that we can hear them.
From: Okay.
Fruehling: Just for the Kearns & West folks that are on the line, we can't quite hear you yet,
if you can just give us a minute, we're working on it.
[Silence - Communications staff working on audio]
Schooler: This is Larry Schooler from Kearns & West. Can you all hear me?
Teague: Yes, we can. Welcome.
Schooler: Hey. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor and Council. This is Dr. Larry
Schooler. I'm a Director and Senior Facilitator with Kearns & West, and I want to
thank the Mayor and Council for this opportunity to speak with you -all. Mayor,
I'm happy to just help field questions, or if you'd like me to make any kind of
introductory remarks, I can.
Teague: You -all would like him to speak so you can ask him what you're expecting?
Mims: I guess my first question would be, if you folks have been listening to the
comments that have been made here this evening. I believe this is what we're
trying to get at is your response to that and how you feel you either can or cannot
come in and effectively facilitate within a community with these issues.
Schooler: Council member, thank you very much for the question. I also would like to thank
the members of the Iowa City Community who offered public input tonight. I've
worked in municipal government for more than a decade and nothing is more
important to the policy-making process than the public input that policymakers
receive. In response to your question, the TRC members who spoke were correct
in saying that this is the kind of work we do in communities all over the country.
I've just completed facilitating the Racial Equity and Policing Commission for
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Salt Lake City, Utah. We are facilitating the Community Task Force on Policing
for Elgin, Illinois, and for Vancouver, Washington. We are certainly familiar with
the challenges associated with being from out of town. So that we are clear as to
the role we understand ourselves to be playing, we're here to facilitate a process
that this community and this TRC design. We're not in a decision-making role as
we understand it, we're in a facilitative role. The only way that the TRC's work
will be a success, whether we're engaged with it or not, is if the community
defines how the process should look and then participates in that process. We very
much would like to explore the possibility of having our firms work be done in
tandem with community organizations who would receive a portion of the budget
that would be allocated to us. We fully understand that we have a lot to learn
about the Iowa City Community and about the particular challenges in Iowa City,
regardless of the members of our team who have connections to our roots in Iowa
City. We would like to be able to leverage our experience doing this work,
whether it's equitable engagement, truth and reconciliation, restorative justice, a
particular interest in public safety, and partner that and marry that with the local
knowledge that's been expressed all throughout the evening and that we were
aware of even before this evening to produce the kind of TRC process that the
community will fully embrace. So, again, we view ourselves as a conduit for the
community to have the process that they believe they need to have, and to help the
community create the brave space needed to hear each other's truths and then to
effectuate a process of reconciliation. That's a challenge that we've embraced in
many other places and would like to hear as well.
Salih: Have you done any researches about BIPOC community in Iowa City? Would
you know about BIPOC community in Iowa City?
Schooler: Kyle Vint on our team I think is still with us, and I know that Kyle has done a
significant amount of work directly in Iowa City over the course of his career,
including his time at the University. Kyle, if you'd like to share some information
and insight from that lived and worked experience.
Vint: Yeah, Larry. I appreciate it. I think I would like to be clear about one thing here,
Larry and Councilors, that my role in this project is not to be the ambassador to
Iowa City. In my time in Iowa City, I was a student and then eventually a
graduate student. I did a significant amount of work at the University of Iowa and
with the local high school communities in Iowa City. But my work at that time
was not focused in the BIPOC community, although I did work to expand access
and equity to higher education for the BIPOC community with the organizations
that I was involved in. I think, Councilor Teague, your specific point, the purpose
of our work here is not to bring our preconceptions of Iowa City to bear, but to
hear the experiences that are being shared through the commission and the by the
commissioners themselves to elicit a process that helps to identify the community
organizations and community groups who can help to lead this process forward.
In that specific approach that we've defined that the very first portion of the work
that we've identified is to have deep conversations with members of the
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community, members of the commission, and members of the council to help get
our bearings about the community of Iowa City and to better understand the
people that need to be proactively addressed and reached out to ensure that their
voice is elevated and magnified in this process. Especially as we are working to
define the overall approach and a guide that will be brought in front of Council.
[OVERLAPPING].
Schooler: I would just say Council member that we can certainly do reading and textual
research about a community, but that's no substitute for getting to know the
people who are in that community being physically in the community, being able
to walk neighborhoods and talk directly to people, and of course, given the
procurement process, we've had to be very limited in the way that we
communicate with Iowa City. As this process move forward, we've had to
maintain our contact with this one staff person. But as Kyle mentioned, in any of
our projects, we seek to spend ample time making sure we hear directly from the
people who have lived in the community and who've worked in it to understand
the dynamics from their perspective, not just from articles and data that we could
maybe just access remotely.
Salih: Even if you came to Iowa City, how confidence are you? How you think that by
BIPOC people will be engaging with you?
Schooler: Council member, I appreciate the question, and I guess the only thing that I can
say is that they have when we have worked in a number of other communities. I
can only speak for the work that we have done before. I certainly understand why
people would be distrustful of anyone they don't know, be they out-of-state, be
they have a different race, or of a different ethnicity, or of a different religion.
That distrust is certainly understandable. At the same time, this is what we do. We
take on projects where deeply entrenched local communities are asking for a
neutral, independent third party to help them work through some of the more
challenging issues that they're facing. We are mediators, and we have chosen a
particular area of subspecialty within mediation and facilitation to work on this
very kind of topic. When we do this work, we do it with very diverse teams of
people. Some of us will look like the people with whom we're interacting, and
some of us won't. Some of us will have similar backgrounds, some of us won't.
It's our duty to make sure that we gain as deeper an understanding of their
experiences as we can in order to facilitate to help drive consensus as best as we
can. I certainly understand and hear the concern, and I would simply tell you that
we experience that every time we start a project and nevertheless we persist and
have been fortunate to, I think achieve some meaningful outcomes for the
communities in which we've worked.
Salih: I so I'm going to ask another question. As a person who work with BIPOC
community and Latinos and people of color in general, as a person who I am a
person of color who are immigrants, Muslim, I have a lot of diversity that I can
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represent. I being working with all those people and what I know about them, no
matter who I send to certain community, if they don't know those people, they
don't trust them. For example, at the Center for Worker Justice, where I'm the
director. If I would like to speak to Latino for certain issue, if I send a white
person who is speaking Spanish, they're not going to trust them. If I send a black
person who is speaking Spanish, they are not going to trust them. If I send a
Latino person, if they don't know them, they are not going to trust them. Are you
planning to hire people who look like from the community to do the work?
Schooler: We are, mam, yes.
Salih: You're going to hire people from Iowa City to do work in Iowa City?
Schooler: We're very open to including in our work and in compensating those people who
feel that they would like to be part of the work that have the kinds of relationships
that you describe that don't require any reinvention of the wheel that can enable us
to gain the access into all parts of Iowa City that need to be engaged in this TRC.
Teague: Can I ask a question? Of the $97,000, one of the budgeted item was actually
allocated for community involvement.
Salih: Outreach.
Teague: Outreach.
Schooler: Mayor I'm happy to go back and pull the budget for you, but I think it's very
important to say that the TRC is, by its very nature, a community driven process.
It's not one that's done by consultants in a back room or staff. It's done by
significant engagement with community members who want to share their
testimony and participate in the TRC's work. It's very different in many ways
from a typical advisory board might be, and so I'm not sure that I could give you
an exact percentage, to a degree, I would say it's a 100 percent because we will be
spending the vast majority of our time either in publicly held TRC meetings at
which the community is invited, or community events at which the community is
asked to bring their testimony. Or in other private settings where our team can be
collecting testimony and hosting opportunities for dialogue and reconciliation. I
don't mean to be evasive in answering your question, but when we constructed
our budget, it wasn't necessarily done with an eye towards this piece is for
outreach and this pieceis for something else, because the process is, by it's very
nature, so extremely transparent, so extremely public. In some ways, it's the most
democratic thing that humanity I think has done to date in terms of trying to work
through the challenges of our time. I'm happy as we continue this conversation, I
can try to identify some additional line items, but that's what I would say in brief.
Teague: I just have one last comment, I guess. This is related to you've said it a few times
now that this is a community -driven process, and you've heard the community
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come out and speak, and I can tell you that the voices of those that have come
forth and stating that the TRC should be re -imagined by the community coming to
the table to say where we think we need to go from here on out. I don't really
know that the word is fully distrust you all. I have great respect for the work that
you do. I do believe that you are experts in this, but Iowa City is unique. We have
talent amongst us, and what we're saying is, we can do this on a local level so as
no disrespect to you, and I think that's the challenge here is that it really isn't
about you. It is about what the community wants and what the community is
saying they want at this time. With that being said, what would be your response
from what you're hearing from the community?
Schooler: Well Mayor, fust of all, we don't take it as in any way disrespect, we fully
understand the significance of involving or having local leadership. I hope this
doesn't come off the wrong way. We simply were made aware of an opportunity
to leverage the expertise and experience that we have to assist a community with
truth and reconciliation, and so we submitted a proposal and assembled the team
based on what was asked of us in that call for proposals. We don't think that this
TRC will be successful unless the community can formulate the best approach
that will yield the kind of results that they're looking for, and that will require, I
think effective facilitation. But it will also require a robust process for that
community to participate in the TRC's work, and I don't think we've had that
today, and that's part of what we're I think meant to assist with providing. It seems
to me, as I was listening to the comments tonight, that this community is very
much seeking the reconciliation that comes with the truth and reconciliation
process, and that perhaps a facilitator can help to move this process forward. I can
accept that our being from outside the community is very difficult and upsetting
and maybe even disrespectful, and I apologize if we've made anyone feel that
way. We simply look for projects that are very much aligned with our values as a
company that are connected to our experience and our expertise, and that where
we think we can add value. We still believe that in this case, and would work as
hard as we could to have all of the right people at the table of doing this work and
included in this work.
Vint: Larry if I may, I would just add one item in there on top to respond to your
question, Mayor, this is Kyle Vint, apologies. We've heard a lot tonight about the
need to re -imagine the TRC, and I think we've heard that comment loud and clear
and understand their perspective and that's being shared there. One thing that I
would just note is that I don't view the TRC structures sedimented, and I think
going back to the theme of tonight about the and, or the gesture towards and. That
very fust step in this process is to collectively or collaboratively define what the
truth telling, the reconciliation process looks like and in our approach to this
project starts with interviews and outreach to community organizations and
community leaders to hear what their perspectives are on the need to structure and
define the outreach engagement within this project. In light of that, I think that
there is space in here to continue to hear those perspectives. Having to include
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those voices in the process of defining the approach to how this process moves
forward.
Bergus: Does anyone on the Kearns & West team have experience working in a
community where the legitimacy of the commission that you're working with, or
your work, is questioned like you're hearing this evening?
Schooler: Councilor the short answer is yes. I'm certainly interested in hearing from either
of our other team members that are on the line, Sara Omar or Eduardo Gonzalez.
Eduardo has worked in Truth and Reconciliation Commissions around the globe
and there is undoubtedly been distrust, skepticism, and worse that has faced him
in his various endeavors, including in the Greensboro, North Carolina
Community, which some of you may be familiar with. I reported on the
Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission for NPR back in 2004, and that
commission struggled to attain the political legitimacy that it was seeking. But
now some 15 years later, many of the reforms sought by that TRC have now been
implemented by city government or other levels of government. That distrust and
that skepticism faces us almost anywhere we go, unless perhaps it's our own
family or something, and even then they might distrust us. But I think that we are
accustomed to that. Certainly we were outsiders in Salt Lake City, we are
outsiders and now Elgin, Illinois we're outsiders in Vancouver, Washington. But I
think that over time, with the investment of effort and energy that we place into
gaining a deeper understanding of where we are. We tend to see those bonds of
trust be built, but I'm happy to yield to Sara or Eduardo if you wanted to add
anything from your experiences.
Salh: I also want to ask you, when I was listening to your presentation to TRC, correct
me if I'm wrong, I think I hear that you're saying you will be in like Iowa City
your six time year. Is that true or that is still going to be six times a year, or you're
going to have come more than that, or I don't know how often.
Schooler: Mayor Pro Tem, for purposes of formulating a budget, we made estimates as to
what it would take for us to travel to Iowa City, and so in the budget that we laid
out in order to keep things manageable, we kept a certain number of trips in place.
Having said that, we fully believe that once we would be engaged in the work and
talking with both the commissioners and the community, we may find that we
need to configure our presence in Iowa City very differently and be in town more
often. We want to assure you that despite the fact that we've thought critically
about our proposal and our proposed budget. It's still something that has to be
worked out by the people who want us to assist them and not by us, so we would
envision that any sort of calculation about number of trips would be revisited.
Salih: I'm sorry, I'm asking too much questions. I also think there's going to be learning
curve for you guys because you are coming from outside Iowa City, why should I
choose you? That it's going to take you a lot of time to figure out how this
community will be working, then choose like somebody else was local, what
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you're going to do to shrink that learning curve if you've been chosen? Because I
just believe that you are not from Iowa City, Kyle is not being in a BIPOC
commission or group in University of Iowa, even those areas. He never been in
commission. I know you always refer to him as a person who is from Iowa City. I
don't think the University with respect to the University of Iowa but University
and the community are very segregated, because those students and the
community are very segregated and he being only on that setting. Can you tell me
what you're going to do?
Schooler: I understand Mayor Pro Tem, and I guess I would make a couple of points. First
of all, I certainly relate to what you're saying about university divides and myself
part of the University of Texas witness that firsthand. I would also say that it's
important that we remember what we're being asked to do here. We're being
asked to provide neutral facilitation. We're being asked to assist disparate parts of
the Iowa City community with coming together around a shared purpose or shared
direction and a shared process. I understand your concerns about a learning curve.
I guess I would just tell you that even a facilitator who is in the heart of Iowa City
would also face a learning curve, but also would struggle, I think, with
maintaining the full level of neutrality that would be expected for a facilitator. It's
difficult sometimes for people to appreciate how a facilitator's job works, but we
are expected to put all of our own biases aside, all of our own preconceived
notions aside and work on behalf of all of the participants in any process that
we're working in. I understand why there is value in our collaborating with
members of the local community and we fully intend to do so. At the same time, I
think that our capacity as people who are coming in from outside of the
community can assist us in providing the services that you have asked us to
provide, and that's what we're here to do. I'm not going to tell you exactly how
quickly or how slowly we will pick up on the things that you all hope for us to
understand. I acknowledge that it might take me longer than it would take
someone who lives down the street from City Hall. But we also bring a wealth of
experience and expertise doing this kind of work to help to streamline some of the
processes of, as you put it, ascending that learning curve. I'm happy though to
hear from other members of my team, I'm not the only voice on our group.
Eduardo or Sara.
Salih: Thank you.
Schooler: Eduardo, go ahead. [NOISE] Your audio is not good, Eduardo. [NOISE] Can't
hear you. It's garbled. You might might to redial in by phone audio or something
but we can't make out your words. Or take out the earpieces. We can go on to
another question, Mayor Council if you'd like.
Gonzales: How about now?
Schooler: Now, it's great. Go ahead.
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Gonzales: Excellent. Thank you so much Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council and
members of the public who are there. My name is Eduardo Gonzales. I am
originally from Peru, Latin America. I did work in a Truth and Reconciliation
Commission created in my country after the internal conflict that we saw fust. It
was a conflict that left 69,000 people dead after 20 years of war. Creating a Truth
Commission in those conditions was indeed difficult. After that work, I have been
serving in Truth Commissions in about 20 countries, and some of those
commissions have not been national commissions like the commission of Peru,
the commission of Kenya, the commission of Tunisia, but local commissions in
different parts of the world, including the United States, like Laurie mentioned,
the Greensboro for a Truth Commission and the Maine Wabanaki TRC. I just
want to make two short points. The fust one is that TRCs are established precisely
because there are problems of legitimacy. Precisely because there are problems of
distrust. But I wanted to say that this distrust is not just a psychological issue. I
hear often that Truth Commissions are about healing, and it is true that healing is
important. But the reason why there is no healing is because there is no justice.
Truth Commissions really are a step towards justice, and that is a fundamental
point. Now, that is a very loaded word, and that is probably why Truth
Commissions are not called justice commissions. They are called Truth and
Reconciliation Commissions, because it's probably a way to get into those very
difficult and obviously very political and very loaded discussions. Those
discussions would be difficult in any normal situation. They are even more
difficult when there is suffering and when there are the obvious marks of injustice
in a community. Communities suffering justice and therefore suffer trauma, and
therefore it is very logical and very obvious that trust is going to be very difficult
to find. That is why there is untrust. That is also why, in my experience, Truth
Commissions appreciate comparative experience and experience from other
countries. The Truth Commission in which I worked in Peru received the support
of members of the Truth Commission of South Africa. It would have been unwise
in my opinion to deny the support of people who serve in the Truth Commission
created by Nelson Mandela. I think it was an important step that we listened to
them. The same with the Truth Commission of Chile, Truth Commission of
Guatemala, we listen to all those commissions. Then people who served in Truth
Commissions in Morocco, Tunisia, listened to someone from a Truth Commission
in Peru, and I think listen to comparative experience can be very useful because it
makes you discover that the problems that you think are intractable probably have
been discussed in other places. Certainly, there will be elements in which our
cases are indeed absolutely unique and you will have to find your own way. But
that is why the commission is created. I think it is important and I promise to
finish here to distinguish the role of the commissioners that have already been
named by the City Council and the facilitator. The commission is the one that
leads. When you are talking about local leadership, that is exactly what the
commission is supposed to do. It has taken a lot of time to your city to get to the
point where the commissioners are appointed and are serving. This commission
needs help for them to facilitate and organize some elements of their work.
According to the resolution that established the commission, this facilitation
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serves at the will of the commission. If the commission itself, the size, that they
no longer need the facilitators, then facilitators are no longer needed. This is an
important distinction. The facilitators are there to support the commission, but not
to do the work of the commission. The commission has that responsibility. That
has been my experience in 20 years time. Obviously, the work of a facilitator or
an external supporter is precisely to help local commissions to make the learning
curve more efficient. Why to invent new things when other Truth Commissions
may have faced exactly the same issue. If this information can be brought to them
by an external facilitator, that is actually a good strategy to flatten and to make
more efficiently learning curve. Those are the concerns I'd like to make and I
definitely appreciate enormously the contributions that the public has made.
Salih: I have a last question.
Teague: Oh, go ahead.
Salih: I want to ask you, what are you going to do if a huge part of the community
decide not to involve with you in any truths finding or anything? What are you
going to do about that?
Gonzales: For me?
Schooler: Go ahead, Eduardo.
Gonzales: Yes. Well, that is a very good point because that is exactly what happens in many
places. There are many reasons for which people may decide not to get involved.
First, certainly trauma. Second, self-interest. I have served in commissions after
armed conflict and situations of structural injustice, and people who are served by
the status quo may not like to participate. I know that. That is why it is extremely
important to do efficient outreach, and I think the commissioners you have are
uniquely positioned to do that, and to persuade people who have something to say
to recognize that having community that is a just community is in the interest of
everyone. The chairperson of the commission in fact published a few weeks ago a
call to all of Iowa City to actually participate in this process. I think that has to be
reiterated.
Teague: Thank you. [OVERLAPPING].
Schooler: Mayor Pro Tem, if I could, I just also want to say that there is no public process
that doesn't suffer the kind of challenge that you're describing. There always are
going to be cases where we are public's engagement and for one reason or
another, are stifled and in those cases, we ask what we can do differently but we
also practively ask on the front end, what will make this a meaningful process for
you and for the community that you come from. Now, The International
Association of Public Participation of which I was president, has as one of its core
values to have the public you're trying to engage, design how they would like to
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engage. Rather than Iowa bringing in a box of tools and just pulling ones out of
the hat, we would be working directly with the people in Iowa City to determine
the best combination of tools and engagement techniques that would work for this
community.
Teague: Okay, I do want to bring council back in the discussion but you did just make
mention of one thing and you talked about what will make this meaningful to the
community. For me, your qualifications are not in question. I think you all have
presented that you can do this work. Would you say that our TRC commission
cannot be successful without you? That's a yes or no?
Schooler: Mayor, I'm sorry. I'm not going to answer a question like that.
Teague: Okay. No, that's fine. You don't have to. Then the last question I would have is,
have you been in any communities where a full restart of the work, whether it's
re -imagining, fixing what's there. Have you ever been in a community where the
TRC has fully stopped and been recreated by the community which that's what
we're hearing here by the community members?
Schooler: I'd say yes sir, we have.
Teague: Okay. Thank you. Any more questions for Kearns and West?
Weiner: Yeah, I had a couple of questions. You talked about comparative experience, you
talked some about the importance of neutrality and outside perspective. One of
the things that we've seen clearly here this evening and we've seen before are deep
fissures within our communities and leaders in our community whose have said
clearly that they do not see the current commissioners as legitimate or as
representative and that they would not work together with them. How do you
approach an issue like that?
Schooler: Well, council member, I know that that has happened to commissions around the
globe fust of all. It's not unique to Iowa City. I would secondly say that it's critical
when you're dealing with any form of conflict to understand not just the position
that someone's taking but the underlying interests that they have. So in my
particular experience, what I would be striving to do is to understand what it is
that renders the current TRC a illegitimate in the eyes of the community leader
who's saying so and it may be that they engage through a proxy like us. It may be
that they don't engage directly with the commission at an event but engage
indirectly. It may be that they have a particular commissioner whom they trust
and they want to work just with that commissioner and there may be something
much more significant afoot and I wouldn't dare speculate as to what that is. But
as Eduardo mentioned, the questions of legitimacy hinder commissions like this
all across the world and it's not new and Eduardo and I in particular are deep
students of the ways in which TRCs have managed to overcome questions about
their credibility and still engage large portions of the communities they're trying
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to serve, the populations they're trying to serve and we would spare no effort to do
that here, including to get to the bottom of why those questions of legitimacy have
been raised.
Weiner: I have one final question which is sort of that you spoke earlier to some extent
about the challenges of neutrality and having to strip away any preconceptions or
beliefs that you have when you approach this as a facilitator or a mediator. Could
you describe what some of the challenges would be for members of this
community trying to facilitate this on their own and some of the challenges they
would face doing that?
Schooler: Well, I appreciate the question, council member. I'm reluctant to answer that
because I don't in any way want to suggest that we as a team are in any way better
qualified than anyone else to do this work. We simply have spent a considerable
number of years acquiring what we believe are the requisite skills and experience
to do it. I will say that almost every commission of which I'm aware, has utilized
staff and executive leadership that come from outside of the community of origin
and that's not because they necessarily couldn't find anyone local or perhaps they
tried and they couldn't but I think it's because there is a benefit to someone who
isn't coming in with a predilection to take the side of someone who is their next-
door neighbor or their teacher from school or their clergy, any of the natural
human bises that we would all have towards people that we've grown up with or
lived nearby or worked with. I think in so many of these cases, commissions have
recognized that there is a benefit to bring in someone or someones who have less
of that past -lived experience and can start from a different point of view. But
again council member, I just want to be very clear in saying that we in no way
think that we have more to offer thanany local organization or that others couldn't
do this work. We simply believe that we're capable of doing the work that's been
asked of us.
Weiner: Fair enough. Thank you very much.
Teague: Thank you. I want to bring this back to council and if we can give our closing
remarks on this item so that we can move forward.
Salih: I'm think John (can't hear). I don't know because I haven't spoken yet.
Thomas: Sure, please.
Salih: Okay. My turn. First, I really want to acknowledge there is a division in BIPOC
community. We don't have to ignore that. I think as the Mayor said and everyone
said earlier, we really need healing. I think the TRC committee commissioner,
this should be your job to do fust before even you do anything. You have to do
the healing. Figure out a common ground, reach out. This is your core job I think.
Before even we think to bring a facilitator or before even you think to start doing
the work that Black Lives Matter issues that we create this TRC for it. Before you
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go and work on those issue, you need to bring that healing. You need to engage
with the community, the whole black community, BIPOC community in general
and you need to find a common ground. That's the fust thing. After you find that
common ground, I don't know how it look and how you can do it but you can
figure it out. After that, you can think about bringing a facilitator or what the next
steps should be because that's important. How are you going to continue your
work and there is division among black people in this community? We created
TRC because of that. I think, first focus on this. This should be your fust focus.
Whether this is something you'll go and sit down with the rest of the community,
try to find a common ground, try to be one. I don't know how but you figure it
out. The second thing, let us speak about the item on the agenda. First, I'm not
really by any mean try to not acknowledge that this facilitator had a lot good
experience, no doubt. As a second language speaker, English as a second
language, I always thought the facilitator is somebody facilitating in-person and
coming. I don't know, maybe that's not true but because I've been seeing all the
facilitators before COVID at least, I see somebody who will be coming in and
engaging and directing people. That what I thought when we said we need a
facilitator but I just have hard time imagining somebody will be from distance,
can really achieve the work that the TRC want to do from this. Given the fact that
as a community organizer who deal with a lot people in the community from
BIPOC community, whether they are immigrants or African-American or Latino,
I know that this is hard. They trust the community and I think a local firm who
can take this job to do, they know who to reach out to. They know that if they
need to reach out to the Latinos, they can come to CWJ. If they want to reach out
to also certain people of the community, they know where to go to. This will
really shrink the learning curve especially; am I right? We have only nine months
for these orders to expire, it's not one full year. So we are asking those people to
come and do this in nine months and I don't know if that's helpful. Can be
happening or not. Let's go back to what Susan Mims said. Susan Mims, she like
process and she said, "This has been slow process of the city and everything I
acknowledge." But she said something important. She wished if we can do this
differently and we can do it again and find a local people. I think that we can
bring her wish come true because. We have done like a bid that the City will build
a bid and we get only one person, and have a higher amount and we rebid it.
That's also process of the city, by the way. It's not something that is not done by
the City. They will bring it to us and ask us to rebid again, and we will vote for it.
Also Susan Mims and the rest vote for it. That means this is a common thing that
we can do. We can open this. We don't have to go with the fust one because the
only one applied. We can rebid it. We can bid it again and see who are going to
come on board. For TRC advertising, Geoff, I understand that you went through
the normal process of the city, but not for a TRC. For TRC, we have different
approach of advertising this kind of job, because it has to be going through a lot.
For example, neighborhoods center, we will have to know. Do you know that? A
lot of people they don't know there is something has been advertised. I know for
this, there is a local firm, that they don't know anything if this has been
advertised. Because what we have been doing, we have advertising a lot of bid.
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Who knew how they had been advertised on the website? It's the developer only.
Another thing I understand, some other people know, but for TRC, we should
have really different approach to advertising. That what I really think.
Teague: Thank you.
Salih: We can re -advertise it, and that's according to the process, because I want to
follow the process too. What else, I want to say? I think that's it for now.
Teague: Are you sure?
Salih: [LAUGHTER] I'm going to be voting, no, for this.
Teague: Okay. Anyone else? Are we ready for roll -call?
Thomas: Well, no. I don't think so. This is a very very complicated situation, I think we're
in. We're being asked to approve a contract to conduct a truth and reconciliation
process. That's a very unique, specific process. This is something that I felt from
the very beginning here was going to be a real challenge, was that in order to do a
truth and reconciliation process properly, it most likely was going to require the
expertise of a team, such as we received the application proposal from, in order to
conduct it. Now I had mentioned at our last meeting that it's been stated by the
team that they are simply facilitating, mediating, and offering a framework in
which this TRC process can be conducted. Which I still feel is something that
does require a special expertise, the actual work, the actual picture that's painted
by this process will come from the community. But how it's facilitated is a whole
different skill set. Now what I think Susan has said we've sort of gone through the
process, and we've ended up where if we are soliciting proposals on what we
might normally expect to have done under the auspices of the City of Iowa City,
we would be on firm ground. However, this is a truth and reconciliation process.
It's a very unique thing to undertake. What I'm sensing is, we went through the
due process, but I'm not hearing, we've all these very deeply committed members
of our community saying, they feel disenfranchised by this outcome. This is really
the fust I've heard that. We've been attending these meetings, this work has been
underway for months, and I personally have not heard what I heard tonight from
the broader community. I'm trying to process that. It's a difficult situation to be in.
Essentially, where I've landed is I do feel we need to create a foundation on which
we can agree to move forward with the truth and reconciliation process. I'm not
sensing we have that trust and the foundation. So I'm reluctant to approve the
proposal as written. I could envision we take this process step-by-step. We could
perhaps consider undertaking the fust task, which if you've read the proposal is
convening and understanding. I'm not sure I could go any further than that, in
terms of getting a sense that we know where we're going with this process. I don't
know that we have that foundation in order to get into any other level of detail,
then perhaps having that fust meeting, if we agree to have that fust meeting. But
perhaps that first meeting would serve as a feasibility as to whether we can then
move forward with the rest of the process. For now, I'm not willing to approve the
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contract as written. I think we're in a regrettable situation and that there did seem
to be a disconnect between the work of the TRC and the work of the larger
community, and that's what I see as needing to be the first step. We need to bring
together those who are feeling out of the process, into the process, so that we can
have a better relationship between the members of our community, but also a
better understanding of what this process is going to entail. I really don't know
that there is a clear understanding of what that process will be and what the role of
the facilitator will be. In my view, there needs to be that fust conversation. I
would be willing to, as I said, consider the consultant working on the initial tasks
that this process outlaid. But I'm not really willing to go much further than seeing
if we can build that foundation. It may be that the truth and reconciliation process
is not what this community wants. I don't know. But I do feel at this point, I'm not
willing to invest in the entire process until we have that level of foundation.
Bergus: Well, Members of Council, I think I have a yes, and in response to John's
comments, which is the contract itself, which we are considering this evening
says, "We can terminate the contract on seven days notice and the consultant is
paid for their work up to that point." It also says, "That they have to come to City
Council and present to us, should we ask them to." There's no cap on that, there is
no maximum of that. Those are unusual terms in something like this. I think they
foresaw that there could be a false start or a way in which the process wasn't
successful and we can pull the plug. But we have been at this for a year, since
September 2020, and we have tried the facilitator once, and we're trying again, we
paused the commission, we reconstituted the commission, and as one of the
decision -makers sitting up here, I do not trust us to try it a third time. This is our
opportunity [APPLAUSE] to say, "Are we willing to go forward and if it isn't
working, we can stop." That's what the contract itself in front of us says.
Mims: I would agree. Thank you, Laura, for pointing those things that are in there. That's
really important. Given what I've heard tonight. I hear what you're saying, John,
but I don't see how any of that trust and healing is going to develop in these
divisions without an outside facilitator helping. I think simply to tell the TRC,
figure it out, you can do it, what I'm hearing tonight is members of this TRC feel
like they are punching bags and other members of the community don't feel that
the TRC members are legitimate, so to speak. Maybe I'm not phrasing that very
well.
Teague: That's not the right word, but yes.
Mims: But they don't have trust in the TRC or the TRC leadership or whatever, and so
there doesn't seem to be that respect or trust between various individuals here. I
don't see how simply to say figure it out isn't going to happen. To suggest that we
don't move forward until that is done, I think we're done. What I would agree with
Councilor Bergus' point is if we can terminate this on seven days notice, if we can
ask them to come and report, then they have the experience. They have done this
in communities where there is significant division. They have figured out how to
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work through that. They have the neutrality, which I think is actually very
important. Do I wish we'd had more responses to the RFP? Yes. Does that mean
we would have selected a local one? I don't know. I hadn't really thought about
the importance of maybe the benefit of having an outside, more neutral group to
come in and do some of this background, organizational kinds of stuff. It's the
community that needs to do most of the work. But to have some of that structure
put in place by an outside neutral third party, I hadn't even thought about how
important that maybe, especially when you do have divisions in the community
and we have those. I'm in support of moving forward with this and particularly,
especially now with the comments that Councilor Bergus has made.
Salih: To your point Council Bergus about there is a room for termination. You're right.
There is a room for termination and you ask us now to move forward. If we don't
like it, we can terminate them. We, or at least the Mayor and I, black leaders in
this committee, we're asking you to reopen the process and those we will apply
again too. That's what our request is. Just don't do it today, let us open it again and
for people to come, maybe another group, local will be applying and also the
same Kearns & West can apply again too. We are asking you to let us vote no for
this and reopen it for more people to come and apply just like any process, and is
the same thing. You requested something and we are requesting something and I
think we are not saying they cannot apply, but they can come and apply again,
and maybe local people can apply as well.
Taylor: I've been debating whether to say this and with all due respect to our members of
the outside firm. The previous TRC members were heard to say the reason the
facilitator that we had all approved of and they had originally approved of, was
treated with disrespect. They were heard to have said that they didn't trust old
white bald guys and I'm sorry, I'm saying that, but this is what I've heard from
many people, including that person. If that's true, that was the reason that
facilitator fell through. Members of this firm are no disrespect in, but they're older
and white men primarily. What is the TRC going to feel about them? How are
they going to work with them when they've already been proven not to be able to
do that?
Teague: I wanted to go ahead and maybe call the question so we can get a vote, please.
[BACKGROUND]
Taylor: I move to call the question.
Teague: Thank you. I think we're ready for a vote.
Mims: I would like to make one quick comment. That is that the votes are taken in the
order called by the City Attorney, and that now that we're in the calling of the
question, there are no more comments or discussion.
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Teague: Thank you. Roll call, please. Motion passes four to three.
Tayor: No. Fail. [OVERLAPPING].
Teague: Motion fails four to three. [APPLAUSE]
Mims: Three to four.
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14. Community Comment (IF NECESSARY)
Miglin: Hi guys. Only other update is that, tonight was our fust meeting with a bunch of
new senators, and so we just wanted to say to you all, welcome them and
everything and moving forward. I'm excited to have some more new voices at the
table as well.
Teague: Thank you. City council updates or information.
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15. City Council Information
Bergus: On Monday the 27th, at 5:30 PM at the Voxman Music Building on Burlington
Street right across from the Oracles of Iowa City murals will be a reception to
celebrate that artwork and to have a conversation, I think with the artists. It was a
City supported project and I think probably everyone who's driven down
Burlington Street has had an opportunity to see it. I know we've received a fair
amount of input. I encourage people if they want to learn more about that art or
understand why it is, to go to the Voxman Music Building 5:30 on Monday.
Weiner: I would like to thank the Iowa City Community School District for putting in
place a mask mandate. That is basic public health. The City has a mask mandate
that is still enforced for individuals. Public health is public health, masks are
source control. As I said when I spoke at the the Iowa City Community School
District meeting where they put in place the mask mandate, the notion of freedom
to not mask because masks are source control is essentially saying you have the
freedom to infect. That is not public health. Public health is for the common good.
I am proud of this Council and for this Mayor for putting in place the mask
mandate. I'm proud of the Community School District for doing it. Please, we
have the capacity to bring this pandemic under control. Please get vaccinated. If
you're vaccine hesitant, please talk to someone you trust who can help get you
there, and please wear your masks. Thank you.
Teague: Thank you for that. I wanted to just talk about past events that happened. On 9/11
there was a celebration. It was called Summer Fest that happened at the Johnson
County Fairgrounds. This was a time to really commemorate the 20 years from
9/11 and to really take time to pause and really think about that day that really
changed how we operate here in America. It also was an opportunity for our fust
responders to be celebrated and thanked for, especially this past year of how
they've really done some things that typically they've not been asked to do during
COVID. On the September 12th, there was a 125th bash celebration for the
library. That was a great event, well attended. It was great to see just the
celebration of what the library does for so many people here in our community.
It's pretty important that we have our library to be continuing all the activities.
Then was a great day to be out there. On September 17th, actually, it was a three
day conference, September 15th through the 17th, the Iowa League of Cities met
in Coralville. It was hosted by Coralville. That's where cities all from around the
state come together, both elected officials and staff. It was a wonderful
conference. There was lots of opportunities to go into breakout sessions. There
was proposed legislation from the Iowa League of Cities and I'll just tell you what
they were in category. It was local control, which is really home rule that we talk
about these are going to be some of their priorities, that they're going to be putting
forth. Financial stability, economic development, infrastructure, and public safety.
These are the things that we're going to be as Iowa League Cities taken forth in
this next General Assembly for their consideration. Then last night I did attend, it
was save Coralville Lake. There is a group called the Friends of Coralville Lake
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that has assembled really to talk about the lake itself. It was designed to be a 50-
100 year type of project or that was the life expectancy. Now what they are trying
to ensure that elected officials and communities around know that there are
concerns about the lake. It is going to take more than the Core of Engineers really
to pay attention to the changes that are happening. Just wanted to give those
updates. Any other updates? All right. We're going to go to reports from our City
staff. Geoff Fruin, our City Manager.
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16. Report on Items from City Staff
a. City Manager
From: Yeah. Thanks, Mayor. Well, most of you have had a chance to meet Redmond
Jones, our new Deputy City Manager, and we're really excited to have Redmond
join the team. This is day 2 for him, so still getting his feet on the ground here.
Welcome Redmond and really look forward to working with you. I know the
whole team does. For the last four months, our office has been down one where a
three-person team in the City Manager's office. I think theoretically two of us
would have to pick up a lot of the slack. But I can tell you over the last four
months, Rachel Kilburg, our Assistant City Manager has picked up far more than
her share of the slack with this position being vacant. Not only has she picked up
the routine matters, but you all know that she's led the ARPA process as well,
which is a huge lift in and of itself. I just want to thank Rachel for her continued
outstanding work in the City Manager's office. Then last but not least, we are in
the middle of Climate Fest. I hope you've had a chance to check out the schedule
of events with Climate Fest. This is really our opportunity to tell our story about
our progress towards our emission reductions goals and more importantly, what
we and others can do to continue us down that path. Whether you're in the music,
film, art, electric vehicles, and cars and bikes, literally, there's something for
everybody, just encourage you to check out the schedule of events that's still
going on this week. It's icgov.org/climatefest. Just urge everybody to get involved
in something that aligns with their interest. Thank you.
Salih: I have a question for you Geoff. First, congratulation to our Deputy City Manager.
Welcome. I want to ask you, just for the public think to know, is he the fust
person of color to be hired at the City Manager's office ever or somebody else was
before him? Do you know that?
From: I could not answer that. I'd have to do some homework on that.
Salih: Okay. Yeah. I guess would love to know that and for the public to know and
congratulations for the City for hiring our fust person of color to the City
Manager office. Yeah. I think we're doing great of adding diversity to the City.
Teague: Right. Thank you so much. We're going to invite our Deputy City Manager,
Redmond Jones to invite you to have any comments if you should choose.
b. Deputy City Manager
Jones: Well, I just want to share my excitement for being able to work with each and
every one of you. It's actually kind of been on my bucket list to work for Iowa
City, its been in my purview for quite some time. I've had opportunity to serve the
Davenport community. Iowa city was always one of those, keep an eye on that
community as a competitor as you know, the road is getting smaller and you have
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friendly competitors. Iowa city has certainly been known to set the trend in many
areas that definitely caught our attention. Being able to have this on my resume is
going to be super exciting. I'm looking forward to working with Geoff and the
team, and I believe we are going to be doing some really great things.
Council Members [OVERLAPPING]: Welcome. Welcome.
Jones: Thank you.
c. City Attorney
Teague: Welcome. All right. We're going to go over to our not so new anymore City
Attorney.
[LAUGHTER]
Goers: Still learning. I just want to join Geoff in welcoming Redmond aboard. It'll be
great to have you and looking forward to working with you closely.
Teague: All right, and our also not so new city clerk.
d. City Clerk
Fruehling: Since I'm always last, I'm going to say ditto to Geoff and Eric like I always do.
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