you you you you you you you I'm sorry I messed up. Here we go. I will now call the Unity Council meeting to order and ask Mr. Alex Busskin, our city secretary to please call the role. Unity Council members please unmute your microphone and respond by saying here when your name is called. Afterwards please mute your mic again. Thank you, Dr. Shelton, Alex Busskin, City Secretary. I'll now call the role. Dr. Jason Shelton. Here. Akram Abadi. Walta Will, Esteban Blanco, John Bergdorf, Jennifer Cathcart, Here Larry Curry Letty Evans Dan Fernandez here Michael Glasspie here Ronnie Goins a key Cindy Golden Here Heidi Hardy here Nikki Hunter Kennedy Jones, here, Blazelah Flour, Grace McDermott, Sharon Rashard. Inaz Roach. Here. Pam Roach. Charlotteshaar. Deborah Spell. Ricia Stoglund. Here. Melissa Singh. Here. Rebecca Valdez. Cody Van Duzy. Thank you, Mr. Buskin. Before we begin, I'm going to ask you to explain the format we are using and lay out some housekeeping rules. Thank you, Dr. Shelton. My name is Alex Buskin, City Secretary, and I will be assisting with the technical aspects of this meeting. I'd like to mention a few items before we begin. This meeting is being held by video conference so that we can advance the public health goal of minimizing face-to-face meetings, also known as social distancing, slow the spread of COVID-19. The link to the online location where video of this meeting is available can be found by going to the city's webpage at www.arlingtontxt.gov and clicking on watch meetings on the City Hall drop-down menu. This information is also posted on the city's website. This meeting can also be watched on AT&T Uverse Channel 99 and Spectrum channels 16 and 15.1. The agenda for this meeting can also be found on the city's webpage at www the website. The agenda for this meeting can also be found on the city's webpage at www.arlingtontxt.gov by clicking on agendas. Here are some pieces of basic information we want you to know about this meeting. This meeting is being recorded and this recording will be posted on the city of Arlington's webpage. The unity council will not be voting during this meeting. There will be an opportunity for public comment during the meeting. I will indicate when that time occurs and you will be allowed three minutes to make your comments. If you would like to make a comment, please call the number at the bottom of your screen, 833-268-8354, conference ID-269-183-708-pound. Tell the operator your name, address, and a call back number. City staff will call you back at the appropriate time when public comment is being taken. Comments can also be sent to the following email address, unity council at ArlingtonTX.gov at any time. Comments submitted in this manner will be shared with all members of the unity council and summarized by the chair at the next meeting. All speakers must identify themselves by name every time they speak. We will remind speakers if they forget so that we can have a full record of this meeting and so that the public may have a full understanding of the discussion. For the members of the unit council, please ensure that you're in a quiet place where you'll not be disturbed during this call. Background noise can be very challenging in a meeting like this. If you can have your own device on mute when you're not talking that would be helpful. If any member of the Unity Council has to leave the meeting you're requested to identify yourself at the time that you leave the meeting as well as at the time that you return. During the Unity Council discussion sessions of the meeting the chair will call on each member of the Unity Council in alphabetical order to allow everyone to share their comments. Do the members of the Unity Council have any questions? All righty ladies and gentlemen, we're always to have yet another productive meeting tonight. The goal is also to get you out of here a little bit early. I'm still trying to make up for the ground from a few months ago where I kept you a little long. So we're gonna take care of some business. I'm still trying to make up for the ground from a few months ago where I kept you a little long. So we're going to take care of some business. And I do know for certain that a few members of our Unity Council are going to be here. They're coming late tonight. So just give you that as a heads up as well. But it is now, ladies and gentlemen, my distinct honor and privilege to introduce to us, our guest speaker for the evening. Dr. Richard Florida. Dr. Florida is one of the leading scholars in the United States of America when it comes to the growth of cities. He has written a ton of books. I promise you, you cannot teach certain classes related to city life in various different departments across various universities, just about all universities in the US. If you teach anything related to my class introduction, sociology and the growth of cities, or any classes related to city life and urbanization, at some point along the line, you're going to be dealing with research by Richard Florida. So it was an easy idea to invite this man. He's written on so many different topics related to city life and why certain cities grow and why other cities are stagnant and how in particular his reason for being here tonight, harnessing diversity and moving forward. And when we say diversity, diversity is more than one thing. Of course, our task force is related to race and ethnicity, but there are other dimensions of diversity that help a city grow as well. And so Richard will speak to that. That being said, he is a researcher and professor serving as the university professor at the University of Toronto's School of Cities and the Rotman School of Management. He is a distinguished fellow at NYU's Shaq School of Real Estate. Richard is a writer and journalist. He has penned several global bestsellers, including the award-winning rise of the creative class and his most recent book, The New Urban Crisis. He is the co-founder of CityLab, the leading publication devoted to cities and urbanism. He is an entrepreneur, he's the founder of the Creative Class Group, which works closely with companies and governments worldwide. Ladies and gentlemen, with no further ado, I'd like you all to help me welcome Richard Florida, the floor is yours, sir. Thank you, Professor Shelton, thank you, Jason, and thanks to all the members of the University Council, and when I got that email, I was very honored and privileged. This is not the kind of council I'm typically invited to, and I care extraordinarily deeply about these issues and I'll have a side show to present to you but I think the remark I want to make is that as a young child I watch my city, Newark, New Jersey, experience urban decline and as a very young boy at nine or ten or eleven years old my dad was driving me to the Nurek Library and then to my guitar lesson and I saw my city engulfed in civil disobedience which at the time were called riots. And there were shots being fired, there was not only police occupying the streets, there was national guards and tanks occupying the streets. I saw the commercial corridors on flames and I really think that's the reason I became inter-robinist. You know I don't think at 9 or 10 or 11 you occupying the streets. I saw the commercial corridors on flames, and I really think that's the reason I became inter-robinist. I don't think at 9 or 10 or 11 you make a career decision, but I think it was the decline of cities as a young boy, the white flight, so-called white flight to suburbia, and the rising racial tension and racial awareness and civil rights movement that made me interested in this. So while race and ethnicity are not my core areas as as as Dr. Shelton said, I do focus on diversity and I was blown away and Dr. Shelton Jason, I want to say to you, and I'll follow up later, maybe there'll be an opportunity for us to combine forces sometime. I'd very much like that. And I'd like to make some of the subjects you deal with more of my own work, core to my own work in the future. The other thing I would say just by way of preface is I have a very long and close relationship with the University of Texas at Arlington. Jim Spanjolo when he was president, we met, I don't know how you meet people. I think we met at a conference in Fort Worth. We began talking and he invited me to spend a year as a visiting distinguished fellow at UTA. And we did a big report on the economic future of North Texas. It was amazing. I learned so much about North Texas and the Dallas Fort Worth Arlington area. I've stayed at the Sheraton many many many times. Moreover, I was in Arlington recently. Within the last year or so, your mayor invited me and I went to the Esports arena and gave a nice talk about some of my more recent work. So I have a long relationship and I'm glad I only wish I could be with you in person and hopefully, hopefully not too much more in the future. Hopefully we get that vaccine up and running by the end of the year early in the year and hopefully by next six to nine months, we can all be back on the road and meeting in person. I have a I prepare to slide deck for you. So if you're just patient, I'm going to share my screen and hopefully you can all see that. And I want to talk about building more inclusive and resilient communities to all of you. And I'll be quick. You know, I, I as a scholar had no background in the role of infectious disease pandemics or plagues on cities. It's not something that came up in my undergraduate studies, graduate studies in my own research, even though I was born during a pandemic. My folks were born during the 1920s, but most of my aunts and uncles, 14 aunts and uncles on each side, many of them were born during the Spanish flu. Nobody told me. But what I did was I went back and started to learn a lot, and I began to write a bit on this. But what I've seen is it's not just the COVID-19 pandemic that we're dealing with. It's the economic and fiscal fallout on our cities, the closure of small businesses, the declining tax revenues, the declining office work and commercial tax revenues. But very importantly, this incredible way of a protest for racial and economic justice that I really have come to believe create not once in a lifetime a once in a century opportunity and that's why I think your work is so important and I'm so honored to feel privileged to be with you. Really a once in a century opportunity to not only build our communities back and to rebound but to build them back in a way to which we're more more way which were more equitable, more just, more inclusive and more resilient. And when Joe Biden says we have to build back better, putting flesh on the bones, yes, we have to build back better. But what we want to do is rebuild our communities, Arlington, North Texas, cities and communities across the world, urban suburban and rural in ways that are more inclusive, more equitable, more diverse and more resilient. Why now? Because of the pandemic and its economic and social fallout, Jason, you'll like this quote by the great sociologist at Harvard, Jamaican sociologist at Harvard, Orlando Patterson, this struck me right away. The protest movements I have seen and been a part of, including in Toronto, are very different than the protest movements I saw as a boy in Newark, New Jersey. These are multicultural, multiracial, multi-ethnic, and cross-class. And given the fact that we have this combination of that public health crisis of a pandemic, an economic and fiscal crisis, and now a huge wave of protest, civil disobedience. People saying enough, this creates an opening, a once-in-a-century opportunity where your work and the works of groups like yours can really help us to finally address these deep-seated issues, all of my life, and I'm 62 years of age. These deep-seated issues of racial and class division and injustice that we must address as we rebuild our society and our communities. Look, the COVID crisis exposes long-standing divides of race and class, which you know better than I do. African-Americans have experienced more than two and a half times the cases, on nearly five times the hospitalizations and twice the death. Hispanic and Latino population have said nearly three times the cases, almost five times the hospitalizations fewer deaths, proportionately than African Americans, but still quite a bit more than Caucasian or white Americans. But there's not just the racial divide that this exposes, we see a class divide and a class divide that is overlaid with race. Remote workers, like myself, professional and knowledge workers, can shelter in place. Aside from going to the store to buy my children a toy in August, I have not been to a store, I've not been to a drug store, a grocery store, any kind of store since March 13th. I've been able to stay safe and shelter in place. But more than 50 million Americans who provide low-age service boards, jobs were disproportionately racial minority, Latino, Hispanic, and disproportionately women, toil in frontline jobs where they are exposed because they serve the public and because they work closely to one another. Affluent households, those with more than $100,000 in income, are more than twice as likely to work remotely or to be able to work remotely, as those who make less than 50K and white workers. So this is overlaid with race. White workers are more than twice as likely to be able to work remotely as black or Hispanic workers. Race and class have been key factors in the spread of COVID-19. I can give a whole presentation on this. I won't. Your time is valuable. Many people said at the beginning of the pandemic, looking at how the pandemic struck places like New York or London, the dread, big cities, global cities, that it was density that was key to the spread of COVID-19. That in fact is not the case. The research done by scholars at London School of Economics are on research on the spread of COVID-19 in Sweden, country that didn't have restrictions in a lockdown. Show that density does not play a very significant role in the spread of COVID-19. Big cities were hit first because they were globally connected and they swept tourists and travelers from all over the world. Same reason Detroit was hit early. same reason ski towns like Aspen and the Alps were hit early. Key factors in the spread of COVID-19 have been issues of race and class, poverty, kind of work we do. I've already mentioned socioeconomic disadvantage, being part of a racially disadvantaged community, overcrowding, and one of the most brightest comments I've heard on the pandemic is it's not people per square mile, the typical metric of density that spreads the virus, it's people per square foot. It's overcrowded, low income less advantaged, households and less advantaged neighborhoods, and people who have to use transit or work on the front lines. But the COVID-19 crisis is not happening in a vacuum. It is accelerating existing divides that we see in our cities and communities. My most recent book was called The New Urban Crisis. I argued in that book that The New Urban Crisis is the fundamental crisis of our time. And that New Urban Crisis, which I'll get to in a minute, is exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis. And the civic protest and related crisis give us the opportunity to change our society to rebuild our cities as more inclusive equitable justice and resilient places, but that will not happen automatically. We need strategic and intentional action on the part of cities and community leadership to help us overcome these divides because if we don't have that, our cities will become in fact more inequitable and more divided on the other side of this pandemic. The old urban crisis to make a long story short, the crisis I grew up with was a crisis of urban failure and dysfunction. Cities were losing jobs, they were losing industry, they were losing business, they were losing the middle class to the suburbs. The new urban crisis is a crisis of urban success. It is rooted in the comeback of cities. crisis is a crisis of urban success. It is rooted in the comeback of cities. It is rooted in the fact that, I call it the paradox of land more simply, many different groups of people are competing for the same limited amount of space in center cities. High tech companies, financial companies, media companies, affluent workers, people who don't want to come to young people, the gay community, all of that is created a crisis of affordability, of inequity, and of class division. We have seen tremendously rising urban inequality. Here's a list of the most ten most unequal metropolitan areas in the United States. I just note the country that their inequality or geney coefficient is comparable to. to country that their inequality or geney coefficient is comparable to. Houston is fifth and Dallas sets outside the top 10 at 14th. This is the Dallas Metro, which includes Arlington. Winter take all urbanism. We have a system that is not only defined by socioeconomic inequality and racial division, but by geographic and spatial division. There is a growing divide between superstar cities, superstar metropolitan areas. I would include Dallas and Houston and Austin in that. And the rest, smaller places like Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, Pittsburgh, and I could go chapter and verse and even Sputbury and Ham Alabama and others. Anyway, some key statistics, just 40 mega regions, like the New York Boston, Washington, Carter, like the Shanghai Beijing axis, like the area from Mumbai to Bungalore, like the area from South Polo to Rio, like the Texas Triangle, which fans greater Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. I count for two thirds of the world's economic output in 90% of global innovation, while being home to less than 18% of the world's population. The Texas triangle of which you are a part produces 90% of Texas GDP and nearly 100% of all venture capital investment in startup companies. That's what I mean when I say there is geographic and equality. And I think behind many of the political divisions we see in America today, between red and blue, populism and not Biden and Trump, we see not only socioeconomic division, we not only see race, but we see geographic division. We see parts of the country that have felt and been left behind, being much more likely to gravitate towards populism and parts of the country that are more metropolitan, urban, clustered and successful and more diverse, gravitating to a different kind and more protective progressive or blue politics. This is not just an urban crisis per se, and it's important for all of us to remember. The urban crisis today is also a suburban crisis. Poverty and economic distress had moved from our central cities. They're still in the center city, but have moved and expanded from our center cities to the suburbs. There are more poor people in suburbs than there are in cities. Poverty grew at a faster rate in suburbs than in cities and concentrated poverty. Gruebion even more accelerated rate in suburbs than cities. So when we think about making building stronger, more resilient, more inclusive communities, that's about the suburbs and rural areas as well as urban centers. One thing that I want to note is that a cornerstone of this new urban crisis has been the evisceration of the middle class. If under the old urban crisis, the middle class simply relocated from the city to the suburbs in this great rate, a move of suburban flight. Today, over the past 20 years, we have these 20 or 30 years, 40 years, we have seen the middle class in America become eviscerated. Families in middle class neighborhoods, these neighborhoods, which were the platforms for upward mobility in our society, neighborhoods in urban areas and suburban areas, more than almost two thirds, almost two thirds of Americans lived in a middle class neighborhood in 1970. My dad had a seventh grade education. He worked in a factory. I grew up in a middle working class neighborhood in the 1970s. Now less than 40% of Americans live in middle class neighborhoods. The middle class declined in more than 200 of 229 metropolitan areas where data are available in the past decade and a half. And I call this this new system of inequality, a patchwork. It's no longer that cities are poor and suburbs are rich, but it's not the case as many of our usually seen a great inversion in cities and rich or suburbs are poor. We actually have a patchwork. As the middle class is decline, there are very small areas of concentrated advantage in cities and richer suburbs are poor, we actually have a patchwork. As the middle class is decline, there are very small areas of concentrated advantage in cities and in suburbs. I have a map of the Dallas Metro if you'd like me to share it again. Surrounded by much larger spans of concentrated racial and economic disadvantage in cities and in suburbs, driven by the locational choices of the advantage. The advantage tend to locate where the jobs are, where the businesses are, where the universities are, where the amenities are, where access to transport and transit are, and less advantage folks are pushed areas off the economic map. Jason mentioned diversity. A diversity has been at the core of my work. A broad question of diversity, oh, socioeconomic, ethnic, in terms of sexual orientation. And what I will say there in a book I wrote, called Rise of the Creative Class, what we found is that places that are more open to diversity, not necessarily more equitable or less, less, less divided. Places that are more open to diversity by race, by ethnicity, by sexual preference, those places tend to have higher rates of innovation. They tend to have higher rates of economic growth. They tend to have more high tech companies, but at the same time, and this is a puzzling paradoxical, they also tend to be more socioeconomically unequal. So if you look at across the United States Placials like New York or San Francisco or the Dallas, Metro or Boston, tend to be more diverse. They tend to have higher rates of income and higher rates of Innovation, but they also have higher rates of Economic inequality. It's a paradox and a conundrum. One we can come back to. Just talk for a minute about what what the opportunity is going forward with that background in mind and then take your questions and have a conversation. My feeling, strong feeling, and I have been talking with mayors, by the way, we just published a plan, the Walton Family Foundation, the Walton's, the Walmart family, the Walton Family is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. As a very wealthy family, with a big philanthropy, they have undertaken to really focus on making Bentonville a better place, they've made, in fact, your former provost, Don, just blanking on Don's last name for a second, who I got to know very well at UTA, is now the president of the University of Arkansas. They have made literally billions of dollars of gifts to the University of Arkansas. And they have made literally billions of dollars of gifts to the University of Arkansas, but they supported an effort done by me and several others through an institution called Heartland Forward, which is their think tank, to create an economic strategy for Northwest Arkansas. The first comprehensive economic strategy for recovery from COVID-19, I've seen. But most places are not dealing with this. My hunch is there's been not a lot done in North Texas about this to date. We've been talking folks in New York City in Toronto where I live, but most cities have fallen behind the eight ball. They talked about an emphasis on public health. We instituted some lockdowns, we had social distancing, then we reopened and fits and starts. We've never really focused on economic recovery. And that's what I think why your work is so important. And the work of groups like yours, I think we need to be talking now about what kind of place we want Arlington and North Texas and our communities to look like after COVID-19, post pandemic. And we have to put inclusion and equity at the center of that, not peripheral. It has to be at the center of that conversation. Because if it is not, I've seen it after 2001, I saw it in New York and the rebuilding effort after 9 11. We saw it in New Orleans after in the wake of Katrina. We saw it in 2008 with the economic and financial crisis. If we fail to put in when places rebuilt, they became less equal and more divided. We now have not only the opportunity, we have the obligation to put racial and economic inclusion at the center of our recovery agenda. And I'm just gonna go through several points, five or six points about what we need to be talking about to our colleagues, mayors, city managers, city counselors, chambers of commerce, state leaders, governors, those that really think about the future of our cities and states and our communities. At the center of the economic recovery agenda has to be addressing race and class divides. Look, that's what these protest movements, the Black Lives Matter and related movements have told us. Americans will not stand. A cross-class, multicultural coalition of Americans will not stand for this anymore. We must develop comprehensive, full-blown strategies for racial and economic inclusion, which addresses both the supply side, so both the housing side, the affordable housing and community development side, and the demand side. On the demand side, the affordable housing and community development side and the demand side on the demand side. I mean increasing wages providing support for poverty addressing concentrated poverty things like perhaps a universal income supplement better higher minimum wages, the upgrading of service work. We have to provide better affordable housing and better community development on the one side and upgrade wages and income on the other side. We have to now think about building complete communities. One of the things that this pandemic has shown us, this old idea that people live far from where they work and commute all these miles to a center city that's broken. The offices and commercial centers are abandoned. If you go to downtown Toronto, we're downtown having, there's nobody there. But in neighborhoods like my neighborhood in Toronto, in neighborhoods like Lower Manhattan, in neighborhoods throughout Brooklyn, in your neighborhoods, they're vibrant. My wife was just saying to me, tonight, one of the upsides of a terrible pandemic, is that our neighborhood came alive. Our neighborhood has come alive with people cycling and walking. We set up a front porch with furniture where we greet our neighbors and have gotten to know people. The idea of people living closer to where they work and in a big metropolitan area like Dallas for Ortherlington, actually thinking of it as a set of complete communities where people live, work, play and educate their kids without these onerous commutes. Paris, this idea of a 15-minute neighborhood. Paris, friends, under the leadership of Mayor Hildago, is actually remaking the entire city as less of a core centric model, where people commute these long distances around integrated 15-minute neighborhoods. That means our regions have to be rebalanced. These big core areas, say in downtown Dallas, and other parts of your metropolitan area, which are office work areas, they have to be more about living. And parts of the suburbs that have been dormitory communities have to be more about working. Create affordable housing. Look, one of the big crises we've seen in America is a crisis of affordable housing. People just don't have the incomes to afford decent housing for themselves and their family, especially in big cities. Less of a problem in Da Dallas, Metro, and Arlington, than in New York City or San Francisco in Boston. But you still, because I've looked at the data, you have still have far too high rates of housing affordability and housing cost and rent burdens. We have to focus on creating more affordable housing. We have to focus on creating more affordable housing. We have to focus on creating more affordable rental housing because not everyone can own. And we used to have, we have to use inclusive zoning. When I had, when I had an apartment in New York as part of my fellowship in, in NYU, I rented that apartment in a brand new condominium building. That brand new condominium building had 25% of the units developed brand new beautiful luxury building swimming pools sauna wonderful lobby door man attended 25% of those units were affordable housing where people with very modest incomes could live and we all shared the same facilities and the shame building in New York inclusive zoning means that when you build a new development, 20 or 25 or 30% of the units, and now Mayor DeBlasio is saying even more, if you want to build it, you've got to build affordable housing inside that development. Develop strategies for remote work. Arlington is a terrific place to do this. It's a great place to live. But I've been working with places like Tulsa, not far from you. Tulsa has developed Tulsa Remote Worker Strategy and attracting workers from San Francisco, Boston, New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, who want to live in a more affordable place and raise their families in a more affordable place. Upgrade jobs for service workers. So if these are our heroes, these are the people who kept us fed, who kept us supplies, who bring stuff to my doorstop every day. They need to have a higher minimum wage. I don't know what the living wage for your community would be. It has to do based on about 50% of the prevailing median and your cost of living. But we have to get these people a higher wage and we have to give them good jobs. My father always told me a simple story. My dad took up work in a factory in North New Jersey at age 13. When he took that job, it took nine people to make living wage for his family. My grandmother and grandfather and his six siblings. He went off to serve in World War II, where he stormed the beaches at Normandy. He came back to work in the same factory. After World War II, America decided that returning veterans and male workers in factories deserve to be part of the middle class. We raised the wages of jobs. My father said, I had a terrible job when I left, when I came back I had a great job. I could buy a house, I could get married, I could buy a car, I could put you two boys through Catholic school and the Catholic school and go to college. We have to do the same. They call it a good job strategy. Pay higher wages, better working conditions, all the PPE these folks need. And when you do that, they're more engaged in their work. They're more innovative. They are better suited to providing improvements on the job and they drive productivity and profits up for their companies. And one for all of you, especially in Arlington, anchor institutions have to be at the heart of this. By anchor institutions, I mean those institutions that are anchoring our communities like universities and medical centers. Our research shows that universities and medical centers have really driven the urban revival in places like Cleveland, in places like Pittsburgh, places like Philadelphia, places like Baltimore. But those universities and colleges and medical centers have not been included in the conversation about equity and race and inclusive prosperity. Over the past two years, we have worked with the Anchor Institutions in Philadelphia, the Great Universities and Medical Center, and in my hometown of Newark, New Jersey. We've worked closely with the Newark Alliance, the Alliance of Businesses, Mayor Baraka, and those anchor institutions to engage the anchor institutions in part of an inclusive prosperity strategy. How can they upgrade jobs for workers? How can universities and medical centers provide and help to provide more affordable housing? Not just building NYU, not just building luxury housing for professors, providing affordable housing for workers. That's the kind of conversation we need to have. Anyway, I'm a professor, which means I could drone on forever and you are all very busy. We have a once in a century opportunity to build back better. Your work is part of that. We no longer have to be stuck with a winner-take-all, unequal urbanism. We can build a new kind of urbanism in better communities for all. And it depends on all of us working hard, really hard now to develop intentional strategies for prosperous, inclusive, dressed in Brazilian communities, not just in cities, but in suburbs and rural areas across America. Thanks so much for listening to me and it's delight, it's really just delightful for me to be with you and I'll take off this screen share. Thank you very much, Richard. Really, really appreciate your comments. Very insightful, very timely for where we are right now in our city and in our country. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I want to do what we always do. Let's open it up for Q&A if you can just hit the raise your hand, free feature there. So we've got maybe 10 minutes to ask some questions to Richard. Richard, I got a couple that kind of get us started. Number one, man, I really appreciate what you said about anchor institutions and And you have lived here for a bit being in terms of UTA. You know our city pretty well. If I was to, I know the president, Jim Spanillo, I can, I talk with him all the time. I know the current president. He's essentially my boss. If I had my president of the university, Dr. Tech Lim, when I walk into his office tomorrow, what would you, what should I tell him about how you T. Arlington? I heard you, but tell me, can you, can be something a bit more specific? What can I say to the president of my university to say, what can we do to enhance our anchor and the role of our university in this city, sir. And you are the perfect kind of university with the mix of your students, multicultural, multi-class to do this. You're kind of like a Rutgers-Nure, which I know very well, which is a pathway for upward mobility for somebody who's kids from less advantage neighborhoods. So I would say we hear all the time from the state and communities, how important universities are to providing human capital, talented people, and how important they are for technological development in startup companies, like the University of Texas at Austin. We are all the time, it's so part of that technology cluster in Austin. The fact of the matter is that universities have been agents of gentrification. And if you look across this great country, you look at where affluent people have located, where are these young professionals have located, where my creative class has located, it's been in university districts. Look what's happening around University of Texas at Arlington. Look what's happening around the University of Texas at Austin, even on steroids. We need to be partners in building a more inclusive community. That means we have to become part of the effort to make our town more inclusive. When we think about building housing for our faculty or our students, we should be thinking about how do we build housing, more affordable housing, for at minimum our own low-age service workers. When we talk about making our community more just, realizing that we only not only employ people like you and I, Jason, not only gold-plated, gold-collar, professor workers, we employ a lot of less fortunate service workers. They deserve a higher minimum wage, they deserve a new deal. They deserve a deal where, and we can be an example to the community of this good, why don't we become an example of a good job strategy. We can play the role of catalyzing and organizing other anchor institutions, working with other parts of the business community and being a force for change. So that would be what I would say, that the university needs to take a leadership. I think if the universities don't do this, there's a threat. I've seen now universities, NYU is the best example. When NYU wanted to expand its campus, the neighborhood exploded in opposition because they thought the university wasn't a good faith partner. If you look at Westfield, not I'm not saying West Philadelphia is perfect by any means West Philadelphia has plenty of tensions. But if Drexler, the University of Pennsylvania or the University Science Center in West Philadelphia wanted to do something, the neighbor have belief that they are a good faith partner. And when they want to expand, that they will do things not only that's in the interest of the university, but for the community. So I think as our universities want to expand and grow, they need this good community partnership. And then inclusive prosperity agenda in Salt Lake, ending, you know, overcoming racial and economic division, is really a part of what universities have to do as anchor institutions in their town. Wonderful. So I appreciate that. I will pass on my next question, and I see a list we got some hands here. I'm gonna go with Michael Gillespie first, then Kennedy Jones, Larry Curry, and Akram Abadi. The floor is yours, Pastor Gillespie. Thank you. Appreciate your presentation, Dr. Floor, just a question I had. Looking at our area of North Texas, we are fairly, the makeup of the cities are fairly diverse. Would you elaborate on the implications for how the cities need to work together to perform what you were talking about in the region. Pastor, if I could dig up and I will try and let's, Professor Sheldon, let's communicate on this via email, I will try to dig up the report that we actually did for Jim when he was the president and involved in all of that regional leadership. What we said is they have to work together. The dis idea of a split between Arlington and Fort Worth and Dallas is to Tarnafrae's Bupcus, that they've got to work together for the good of the region as a whole. And we had some good momentum at that time, at that time, but then you know the things Peter out leadership changes, but I think they have to work together. And I think in the past there'd been too much competition. Now I don't know if that's changed, hopefully it's changed for the better and it's less so. But there's too much competition competing in Arlington against the Fort Worth against the Dallas. So look, I think there need, and we called for a need for a regional strategy. Everybody on one page, working together, getting together, and actually having a regional group. We noticed that the chambers were fragmented and the business leadership. We called for the creation of a regional group and I know Jim's been involved in that now and when he's come back to the area. So that's what we said, people have to work together in these great cities and areas. Thank you, sir. Pastor Kennedy Jones, your questions are. Richard, thanks a lot for great presentation. And I'm the chairman of the Economic Disparity Subcommittee. And really I got a two-prong question. Number one, how can we know that education is the ladder for opportunity and prosperity? But at a city level, have you thought about things that cities can do to facilitate the next level into high education? And then too, you mentioned about universities and medical centers working together. I get what you mean by universities, but what did you mean about medical centers? How did they play a role in reducing the economic disparity? So I think you're right in general about education. And, you know, I grew up in an area that was very economically disadvantaged. I grew up in New York and then my parents moved to New Orleans, which is a working class suburb. I'm lucky I went to a Catholic school, I had the nuns, and then the Christian brothers, and they beat education into me and I'm not saying that euphemistically and my parents were very education focused. What I saw though was the carnage around me. I saw all this young talent, all these kids who were smarter than kids I met at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Toronto and Harvard and MIT fall by the wayside. So that tells me something that the talent in when you said an economic disparity, the talent is there, the pathway for opportunity isn't there. And what I saw is that I had a good memory, and I was a good reader. So school was easy for me, but for these kids, they had different learning styles. So first, I think for a lot of kids, there's got to be a different learning style. Not everyone can memorize words and memorize concepts like me. It was easy for me. So I did well. So adapting learning to the learning styles and you know better than me, supporting families that are broken, families that have all sorts of issues, substance poverty, deprivation, supporting that with social services that unfortunately in our country were cut to the bone. Building strong communities. In Toronto, it's very interesting. We have far less of this. We have a better social safety net, but our schools are also provincially statewide. So for example, I live in the city of Toronto, my kids are little, but my kids and a very less advantage person who lives in social housing would have very equal educational pathways. Now, some of the people can choose to send their kids to private school, but many don't. And the educational opportunity is much greater. The other thing that's key in Toronto is we have 95,000 students at the University of Toronto. 95,000 students, which means almost any kid from Toronto can go to the University of Toronto, not just the kids at the top, X percent of their class. What can these medical centers and universities do become a partner? And I think it's not only about education, pastor. I think we know now about 45 to 50% of Americans work in low-age service jobs. If we just educate them more, we're still going to have 45 to 50% of our jobs that are by definition low-age. So the other part of this is that the university's medical centers can help make those jobs better jobs. They don't have to be low-age jobs. We decided as a country we would make factory jobs better jobs. So I think the other part of the equation is making those entry jobs better jobs. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Mr. Larry Curry, you're up next, sir. The presentation really enjoyed it. I had a question about the 15 minute neighborhood topic. So I kind of come from both sides, right? So, you know, got professional with a professional job in a better neighborhood. In the past lived in certain neighborhoods, you know, where that 15-minute neighborhood ideology may be a little bit more difficult, right, to have everything more centralized, have everything more efficient in the areas that you're in. So a lot of here from you and get your feedback on your experiences of, you know, not having a one-stop or a one-size-fits-all approach to the 15-minute neighborhood ideology and how we kind of structured that to some of the neighborhood from an educational standpoint, from a health services standpoint, to build some of the communities we're talking about with the divide and taking a different approach for all these different neighborhoods and building that 15-minute neighborhood for our communities. So I think without intentional and strategic action and political activity that says inclusion and racial and economic justice or center, what happens is the 15 neighborhoods are the affluent neighborhoods. I mean, that's what will happen. Affluent people will have access to everything they need. Their job will be closed, they'll remote work, they can have stuff delivered. The location advantages to their kids who can then walk to school, have all these digital devices that we're talking on, you know what really worries me in this freaking pandemic is the educational divide. I mean what keeps me up at night is I see what I can do for my kids. Like I can get them a tutor if they need them. I can get them support. I can put them within a group. Oh my God. But if I didn't have the resources to do that, and if I didn't have a broadband connection, how would my kids even get to school? So I think we just have to push to do that and to do insurer. And I think this is the conversation in Paris. It's not just about 15-minute neighborhoods for rich people. It's about ensuring that each community can develop its own pathway and look, Philadelphia has some of the highest levels of poverty in America. I know that because I had to be part of a conversation, a discourse in Philadelphia with a lot of anger, but I will say that the institutions in Philadelphia are aware of that. And when they talk about increasing educational opportunity at the University of Pennsylvania or Drexel or the Thomas Jefferson Medical Center, they are also talking about increasing educational opportunity for kids in those neighborhoods. Now, the harder part is there are other neighborhoods with those universities aren't located. Those universities can try to do things in those neighborhoods but they're not part of those neighborhoods. But yeah, Larry, I think it's gotta be a full-bore approach. And let me say this, we are gonna be almost assured that we're gonna have a change in federal administration, almost assured. Now things can go wrong, but there'll be a bailout for cities coming. There has to be because of the economic and financial pressure. The bailout could be tied to doing the right thing. And I think if enough pressure went on the new administration that said, you can't just bailout cities to do stuff the old way. You have to bail out cities to do things a better way. You know, I think there's a whole, look, these are long odds. Nothing is assured in life, but we have once in a century opportunity to put these issues on the agenda, and we have to stay, I'd say not an opportunity, we have an obligation to put them on the agenda. Mr. Acrobaude, you'll have the last questions, sir. Thank you. I really enjoyed your presentation. Currently, you two are the students, some of the things that you said really resonated with me. My question is, as you censor ideas of making wages higher, making them more livable and increasing accessibility to quality health care, quality education, how do you balance things out? Because the paradox that I find is that as you increase wages, as you increase accessibility to these things, the quality of these things can fall for one. And on top of that, as you increase wages, the price of these things can rise. So, nominally, it's like you're increasing wages, but in reality, you're still at the same spot that you were at. So I think we just have to accept the fact that people who are relatively advantage like most of us, I'm not going to think, I don't know about all of us, most of us on this is call. We have to pay more for stuff and we as a society decided in the 1930s and 40s, we'd pay more for cars, for washing machines, for refrigerators, so that people like my dad could make a family living. We literally, Henry Ford said this, we're going to charge more for a car so we can pee people enough money to buy the car. So look, and I always say, what's more important to you, the people who deliver your food or take care of your kids or your aging parents or the people who make your car? It's no brainer to me that these service, and you know, I try to do my stupid part, I, the delivery worker, I try to give it the highest tip I can, but that's not enough. We need a society that says we're gonna pay these people, we call them essential workers for a reason, because they were essential and we're not. I mean, I'm being rude. These are the most essential workers in our society yet they toil under our own risk condition. So that's what I think we need to do. And I think we need to give them a shot at the American dream. I think, you know, people want to be part of that. And I think that there's so many people who feel like they're not. And I think one of the things that's happened with regard to race in this country, which is really terrible. You know, I'm a product of the white working class. So I saw a product of the white working class. So I saw racism front. I'm Italian American. I saw racism front and center and I didn't like it. I mean, it really rubbed me the wrong way. And I fought with the elders. I fought with my uncles. My parents weren't, but I had plenty of racist uncles around me. But now when I look back, I thought that had been erased. Was I an idiot? There is a sense among the white working class that they deserve something that they didn't get. So at the same time that we push an equity and inclusion agenda, we've got to figure out a way to overcome this recoiling. Now, look, I call it, call it what it is. I don't give these people any benefit, but there is a large group of people in, right in Texas, you know this, who are your neighbors, who now are mad because they feel that something was taken away for them or they didn't get their entitlement, if you will. So I think we need a broad agenda, and that's what I like, you know, what I see in, and I'm not trying to make a political speech here. But what I like about Biden and what sometimes that angers me is that, you know, he says, maybe I'll include a couple of Republicans in my team. That's not a bad idea because the country is so darn divided. So I think we have to think big. Like how do we include race and economic equity? And how do we make sure all of these kids can get a leg up. And too often we fall just in one camp or the other. So I'm hopeful. I'm telling you though, the time is now folks. That's why what you're doing is so important. Like if we miss this opportunity, holy, sorry, sorry to use this word. Holy shit. Like if we miss it, I think we'll take it. My dad always said to me, you never underestimate how much America can change and become better and rise at the moment. But I think, Akram and everybody, I think this is the time where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, where we've all got to say we're together. And what, going back to the thing about the protests, what I liked about those protests, so were so many people for so many different backgrounds coming together and saying enough's enough. And you know, I see there was a survey done, folks, before we sign off of MBAs and I teach MBA students. And I've come to know that they're pretty, they're very decent people. It was like 80% of MBA students were behind building a more racially inclusive, economically inclusive, progressive society. That was a big thing to me. You know, I think that that young people in this country get it and I think we can do it, but it's going to be up to us to lead it. If you want to contact me, if you didn't get a chance to raise a question, I'm easy to reach. Jason knows my email is Florida at creativeclass.com. Florida Creative Class.com, I read every single email I get and I try to respond to them. And you know, whether it's a professional question or question you have as a student or an educator or whatever, let me know. And like I said, it's been just a delight being with all of you tonight and keep up the work, the important work you're doing. Wow, thank you so much, Richard. I knew you would be able to move us and share it. You getting claps, I see it. All goods are really very much so. So we're gonna break out now, ladies and gentlemen, as we did during our last meeting, Richard, hang around for a hot second. But for everybody else, we're gonna break out. Here's the surprise that's coming. And I want you to think about two questions when you go to your group, because these are gonna be folk you haven't seen before, right? Let's get to know each other, continue to do that, and share ideas. Two things I'd like you all to discuss. What did Richard say that relates to your subcommittee? Richard, we have five different subcommittees. One is on education, one is on health, one is on policing, one is on economic disparities, one is on housing. So ladies and gentlemen, think about what you've been discussing in your respective communities and connect that to what Richard was just saying. And also for each of you personally, you all know our in-game here is recommendations to our city manager's office and to our city council and to our mayor. Richard gave us a number of things to talk about. But you all are individuals. There's something that resonates for you that you think is important and powerful. What is that? And link what he said to whatever your thinking is a potential recommendation, ladies and gentlemen. That being said, Karen, you can go on and hit the button, and I will see you all in a few minutes. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you All right, ladies and gentlemen, hopefully that was a productive and fruitful conversation. Last month you all said you wanted more time that you found it good. You wanted more time to chat. So we decided to give you a few more minutes to chat. It'd be great if one person from each group could kind of share some of the ideas that were conveyed in the group, anybody want to volunteer maybe we can get somebody who's not a subcommittee chair to jump in on this to give get some more folk involved to speak up a bit. Anybody want to hop in and just for a minute or two give us a quick overview of some of the ideas that came about in the meeting? Anybody? Akram your hand is up sir or is that from the last conversation? I didn't know if that was Akram goon sir, I saw you on Mutra Mike. So, some of the biggest points that were established in our breakout, one of the biggest things that we drew from the presentation was definitely affordable housing. And where you stand in incentivized developers to create affordable housing, I kinda like that 45% or the 25% to 30% rule. Yes. I definitely like that. I definitely think that's something that we can look to do. But really one of the major things that we kind of conveyed through our group was that. The things that we're looking to achieve are part of culture shift. And when I'm thinking of recommendations for your various subcommittees and the various, you know various areas that we seek to improve in the City of Arlington, we need to be mindful of the fact that these recommendations and these changes that we're making are all smaller parts of achieving this larger culture shift. I was talking a little bit about how in the policing subcommittee, one of the issues that we're concerned with is racial profiling for example. And in that instance, it's a matter of, you know, thinking about small things like a citizen's review board is not necessarily going to solve racial profiling. You know, mental health awareness for police officers is not necessarily going to solve is not necessarily going to solve where to point by. The idea is as you institute these smaller, collaborative, community initiatives, institute these various things for people to do, you're able to achieve that larger culture shift. So I think for me, it was really eye opening because it was like you're placed in this situation where you have to think of these recommendations. And I'm over here trying to solve the world's problems. Right. And it was very grounding for me to hear this presentation because it allowed me to kind of center myself and think about what are the things that Arlington can do today, because this is a longstanding issue. And equity is not something that you're gonna solve in a second, today or a week or a month. So what are the things that Arlington can do today? Really, it was a matter of making living here more affordable, making it more equitable, and that's in the matters of increasing access to quality education and healthcare, like we're resisting to try to do, but also maintaining a balance to where it's more affordable to live here, and it's more affordable to have a quality life But also you still have that opportunity to innovate you have that opportunity to be successful Sounds good sir appreciate that I see Larry Curry. You've got your hand up sir if you can give us a quick summary of Maybe there maybe a summary or what stood out to you in the conversation that you were just a part of sir maybe a summary or what stood out to you in the conversation that you were just a part of, sir? Yes, so we have myself seen the INAIS and Alyssa and it was a pretty good group from different committees. INAIS is from the policing committee and Sydney is from the health like the health services kind of committee and it was pretty cool. We focused on the strengthening the neighborhoods component and talked a little bit about what each committee has been kind of brainstorming in terms of questions for the focus groups and things of that nature, but also kind of things we kind of want to put in place in terms of recommendation, short term, midterm and long term. And it was pretty common across the board that all of these things are kind of inclusive of one another and impact one another and feed off of one another. And you know, similar thought for, you know, all of these things which is strengthening the communities and how do we form, formulate solutions to each subcommittees, you know, issues to strengthen the communities, which hit back on that 15-minute neighborhood topic that he was talking about. And I didn't bring it up to it, because we were just in such good conversation we got cut off, but there may be some synergy between some of the stuff that we're trying to implement on the education side in terms of strengthening the community and providing easily accessible resources. Because that's another thing we talked about is how hard some of these things are to find from a health services standpoint and from an educational standpoint for some of these people that really need them the most. It shouldn't be that hard for them to find and have access to. And there may be some synergy there with Cindy's committee in terms of a potential solution and how we can kind of bring some of those two things together to provide easily accessible resources to folks any. Wonderful sir, appreciate that. I don't have any more volunteers but I see a few folks that I love to get into Mix. Yo, Dan Fernandez, I see you waving your hands sir. I was going to call on you. You read my mind. So please just tell us something that stood out to you sir. So please just tell us something that stood out to you, sir. Well, I really appreciated Dr. Florida's presentation. As a conservative, I didn't necessarily agree with the political comments, but I'll hold my own. I appreciate that, sir. I understand. We've had, I had the good opportunity to visit with Ledi and with Debbie Spell, ladies who I had never met before. They were lovely and intuitive. What I focused on as a builder developer zoning guy was the inequity that I've identified for a long time in the Arlington zoning ordinance. The zoning ordinance is designed for new construction, new development. By its nature, it puts at a disadvantage older neighborhoods. I think that we should seriously look at making that more compatible so that we can in earnest look to redevelop the older parts of town so we can have more affordable housing of all types. And this is going back to when Esterus talked, and he had talked about the inequities within the cities and within the regulations. And I don't believe it's purposeful. I believe that it's a simple matter of new is good, all this old. And I think that we just have to make better adjustments to the building standards, not for lesser quality, but to make them more affordable. I pointed out to the ladies that some of my big clients said, damn, find me 5,000 foot long. So I can put a starter home. That starter home is $350,000. Well, I don't know. I can't afford a $350,000 house. I just paid my mortgage off. I ain't buy one at home. Okay. But the young people, when they look, 350,000, that's crazy money. And I think there's some ways that we could adjust our building size, instead of 1,500 feet, making it no less than 1,200 square feet. So this way we bring the price points down. And not necessarily have to be all masonry. They can be hearty plank. They can have a colonial style. They can have a bungalow style. And we get price point, some place near 225, 240, depending on the property. But that would give opportunity to people We're going to be able to get a lot of money. We're going to be able to get a lot of money. We're going to be able to get a lot of money. We're going to be able to get a lot of money. We're going to be able to get a lot of money. We're going to be able to get a lot of money. We're going to be able to get a lot of money. We're going to be able to get a lot of money. We're going to catch you up on some Unity Council business and and begin to close up shop. I saw Jennifer Cathcart. I don't see you anymore, but if you're there, what what jumped out at you during our breakout session, just something that spoke to you? Well, I had the world's most amazing well there was four of us in there. We had a great group. And I will tell you that we came down to education and we have to build better. Like we have to build better. Whether it's like what Dan said, where we've got to get lots, we can make more affordable housing, whether we educate our children much younger about housing, healthcare, just kind of all of it. And then we kind of also believe, I mean, don't get me wrong. I think we're pretty amazing to strip of people here on the unity council. But some of the things that he said that might be politically unpopular, we're very eye-opening and appreciative in the fact that it was a white guy that told us that we need to, you know, maybe some folks are feeling like we're taking from Equity sharing we're taking from somebody who may be is missing on the out on something, you know that whole idea So but I think education I think Building better like that was I think what's resonated with our our little group. We've got to build better That's one of it. Now's the time. Let's go. Look at you fired up. Sounds good. Sounds good. Well, that being said, I appreciate all of the comments here. And again, I wanted to try to get you all here a little earlier, but Richard went longer than we thought. He gave us 20 minutes longer than we expected, y'all. It ain't my fault. All right. So, but I appreciate it. It sounds like that those 20 minutes extra that he gave us were very productive. So continue, I, so I want to move in now to the next, the final phase of our meeting this evening. And a couple of these are just sort of matters to get you up to date with what's going on as we move into the next phase of our research and our project in general. I told you all last month, October is the middle ground, y'all, we're coming down to Mountain now. This is the second half of this project is really what we're about to begin. And most importantly, I believe the second half of this project is what most of you all are most interested in. So Heidi, last, during our last meeting, Pam Roach during our last meeting, you really got my attention because you all made comments that essentially took us to the hearts and minds of the folk in our city of local residents. What are people feeling? What are they saying? Let's get out of the numbers, Jason. Let's talk to people. Let's get their emotions, let's deal with that, and that's where we are, y'all. So, and I see you all are grappling with that, with those interview questions that you all created, with the focus group questions that you're creating. You're thinking about questions to ask the public, potential answers that you might want to hear, or, and, or recommendations. All of that is beginning to come together. It's sort of the slow, if you remember the movie, Karate Kid when Mr. Miyagi tells Daniel, he's got to show him, send the floor and Daniel's like, what the hell are you asking me to do that for? And by the end of all that, Daniel has got a whole damn understanding of how to do Karate. That's sort of what's happening here. We're slowly putting it together and then at the end it'll all sort of come together. But we're at the hearts and mind project of this. And so we're going to begin, I got word today that we're all the interview questions that you all created. You all created some great ones and you know we couldn't ask all of those questions but I'm in the process of whittling them down. I'm communicating with your subcommittee chairs about sort of picking the best ones and trying to make sure that they all flow together. But UTA is pretty much about to give us the approval to move forward, so we will have the rubber stamps that we need to, and we hiring interviewers. Estrus is gonna update you on some of that in a few minutes. We're hiring student interviewers at UTA. We're hiring folks here in the city that Estrus is gonna help do a lot of the training for. We're moving well down the road with that good stuff. So that's point number one. Also, you subcommittee chairs recently got an email. Remember that first homework assignment where I asked you all to submit five names. Well, now we're going to go through those lists of names of people to ask those questions to. So I've been working with the city and we've created an initial list. We've picked about 20 people and your subcommittee chairs have the rest of the list. These are some amazing lists, folks. Some great people. You're going to have a challenge ahead of you in terms of whittling it down. But that's one of the challenges that you'll be doing with your subcommittees. Very soon is picking the remainder of people to interview. Also, I recently created, so you know we have our five task force and you all created questions about health and wellness and policing or whatever your topics are. But that homework assignment you all gave me was tremendous and that I realized as I went through the list, I thought, I'm going to give you one name, for example. One of you all, a couple of you all actually mentioned our firmer first African American mayor, only African American mayor to this point, the honorable Elze Odom. Well, Mayor Odom was on a couple of you all's lists. And I looked at that list and I thought, well, what subcommittee does he interview with? Does he interview with health and wellness? Does he interview with economic disparities? And that's when it hit me. And there were other names that it hit me. And it said, you know what? Some of these people should just have a general set of questions that are about race and diversity in our city, not necessarily a very specific topic. So I created another interview guide that has also been added. So in other words, we've got one set of questions that aren't specifically, they're all about race, but they're not about your particular topics. So we're pretty much ready to go. We've got great questions from you all. You're gonna select the final people. I already said that. And then the last thing, and then I'm gonna hand the floor, well, I want our subcommittee chairs to talk a little bit about the questions that you all created. Just take a minute or two and do that. But I also wanna announce that we're gonna have our first town hall meetings, ladies and gentlemen. We have scheduled those, all right? And so you might want to put it on your calendar. Thursday, November the 19th at 6 p.m. is our first town hall meeting here in the city or for the Unity Council. The second one is Wednesday, December the second at 6 p.m. So Thursday November the 19th at 6 p.m. And Wednesday December the second at 6 p.m. I heard y'all last month and you're, you want some of you all, you know, we're thinking that we're gonna do a lot of this virtual, don't get me wrong, but some of you all also want a socially distance and do some stuff in person. We're trying to figure that out as well. You all, we would love it if the first one we're going to do is going to be hosted by the city. But the ones after that, we would love to partner with local institutions, y'all. I've seen your portfolios that you submitted to be a part of the Unity Council. Some of you all are a part of some amazing local organizations. Now's the time for us to begin to partner, whether it's maybe the YMCA or whether it's maybe the local churches that we are a part of or whatever the case may be. Now again, let me also say we can't pick everybody because y'all are a part of some amazing institutions. But now's the time to begin for us to think about partnering with institutions in our city. So if you have some ideas about that, if you think the organizations that you're a part of might be interested in that, now's the time to begin to put the rubber to the road to figure out how we can build those connections to make those 15 minute communities. Last but not least related to this is I know also Heidi Pam I know there are others y'all are interested in hearts and minds because you want to speak up. So let's talk, shoot me an email and let's begin to brainstorm. We're talking about the composition and what we're going to talk about during these town halls. But now's the time for y'all to put your heart and mind to work on this. If you want to get the community's attention, talking about certain things now's the time to do it. All right, so I'm open to all your ideas. Just reach out to me by email. That being said, I want to ask our subcommittee chairs to take a minute or so and talk about some of the questions that you all created as a subcommittee. What are the topics that you think are important for our city as we move forward when we start asking people questions about how we need to move forward as a city. So I know pastor goings had to leave early I can tell you or someone on the subcommittee the policing subcommittee wants to talk about the questions that's fine too. Does anyone want to go first in terms of our subcommittee chairs in terms of talking about your questions that you created? I see Cynthia, I see Pastor Jones, Sharon Rishard. There is Arley. Where's Arley at? There's Arley in the middle of my screen. Anybody want to go first? All right, Cynthia, I see you unmuted your mic. Go on and go. So one of the, we had difficulty just like everyone else deciding on our questions because we had so many. But one of the biggest things that we thought was important is first of the first question, we thought like should be, does the interview interview the recipient does that person understand the disparity in healthcare in Arlington and the way the question ended up being worded it doesn't sound like that but that's what gets to. Is do they have an understanding or even know that there are citizens in Arlington who don't have access to care? So that was a pretty big challenge for us. We were still working on it. I submitted a bunch of questions to you. Some lend themselves to the focus group and some lend themselves to regular interviewing. But for us, we want to find out, do citizens even understand? Do they know there's a problem? And if they don't know, maybe we need to find out why they don't know, is it because they don't care or it doesn't affect them in my neighborhood that don't have a clue, you know, about 76010 or 76012. So that was just something really significant and important and I'll sign off now. Thank you very much for that. Let's pass the Jones. Can you go next, sir? Yes, I can. And also permitted with matter with the economy, the disparity. We looked at the general question and then a specific one. And I'd like to go to this specific question that one of the sort of embodies the other ones. And we started picking back up your example also. The one question was, Alenton is one of the most diverse cities in the United States. Do you believe that Alenton should use the strength of its diversity to ensure the blessing of economic opportunity to all in a fair and impartial manner without bias toward one group and despair of treatment toward another. And the gist of it is hitting front and center what these young folks and people across this country have done, which is there's bias, there's systemic bias. We don't need to have a discussion about whether that exists. The last 20 years since the attack on affirmative action has demonstrated there's bias. And that bias has now shown itself in systemic racism. And there's no doubt about that because you can see it. And the question is, are you good with that? And if we get the answer, which I think we will, which is no, then that gives the impetus to give us the momentum to push the City Councils and now let's do something about it. Yes, sir. I think that's very insightful. Y'all have some great questions. Very much so. Our next, let's see, Arle can you go next, please? Sure. So for the Education Subcommittee, as the previous two speakers have noted, we started with our general question. Our general question was really, what are your thoughts on about public education system in Arlington? I think that would help identify the different perceptions and viewpoints that we can find here in Arlington. And then the next few questions really focused on kind of the key recommendation pillars that we're focusing on, which is community support resources and diversity curriculum. So our questions go from, you know, and also focuses on the resources that make it successful for those high school students to be college ready and moving forward to professional careers. And then we also focused on, we did add a couple of questions where we kind of pose it to the interviewee to see what ideas they can come up with to close that gap in the public education system. And I think that goes hand in hand with the first question on, we want to see the different viewpoints from different folks around the area and potential interviewees that will be getting missed. Because I think everyone will have a different perspective. And that's what we want to see is how our recommendation is going to be catered to the different perspectives and also gain that gap bridge that gap. Thank you very much. You all have some great questions as well. Sharon, Sharon Rashard, can you round us out, ma'am? We have sort of several different areas we're considering as far as questions, but one of the things we want to know does where you live determine your quality of life in Arlington, which Arlington neighborhoods are least desirable and why? Should housing and other matters of personal finance become a part of public education. We've really identified education as being key to housing. Also zoning. Are there zoning laws that negatively impact minorities and affordable housing just like Dan spoke about with older community zoning laws and policies with that. So those are sort of our questions that we've identified for the one-on-one interviews. Wonderful. Does anyone from the policing subcommittee wanna talk about some of the questions that you all created? I can do, talk about some of the questions that you all created. I can do, I remember some of them, but I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, Acro, I think the floor is yours, Bra. Please give us an overview of what was your questions as a committee, sir. Of course, and I'll keep you brief. There are a lot of parallels between our focus group questions and our one-on-one interview questions. But in both of these sets of questions, we sought to really understand personal perspectives of people and how they regarded interactions between citizens of Arlington and the Orange and Police Department, but also how they would describe relations between ethnic minorities and the Orange and Police Department. And then we really dug deeper into that and asked what personal experiences they might have had that would contribute to their review point of those of those relations. And then we kind of dove deeper when we talked about our recommendations. One of the things that we're discussing is heavier focus on local recruitment and potentially housing subsidies so that police officers are living in the communities that they're policing. So we asked about that as well, kind of asking about how will we feel if there was a more heavy emphasis on local of police officers and how that might contribute to various tensions. So we asked a lot about what if any type of psychological testing should be administered to officers before they're hired, while they're hired. But we also asked some overarching questions about what factors did people feel contributed to racial and socioeconomic disparities in policing. So I'm really just trying to get a broad overview of how people feel about the relations between the audience and police department and its citizens, what factors people feel like contribute to those things and getting some feedback on some of the things that we're thinking about recommending that the city do to improve policing and make it more equitable in this city. Wonderful, sir. And Mr. Estrus Tucker, I know you've got some important things you want to share with us and I want to thank you again, sir, for attending the subcommittee meetings, shaping our committees and their ideas about focus group questions among other things. Want to hand you the floor, sir. Thank you and I'll be very brief and first to start off with applauding the sub committees and and really just lifting up that the process of their their engagement dialogue to create and craft and refine the questions is as valuable as actual questions. I think it will serve them well as they move toward recommendations in the future. I'm gonna be very, very brief. The application for facilitators has been productive. We have 31 facilitators that have applied some pretty good diversity from language and race and ethnicity and religion. We've got three dates we're going to be working with them a communication will go out tomorrow for training and we're hoping they select I'm gonna try to get the top two dates just to give options they only need to participate with one it's about a 90-minute training that's October 27th Octoberth, and November the 5th. And of course, if need be in the future, I'll craft another opportunity just to make sure we have enough facilitators. Keep in mind, we're going to have them co-facilitate, I think as I mentioned in your subcommittees, that way of life happens and something comes up on one schedule, we have a better chance of having a committed facilitator. And if they're doing it together, there's a lot more balance able to attend to the needs of the focus group. So we're looking forward to that. I think that's it. Yeah, you'll be hearing a lot more, but Jason said we're going full speed ahead. I'm really excited about how these questions will kind of take life within these focus groups. Thank you very much, sir. And now I'm going to ask Mr. Buskin, do we have any speakers for the evening, sir? No, sir. We do not have any speakers this evening. the meeting. We have to move to the announcement. We have to move to the announcement. We do not have any speakers this evening. That means we get to move to the announcements portion of our show. I do want to make one quick announcement about our next unity council meeting. I want to give you a heads up. on November the 11th. It's our next full Unity Council meeting, six o'clock again. But I wanted to give you a heads up about our speaker. It is the current mayor of the great city of Charlotte, North Carolina, Mayor Liles. And she is a current sitting mayor who has developed a racial equity plan for her city. So we're gonna have somebody in the building with us who has been there done that in a large and diverse city. And she ran for mayor and part of her platform was creating a racial equity task force and committee and plan. So y'all, we'll have somebody in our Miss next month who has been there, done that, and can really help to move us along. So I wanted to give you that quick announcement. I don't have anything else to say, y'all. So I think it's time for us to go home and be with our loved ones. Thank y'all for coming out. God bless. Good night. you you