CC Minutes - 11/30/05 Work Session

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rights at the state and local level, called this meeting a great idea. She shared Mr. Luvert’s concern that over the last 25 years she had been to many meetings that provided members of the communities of color the opportunity to raise concerns and talk about how they felt about being members of the community, with little effect. She said this happened at the county level, but the information came back and nothing happened. She wondered if the same information would be gathered and what the value was in that if it was not going to be useful for either side of the table. She wanted the process to be strategic and she wanted everyone involved to be clear about the intent behind the process so that people felt their time was being used wisely and that their participation really mattered. She hoped some change would come of it. Tony Lum , representative of the Asian and Pacific Islander communities, commented that race was a complicated thing. He said even for himself it was complicated and within communities themselves it was complicated. He wanted to see a discussion in the February meeting of ideas on how the various races could benefit each other through celebration. He remarked that he could read enough about why everyone hated each other in The Register-Guard every morning. He wanted to see something different that could perhaps benefit the next council, the next mayor, and even the next children born. He felt that the community did not need to hear about race anymore. He declared that he had been hearing about race for 50 years, since he arrived in Eugene. He discussed his recent visit with his parents in Hawaii. He related that Hawaii was the largest mass of people that was farthest away from any other mass of people. He said each culture struggled internally with how to get along with each other. He stated that the governor of Hawaii tried to figure out how everyone could get along as a state, so that people were no longer black, red, or white communities. He averred that he was a part of the Eugene community and he wanted to be a Eugene community citizen. Carmen Urbina , representative of the Latino community and Human Rights Commissioner, read the vision and the goals of the City Council as set forth in June 2005. She commented that there was always the “hammer” approach where everyone was adversarial and the “kumbaya” approach that declared everyone the same, but she wanted to see the “matter of fact” approach, which was that the City of Eugene had an obligation to all of its residents to provide equal services and access to services in an equal manner. As she read the visions and the goals, she said she thought this was a great step and appreciated that the council was looking at two issues that were close to her heart, race relations and homelessness. She asked the City and its council to consider how the visions and goals applied to the community and how the community was perceived. She stated that the Latino community was diverse within itself and asked if the council and administrators were aware of that. She underscored that she was unable, as an individual, to represent the whole Latino community. She said even when looking at the systems in the hiring process, the community had been through some difficult years with race relations. She reminded the council of the Exit Files, a list of local people of color who left the community, and stressed that this was “reality for us.” She related that employees of color in the City felt isolated and afraid and wished to disappear, do their work and go. She averred that with this level of fear of the system, there had to be something wrong within the system itself that was encouraging this fear. She felt one thing that could not be “shied away from” was that the communities of color within this community were growing. She stated that the Latino community alone had grown by 112 percent. She asked what the City had done to hire people from the Latino community, and to provide bilingual and bicultural abilities at all levels of the staff. She felt it was wonderful to have this conversation but questioned how it would be put into action. She declared that this was a tremendous opportunity to do the right thing for all of the citizens of Eugene. Dwight Souers , spoke as a representative of the Native American community. He shared his admiration for the previous speakers. He said the Native American community would benefit as much as the City by having these discussions or workshops. He noted that the community included several smaller communities. MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 30, 2005 Page 3 Work Session