CC Minutes - 11/30/05 Work Session

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A. WORK SESSION: Plan for Communities of Color Meeting Assistant City Manager Jim Carlson explained that City Manager Dennis Taylor was on his way to the Senior Executive Institute at the University of Virginia. He said Mr. Taylor was on the advisory panel, made up of city managers from across the country, which advised the University there on its “exemplary program” on continuing education for city managers. Assistant City Manager Carlson stated that the work session sought to address two action priorities of the council, the issue of race and the issue of homelessness. He asked Executive Director of the Human Resource and Risk Services Department (HRRS) Lauren Chouinard to introduce the guests and lead the discussion on the first item. Mr. Chouinard stressed that this was a workshop and as such would be different from the usual work session as it provided an opportunity to hear from community representatives. He reviewed the work that had been done since 1989 when then-Mayor Jeff Miller began working with the communities of color. He stated that the present workshop was to prepare for a larger workshop with a larger group of representa- tives, tentatively scheduled for February, 2006. He said one action item in the priority for race was to connect more with the community to find out what they were feeling, what their issues were and how the council could help impact those issues as a body in the community. Mayor Piercy reiterated that this was an opportunity to listen to community representatives. Those present introduced themselves. Mr. Chouinard said the result that was hoped for from these community members’ input was a structure for the meeting planned for February and of the identification of topics to be discussed. He stated that staff would take this information and draft a purpose and basic agenda for the meeting to provide to the City Council for review and to the community members who were providing the input. Henry Luvert , representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and member of the African-American community, stated that one reason the discussions were few and far between was that people would be gathered to vent about the situation for people of color in Eugene and then no follow-up or work sessions would occur to address the issues that were raised. He felt the people who came to hear what community representatives had to say needed to be in touch with themselves before they could be in touch with him. Here they were trying to get the council to understand their feelings. He understood all of the feelings the representatives who were present experienced, so the question for him was why the City and its staff did not understand those feelings. He thought the result would be that staff would say “Gee, I did not know it was so bad,” but the same feelings had been expressed at the last meeting. He called it a redundant process. He averred that communities of color were looking for attitude change and this might involve workshops to help City staff understand more about themselves and their relationship with race and how coming from a point of privilege affects life. He noted that all of the people of color were on one side of the room and the councilors were all around the table. He said it always seemed to be that way. He thought one way to address this would be that the City could work with a lot of “our initiatives,” the NAACP’s mentoring programs, and Centro Latino Americano’s programs. Guadalupe Quinn , a representative of the Latino community who works with an organization on immigrant MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 30, 2005 Page 2 Work Session