Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights & Culture Committee 32423

Good morning, the March 24th, 2023 regularly scheduled meeting of the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights and Culture Committee will come to order.

It is 9.30 a.m.

I'm Tamim Morales, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Nelson.

Here in chambers.

Vice Chair Sawant.

Present.

Chair Morales.

Here.

Or present.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss is excused for today.

If there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

We've got a great agenda today.

It's very full.

We have 15 appointments that will be on the consent agenda, so we will go through those first.

We have the appointment of Derek Wheeler-Smith as the Director of the Office of Civil Rights.

A presentation and discussion on generational wealth building strategies will be welcomed by guests from Chicago and from Richmond, Virginia.

And we have a vote on Council Bill 120525 which creates the race and social justice ordinance in the city.

Before we begin, we will have public comment.

It looks like we have two speakers who are joining remotely and 11 speakers here in person.

So at this time, we'll open the general in-person and hybrid public comment period.

I'll moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

We will have up to 20 minutes for each speaker.

Maybe I'll increase that to 25 if there's no objection.

Everybody will have two minutes to speak.

I'll call on the speakers virtually first and remind you to press star six to begin speaking.

If you've not yet registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of the public comment period by going to the council's website at seattle.gov slash council.

So when you're called, please begin by stating your name and the item that you're addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda.

You will hear 10 seconds when you you'll hear a chime when you have 10 seconds left.

Once you hear the chime, we ask that you wrap up your comments so that we can move on to the next speaker.

If you would like to continue listening and you're virtual, you can do so via Seattle Channel.

Okay, the regular public comment period is now open, and we'll begin with the first two speakers who are virtual.

First, we'll have Andrew Ashiofu and then Emijah Smith.

Andrew, please go ahead and press star six.

Good morning.

My name is Andrew Ashifu.

I am here to address the appointment of Derek Willis-Smith as the director of the SSCR.

Derek has been As someone from the LGBTQ plus community and the high rhetoric across the nation with the bills passing, having someone that aligns with anti-LGBTQ organizations and also someone that is open to quote homophobic quotations in the city's public spaces, I don't feel comfortable with his appointment.

I think it's a massive disservice to my community.

It's a risk and it's a risk to the community.

And it's also a segue to push, especially when you talk about civil rights, to bring about anti-homophobic agenda, which is something, I mean, homophobic agenda, which is something we don't need in Seattle.

I will be really disappointed if his appointment is passed by this committee.

And I really hope that the voices of the LGBTQ community is kept at the forefront while discussing his appointment.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Emijah Smith.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

My name is Emijah Smith, and I appreciate everything that the previous speaker spoke.

I'm calling to speak in support of the appointment for Derek Wheeler-Smith.

And my reasoning for this in support is because I've seen Derek Wheeler-Smith in community, so like he has a grasp of the issues that are prominent in following his work, you know, trying to stay connected with what's happening in the multiple government entities at the county.

I really was appreciative to see the analysis that he could bring in around race and social justice and dealing with the hard, complicated, challenging work of violence prevention in the community.

So I was just really impressed with that.

And I believe that that is a plus for the city of Seattle in particular in its current role.

Yeah, I really do value seeing people with the people.

Um, Derek was there, uh, when we, uh, put together, uh, the children's March in 2020, um, and really spoke loud and proud, um, really showing his value of what he means in bringing the work forward.

I know, um, none of us are perfect people and I definitely want to see based on what I just heard.

Um, you know, if there's needs to be growth in that area, I will support, make sure there's growth in the area that, um, that this appointment will be more inclusive, but I I'm not aware of what was stated before, but nevertheless, there's always room to grow.

And I still sign in and call here today to support there because I've seen them.

I've sat down and got to talk to them.

Um, and that's what we need in positions in government entities.

We need people who are connected to the community.

We need people who have a clear analysis and people who know how to institute that analysis.

Thank you, Connie.

Thank you.

It looks like Carla Lynch has joined us virtually.

Carla, if you're here, please press star six.

Carla, I see you listed as present.

You can press star six to begin.

Okay, we will come back to Carla.

So I'm going to move to the folks that we have in person here in chambers.

And the first speaker is Marguerite Richard, followed by, I think it's Carolyn Matone?

Malone?

Good day, everyone.

My name is Marguerite Laurie Richard, for those that call me Laurie.

And I'm really concerned about race and social justice.

You know me and everybody else, that's my baby, just like it was Fannie Lou Hamer's baby.

And I heard something yesterday about Anita Whitfield saying that at the county level, it's not working.

She has to report to the governor, I guess.

However, The funnel mess goes down the stream.

Okay, but I'm not buying into it.

I've had so many complaints at the civil rights office to your, you would probably say well why haven't you been the director.

Why I guess I don't have the.

on the paper credentials as such.

But I'm not going to promote nothing that's causing our people to disintegrate and leave this planet earlier than they should.

Because the God I serve, he's the giver of life.

and he can take it away too at any time, huh?

But I'm talking about this stuff that you want us to believe in.

I'm not going to believe in it until I see real change.

I don't have enough time to tell all these people what y'all have done to me down here.

Because if you tell the truth, you shame the devil, right?

and he's under my foot right now because I'm sick and tired.

I'm beyond Fannie Lou Hamer.

I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired of coming down here and having to face you people.

Does that make sense?

Because you don't talk back and you sit up there just like the King County people cut you off in the middle of your speech and we're supposed to have free speech.

Thank you.

Carolyn Malone, followed by Tali Hairston.

I'm Carolyn Malone, former.

College English Instructor and Diversity Education Coordinator.

And my issue involves civil rights, public safety, and housing rights, all intertwined around rogue, violent, white male Seattle cops, primarily illegally occupying space in my apartment building at Chancery Place Apartment.

in retaliation for my street corner protest posters at 4th and James, 5th and Cherry right in front of their door.

I'm routinely locked out by managers or police because managers are not there on the weekend.

All of my calls are intercepted.

I'm under 24-hour surveillance.

And I'm threatened with eviction so regularly until I ignore it and tell them, take me to court.

Because I'm exercising my right, my constitutional right, to protest injustices by police.

And I'm sure many of you have seen this article, one of the most intelligent, profound, helpful, progressive members of SPD under hostility, threat, mistreatment, harassment.

I too, I don't even compare with Detective Cookie Bodine.

But I am a black woman, and whenever we speak out, we are called crazy, angry black woman.

My ancestors had to be crazy and speak out.

And I will continue to come forth and speak out about police, white male cops living in my building, surveilling me illegally.

Who's paying for their for them to live in my building.

You should check into it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Malone.

Next we have Tali Hairston followed by Tia Yarbrough.

Hello, my name is Dr. Tali Hairston and I am a longtime South Seattle resident.

I'm speaking in support of appointing Derek Wheeler-Smith for the Director of Office of Civil Rights.

I've known Derek Wheeler-Smith since 1998 when we were street youth workers taking African-American young men to camp, working from 6 p.m.

to the early morning, walking alongside young people and their families as they navigated the streets and social systems.

His passion for justice and care for others has never wavered in the 25 years I've known him.

Whether coaching or mentoring students or as an administrator at Federal Way School District, many of us have watched Derek's leadership capacity grow at every turn and with every challenge.

Derek's commitment to collaborative and facilitative leadership, I believe, is informed by those early experiences of street youth work, I recall a conversation we had where he reached out to simply share his heart on leading as host and not hero.

And in my humble opinion, this is the kind of significant and insightful civic leadership we need.

Derek is genuinely connected to the community because he has learned how to hold the tension of leading institutionally and being in community.

Having watched Derek lead and partnered with him in several projects, I can say with a high degree of certainty, His ability to authentically and transparently hold community in one hand and the institutional role and responsibility in the other is formidable and impressive.

I know this in part because Derek has had hard conversations.

He has had them with me.

He does not shy away from the hard parts because this is who he is.

His ability to transparently conflict in ways that keep everyone included and at the table is a major part of his vocation, his calling, and his person.

Yes, we disagree, and he called me on it.

He did not call me out, but he called me in.

He challenged me on how I showed up to this space, and I never felt threatened or that he was allowing his position to dominate, overpower, or confine the moment.

I hope you can vote to confirm Derek for the director director's role of the Office of Civil Rights and our polarized culture, his character and commitment to genuine authentic and collaborative leadership is what we need.

Thank you.

Thanks very much.

Next we have Tina Yarbrough followed by Michelle Lang Raymond.

Hi, I'm Tia Yarbrough, and I'm a longtime Seattle resident.

I'm here to testify in support of Derek Wheeler Smith to be confirmed and installed as the permanent director for the Office of Civil Rights for the city of Seattle.

The first right question is not what do you need to do, but rather who do you need to become.

Derek has committed his life's work and journey to becoming.

For over 20 years, I've witnessed Derek become the change our community has needed, whether it was leading diversified supports for homeless youth of color in the late 90s, teaching and serving within schools and districts, partnering with organizations to provide resources for some of our most impacted members, convening and strategizing system partners and CBOs to address the impacts of regional gun violence, and most recently, the Race and Social Justice Initiative in alignment with his current work.

Derek's time on the ground does not only give him experience and perspective to be a leader for systemic and institutional change, but also demonstrates his fierce devotion to justice, a loving husband, devoted father, and as a mentor to many to many including myself I have watched him serve by example.

Social justice and civic duty are pillars anchoring the leadership of Director Wheeler-Smith.

He is unafraid to be challenged and to grow, ensuring he remains a reflective listener and learner.

The Office of Civil Rights is the natural next progression of leadership for Director Wheeler-Smith.

He champions the marginalized, the unheard, and the left out.

To be a leader of change requires integrity and a person of strength and character.

Although he has far-reaching national networks and relationships.

His hometown roots as a Seattleite deepen his commitment to justice for the city of Seattle.

He is unwavering regarding what it truly means to be a leader for a beloved community.

I am confident Director Wheeler-Smith will lead with and for the interests of the people of this city.

Derek wears many hats and serves in a variety of roles.

He is a tangible torchbearer for justice.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next, we have Michelle Lang Raymond followed by Daryl Powell.

Good morning.

My name is Michelle Lang Raymond, I'm the founder and executive director of acts on stage theater.

I've known Derek Wheeler Smith, almost 30 years.

He was the first man that I've ever known to use two last names, and that would come to symbolize who he is and more ways than one.

At a time when others looked at ways where they could reduce or streamline their identity and the amount of space that they would take up, Derek counter-culturally gifted himself with the full acknowledgement of who he is and who and where he comes from.

He made room and gave respect to the things that have made him who he is.

And so it is no surprise that we are gathered here today to discuss and hopefully affirm him for a position that does exactly the same.

He regularly considered and still considers the quality of the systems that challenge all of our livabilities.

He smartly and fairly questions the integrity of our systems of education, economics, employment, and even ecology.

And I've watched him go beyond questioning to engaging.

I was raised and have worked in the church, the black church, and sometimes more often than we like to acknowledge, the church can be a very judgmental place.

For many summers, Derek and I were part of a group of local youth pastors that would take kids to camp, and we all had to decide, we all had a year to decide which kids we would take to camp.

And while many of us would bring the kids that we were sure wouldn't embarrass us, Derek Wheeler Smith and Tally Harrison often would bring exactly those kids.

And Derek brought those kids because he knows that those boys deserve access to opportunity.

And every kid at least once in their life, regardless of race, sexuality, affiliation, deserve the right to simply go to camp and be slimed or sludged at least once in their life.

Derek is committed to seeing and respecting women.

He is unmatched in this way.

If you know Derek, you know he adores his wife, Stephanie, and his daughters, and he has been a coach at Cleveland High School for the girls team.

And in that role, he acknowledges and elevates all girls, straight, black, white, Asian, Latino, and he gave them the absolute most of his relentless support.

I do affirm, I do stand here to say, his confirmation and his service would be and is important to our city.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next we have Daryl Powell followed by Charles Davis.

Good morning.

I'm here in support of Derek Wheeler Smith, the director of Office of Civil Rights.

I represent the NAACP of Seattle King County chapter as president.

I've known Derek more as an adult, but I echo the comments that have been made prior to me at this mic here.

Most closely, Derek and I were involved post-George Floyd and the pandemic when we were rallying our community in crisis.

Derek was a spearhead in Helping us organize a men's group around mental health to where we were taking care of our own mental health while we were engaged in this crisis of the pandemic as well as post George Floyd.

Most recently.

Derek has reached out to us at the NAACP and made us aware of the participatory budgeting process of the city of Seattle.

And he wants to make sure that we as a community organization are involved in the process.

Um, I've known Derek in the last five, six years as a professionally.

Um, I do know he's from the state of city of Seattle and a lot of them spoke to him as a youth.

Like I said, me knowing him as an adult, knowing him as a community collaborator.

and one who wants to bring the community along.

And I very well support him as director of civil rights.

Thank you very much.

Next we have Charles Davis followed by Cleo Lloyd.

Good morning, my name is Charles Davis the owner of C Davis Texas barbecue.

And first I'd like to address the first comment.

from the, is it the LGBT community.

I think the biggest problem we have is when people put things in a paper.

They taken a run with it I personally know, Mr. Wheeler, and it's unfortunate that we have people from different communities that are so much in judgment and don't know the person personally.

And that kind of bothers me, because Derek is a great person.

He's a great leader.

And we've done many community events together.

I've called him at 1, 2, 3 o'clock in the morning, because of some own personal issues that I had.

He helped me address those.

Even childhood traumas that I had, he's talked me through it.

So I just want to acknowledge him for the work he's done in the community.

And again, I'm not a great speaker at all, but he always says, just say what's on your heart, and the people will listen.

And I firmly believe that.

So I'm just, I just want to say, um, I think he's a great leader for this position and, um, I got the best barbecue in town.

Well, we'll, we'll be following up on that.

You can, you can be sure about that.

Uh, thank you.

Uh, next is Cleo Floyd followed by Cynthia green.

Good morning.

My name's Cleo Floyd.

I'm an attorney in the area.

Been here for all my life.

Uh, but I'm here on behalf of Derek Wheeler Smith.

I think he's qualified and should be the director for the office of civil rights.

I've known Derek personally for 25 years and I watched him, you know, climb this hill and this opportunity hasn't been, uh, given to Derek.

It's been earned, you know, and I've watched him go from.

coach to a mentor, to a pastor, to a principal, to a consultant, to a director.

And Derek has a great leadership skills.

He leads by example.

He's hands on.

I've seen him personally do it.

Um, I've watched him organize peaceful protests and rally.

I've watched him build initiatives, sending around kids and there's no better person for the job.

And I know deep in my heart that Derek will succeed if given the opportunity.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next, Cynthia Green, followed by Kim Ford and Keith Hedgepeth from Community Passageways.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Cynthia Green.

Ms.

Green, pull the mic a little closer to your mouth.

It'll bend down, yeah.

Oh, this way.

Is that better?

Yeah.

Now, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

I'm Cynthia Green.

I'm a community member and a lifelong Seattleite, and I'm here in favor of Derrick Wheeler-Smith.

I have zero doubt about Derrick Wheeler-Smith's qualifications to become the next director of Seattle's Office of Civil Rights.

Those qualifications go far beyond his education and experience.

They extend to his patience, compassion, and love for his fellow human beings.

I know this firsthand.

Months ago, my family lost one of our youngest members to a freak accident.

As we tried our best to process his death, the suddenness of the tragedy introduced loads of chaos and uncertainty into our lives.

We asked Derek if he'd do the eulogy at my son's funeral, but because of our particular family dynamics, prompting a lack of agreement over the service, he was asked to be on standby until the very last minute.

Knowing he had to prepare a eulogy that he might never give, knowing he had to take time away from his family for a moment that might never come, he agreed without protest.

We let him know he was needed the night before the funeral, and he came without fanfare our self-importance, honoring my son with a eulogy that brought us comfort, hope, and peace.

A leader is someone who shows up for others, even when it's hard, even when there's chaos, and even when there's no spotlight.

He is the type of human being that I take comfort in knowing that he would be overseeing and protecting the civil rights of all people in Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We have Kim Ford and Keith Hedgepeth, and they will be followed by John Okamoto.

Good morning.

Good morning.

It's good to be here with everybody.

Hi, Derek.

I am with Community Passageways.

My name is Kim Ford.

Usually in my role at CPI, I am much more comfortable not speaking, but writing.

So I wrote some things out.

And I am definitely here to support the confirmation of Derek Wheeler Smith as the director for the Office of Civil Rights.

One of the saddest days as a leader at CP was when Derek left as the director of Zero Youth Detention, a community-led public health approach to gun violence intervention.

But what we're all doing here today is helping me understand the reason he needed to go.

But it was a major loss because, one, Derek feels a personal duty to change the state of the world, the county, and the city of Seattle.

He has a belief in making things better and knows exactly what needs to change and wants to make that change himself, not wait for someone else to do it.

He believes in defending those without power and, when needed, challenging those with power.

Two, Derek is a nonconformist and he challenges the status quo.

And that's one of the reasons he created Zero Youth Detention.

He's a rebel with a cause and is ready to act in an unconventional way.

Three, Derek is resourceful.

He makes connections, identifies opportunities, and sees potential in unexpected places.

He created connections locally and on a national scale to build Zero Youth Detention and helped it to be chosen by the White House as part of the Community Violence Intervention Collective.

And finally, Derek doesn't give up.

He's undeterred by resistance, opposition, and hostility of others.

He's resilient in the face of difficulty, and when he faces obstacles and pushback while building zero youth attention, he did not slow down.

Derek is a trailblazer and a maverick who has changed organizations so those organizations can change the world.

Thanks very much.

Next, we have Keith Hedgepeth.

Please go ahead.

Yes.

I came to Seattle in 2016 from prison in the dumpster from Chicago.

I didn't know nothing about life.

I didn't know nothing about social justice or equity or the community or nothing.

When I met Derek and his brother, they gave me some opportunities that had me at the place where I'm at today.

When I told him one time, I said, I never had an example.

I never had brothers or sisters or a mother or father.

My mom died when I was 18. And I told Derek, I said, I wanna be like you.

I wanna be professional like you.

And today I'm the Director of Juvenile Detention Engagement for Community Passageways.

I worked for also a job opportunity that him and Stephanie gave me as the first employee for WDC.

I'm a safety de-escalation specialist.

Through Derek's leadership and guidance that I always watched, I was able to connect with Mark and Stumplefield.

Steering Justice Equity Committee.

I also sit on the board for the Department of Public Defense as the only non-attorney.

I'm also part of King County Restorative Justice Mediation with Polly Davis.

I never would have got to where I was at if I hadn't encountered Derek Wheeler.

Whatever it is that he's up for and Um, you know, I don't know all the professional terms, all of these titles and stuff, but he deserves it because it could make a transformation in my life in such a short time.

Imagine what he can do with this new position.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Uh, next we have John Okamoto followed by Nate miles and then Marcus double field.

It's hard to follow up those stories.

Good morning, Madam Chair, committee members.

It's good to see you again.

For the record, I'm John Okamoto, lifelong resident of Seattle, former Seattle City Council member.

And at one point in time, I was the department head for what is now four departments in the city.

I'm here to support the appointment of Derek Wheeler Smith as the director of the office of civil rights agenda item 16. I'm compelled to speak this morning because I'm convinced of Derek's capabilities and capacity to change our city.

He will propel our city into something more than who we are.

His impressive background has been well-documented in the mayor's confirmation package, so I won't speak to his background.

Rather, I'd like to speak to his character and his vision.

Derek speaks and lives a life of social justice, valuing every person, especially those who have not been treated fairly.

He is engaging, courageous, and charismatic.

He is deeply committed to the civil rights of all for more equitable systems, especially for those that need it.

But it is his vision for the office that gets me the most excited.

He understands the office's essential role in investigating discrimination complaints.

but his vision reaches deeper than that.

It reaches deep into the city by creating cohorts throughout the city to share best practices in race and social initiatives.

And further beyond that, his vision to create a more just, equitable and beloved community for all is transformative.

And so with that, I would deeply recommend that this committee supports his nomination as the Director of the Office of Civil Rights.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we've exceeded our time for public comment, but we have five people left.

So I'm going to ask if we can extend and maybe just do one minute for the last few speakers.

But please go ahead, Mr. Miles.

Thank you, giving honor to God who's ahead of my life, Madam Chair, to the committee.

I'm not here to support Mr. Wheeler-Smith.

I'm not here to beg you to appoint him, to ask you to support him or to do anything based on the things that are in your packet.

See, if we had everything that were out there and things were fine and good and there was no racism, we wouldn't have to do that.

But actually I'm here to do as Dr. King said, I'm here to ask to do what is on paper.

On paper, you said you wanted somebody that our kids could look up to.

On paper, you said you wanted someone that our seniors were gonna be protected by.

That's what you put on paper.

I can understand if we didn't have to worry about that, but we have to worry about that today.

And so since we have to worry about that, it's up to us to find somebody.

It's up to you to put someone in that position that will worry about them.

And this mayor has put forward somebody that we believe because we've saw them in community do this day in and day out.

You've heard testimony about people who's changed lives.

We brought it to you.

We've got a guy sitting here and all we're asking you to do now is to take this authentic person who's shown time and time again that he's willing to do what it takes to make Dr. King's dream a reality and to make your job easier by doing the easy thing and appointing him to this position.

Members of the committee, we ask that you appoint Derek Wheeler-Smith to this position.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Marcus double field and then we have looks like two people who are online will try them again.

Thank you for having me.

I'm here for the confirmation of Derek Willard Smith as the Director of Office of Civil Rights.

I won't go into details what everybody else said.

I think you got a well laid out plan.

I'm speaking to you as a friend, as a colleague, as a community, lifelong Seattleite, and watching a person grow, develop, create opportunities for people.

What you are getting is an innovative, transformative leader that has a high value that will be able to create access to, for, and with community for the change that you need in Seattle.

I've watched it personally.

I've watched it on the side of them.

I currently am the director of the criminal justice system for King County.

And I walked alongside of him as he built the Zero Youth Detention effort.

And I've watched that change.

I've watched him push systems.

I've watched him push community to do some things that we never thought we could do.

And I think that's what's really needed for this position and for the city of Seattle to be successful, because this is an issue that deeply hurts and penetrates everyone, no matter who you are.

And someone like Derrick Wheeler-Smith's confirmation will just prove that Seattle is going to put his money where his mouth is.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, we have two folks present online, so we're going to try them again before we wrap up.

Carla Lynch, if you are here, please press star six.

Good morning.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you very much.

Well, good morning.

I'm here to offer brief comments in support of my friend and colleague, Derek Wheeler-Smith, as you consider his confirmation as the Director of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

I had the privilege of working alongside Derek for five years to provide community-based employment support to adults with significant developmental disabilities.

In that time, I watched as Derek consistently approached his work with an asset-based lens, always focusing on what was possible for individuals for families and for the systems designed to support them.

Derek demonstrated what inclusion looks like for all.

Derek is deeply committed to widening the circle of human concern and centering the voices of those who are most impacted by the decisions we make.

Framing community, building bridges, and cultivating agency for all people have been the cornerstones of Derek's entire professional career.

He's a values-based leader who brings these same attributes to his role as the director of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

With steep roots in this community, he has earned the trust and respect of those who are working to undo inequities so that everyone can thrive.

I strongly encourage you to confirm Derek as the director of the office for civil rights.

His commitment to the advancement of civil rights sets the stage for continued progress in creating a community that honors and respects the voices of all as we collectively work to undo the generational impacts of systemic racism and marginalized communities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our last speaker who is present is Curtis Brown.

I do have Claudia Pineda, but she's listed as not present.

So Curtis, if you're on, please press star six.

I did.

I just wanted everybody to know, I'm Curtis Brown, Brighton Development Group, Stony Brook Foundation.

I'm on vacation.

My family has left me because I had to be here on a phone call to support Derek Wheeler-Smith.

Derek is the person that calls me and texts me at nine o'clock at night to tell me about some way that he wants to further our work to stop displacement in Southeast Seattle.

Derek is the one that will spend two hours in conversation to make sure that trust is developed.

Derek is the person that gets stuff done.

Derek, I've known Derek less than a year, but Derek treats me and trusts me like we've been lifetime friends.

In a world of distrust, trust is so critically important now for us to build relationships to end structural racism and all the different issues that we face in our community today.

I passionately support Derek Wheeler-Smith for the Office of Civil Rights and encourage his approval.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, that concludes our public comment period.

So we will move on to our first agenda item.

Devin, will you please call the roll?

No, not call the roll.

May please read agenda item into the record.

Agenda items 1 through 15 for the consent calendar.

Appointments 2481 through 2495, appointments to the Seattle Immigrant and Refugee Commission, Pike Place Market Historical Commission, Cultural Space Public Development Authority, Community Involvement Commission, and the Landmarks Preservation Board for a briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, as a reminder, the consent agenda functions like the full city council consent agenda.

Colleagues can pull items for discussion if they choose, otherwise we'll vote on them as a package.

Are there any appointments that committee members would like to pull to discuss or are there any appointees present who would like to speak to their appointment?

I am not seeing any.

Okay, so we will, I move approval of these appointments.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend approval of these appointments.

Definitely please call the roll.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Vice Chair Swans?

Yes.

Chair Morales?

Yes.

Or in favor?

Thank you, the motion carries, and the committee recommendation that the council approve these appointments will be sent to the April 4th full city council meeting.

Okay, will the clerk please read item 16 into the record?

Agenda item 16, appointment 2497, appointment of Derek D. Wheeler-Smith as director, office for civil rights for a term to mayor's discretion for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Colleagues, the mayor has transmitted his appointment packet.

Council has generated written questions for the interim director, Director Wheeler-Smith, and I want to thank our colleagues for your questions that we submitted, and I want to thank Director Wheeler-Smith for your thoughtful responses.

This is going to be our opportunity to dive a little deeper if you've got additional questions or need a little bit of clarification.

So we will give that opportunity.

But first, I do want to ask Deputy Mayor Wong, who is here to present the mayor's appointment for us and welcome you both to the committee.

Thank you Councilmember can you all hear me.

Yes, but chair Morales and council members, it is my pleasure to be before you today to introduce Mayor Harold's nominee for director of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights, Derek Wheeler Smith.

Now, as you on this council committee with oversight of civil rights know better than most, the office enforces laws against illegal discrimination, many of which you all as council members have adopted, and leads the Race and Social Justice Initiative, a citywide effort to end institutional racism, both at the city and citywide.

I'm glad to say that Mayor Harrell has nominated a superstar to spearhead this essential work.

I'll be honest, I could probably end my comments there because I think the public comment overwhelmingly reflects the nature, the work that Derrick Wheeler Smith will bring to this office.

But I would like to touch on a few other points to reinforce the comments you've heard earlier.

Derrick is someone who has dedicated his life in the service of others.

You may know him for his work as the former head of Zero Youth Detention at King County, where he led the effort to implement the roadmap to Zero Youth Detention and the development of a regional public safety plan to address gun violence.

He was previously Federal Way School District's lead on equity and social justice, advancing opportunities, and facilitating racial equity trainings across the district.

He has deep roots in our community, as you've certainly heard at public comment today.

Now, before Mayor Harrell referred his nomination for you today, our office consulted with stakeholders, including employees on the SOCR team, both direct and non-direct reports to Derek, the four SOCR commissions, and community members.

Further, Mayor Harrell undertook a close review of Derek's work as interim director over the last year.

He recognized the passion, the dedication, and solution-oriented spirit Derek brings to the office.

What's key with Derek is that we have a true collaborator in him.

I'm sure Council Member Rallis, you can attest to that based on the work that you all have done together on the RSGI ordinance that you will consider later today.

When we reached out to staff, a word kept coming up that really, I think, reflects Derek's approach to the work best, coach.

Following the peak of the pandemic, Derek joined SOCR and it was facing a 35% staff vacancy rate and a team who faced considerable burnout.

He rolled up his sleeves and recognized he couldn't tackle the systemic challenges ahead without a healthy and restored team.

He took the time in his year to engage, to mentor and provide trainings so that he could develop staff to both support them and create leadership at all levels.

Today, that staff vacancy rate is only 6%.

It's through his efforts and support of his team, the hard work of that team, that the department eliminated what had been a considerable backlog of civil rights investigation.

Council members, Mayor Harrell has nominated a true public servant.

He brings integrity, compassion, and a drive for change.

Personally, I have found him to be one of the most thoughtful, insightful, compassionate, and empathetic leaders, really servant leaders, I have encountered.

His commitment to justice is undeniable.

I trust that after talking with him and reviewing his record, you'll agree that he is the right choice to lead our Office for Civil Rights.

Mayor Harrell thanks you for your consideration of his nomination.

With that, let me turn things over to Derek to offer his introductory remarks before taking your questions today, Derek.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Wong, Council Chair Morales and committee.

I am humbled and honored to be before you today for my confirmation as the next director of the Office for Civil Rights.

I stand on the shoulders of many folks who have poured into my life, opened doors for me and sacrifice so that I might enjoy my life as it were.

And for that, I'm grateful.

Each of us imprints the people in the world around us, breath to breath and hour to hour, as much in who we are and how we are present as in whatever we do.

And just as there are callings for life, there are callings for our time.

And I've spent my life preparing to meet this moment.

This calling is so tender and so urgent.

And what I truly want is to coax my own best self and the best self of others into the light.

I see our beloved city as a playground where the most vulnerable can flourish, where we widen the circle of human concern, creating systems and structures of belonging.

Thank you for this opportunity and consideration.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Wong for being here.

Colleagues, as I mentioned, we all had a chance to review Derek's appointment packet, the written questions and responses.

I do have a couple of questions that I would like to start with, and then if other folks have questions, we can move on.

So thank you, Director Wheeler-Smith.

As Deputy Mayor Wong mentioned, we will be considering the RSJI ordinance later this afternoon, later this morning.

Can you talk a little bit about your vision for that ordinance, and especially how, as a city, we can ensure that those principles are integrated throughout the city?

Because the whole point is for every department to begin to understand what race and social justice means.

So can you talk a little bit about how OCR can support other departments in integrating that work?

Certainly.

I first want to just give a shout out to the fantastic staff in the Office for Civil Rights.

More specifically, as we're talking about this ordinance, the great work of the RSJI team led by Davida Ingram, But this ordinance really allows us to cement and to put in code powerful work that's been taking place for the last 19 years.

So we are extremely excited about the opportunity that we had to bridge, I would say, with so many different stakeholders and be able to come together and push this ordinance forward.

As we think about the opportunity to partner collaboratively across the city.

We have thought about, and have been in the process of convening each department head to be able to talk about cohort a cohort model and how we could develop professional learning communities, and how we integrate the work of the change teams and begin to think about the external impact that we can have.

So often we're trying to solve incredibly complex issues and we're trying to do those by working in silos and pretending as if, you know, one organization or community-based organization or our own department or sector can solve these complex issues.

And so we're excited about the opportunity really to be able to think collectively to pose what we would call some guiding questions rather than a curriculum that gives answers, recognizing that the wisdom and the brilliance is actually in the space and in the room with those leaders.

As we look at the, again, external impact that we can have on the community and look at fiscal blending models and do that in co-creation with community as opposed to doing things to community.

So we are extremely excited that this ordinance actually, we believe, gives teeth to that and provides us with the necessary support to be able to carry this work and this vision forward and to be able to really create an equitable city both internally and externally for staff and also for the residents of the city of Seattle.

Thank you.

I want to talk a little bit about the organizational structure, understanding the vacancy rate has shrunk, which is really good news given the very important work that you have to do.

And as a council, we are sometimes adding to your work by increasing the number of protected classes that we have in the city, for example.

The new economic forecast last week, along with kind of the national picture here, reminds us that we are still experiencing fiscal volatility.

So can you talk about how you plan to staff through these uncertain times?

We need to shorten the closure rate of our investigations, and you have a big job to do in what is a little bit of economic uncertainty right now when it comes to being able to increase resources.

So how do you anticipate being able to manage that?

Yes.

You, thank you for this question, I brings up I think really important issue in terms of enforcing civil rights and lack of outreach and educational resource and staffing capacity to ensure the kind of compliance that we know is important.

Every time that the city council adopts a new law to advance civil rights, all of which we have wholeheartedly supported.

There is a company ongoing outreach budget, or new FTEs to enforce the new civil rights protections.

The last FTE gained was in 2019. And we also have striking wage inequity for our investigators.

And so there's a pattern of losing skilled staff to other jobs in the city and the private sector.

And that historically has created delays in the length of investigations and has impacted our customer service.

Lastly, new laws are passed that require tracking and some require different investigation tools.

compared to civil rights laws.

And we have an outdated database that needs a facelift, one that reflects our workflow and is adaptable to add new and different types of laws, has exceptional reporting capabilities and allows us to generate the types of reports that stakeholders want.

Now, in terms of being able to solve for that, I think it's creating a culture and a place and engaging in the kinds of practices that are magnetic, as Tony K. Bambara would say.

And the second thing that I'll say is it's, really shifting our thinking.

I think that we have, we oftentimes function from a scarcity model and mentality.

And so oftentimes we focus on lack and on not having enough.

And I think that that's what creates the conditions for violence.

And so we really are looking at models that move us from scarcity to abundance.

The reason why I talk about this cohort model is because I think we need to think strategically about fiscal blending.

And how do we leverage the resources that we do have strategically and thoughtfully in partnership with community?

And then how do we also engage folks in philanthropy and in the private sector who I'm certain would love to engage in strategies that I would say reflect a ecosystem of transformation and change in our communities.

Thank you.

Colleagues, are there other questions?

Council Member Nelson?

I have comment, but not please go ahead.

Okay, well, last at our last meeting when we were discussing the RSGI ordinance, I did ask a question about.

I stayed, I spoke in favor of the ordinance and I basically said what I am excited about is the fact that it gives a nod to the need for metrics to measure How effectively we're implementing the principles behind the ordinance in real life out there.

And I asked, I think my question was, do you have a timeline for the work that you'll get the metrics to us and.

I think that timeline starts today, because what better way to know if we're making a difference than to have somebody heading up this effort that is so deeply rooted in community?

And you would know better than anybody else if what we're doing is really making an impact on the lives of people, you know, instead of just following a checklist or whatever.

I trust.

I trust your connections, your network, and the testimony of the people here that you will you'll be able to know whether or not we could be doing something better and how we can really best put our money where our mouth is with this ordinance.

I didn't mean to make this a talk about the legislation, but I'm just saying that the integrity that people spoke of in you, I trust that we're on a good path.

So thank you very much for being willing to serve.

Colleagues, other questions?

for our appointee.

If you're raising your hand, I can't see it.

So please do speak up.

Okay.

Okay.

Any closing remarks?

Deputy Mayor, Durham Director?

Just say thank you for your consideration.

Again, I think that the really the public comment and the somebody said that the words on the paper, you have the papers in front of you, you know the qualifications that Dr. Wheeler-Smith would bring to this role and the mayor is very excited for the transformative work that he can do.

Thank you.

Well, I want to thank you for being here.

I look forward to working with you.

I will say I'm very excited about exploring the idea of this ecosystem that you're talking about.

And it feels like almost like place-based strategies that you are you're leaning toward, which I think have proven to be very effective in other funding environments.

I'm thinking particularly about the communities of opportunity that King County and philanthropists have been doing for a long time.

So, and I have to say I also appreciate in your written responses where you talked about not necessarily measuring what we're doing in terms of outcomes for RFPs, but we'll know we're making progress when the social determinants of health in our community really start to change because All of this work is about moving upstream and investing in our communities and our young people upstream so that we don't have to respond to violence.

We don't have to respond to poor health outcomes.

We don't have to respond to poor educational attainment.

We're starting to fix those problems way further up.

And so I feel like we're on the same page about that.

So I appreciate that and really look forward to working with you.

Thank you.

Okay, colleagues, I think we are ready for a vote.

Devin, will you please call the roll?

Oh, I'm going to move.

Thank you, clerk.

I'm going to move approval of the appointment, 02497. Can I have a second?

Second.

Thank you very much.

Okay, it has been moved and seconded.

Devin, will you now please call the roll?

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Vice Chair Sawant.

Yes.

Chair Morales.

Yes.

Four in favor.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the council approve these appointments will be sent to the April 4th, 2023 full council committee, full city council.

Thank you for being here this morning and we look forward to that passage.

Have a good day.

Okay, colleagues, we are going to move into the next agenda item.

Devin, will you please read that into the record?

Agenda item 17, panel on municipal role in building generational wealth for briefing and discussion.

Thank you very much.

We have with us, I'm very excited to say, two folks who are joining from, sorry, I just lost track of my notes, from Chicago and from Richmond, Virginia.

Just by way of a little bit of context, this committee has been diving into the generational wealth building initiative that our Department of Neighborhoods has been researching.

The goal of that initiative is really to identify community-centered solutions to our city's longstanding racial wealth gap.

This is our way of acknowledging that the department had started this work after witnessing the trauma of the murder of George Floyd, and the work is really deeply rooted in the movement for racial justice.

We are exploring wealth building strategies that the city can support and facilitate for the benefit of the community.

And given that there's similar work happening in other cities, we've extended invitations to representatives from Chicago and from Richmond's generational wealth building and community wealth building initiatives to come share their insights and their experience with us.

So we're joined today from Chicago by Nneka Onwuzirike, Please tell me I said that right.

You did.

Okay, thank you.

Nneka is the Community Wealth Building Lead for the City of Chicago's Mayor's Office.

And from Richmond, Virginia, we have Reginald Gordon, who is the Deputy Chief for the Administrative Office of Human Services.

Welcome to you both.

Thank you.

Thanks.

So I will say we had not asked our guests to create a presentation.

So there are not currently documents on the agenda.

But I know we do have presentations now.

So we'll make sure that those get posted onto the agenda.

This is really an opportunity for us to talk about the kind of the nuts and bolts of how these municipalities decided to establish their offices.

and to understand what implementation looks like.

So we will, that's the conversation that we'll be having today.

So I think I will start by asking our guests to introduce yourselves and your department.

And if you could explain a little bit about the background of how you decided the initial steps to get to the point of creating this.

Colleagues, I do wanna say, I've got a list of questions, but this is intended to be a discussion.

So please chime in, ask questions, follow up.

The point of this is really for us to understand how these offices got set up.

It feels like we might be leading in that direction.

So, okay.

So Nneka, maybe I will ask you to start.

Just talk a little bit about Chicago.

Okay, so it's good.

Hi, everyone.

Thanks for having me.

So, my name is and I work for the city of Chicago in the mayor's office, and I sit in our mayor's office of equity and racial justice.

And so the history of that office, which is what houses and kind of originated our community wealth building initiative.

Is that in 2019, when Mayor Lori Lightfoot was was elected, she appointed the 1st ever chief equity officer for the city of Chicago named Candace more and then also created the office of equity and racial justice that sits in the mayor's office.

And so Mayor Lightfoot created that role.

And then in November of 2022, so last year during our budget season.

It was passed through our management ordinance that the Office of Equity and Racial Justice, in conjunction with the role of the chief, chief equity officer via permanent fixture.

of Chicago's city government.

And so that's kind of the origins of the office.

And so the office does a number of things, including institutional change efforts.

So thinking through training of our city departments around racial equity and supporting them with developing racial equity goals, to driving healing initiatives within community, as well as setting up new initiatives and policy tables.

And so community wealth building is one of the many initiatives that the Office of Equity and Racial Justice stewards.

And so happy to share more about what that entails or can maybe pause and then we can get into it.

Thank you so much.

Mr. Gordon, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Morales and members of the council.

And thank you for this opportunity to share the story of the Office of Community Wealth Building in Richmond.

I am the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for Human Services for Richmond, reporting to the CAO.

The mayor here is LeVar Stoney, so we're all part of the mayor's cabinet.

When I first came to Richmond six years ago, I came to Richmond as the Director of the Office of Community Wealth Building.

And I'll tell you a little bit about the origin story of the office.

Richmond, in case you don't know, it's a medium-sized city in the mid-Atlantic, population of 230,000.

Our poverty rate back in 2013, 2014 was around 26 percent.

The mayor at that point, Mayor Dwight Jones, convened an anti-poverty commission.

And I actually was on that commission.

I didn't work for the city I was ahead of a nonprofit that was included in that commission about 60 people on the commission, and we spent several months dissecting the issue of poverty in in our community.

Richmond is an independent city.

In Virginia, we have independent cities and counties.

But although there are counties that surround Richmond, this was really a commission to study how can we find solutions for economic upward mobility for the residents of Richmond.

And there are various subcommittees of the commission looking at transportation, employment, childcare issues, literacy.

And the commission, after several months, came up with a list of at least 50 recommendations.

At the top of that list was the recommendation to the city to create an office of community wealth building.

Because the thought was, we can have, you know, all of us have been through this several times, you can have lots of reports, But if there is no entity that had responsibility for executing those initiatives or recommendations, then it might languish on a shelf somewhere.

And so the One of the members of the commission, a professor from the University of Richmond, actually took the lead to come to support, he took a sabbatical from the University of Richmond for a while and worked with city leadership to pull together what was necessary to create a standalone office within city government.

So by 2015, the city council passed an ordinance to create the office of community wealth building.

And that professor actually was the first director.

I was the second director of the office.

So it's situated in the human services portfolio.

That's why I still have a connection to it.

Interesting.

Thank you.

So one of the things that we noticed as we were researching your different cities is that each community seems to have developed different kind of key components to the wealth building strategy.

Can you talk a little bit about Chicago's components?

And what I mean by that is in Richmond, it seems to be based around education and housing issues.

In Chicago, it seems like maybe it's a little bit more about investment strategies and home ownership, for example, business support.

So can you talk about what your elements are and why those are the things that were prioritized?

Sure.

Yeah.

And I might just share just a couple of slides.

I promise I won't go on and on.

But just to kind of give you a visual image of it.

So for us, I guess I would just start by saying that, You know, our work around community wealth building is one of many initiatives that we as an office are undertaking as well as we as a city.

And so I think that's often one of the first questions that we get, because we have a very specific definition of community wealth building, which I would recommend for every city that's thinking about undertaking something like this.

I'm very big on shared language and shared definitions.

And so this was one of the first exercises that we did was put together a roundtable of community leaders to help us come up with what our definition of community wealth building is.

And so for us, I think a lot of the work that we do as the city of Chicago, and I would argue most cities, is thinking about the left-hand side, right?

So regardless of what language they're using, at the end of the day, I do think that they're often talking about how do you grow the wealth of one individual or one household, right?

And so you often hear wealth building talked about in terms of what you own minus what you owe, various strategies to increase one's income, asset ownership, decrease their debt and expenses, etc.

But it's often thinking about the household level and maybe they're adding it up for the entire community or neighborhood, but it's still looking at what that wealth looks like for the household.

What we found as a gap within our strategy, and I think what we saw when looking at a landscape analysis nationally and globally, is that there's a body of work emerging around community wealth building that's really about shared ownership.

And so I always like to say it's about the shared wealth of multiple households, not the sum of wealth of multiple households.

So what assets are they owning together?

And so that was what we, for us, we noticed there was a gap in our approach.

We're doing a lot to support You know developers of color and increase home ownership within our black and brown communities and increase small business ownership, but we weren't really thinking about what community wealth building could look like and so we did a number of had a number of conversations with folks locally and nationally.

And, you know, we really borrow from the democracy collaborative I'm not sure if you are, I'm sure you are familiar with some of their work.

And decided and it got feedback really from folks locally is like, we need our own definition for the city of Chicago on what this means for us.

So we borrowed a lot from the democracy, collaborative and other national leaders in the space.

But then came to this, this definition that community wealth building is an approach to economic development that promotes the local democratic and shared ownership and control.

of community assets.

And even then, right, I think we said we still need to further define those words.

What do we mean when we say that ownership and control should be local, democratic, and shared?

And so, you know, I won't go too far deep into this, but to say that, you know, we did a lot of work to really break down the fact that this work is really meant to be hyper-local.

So, you know, thinking about the mantra, you know, how do folks buy back the block, right?

So, how do we think about folks who actually live and work in those communities owning it, not folks who live in Chicago broadly being able to think about owning the assets.

Democratic is big, so thinking about models that allow for collective decision-making.

Oftentimes, in models of business ownership or home ownership, right, you have the owner of the business and the employees or you have the landlord and the tenants and you have a separation between who not only profits but who makes decisions and then who gets impacted by those decisions so we were looking at models that allow for that democratic governance and then lastly shared.

So very much in line with the Democracy Collaborative and how they speak about the work and how a lot of our community organizers and community leaders spoke about it is, how do we think about assets that are shared as broadly as possible, right?

So are there opportunities for an entire neighborhood to co-own a commercial development, et cetera?

And so I'll just kind of fast forward And happy to share these slides afterwards, but no, another common question that we get is, you know, what percentage of ownership is okay, right?

You have these developers wanting to do different projects.

It's like, oh, it's 10% owned by the community.

Okay.

And my short answer is often, ideally, we're looking at models that are 100% owned and controlled by the people in their neighborhood.

But at the very least, we're really trying to invest in models that are majority owned and controlled by residents.

So 51 percent or more.

And we did a deep dive to kind of start to, you know, put together some frameworks to help people understand the different types of models in this space.

And I'll share this afterwards.

And so for us, after multiple conversations, we kind of decided that we were focused in these four areas, that we wanted to explore community wealth building, So local, democratic, and shared ownership and control in business ownership, home ownership, land stewardship, and commercial real estate.

So we selected a priority model in each of those.

So for example, looking at a worker cooperative and business ownership, a community land trust and land stewardship.

And then we designed a program to support this.

And so I think you all know, As well, as well as many of them on this call that, you know, for us, community wealth building is not just an economic development strategy.

It really is a strategy around racial equity and racial justice.

And so I always like to emphasize when we look at the outcomes and outputs, it's not just about how much how many dollars then go in someone's pocket.

But, you know, right here, shy, fresh kitchens is a worker cooperative.

It's a food service contracting business that's owned by eight formerly incarcerated black residents of Chicago, right?

And when we went to their groundbreaking to be able to hear them speak about not only The fact that their owners and business owners, but also the pride that comes along with that.

Right?

And so we think about a variety of metrics that support this work.

So, as you can see, listed here.

So, I'll just end with these last 2 slides to say that we leverage 15 dollars from 15Million dollars.

From the American rescue plan act.

So, the city of Chicago got around 2 billion and obviously one in a number of different programs, and we carved out $15 million to support this work and we heard three things from community that we should do.

The first is strengthen the ecosystem.

The second is build a pipeline of projects.

And the third is to invest in some large-scale pilot projects to serve as a proof of concept of this work.

And so oftentimes, I think when we think about pilot projects from the city, you kind of go in and you focus on one neighborhood or one community-based organization, and you put all this attention and resources into it for that to kind of be the champion, I guess, or the face of the work.

And community really said that, you know, we really need to invest in the players that help to start, sustain, and scale these models, the various intermediaries that kind of support this broader community wealth building infrastructure.

So the folks who are doing education outreach, that are doing the legal and governance support, financing and fundraising.

So that was phase one of this work, was to really invest in those organizations.

Phase two was to invest in building up the pipeline.

So we're providing planning and pre-development grants for community-based organizations that have a community wealth building idea that want to push it further along.

And then finally, we're going to be investing some large scale development size grants to a few projects.

So.

That, in essence, is kind of the work and I'll just kind of pause there because I know it's a lot, but we really did focus on those 4 key areas and put together an advisory council of 20 community leaders to support us in it.

That was great.

Thank you.

I will ask 1 question before before asking Mr Gordon to speak, which is, can you just talk for a minute about the timeline for how.

How this unfolded yeah, so we spent the 1st year we started in 2020. so, June, 2020, I think.

similar to you, you know, that summer, of course, was the height of COVID, as well as during the uprising.

And so a lot of this work really was elevated as important, right, to think about how can communities in historically disinvested neighborhoods own and control the assets in their neighborhood.

And so 2020, that summer, we spent a lot of that year doing a lot of research.

So we were making connections with national leaders like Democracy Collaborative, Democracy at Work Institute, as well as some local researchers.

So at University of Illinois Chicago, folks who had done some research in this area, and then a bunch of community leaders and community-based organizations.

So we spent three to four months just doing heavy research, relationship building, to be honest.

Like I think a lot of folks just didn't have trust or faith in us.

And so I think we had to spend six months just like having conversations.

Then at the start of 2021, we put together the first working group that helped us just articulate, okay, we're going to focus on these four areas.

We're gonna they helped us do the landscape analysis of what work has already been done by a lot of folks on the ground.

So we spent that the first six months of 2021 with that first working group, just putting together a strategy.

In June of 2021, we did a huge convening for the city.

I think about 300 people attended a virtual convening just to kind of further get that work out there.

And we knew that there was gonna be an opportunity to make a pitch for money from ARPA dollars.

So that November, the mayor announced that we would be putting $15 million towards the pilot.

And then in 2022, we've assembled a bit of a smaller advisory council to help us design that 15 million.

And then now we're kind of in it.

So we've awarded the first phase of TA technical assistance grantees.

We just received 95 applications for our phase two pipeline building.

So 95 applications for the planning and pre-development grant, which we'll announce this May.

And then we're hoping to release the third and final tranche of money in Q3 of this year.

And so since it's ARPA funded, the program will, everything will be allocated by the end of 2024 and spent by the end of 2026. But we hope that the work continues to grow and expand.

Fantastic.

Thank you so much.

Sure.

Mr. Gordon, please.

Yeah.

That was very impressive, Chicago.

So, you know, it's, it's interesting.

I really appreciate that you all are talking to both of us and figuring out how to chart your course with community wealth building.

We also work with Democracy Collaborative.

And we landed on, like I mentioned earlier, the creation of this office.

We were the first municipality in the city and in the country to create an office.

It became official in 2015. And over time, I think we fine-tuned our objective.

Now, when it was first created, we had a goal, which was to reduce the poverty rate by 40% and the child poverty rate by 50% by 2030. So there were all these components, systemic and otherwise, that led to the high level of poverty in our community.

So we had career stations, we did then and we still we've expanded that throughout the city with really an open door approach for people to come in to sort of connect with our specialists to get an idea of what barriers they faced on a regular basis and what could we do from a policy perspective in the aggregate or literally connecting them to resources so that they could find employment that would increase their income to get them on a trajectory from crisis to thriving.

The scale we were using was crisis to thriving.

And one interesting thing I want to point out as we started that, we then and we still do have a citizens advisory board that is comprised of people who live this every day.

And when we started with the crisis of thriving ladder, we literally called it ladder.

We had one of our cabinet members say, it will be more helpful if you put dollar amounts on that ladder.

so that all of us will know what is the goal, whether if you're a single mother with two kids or a two-parent household with one child.

We try to make the latter to match the different demographics of a prospective household.

What we have learned is And this is sort of hard to embrace at times.

It's one person at a time.

Although we have these big goals for the community, we recognize that as people walk in our door, we have to start at a different level of support.

We did try to encourage entrepreneurial activities.

But the we have found few people who could come to us who are ready to go from where they are making $7 an hour or $8 an hour to having the courage or the time or the energy to do something more creative with regard to.

entrepreneurship.

Some did, but many did not.

So we began to pivot and expand our approach to complete wraparound support of the household.

The term we use for this approach is BLIS, building lives to independence and self-sufficiency.

So we literally have case managers, employment specialists, who do a complete assessment analysis of that household, from who's living in the household, how much income is coming into the household, how the kids doing in school, you know, and this person, it's, it's labor intensive, but will literally go to school with the parents, or the mother, the father, work with a particular business to see if we can get the right training for the individual to move up to a new level of stability with employment.

We can serve hundreds of people that way.

Our original goal was to get thousands of people out of poverty each year.

We pivoted because we knew that was not going to serve any of us well to keep using that language because of systemic issues.

Everyone had a different starting point.

Now we have expanded the approach for this more holistic wraparound case management.

There are other groups in town who do workforce training.

So we're trying to parse out people who just need to get a job, pre-pandemic, quite honestly.

Go to our workforce partner.

If you are on a trajectory or a track for wealth building, come to us because it's going to be more intensive and maybe even two-tiered, meaning looking at the heads of the household as well as what's happening with the children in that household.

So within Community Wealth Building, we have capacity to provide free training for people with the Community College Network We also have a Mayor's Youth Academy.

Sometimes these are the same families, sometimes they're not, but leadership and employment training for young people so that we can break the cycle of poverty in the household.

So that's the approach we've used.

So meanwhile, one more thing, we are the conveners.

Well, my office, Human Services, convenes the other backbone organizations in Richmond, because it's the same families.

So every other week, the head of the housing group, the head of Feed More, which is the food bank, older adults, early childhood, after school folks, people involved with the Richmond Police, people in the immigrant and refugee engagement area, folks in the people with sensory and physical disabilities.

Every other week, we have a call, and we compare and contrast the challenges and opportunities.

I think in contrast to Chicago, we started off thinking we need to bring it all in-house, but then we said, no, we just need to focus on step one is this workforce piece and be strong allies with people in town, with the community land trust, folks who are doing financial empowerment centers and other groups, not for us to take it over, just to have ways to connect on a regular basis.

Some of the same connectivity and maybe someone else in town can take the lead on entrepreneurship because we found our sweet spot is really just trying to get more and more people to a level where they can find a credible pathway for more economic success.

Thank you.

Colleagues, I want to just give an opportunity to folks.

You said you had a whole bunch of questions, so why don't you go ahead.

Okay.

I also want to be aware of time.

So I want to thank you all for sharing so much of yours today.

So let me just ask one more question, and then I'll open it up to my colleagues.

Can you talk a little bit about, well, I have questions about funding, but maybe what I want to ask first is if you can just share some of the initial outcomes or impacts that you've noticed of the work that you are doing as we're having discussion.

I know in Chicago, it's relatively new, but maybe Richmond, if you want to start first, just talking a little bit about some of the impacts that you have noticed as a result of this.

Well, like I mentioned, we've been using the poverty rate as an indicator.

Now, of course, the pandemic occurred, so that sort of threw that off as being a a credible, a strong indicator.

However, the poverty rate has dropped 50% in our community since the beginning of our office.

Now, what I think we can take credit for is establishing this new connective tissue between organizations to say, let's have a strategy or an approach for individuals and families using our network of providers.

And hopefully that has led to households being able to find jobs and careers and moving forward.

As an example, we had a gentleman who came to us, this is our big success story, but it's sort of typical for Richmond, who'd been incarcerated for 20 years.

When he got out of prison, You know, usually what happens is it's hard to find a job.

And so he was directed to come to the Office of Community Wealth Building.

Once he talked to an employment specialist, we realized that he had, you know, a wife who had employment.

he came back into that household, we said that we would pay for, through our connection with the local community college, his training to get a CDL.

He went through that, was stellar at it, got employed immediately.

As he did that, he realized that there's an opportunity for him to have his own business.

So he and his wife decided that they would save his income so that he could purchase his own tractor trailer.

He did that, started his own business, and then built a home in the county.

Now, from the time he interacted with us to the time he started building his own home was about three years.

But what we, we use him as a template in theory how this should work.

You know, it's understanding the skills, the challenges, the opportunities within the entire household.

And then using our resources, we had a state grant for funding for job training programs.

So he fit the criteria and we could pop him into that program, which cost about $8,000, and get him on his way for his new career.

That's just an example.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I'll say for Chicago, so we, as we've just released some of these grants, we're working with University of Illinois, Chicago, the center for urban and economic development.

And I know they're working in partnership with the democracy at work Institute.

So, 2 of the grantees are delegate agencies to kind of design some evaluation.

and broader impact metrics.

And so I think we'll have more to share by the end of the year.

But I will say, I think that there's a lot to be measured internally.

I think a lot of the work that we do as an Office of Equity and Racial Justice is trying to think about systemic change.

And so what are the processes that are now different in departments?

For example, this advisory council is not a customary way in which we do work, right?

And so the fact that we're centering community leaders and community voices and the design and development of this work is I think one thing that we're trying to measure.

We're measuring like narrative change, right?

So wealth building is a term that I think is very complex.

And so I feel like being able to measure how much our departments and our staff in the mayor's office are just diving into that nuance and being a lot more specific and granular about what parts of wealth building they're impacting for our residents and just expanding their definition of wealth building.

I think one big thing that I see as a success is oftentimes folks have been looking at like you know, traditional financial escalation, I guess, as a method and would often not give a lot of credit to like anti-gentrification or anti-displacement tools like community land trusts and limited equity housing cooperatives that actually suppress or limit how much equity can be gained from owning a property.

And I think that was a big shift that we had to take on for folks that People saw that as like, well, that's not wealth building if I can't just watch my house, you know, appreciate over time and then sell it.

And we have to say, well, actually, that's what's causing gentrification in a lot of these communities is that these folks are being pushed out.

So the fact that we can create a model that says they can live there and their children will still be able to afford to live there in 20, 30 years is wealth building, right?

Being able to stay in your community is a form of wealth, right?

And so I think some of that mindset shifting has been really important for us.

That's a really important point.

Please go ahead.

I thought of one thing about community engagement.

I don't know if we've measured this, but we now have community ambassadors.

These are people who have interacted with the program or with the Office of Community Wealth Building.

One individual came to us and said that we had saved his life and he wanted to know how he could give back.

And after about a month or so of brainstorming, we landed on the creation of ambassadors.

These are people who live in communities that might be underserved or under-resourced to some degree, but they had been able to be successful in their interaction with us.

And we came to the understanding, thanks to his guidance, that my staff would not be the best face for this work.

It would need to be your next door neighbor or your friend that lives in the same neighborhood.

So we mobilized about 20 people at first.

They understood the process, understood the systems, and then they went out and tried to encourage people to come toward our networks.

That was very successful.

When the pandemic occurred, They went from 20 to 70 people.

Even when everybody else shut down, you know, the essential workers turned into our ambassadors.

And we were recognized by several in the state and other than city council so now the ambassadors have become a part of our budget, the city budget we're going to the budget process now it will be a formal aspect of how we do civic and community engagement by having representatives from the community, you know, giving us a consistent feedback loop.

And in 2017, we received a culture of health prize from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for this kind of approach to community engagement, which has led to wealth building the way we describe it.

That's great.

Yeah, I think one of the things that we are grappling with is what is the city's role in doing this work?

And I think the question is a good one about how much do our departments understand what community wealth building means and whether and how they are contributing to it or maybe getting in the way of it.

So I think this is an important question for us to be grappling with.

Council Member Nelson.

Sure, thank you very much.

I appreciate you two being here today I did have an opportunity to go to your websites I read your financial report from 2021 in Virginia, and the community wealth ecosystem building documents on the website so you're getting a lot done and Washington is when you're talking I zeroed in on the ownership as the chair of economic development that's interesting to me because I agree that getting providing the ability for communities and individuals in communities to own their assets is is important for the maintenance and the creation of generational wealth.

So but Washington state's constitution prohibits the gifting of public funds.

And so that makes it really difficult to provide grants for a small business owner to to own or improve their commercial space.

And the same thing for homeownership, etc.

So my question is, and there are I'll just back up and say that our Office of Economic Development does have some programs that get around these by working with nonprofits in the community, setting up loan to grant programs, et cetera.

So we're working within these constraints.

And I'm just wondering, do your states have similar kinds of restrictions?

And if so, maybe offline I could learn more about how you have creatively been able to fulfill your missions with this restriction.

And also, do you have offices of economic development that you are working in tandem with?

Because one of the things that I think that Council Member Morales and I both want is to not siloize the efforts around our shared mission to generate more community wealth and enable people to Well, our goals towards shared prosperity are shared across the board.

And I'm just wondering how you have worked with different entities within your governments.

Yeah, I think for your first question, I think that's quite the restraint.

We do not have that.

And so we have been able to freely RFP things and give awards directly to small businesses, nonprofits, Entrepreneurs trying to start up, I think the 2 things that came to mind were, and it seemed like you mentioned this as some creative ways that you've you've already thought through is the role of intermediaries.

And so I know that.

That our 1st phase of this, this grant, which is going to fund technical assistance providers, we're putting it basically in 6Million dollars.

Free services that will go out to community.

And is that like, some work around that could happen?

And then my 2nd thing, I, I love partnering with philanthropy, and I think that that's another route.

Potentially, of course, obviously, you want to be able to do things with your own dollars as city government, but I think.

Part of your role can also be influenced and so being able to influence both local and national foundations to give money directly to those entities.

I think folks have told us has been really helpful for them as well because we can make something more credible or more legitimate and that can be our role and they can think about getting dollars elsewhere.

So that's your 1st question.

And then to your 2nd question.

Yes, we've worked with different departments.

So I sit in the mayor's office in the office of equity and racial justice.

And I think that has been a huge benefit of this work at at 1 point.

We were like, should this go into a department?

But I think to your point, we, the beauty of the mayor's office is that we oversee many departments and partner and collaborate with many departments.

So this work has been in partnership with 3 departments specifically.

So.

Department of Planning and Development, the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, so essentially our small business department, and then the Department of Housing.

So kind of thinking commercial real estate, residential real estate, and small business.

And I have kind of some dreams of the next evolution of this work to partner with our DECASE, the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, so essentially our arts department, because I think there's a lot that can be done around narrative work, narrative change and storytelling, but also to think about artists in this work and, you know, artists' housing and just like shared art spaces that I think is just a personal passion of mine.

Yeah, I'll just have one department that is going I'm sorry to interrupt.

All that sounds great in Chicago we I'll take a little bit of a different spin on it.

We.

I'm literally next door to the my colleague who is the deputy chief administrative officer for economic development.

So she and I are like in constant communication between our two teams, because as Richmond is trying to attract small or large businesses to our community, we have learned that it has been beneficial to include in our profile the fact that we have a approach towards community wealth building.

And that could lead to a pool of employees for these prospective businesses.

And we have had some businesses, some large corporations to move their headquarters to Richmond.

And we can't take all the credit for it, but part of it was they were impressed that our mayor, this mayor and the previous mayor had that kind of energy.

So we are in lockstep with economic development.

The other thing that has occurred, we are on the individual level, we are one of the pilot cities for mayors for guaranteed income.

Mayor Stubb out of California sort of launched that.

Mayor Stoney, our mayor, I think we were the 25th city.

So we are on our second cohort of 46 families that are receiving $500 a month for two years.

The first cohort just ended, they got 500 for two years.

And this is all CARES Act funding and foundation dollars.

We're testing the concept, because if we can demonstrate that this is the a credible way to move people or navigate them through the challenges and barriers that we currently face, that we can begin to shift public dollars to support this kind of direct cash payment.

You know, we got to get counsel on board, but we're going to use the data to make our case.

Preliminary is being studied by the University of Pennsylvania, so I can't disclose everything as of yet, but it appears that we're going to have some really amazing results about the difference that influx of cash makes to a household on their journey toward more stability and make decisions about how to engage in other activities, housing or employment.

That's great.

Thank you for sharing that I know here in Washington, we also have a county executives for guaranteed income and I think are really starting to have that conversation in our state legislature as well.

And I think you're right, you know.

acknowledging that individuals and households have some immediate needs.

We know, you know, most people can't afford a $400 emergency.

This is a way to start to address that.

So I look forward to the results of those studies and these pilots.

I think it's going to be really interesting.

And I just want to say thank you.

I know we are over time, and I really, really appreciate you sharing so much time with us today.

You know, my North Star in this work is really to try to close that racial wealth gap.

We have a significant one here in Seattle, and I'm excited that our cities are moving forward with these priorities kind of proactively repair the harm that's been done.

So I want to thank you for your time and your talent with us.

I'm really looking forward to continuing these conversations.

I hope this is the first of many interactions that we have as we're all trying to move this work forward.

So thank you.

Thank you for being here with us today.

I really appreciate it.

And Nneka, I will follow up with you to see if we can get those slides.

We do need to post them since they were part of the meeting today.

Will do.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you so much.

Have a good day.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

We do have one more agenda item.

So Devin, I'm going to ask you to read the last agenda item into the record.

Agenda item 18. It's short title.

Thank you.

Council Bill 120625, an ordinance establishing the race and social justice initiative as city policy for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

I do want to clarify, I believe it's Council Bill 120525.

That's correct.

If I didn't say that that's what I meant.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Thank you, colleagues, this is our second meeting to discuss this council bill as Devin said which would codify the race and social justice program that we have here, so that it's not just an initiative but actual city policy.

At our last committee meeting, we heard a presentation from the department and from Council Central staff.

We adopted a technical amendment and now have before us an amended bill.

And I want to say that was the first conversation.

This is our second.

I did want to give time if there were questions, particularly since we had an amendment.

And I do have Asha Venkatraman here from Council Central staff, if there are additional questions, but wanted to just say again that, you know, this work is really codifying an acknowledgment as the city of the city, that we do have a history of racism sort of baked into our practices, our institutions, and that that has had really devastating effects on our communities of color.

So this is not new work for us.

We've been doing RSJI work for a long time in the city of Seattle, and other communities are doing similar work.

This is our chance to codify it and to make sure that we are moving in the right direction.

So, do we have any comments or questions about the amended bill?

I am not seeing any.

Okay.

Well, as I said, this is work, and as was referenced earlier, when director Wheeler Smith was here, we have been working on this bill for quite some time.

I do want to think again, the staff at OCR director Wheeler Smith, Mohammed, Erica Pablo.

Davida Ingram, Cadman Cahill, Dominique Stevens from the mayor's office has been a huge help to us as we work through this bill, my chief of staff Alexis Turla, and of course a big shout out to Asha Venkatraman from Council Central staff who has worked tirelessly for I think we're going on years now to codify this bill.

So if there are no questions, then I am going to move that the committee recommend this bill for approval.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you very much.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 120525. Devin, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Vice Chair Swant?

Yes.

Chair Morales?

Yes.

Or in favor?

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council approve council bill 120525 will be sent to the April 18th, 2023 city council meeting.

Colleagues, that is all we have today.

Unless there are any other things for the good of the order.

Not seeing any.

Okay, then this concludes the March 24th, 2023 meeting of the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights and Culture Committee.

Our next scheduled meeting is for April 28th.

Thank you all for being here and we are adjourned.

Thank you.