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Home My WebLink About2016-08-11 Human Relations Commission Summary MinutesADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 1 of 47 HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION (HRC) Thursday, August 11, 2016 Matadero Room Mitchell Park Community Center 3700 Middlefield Road 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. SPECIAL MEETING I. ROLL CALL Commissioners Present: Alhassani, Chen, Gordon Gray, Savage, Stinger, Stone Absent: O’Nan Staff Present: Minka van der Zwaag, Mary Constantino II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS None. III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS None. IV. BUSINESS 1. Welcome/Ice Breaker/Team Building Exercise The Commission and staff shared information about themselves. 2. Introduction to California Association of Human Rights Organization (CAHRO) by Ann Noel, Board Member and discussion regarding common areas of interest and collaboration Ms. van der Zwaag: Ann Noel is a Board Member for CAHRO, which is the California Association of Human Rights Organization. It's the professional organization for city and county human rights organizations and human relations organizations. They do advocacy on the state level. They plan conferences. I know the last one in San Francisco, Daryl was there, Theresa was there. If someone else was there ... Mary Constantino: Diane went. Ms. van der Zwaag: Diane went, and Mary and I went. That was, I think, a good event. They are planning another event, which I sent you information on. Valerie and Shelly and Mary and I are going to that event in San Jose. I think those are the two perfect Commissioners because it's going to be a lot of conversation on implicit bias. It would fit directly into the work that we are doing in that area. She asked to come to kind of promote the conference. I said, "We really don't need you to promote the conference. If you want to come and just let us know what CAHRO is ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 2 of 47 doing, to hear about what we're doing, and see what kind of intersections there could be?" She emailed me last night. She said she's taking along Clarissa Moore from the Santa Clara County HRC. She's been here before, so I'm not sure what role she's really playing in the conversation. I did let her know that we know about the conference. Let's concentrate on the other areas. That's why she's coming. I think it's always good for us, for Council to say we are connected not only to the County HRC, but we have connections in a state professional organization as well. She said she'd call me if she's late, but I don't have a call. Perhaps we could just talk about accomplishments first, Chair Stone, if we want to do that. Chair Stone: Sounds good. [The HRC proceeded to Item 3 and then returned to this Item.] Chair Stone: Minka, do you want to make our introductions? Ms. van der Zwaag: Sure. We're very happy to have Ann Noel. She is a Board Member for CAHRO, and she is based out of San Francisco. We've had a couple of regional meetings that I've been able to attend. George Gascon, the District Attorney for San Francisco, spoke at that. That was very meaningful. Thank you for being here. Clarissa, you are a two-time visitor here. Clarissa is with the Santa Clara County HRC. We're glad that you could be here as well. We've slotted a half an hour. I think you wanted to explain a little bit more about CAHRO. We have two Commissioners and two staff members going to the conference in San Jose. Just hear intersections between what CAHRO is doing and to hear about the things we're doing, if you want to take this with you. We just briefly introduced our accomplishments for the last year. It's been a very productive and fruitful year for the Palo Alto HRC. The Commissioners are very proud, rightfully so, of what they've been able to do in the last year. Welcome. Ms. Noel: Thank you. I actually just became the President of CAHRO, the California Association of Human Relations Organizations. It is an organization whose fiscal fortunes have waxed and waned, which will probably sound familiar to a lot of you, with the state's economy. At one point, we had a staff of three, and now we don't have a staff at all. I have to say the current Board and certainly my personal goal in the next couple of years is to get enough funding that we can get staff, which will make the organization's life immensely easier. We are an organization trying to coordinate the work of all the various human relations commissions in the state. After the 2007 recession, a lot of communities lost their HRCs, especially those where the Boards of Supervisors or the City Commissions were more conservative. It was an easy cut for a lot of places. We're rebuilding in that regard. I would also say that the organization of CAHRO was more based in the south for a while, and that's now changing. There's very strong numbers of human relations commissions up here in northern California, along the Peninsula as you know, San Francisco and the East Bay, and then there's a big group of people in the southland, in LA, San Diego and Orange County, and then all the Valley HRCs have gone away. There's none any more. I've been trying to find the remnants of them, and they are gone. That's another one of our goals that we're going to try to use the savvy of people working in this area and southern California and see if we can't try to reorganize some in the Central Valley. Clarissa's going to talk more about the conference and what we're doing there. I just wanted to say one of our goals out of this conference, in addition to having a lot of information about conditions for working ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 3 of 47 people in California and the United States; we're hoping to create really strong networks of people in northern California as well as southern California. Here's what we're thinking of doing, which is asking each HRC to have one person who's willing to participate in some monthly or every-other-month conference calls. That will give people a chance to tell each other what they're doing. You can share all of your accomplishments so that we can learn from each other, attend each other's events. We are planning on posting on our website any event you want us to publicize. That will only be useful if people have gotten it in their heads that they can go to the CAHRO website and look at things. I'm thinking we're going to have a northern California space on the website and southern California, and more specifically even along here, sort of the corridor of all the Peninsula cities where you guys are doing something that you want other people to know about it. That's one part of it. The second part of it would be if a number of different HRCs in the area are working on a specific issue, let's say as an example human trafficking, you don't have to necessarily just limit it to the boundaries of Palo Alto. You could have Palo Alto and all the other communities who are working on it together, and have a much bigger impact. In that regard, one way that we could all have a bigger impact would be with legislation, working with legislators, if there's a need for different legislation or regional funding, etc. The strength would be more people working together. Clarissa, do you want to talk about the conference? Clarissa Moore: I represent the Committee on Resource Development and Outreach for the County, which is a fairly new committee under the structure of the things that we do. I'm here to invite you to participate in this conference because you're part of Santa Clara County. Our County is down the road on working on becoming a human rights capital. There's works, conversations around how do we begin that process. We have begun being trained by Dr. William Armaline from San Jose State on what is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As you all know, it is a huge document that was created in 1948, that has all of these different articles. In the San Jose area, we've done several forums around friends and families of prisoners. We’ve done a lot of stuff around the human wage stuff. They've been slowly getting people involved on different aspects of human rights. From this training, now that we've had experience, we had this conference last year at San Jose State, and so this year we were able to meet for two days. The first day, October 27th, Thursday, is really scholarly stuff. The professors and things at San Jose State and other people will be dealing with issues around policy and stuff the first day. The second day is really for local people, us and students. As you see on the flyer, all students are free. I have worked with your Palo Alto High School and Gunn High School when they would come to camp. I used to be one of the co-directors for that program. I've got a little bit of an in with your high school students. Even if they don't go with the agency that used to sponsor it, they bring in the person who started the program. I'm hoping to get many of your students to come and help as volunteers from those two school groups that have—Palo Alto has a social justice class. I'm hoping to get some of those students. I don’t know exactly what they still have at Gunn. I think it'd be a great way to bring in high school students who have been at Camp Anytown and have a real understanding of what human rights are and are sensitive to the topic and want to learn and do more. Also, we had an art contest last semester, and Palo Alto participated in it. We're going to have a display of the essays and posters and writings that the kids did. Winners will be announced at our luncheon on the second day. Some of those kids will be guests. I think it's a wonderful opportunity to engage a lot more of your young people from this City who already have a desire to do more around human rights and their ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 4 of 47 understanding and their exposure to things. The schools aren't able to take that extension to another level. I think this conference will provide that kind of initiative with students who say what are the next steps, what can be engaged in, what our school can be engaged in, what can we as citizens be engaged in and this conversation around human rights. The second day is really geared for students, college students, high school students, but community people as well. I'm personally going to visit your two high schools and make sure that these students will come. Los Altos also does the camp, still does the camp in September or October. Mountain View does its own camp. Your little, regional area, up here in the northern Peninsula, already has young people who are active and involved. This will be a great opportunity to extend that for them. Naturally we want adults to come as well. We're still looking for some sponsors on some things we would like to do. The next conversation throughout the conference will be what are next steps, how do we keep that network going and the interest in the topic, and what do different cities need as they move forward in this discussion around the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and then what does it mean to be a human rights county. All of those answers haven't been addressed yet. Richmond is a human rights area. Berkeley has some. They all address it in a different way. What's the best way for Santa Clara County to begin this question and what are we looking for as human rights? I, as a citizen, what's my responsibility as a human rights person, as a Commissioner? What do I need to address? Naturally for me Black Lives Matter is always the first thing on my plate, but there are other things that other people are interested in. Can I be an ally for other topics and groups? The conference is called Human Rights: The Dignity of Working People. We all know you can't live in this Valley and make $15 an hour. That's still insulting to people. If that's what our minimum wage is going to end up being, who's going to be living here? It's frightening what has happened to this area because of the cost of living, who's in, who's out, all kinds of things. We still have a lot of areas to address. For those who are here, the quality of life for all of us, we want to address that and be sensitive to it. Ms. Noel: I wanted to say a couple more things just adding to what Clarissa was saying. First of all, the first day's free. Even if you're not one of the sponsor people who are going to go, if you want to go the first day, it's free. It is a great thing to bring your children too. I'm hoping I can bring my niece. If they're at the high school or even if they're older, they're going to be interacting with college students who are part of the human rights program. It's a wonderful opportunity for people interested in human relations and human rights at the high school level to work with and talk to and interact with college students. The keynote speaker giving the major human rights lecture the first day is Baldemar Velasquez, who is the chief officer for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. He's really like a Cesar Chavez of his day. He's based on the East Coast. It's an AFL-CIO-affiliated union. He is organizing the community of farm workers; he also organizes the children of farm workers in what they call homies. They're bringing one of their kids to interact with the high school kids and the college kids. That's the first day. That's really cool. The second day is really a CAHRO day. We're organizing it all, but we are working together with the San Jose State human rights program to emphasize human rights and also issues involving working people. Like Clarissa said, the minimum wage. I'm specifically working on a workshop talking about vulnerable workers. We're going to have something about human trafficking but also the fight for restaurant workers to get higher wages. Key in that is a woman who is with the restaurant organizing committee. We're going to show a video of an upcoming documentary about the struggles of restaurant workers to make a living wage. She is amazing. This is Saru Jayaraman. She has done a lot of organizing in New York. She started ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 5 of 47 after 9/11 trying to get justice and reparations—not reparations but money for the people who worked in—the surviving restaurant workers at the top of the world in the World Trade Center. All the stockbroker families were getting money, and they were ignoring the restaurant workers. She started working on that. Very inspiring. We're going to have a really good conference. We'd definitely love it if you could join our work in CAHRO, and then we're looking for, like I said, a volunteer to be in these monthly/every-other-month conference calls. They're going to be calls, so all you have to do is be available for an hour. Great if you want to rotate it or whatever. We really would like somebody. I don't know when they're going to be. We'll do a SurveyMonkey of figuring out what's the best time for people. Vice Chair Stinger: I'm totally new, so a naive question. Just wondering, CAHRO, is the basic objective education, outreach, action, coordination of commissions so that there's a unified action? Ms. Noel: It's a wonderful question. Vice Chair Stinger: Thinking not just the conference. Ms. Noel: Often the people who haven't been involved ask the best questions. That is a really good question. I think I would say all of that. Is this an informational conference or is this a transformational conference? I said I hope it's both, because it's nice to hear information about all the issues of the day, but hopefully you're going to try to do something about them. The whole point of CAHRO is to strengthen the work of the individual commissions so that we're working more together on issues that concern us. There's huge numbers of issues across the state, but I think you would find, if you started talking to San Diego, LA, the East Bay and Alameda County, Richmond, wherever you go, you're going to hear similar issues. People are facing similar issues across the state. There's some local stuff, but mostly it's the same thing. We hope that we can work together on issues that affect us all involving human relations and human rights. Clarissa talked about Black Lives Matter. That's an issue that every community of color is facing from the border at Tijuana up to the Oregonian border. I hope that my goal, and I think the current Board of Directors' goal, is to strengthen CAHRO so that we really can pull off more than just having a yearly conference, but that we can also strengthen ourselves sufficiently and get enough money so that we can actually do things together in a more coordinated way and make California a better place. Did I answer your question? Vice Chair Stinger: Yes Ms. Moore: From the training that the commissioners receive, we realize that there's a huge lack of information about what the Universal Declaration is all about, even from why it was created by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1948 to what it really means for us today, in today's time. We realize that we've got to do a tremendous job of educating people about what this human rights, just the article itself, is all about and what's in the article and how it applies to us as citizens. For me, it is the next civil rights movement. I was a young person growing up when King was alive and understood that was important and why it was important. I benefited from the work that went into that. Now, the civil rights thing has reached a level for me personally and because I have children—I have two boys, men of color. It's this constant fear. They don't live in California anymore; they live in Delaware and New Orleans. I worry and pray for them now because ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 6 of 47 they're grown men. When they were boys, I took them where they had to go and knew their friends and stuff. I can't provide that for you now. I want them to be seen and be treated as men—my daughter lives here; as I said, they're all grown—as men and women who have a right to be who they are and have a right to their chosen professions and have a right to life and to have a right to respect and all the opportunities that this country offers all of us. None of us should be denied. I'm hoping that, if I'm in Palo Alto or if I'm in San Jose or if I'm in San Francisco, I as a person get the same fair treatment wherever I am in this region, that we see ourselves as one people looking out for one another, making sure that we're as safe as possible, and that our schools are safe. We've been very fortunate in this area with so much mixture of people, economics, race and education, for some reason we all get along. That's a good thing. I want to make sure we keep that "can we all get along" feeling in this region, in this area. It takes work. It takes us knowing you guys, and you guys knowing the problems of these other counties, these other cities. You know what happened with the Santa Clara County jail system. We don't want that in our jails. We don't want that in our jails. We want people to be treated like true citizens and their rights not be denied. It takes us working together. I don't mind coming up here and talking to you guys about stuff that affects the county. The beauty I see in you is the beauty I want you to see in me. If I'm in Palo Alto or if I'm in San Jose, it doesn't matter. We've got to work together as a county. Every little voice, every little piece everybody can give can make us stronger and make our county stronger. Chair Stone: How do you envision that actually working? Is it actually collaborating on joint projects or is it just informational, sharing what's happening in our cities or at the County level or across the state? Ms. Moore: Here again, I'm not too much on this State stuff, because I'm new to the Commission myself. I've lived in San Jose almost 30 years. Having a biracial family, we've had some issues. All in all, it's been a fairly good place to raise my children and for them to thrive and for me to grow and thrive and do the things I want to do. There are some community and stuff that I don't know anything about or what issues they face. I do know what the young people are talking about, because I was at these camps for over 15 years with these young people. You want to know what's going on in people's lives, you talk to some teenagers, and they can tell you what's really going on. From poor kids all the way up to these more affluent kids, we've got some issues with a lot of young people about being human, what to expect. Some of it is education. Most of us need to know a little bit more about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Just like that man held up the Constitution at the Democratic Convention. It's an article. It's a piece of paper that has stuff written down. We were at an event over the holiday, and I was talking about this conference. This man who I made some wrong assumptions about, that I thought he should have known what this was and he didn't. Bless my husband's little soul. He pulled out his wallet and pulled out this little tri-fold Universal Declaration of Human Rights booklet and had all 30 articles and how it got started. I said, "That's what everybody needs." Everybody needs a card folder in their wallet. Are you a member? Do you know what this is? We ordered these, and we're going to encourage people. Just like you've got your American Express credit card or whatever, that you're a card-carrying member of this organization and that you know what these Universal Declarations of Human Rights are, and you have studied them. If you see something in violation, you ask yourself, "Do I speak up about this? Do I get involved?" What do you do? Once you know, then you can ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 7 of 47 make a decision of what you need to do. So many people don't know and take a lot of it for granted. That's what has been very hurtful for me. As a person of color in America, I couldn't take a lot of things for granted. I find now so many people take their rights, whether they be civil or universal or whatever, as Americans we take so much of this stuff for granted. I noticed that people who come here, these kids who come here from other countries, they can tell us, and they tell you about their human rights. They can tell you which ones have been violated. American kids just sit there like okay. These other people who come to America, they've come here because of their human rights, and they know them. Our kids, we take it for granted. I take it for granted because I was born and raised here. I do take a lot of my humanity for granted. That's what I personally want, people to really understand and appreciate that what we have and why we have it was the work of some other people long before many of us were around. Who's going to carry the torch? How do we keep our country vigilant about human rights? We're going to quit getting on Cuba and China and Russia. We've got to look at ourselves too. Ms. Noel: I was just going to say one more thing. I'd love to see your list of what you've been working on. Some issues are going to be very local. Some issues are just going to be Palo Alto- centric. Some issues are going to be Contra Costa County-centric that it makes sense to join with Santa Clara County Office of Human Relations in addition to San Jose, all the different HRCs in the county. Some issues are probably going to be best addressed at a statewide level. What Clarissa has been talking about with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is looking at it at an international level. There's some stuff that we would be stronger working on altogether to try to affect national policy. I think it's just maximizing. We're working on a state level basically. The idea is to work with all the various human rights treaties, looking at it at a more international level. I think the other thing is we get ideas from each other. You may be doing something amazing on something about how police are interacting here. If something has really worked, perhaps we want to work together to get police officer standards and training changed to have it be that training that so worked for you here. I'm just making this up, because I have no idea what you've been working on. I want to know. People are going to really want to know that. In addition to just being able to tout what's worked for you, you're going to be helping other communities figure it out. In the same way, it may be that another community has really done something that you've been struggling with, and that may give you an idea. Sharing those ideas is really nice. We hope to post it on our website so that other people can go. You can post videos. You can post declarations, resolutions, trainings, and webinars. We'll be happy to post anything you'd like us to post or just put a link to your website and people can go from there. Chair Stone: Any follow-up questions? Clarissa—just a quick one—were you working for Camp Anytown in the mid-2000s with Palo Alto schools? That's when I went. I went, I think, sometime around 2005, 2006 through Palo Alto High School and loved it. Ms. Moore: You went to Palo Alto. You know Letitia Burton? Chair Stone: Yes. Ms. Moore: You went as a teacher or a kid? Chair Stone: I was a student. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 8 of 47 Ms. Moore: You were a student. Chair Stone: Yeah. Ms. Moore: You went with Richard Valenzuela. He was a Hispanic man that ran the camp with white hair. Chair Stone: Yes, yes. Ms. Moore: I was the program coordinator for the agency. I coordinated the camps, worked with the schools to get them to come to camp. Then I would come up to camp a couple of times. Usually the first night I would do the stereotype exercise, and then I would come up some time on Saturday and bring it all back together again. Chair Stone: I can remember that exercise. Ms. Moore: I was still there in '05-'06. I didn't leave the agency until maybe '10, '09 or '10. You know what I'm talking about then. Chair Stone: Oh, yeah, great program. It was so powerful. Ms. Moore: You knew from that experience what would have been the next step for you. This is obvious. You got involved in your community. You got involved in an important committee that does wonderful work. Your understanding of what you experienced at that camp and the quality of life for people. Chair Stone: That was the one thing I thought was missing. The camp was great, and everyone who went came back with this new sense of a quality and a mindfulness to watch out for it. As teenagers do, they kind of forgot about that. As the weeks went by, it set a little bit more back to zero. I always remember—everyone that was there—it did have a lasting impact. I would have liked to have seen more follow-up from the school, from the City, from the community to keep that going. Other than that, I thought it was one of the most powerful weeks of my life throughout high school. Most of my friends who did get the opportunity to go probably would agree with that. Ms. Noel: That's really great feedback, to know what worked and what didn't work. Ms. Moore: I've always wondered what would be the next step for people who went through the program, what else we can still give them, what else do they need to still know about being human. I'm going to use you then for—I'm going to get you on board for some things. Chair Stone: Please do, please do. I'm interested. Ma. Moore: You're still in the area; that's great. Chair Stone: Thank you so much, both of you, for coming out. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 9 of 47 Ms. Noel: Thank you for your time. I know you guys have a lot. You said you had a sheet of all your accomplishments. Chair Stone: You are welcome to stay. We're actually going into right now our list of accomplishment and to discuss them. Hopefully we're going to have a short conversation about it. You are welcome to stick around and have a cup of coffee and snacks while we do that. [The HRC returned to Item Number 3.] 3. Accomplishments Chair Stone: We wanted to do sort of our annual pat on the back. I think this year we've done very well. Our list of accomplishments is pretty impressive. We're all very happy with it. We wanted to go over it, look back on what we've done and hopefully inspire us for what we can accomplish this coming year. Valerie, did you want to maybe take the core responsibilities? Vice Chair Stinger: Sure. Ms. van der Zwaag: Maybe talk about how we did the names and how we'll incorporate that into our work for next year. Chair Stone: Right. That's a good idea. Ms. van der Zwaag: There they are though. Chair Stone: Then I'll just discuss this. How we broke it up is core responsibilities, sort of what is our—I think we referred to it as bread and butter last year. Really what are the key roles of the HRC, how do we envision our day-to-day responsibilities, what plays into our real Mission Statement. Then there's the community forums, which has been our new venture that we've taken on. Over the past year or so, it has really gotten the HRC out there and in the public. We have done some incredible work on that. That's really gained us some attention even, with Mehdi's thanks, at the national level. I still envision Barack Obama and Michelle sitting around the dinner table talking about Palo Alto's HRC. Civic engagement is just how we have been able to really get out there, make key partnerships within the City, with the people, County, whatever, and be able to really make those personal relationships within the community that are so important and key to what we stand for as the HRC. We'll get back to this. [The HRC returned to Item 2.] Chair Stone: We'll continue along with our next order, with accomplishments. I gave us a short introduction before. Valerie, would you like to start us off with our responsibilities? Vice Chair Stinger: Sure, I'll do that. Chair Stone: I'll jump in with forums. Vice Chair Stinger: For our guests, well just background. We divided what we've accomplished in the past year into three categories. The first we call our core responsibilities. Sometimes we ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 10 of 47 call it our bread and butter. It's sort of our job description, things we are expected to do and we want to do with care. One of the things we started with was reviewing the consolidated performance and evaluation—our CAPER budget for the Community Development Block Grant program. Now, I'm blanking. I think Daryl and Shelly were involved with that. We did the HSRAP also. Ms. van der Zwaag: And CDBG, yeah. Vice Chair Stinger: We held a learning series. By that, we mean we brought speakers into our Commission meetings to talk about the immigrant experience in Palo Alto. Theresa carried the ball on that. A lot of background work. Vice Chair Stinger: Okay. We did it last year, and there's more work to do this year. We just started and we're continuing a learning series for ourselves on mental health issues in Palo Alto. Jill O'Nan, who's not here, was very instrumental in instigating that. We served as liaisons to the Palo Alto Mediation Program. I think, Shelly, you did a lot of that work. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I do. I'm the liaison for Project Safety Net. I was the (inaudible) program. I was a member of it. (crosstalk) Chair Stone: Was that Mehdi and Theresa? Commissioner Alhassani: I'm the liaison, yeah. Vice Chair Stinger: Sorry, Mehdi. Learning experience for me. I wanted to thank you for that. I also wanted to show how we were all involved in the activities of the Commission. We did the Community Development Block Grant Program. For that, we visit the agencies and become familiar with their activities, so we can really be good proponents for their budget requests. Did the same for our local HSRAP budgets. We supported an increased budget for HSRAP this year, which was really exciting. It was a motion from the Council during their budget negotiations to increase the funding for HSRAP, gave us a safety reserve so that we wouldn't be in such a (inaudible) during an economic downturn, and also gave us some emergency needs funding. That was the way we handled our core responsibilities. Chair Stone: Thank you. Moving into the community forums. Mehdi and I worked on the Veterans Summit. Mehdi did a fantastic job putting that all together and making sure we got our two White House officials to come out and to present and other service providers for veterans’ services across the county. We had over 100 people attend that. It was well covered by the media. Our Mayor at the time, Karen Holman, basically established that Palo Alto Pledge to end Veteran Homelessness by 2017 which put the Human Relations Commission in the forefront. Chair Stone: By 2017, that was the year. I thought great way to—it was just a very successful event and, I think, really put the Human Relations Commission at the center of a lot of people's attention and even proved our existence in a lot of ways to some people. Then we had another fantastic event at the end of October. October was an extremely busy month. Shelly did a great job on the Domestic Violence Summit, Could It Happen Here. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 11 of 47 Commissioner Gordon Gray: In Palo Alto. Chair Stone: Right. I think that was very eye-opening for a lot of people who just didn't recognize that these horrible things do actually happen in such an affluent community. Commissioner Gordon Gray: (inaudible) Chair Stone: Yeah. Shelly, great job on that. In March, we had another fantastic forum, the Implicit Bias Forum, Being Different Together. That was Valerie's baby. Once again, just an incredible event that kept this momentum that we had going forward. That was fantastic. Some of the speakers were so moving. It was fantastic. I think most of the audience felt that way. Well done, Valerie, on that. In mid-June, Mehdi kept the momentum going from our Veterans Summit to promote a more countywide All the Way Home Campaign, trying to encourage landlords in Palo Alto, to find ways to incentivize landlords to rent to homeless veterans. All just fantastic events. We've got this momentum going through this year on these forums. I'd love to see that continue. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Could I just interject something? Chair Stone: Please do. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I was at the 4th of July Chili Cook-off representing our Commission. Karen Holman said that she loves the HRC. She said we're the most proactive Commission that she has seen. Chair Stone: She compliments me every single time that she and I talk, saying the HRC is amazing. We can just keep patting ourselves on the back. Vice Chair Stinger: If I can interject another pat on the back. Daryl, I collapsed two categories together when I was reading this and neglected your work with interface with the Police Department. I learned a lot by all of the speakers you brought in for us. Thank you. Chair Stone: And then just civic engagement. We've also attended meetings, provided input on the Comprehensive Plan Update. I know, Valerie, you have attended those meetings and Theresa. Anyone else? No. Great job, you two, making sure that the HRC's voice is heard at those critical planning meetings. We've had a wonderful summer intern that I've had the pleasure of meeting. Chair Stone: Eric did a great job. Is that altogether everything that he was working on? Ms. van der Zwaag: He has a file with all the research that he did as far as going forward with the community group, on which Commissioners Gray and Singer are on, to work on future meetings for implicit bias. I think he did a lot of good work on that, amongst other projects that affect the Office of Human Services. It was a big help. This committee is raring to go and excited and engaged. I think we have some really interesting ideas going forward to bring the community together to continue having important conversations on race, class, education ... ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 12 of 47 Commissioner Gordon Gray: Financial diversity. Ms. van der Zwaag: ... financial diversity, etc. If what we're thinking actually happens the way we want it, we hope it will be transformational for the people that will come to these meetings. Chair Stone: Great. We also did three sessions of community outreach to various locations within Palo Alto where seniors reside regarding the Citywide shuttle survey. Minka and Mary and Jill and Theresa were highly involved in that and getting out there and actually working with our seniors and explaining how to take the survey and assisting them. Mary had to input them by hand, each one. Great job. The results are going to be extremely helpful. Ms. van der Zwaag: Can I interject? If members of the HRC aren't already receiving the daily e- news or bulletin that comes from the Palo Alto Weekly, I would suggest that you do so. Yesterday there was an article about the possibility that VTA will be cutting some transportation lines to Palo Alto and that they'll be cutting their contract with Outreach, which many of us are like woo-hoo, yea. Outreach, we’re not that happy with. The problem is paratransit lines run on the same lines that fixed bus lines go. If a fixed bus line is not going, then—Number 35 was on the list maybe to go—those paratransit services aren't happening. Today, they didn't have any Outreach meetings in North County. They did San Jose, Campbell, and that was it. Today at 5:00 is the last day to comment on changes to the paratransit program. I know it's last minute notice. If any of you have time to look at yesterday's article from the Weekly and then there is a Commissioner Gordon Gray: Is this just online or is this in the paper? Ms. van der Zwaag: It was online yesterday. I'm not sure if it was—I don't think it was in last Friday's hardcopy. Ms. van der Zwaag: Paloaltoonline and just go outreach or go VTA bus changes. Yesterday's article from Sue should come up. If you have a chance and if you feel compelled to email them today because there's only so much input we can have. I am disappointed that they did not even hold a single meeting in North County, Mountain View, Los Altos or anything like that. I think the unique perspective that we have—some of our people go from North County to San Jose for some of these countywide services. Some of them go through the bus—the 35 goes into the Mountain View Caltrain station, and then they go from there. It's a pretty big deal. Just to piggyback on our shuttle work. I think the City really heard the voice of seniors as far as the shuttle. They came up with those two key needs. Thanks to our addition to their work, seniors and teens are the main consumers of the free shuttle program. I encourage you to look at that article. If you feel compelled to email, please do so. Chair Stone: The article was titled "Deadline for Input on New Paratransit Contract Looms." Thank you, Minka. While serving on the Healthy Cities/Healthy Communities subcommittee to help complete the application for that process of being an age-funding community, we had a great speaker on that. Who was on that subcommittee? Chair Stone: We've also collaborated with County offices, local organizations to explore welcome programs for immigrant families to Palo Alto. Theresa, once again, thank you for your help on that. Did we miss anything? Anybody want to add an accomplishment? ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 13 of 47 Ms. Noel: I was just going to say I'm so glad we stuck around. First of all, because I'm dying to talk to you guys about your mediation program and replicating it elsewhere. There's a lot of other communities that do mediation, but not everybody. It'd be great to have a conversation with different people. The other thing I was going to say is that the keynote speaker at the second day of the conference, the CAHRO day, is an expert on implicit bias from the Kerwin Institute. She's going to be talking, and she's going to do a workshop sort of like implicit bias training 101. Ms. van der Zwaag: That's why it's great that our two Commissioners who are on that community committee are the two that are going. Ms. Noel: Yeah. My little brain is sitting here turning, and I'm going, "We should do regional training on mediation and talk about what every community is doing." Are you guys called on to mediate? Are you mediators? Ms. van der Zwaag: No, we have a contract with a local nonprofit called Project Sentinel. They do mediation programs for Mountain View, Los Altos, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto. They might have contracts, I think, in Fremont and so forth. The actual mediators are Palo Altans. Ms. Noel: I think of Project Sentinel as a fair housing provider. Ms. van der Zwaag: They're the parent company that oversees the mediators. They are fair housing, but that fits in very closely because most of the mediation calls are housing related. Ms. Noel: Like one neighbor screaming at the other neighbor about ... Ms. van der Zwaag: No. It's more landlord/tenant issues. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I was actually a mediator for two years. It's a mix. Sometimes, yeah, neighbor disputes, but it's mostly that. It doesn't really get into racial or ethnic issues. Ms. van der Zwaag: Maybe that's just because we haven't—that's an interest for our committee. I don't think we've specifically marketed it as such. Not that it couldn't do it. It does say neighbor to neighbor, business to consumer. It gives all the categories in which that could play a key role, but I'm not sure if people specifically see it that way. Ms. Noel: It can kind of segue into restorative justice issues. By that I mean part of what's going on is some hate crime or whatever and you're trying to deal with that. I think of one situation where there was a horrible hate crime in Sacramento County, where a Russian sect, a church that seemed like its whole reason for being was homophobia. They had an incident at a park, celebrating the 4th of July. There was a community of young men who may or may not have been gay. They were certainly perceived to be gay by the next group over, which was this Russian group. One of the people from the Russian group came over and slugged a Southeast Asian man. He fell over, hit his head and died. It was terrible. Their mediators up in Sacramento County wanted to address the issue of the harm to the LGBTQ community and see if they couldn't have the larger community—they weren't going to deal with the criminal. The guy who did the crime fled back to Russia. He was not available. His accomplice was prosecuted. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 14 of 47 They wanted to address the larger issue of this Russian church community and the LGBTQ community who was very traumatized, as you can imagine. They were willing to mediate. They had a lot of sessions with them. The Russian community, unfortunately, was not willing to meet with the gay community. That is the kind of larger community mediation kind of thing that ... Ms. van der Zwaag: I'll have conversations with them to see how they feel to handle that kind of conversation. Ms. Noel: I think a lot of communities who do it could benefit communities who don't, who could definitely use those kinds of services, whether they're contracting with Project Sentinel or just—who are the mediators who are trained to do those kind of community disputes in a culturally sensitive way, that kind of thing. Chair Stone: Thank you, everybody, for joining in on the conversation. Now, we'll take about a 10-minute break. 4. HRC Priorities and Projects Chair Stone: We are back from our break, and we're going to move now into our HRC priorities and projects. This is really the heart of today's retreat. We've looked at what we've done. Now it's time to look forward at what we can accomplish in the year to come. This is our time to really consider where our goals are, where we think we can actually make some meaningful differences in the community and just have a nice little brainstorming session right now on what we'd like to do. Let's start with more of a brainstorming activity, what in the most ideal world we can accomplish this year on the HRC. Once we have a nice list, we'll winnow it down and actually get what projects can actually come from that. Commissioner Chen: One thing I really want to do is have a welcome event. Last year we started talking to people in the area, immigrants, what they want to do and almost everyone I spoke to, and those who emailed me, they didn't want to show their face, just email me. Every one of them wanted to have a community activity, a welcoming event for them to get to know each other. Maybe we should think along that line. What can we do about that? Commissioner Gordon Gray: Maybe we can step back and see the categories: Immigration, diversity, mental health. It seemed like we had a couple of themes. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Mental health, immigration ... Vice Chair Stinger: Is that what you were thinking, a welcoming event for immigrants? Commissioner Chen: Yes, a welcoming event for the immigrants, new visitors, newcomers. Chair Stone: Just newcomers, not just immigrants. Newcomers to Palo Alto. Commissioner Chen: Yes, newcomers to Palo Alto. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Just to say newcomers or immigrants. That's different. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 15 of 47 Commissioner Chen: That's different. Chair Stone: Yes, newcomers. Commissioner Chen: Newcomers event. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I was looking at categories. Diversity, immigration, mental health. Vice Chair Stinger: I think you're right. Immigration might be a next category to capture. Vice Chair Stinger: Immigrants' experiences, under community needs. Keep going, Shelly. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Mental health. Chair Stone: Mental health. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I don't see why we wouldn't put the same topics on that. Homeless vets. Chair Stone: Homelessness. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Homelessness. Ms. Constantino: Just homelessness? Chair Stone: Yes. We can continue to—we're trying to give a little broader. Commissioner Gordon Gray: We're not zeroing in yet. Chair Stone: Senior services. Commissioner Gordon Gray: What about trafficking? Chair Stone: Human trafficking? Commissioner Gordon Gray: Yes. It's been a cover story. Chair Stone: Sounds good. Vice Chair Stinger: I still want diversity. Commissioner Savage: I want to point out as far as human trafficking; Sue has done a great article. Do you remember that? Commissioner Gordon Gray: I just mentioned a cover story. Ms. van der Zwaag: Again, this is just brainstorming. We may have the ability just to look at one once we look at our core responsibilities. As the Chair and Vice Chair just said, this is just our opportunity. You're free at this point just to say, "I think we should consider this," even ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 16 of 47 though in the end you may not be the person to address it. I think later on we'll do some drilling down. What needs do you see in the community that you feel like the HRC might have a role to address, bring to light, want to know more about. That type of thing. Chair Stone: We want to encourage you to speak freely and know that if you suggest anything, that doesn't lock you in to do it. Commissioner Savage: Health and nutrition. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Economic diversity. I know we talk about ethnic, religious. We don't talk a lot about economic disparity or financial disparity. Chair Stone: Youth well-being. Vice Chair Stinger: I think racial and social justice. Financial disparity might cover it, but I think there's the diversity issue that leads us to some transportation and workers' rights. Commissioner Gordon Gray: And housing. Vice Chair Stinger: And housing. Chair Stone: I think housing should just have its own. Affordable housing should have its own spot. Vice Chair Stinger: It's part of some of the other ones, but workers' rights. Workers' well-being. Ms. Constantino: Well-being? Vice Chair Stinger: Yes. Commissioner Savage: It's a pretty comprehensive list. Chair Stone: We've done well. Ms. van der Zwaag: This is a lifetime of work. Anybody who hasn't spoken yet? Chair Stone: We can move on to how to address these issues. Do we want to figure out how to bring this list down to maybe ... Commissioner Gordon Gray: How do we hone this list? Ms. van der Zwaag: If we looked at how to address, it might be this project is this big and maybe the goal of the HRC this year is just to do this. Think about it that way, and then continue to whittle down. What I put up there and what Mary put up there is what we brainstormed at the leadership team meeting, ways that we could address it. We could have a community forum on the subject. We could do our learning series. That has been a great way that the HRC has employed when it's really committed to a topic. You think, "I want to do something, but I feel like we need to be better informed about it first. Let's have a learning series about that." Maybe ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 17 of 47 there's something that we feel like it'd be important for Council to know about. After we've spent some time looking at it, we might do an informational report. That's something that just goes in their packet but isn't agenda but could be the thoughts and the learning of the HRC. We could think about collaborations. We may not be able to do this, but maybe a Commissioner would be willing to work with another group in the community that's already tackling this. There might be other ways to address too, but those are the ones we brainstormed the other day. Vice Chair Stinger: One way to look at this might be to pick three priorities. One is finishing up something we started. One might be something we want to focus on this year that would take a fair amount of our effort. Maybe one that we want to research is more of a speaker series in our meetings. We might then raise it as a priority for next year. Think about our energy and our capacity. If there's something we've started, I'd like to finish it. Ms. van der Zwaag: What were the three again? Finish up started. Something we want to research. What was the other one? Vice Chair Stinger: Put a lot of energy into this year, our focus point for this year. Maybe something that we wanted to research. We're researching it, and we'll have a speaker series, an internal investigation. Vice Chair Stinger: Educational,. The middle one would be more community outreach and a lot of involvement. Ms. van der Zwaag: Instead of learning series, the only one I didn't put up there was a one-time only guest speaker. Sometimes we want to know about something that doesn't involve something as complex as mental health or homelessness when we had a whole series of speakers. We just need one person to come out and speak to the HRC. That's the only thing else that we had. Chair Stone: It would be good to continue our speaker series that we just started the mental health speaker series. There are a lot of areas that we could cover there and a real pressing issue for the community. Ms. Constantino: Did you want me to add speaker series? Ms. van der Zwaag: Yes, put continue learning series. That is also the area that Commissioner O'Nan wanted to do the community forum on this fall, on mental health, the broad spectrum. Commissioner Savage: I'd like to see mental health and homelessness combined. Most homeless people have some kind of mental health issue. The issues go hand-in-hand. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I don't know if I would combine the two. To me, mental health cuts across every economic strata, ethnic, background. You know what I'm saying. Commissioner Chen: Commissioner O’Nan and I just went to this adolescent mental health meeting last week. Adolescent, yes. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 18 of 47 Commissioner Gordon Gray: Age, economics, background. Commissioner Chen: Right. Ms. van der Zwaag: I think it's important to point out what Commissioner Savage said. There definitely is a direct correlation between the two, and you can't talk about one without talking about the other. Whatever we do next on either of those, we need to remember the other as an important component. Chair Stone: Just like under mental health, youth well-being would be a component of that conversation. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Are you saying to try to combine them? Ms. van der Zwaag: I said, if we're talking about mental health, if we're having a forum on it, we can't ignore the intersections between mental health and homelessness. When we're talking about homelessness, we can't talk about that without thinking about the impact that a mental health diagnosis has on those that are homeless. That's what I mean. Commissioner Savage: Also, moving down. As far as human trafficking, I know the FBI now is devoting a lot of resources into it. As far as educating ourselves, perhaps we could invite a speaker to inform us, educate us about human trafficking. Chair Stone: That'd be great. Commissioner Gordon Gray: It sounds like we're sort of categorizing these. Human trafficking would be more education. One would be good for forums. Ms. van der Zwaag: Yes. If you are committed to these topics, how could it best be addressed? Like the lens that Vice Chair Stinger put on it about being able to take all this wonderful energy on these topics, but how can we really focus it so that at the end of the year we feel like there's been an accomplishment. Just being realistic about what we can take on. If everything on this is just a one-time guest speaker, that's really easy for Mary and I to organize. We could do every one of them. If it's more complex, if it's a forum, if it's an ongoing learning series, if you want to do more on it, then obviously there'll be some rationing of time and resources of Mary and I and those of you who are going to spend time assisting us working on these topics. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I do have a thought about the speaker. One of my questions is we have the speaker come and then we say thank you, and they leave. What exactly is the value to educate us? I guess what I'm saying is I would like to see the HRC to have some kind of call to action rather than us just being briefed. If we had the community coming to hear this, it would be different. I don't know. Ms. van der Zwaag: I'd have two comments back to that. I definitely hear you. That could be a conscious decision by the HRC that we advertise the speaker series. Just not come to the HRC, but that is in and of itself a little program that we're doing during the HRC meeting. We could definitely do that. As far as the homelessness and housing speaker series that we had for over a ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 19 of 47 year, that was instrumental in the report that Commissioner Bacchetti and Chen wrote at the end. Did we struggle with what to do with that report afterwards? That did lead to conversations with the Planning Director and so forth and some thinking about next steps. That was our first learning series. The real thought was the HRC wants to have influence and impact on the area of affordable housing. We know that's mostly the realm of Planning and Transportation, but what could we do? We really felt that to do so the HRC had to be better informed. We could have a lot of assumptions about affordable housing and homelessness. If we were better informed, we felt like our voice would be stronger in that area. That's why we started the learning series. Commissioner Gordon Gray: That's like education for action. That's how I hear that, which is what I'm saying. Ms. van der Zwaag: Right. One could say that our short-lived and hopefully to be continued learning series on the immigrant experience can help inform the work of the implicit bias forum that we have and the continuing work and dialog on bias in the community that Human Services is continuing to do. I think it informs. I would agree with you that it would be nice and we'd have to see capacity-wise. It'd be nice other than just in the minutes that we had, we had these six speakers. These are key learning points from each one of them, so we could go back and say, "Let's look back at the compiled notes from our learning series on housing. Let's go back in our compiled notes on the immigrant experience. What are some cross-learning?" That we haven't done, and that's something we can talk about for the future. The immigrant experience is really only our second learning series. It's something that we started off just to get educated, but now it's matured a little bit. We can say how best the HRC can utilize the information that we're hearing. We can have some dialog about that together. I would agree that it would be nice to take what we're hearing and make it more actionable or make it more relatable when we go back and want to look at it other than just reading minutes. Commissioner Chen: It's easy to do a one-time event. It's like when we learn from immigrants' experience and all of them want some welcoming event. We could do that. Right? That's something. It's doable. It's an action. We may need a lot of effort, so we may not be able to do it in one year. Maybe next year, the year after. Just thinking about it is one thing Ms. Constantino: Put an event right here under immigrant? Chair Stone: On how to address, yes. That and newcomer event, maybe we can bring those together. Vice Chair Stinger: I was going to say the other piece there. I know the Historical Association is looking at putting together a history of the Spanish contributions to the Valley, Palo Alto in particular, and the African-American experience. Vice Chair Stinger: It is Steve Staiger. He's doing the research now. Chair Stone: Following up on Minka's point. I think it's also important to remember that we are an advisory body to Council. These learning series are beneficial for us to learn the issues more and to get a real grasp on the issue. Also, I think it's really important when we do have to report to Council, if any Council Member asks us for our advice or insight on a particular issue, that we ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 20 of 47 are well-versed and educated on the issue. Even though I'd like for us to always be a more proactive body and one that actually acts and actually makes an impact, I think educating ourselves is always—we shouldn't discount the importance of that as well. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I wasn't discounting it. I was saying what comes out of it. I'm hearing that's something that comes out of it. I don't know. Vice Chair Stinger: It's a good challenge, this exercise of how to address it. I'm thinking of what would be the outcome of collaboration with the Palo Alto Historical Association. I'm looking at that as community education. I don't see it as an initiative or a change. Commissioner Savage: A policy. Vice Chair Stinger: An appreciation and education, communication. Commissioner Savage: I'd like to see one more. It probably goes under community need. I think we need to make the community more aware of the good work that we, the HRC, do. Something regarding—I don't know—media attention or public relations. We should keep that in mind regarding events, regarding speakers. Just to publicize our work more, so that more of the community knows. I think there's a lot of the community that's doesn't know who we are, what we do, why we're here. I think we need to address that. Chair Stone: I agree. That was one of our top priorities last year, I remember, getting our message out there. I think we made good progress on that. Commissioner Gordon Gray: HRC publicity. Ms. Constantino: Awareness of the HRC? Commissioner Savage: More community awareness. There are still some people who think the HRC shouldn't exist, some of the Council Members. Vice Chair Stinger: Something that I've had in my file for a while is under youth well-being. I heard DuJuan Green, detective from the Palo Alto Police Department, speak at another event. He was really well received for all the good work that he's done. I'd like to focus on some of the good things that are being done under youth well-being. He also had some recommendations. I guess that was his function with Teen Services. After his two-year tour, I think, he had some good recommendations of things that needed to be done. I'd like to invite him to a Commission meeting—I guess that would be an individual speaker—hear some of his recommendations. That might be an action item. Vice Chair Stinger: It's the same group, but it was a different speaker. There were some parents who were just really grateful to him for some of the outreach that he had done with their teens. I'd like to focus some positive attention on some of the activities that our police department is doing and listen to their suggestions for how we can make their job easier. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 21 of 47 Chair Stone: The workers' well-being, I thought, was an interesting idea. There is a new nonprofit organization here in Palo Alto. It's very much in its infancy. It's really about educating about raising funds for college and textbooks and other necessities for immigrant students. She actually met with me to explain the whole process of HSRAP and CDBG and how to raise funding and was curious to pick my brain about it. We met a little while back. She brought up this idea of this workers' well-being to me, said she'd be really interested in helping out with some sort of event. I think it's a very interesting issue that workers in Palo Alto, people who work in restaurants or retail or these service industries who are having to commute over an hour to get to their minimum wage job, who don't have a voice in the City or who may feel like they're unwanted in the City. I remember we heard a lot about this last year when we had the alleged hate crime that was not a hate crime but that was alleged and this fear that minority workers in Palo Alto, do they feel safe when they come into the city. I think it's an interesting area to look into and figure out how we can address those concerns. I think it works with a lot of different things, with minimum wage laws, with traffic, with affordable housing and racial and social justice. I don't know how it would look, if it would be a forum, if we could have a speaker on this issue. I'm not sure. Did you have any ideas when you suggested that, Valerie? Vice Chair Stinger: No. Chair Stone: It's a good idea. Vice Chair Stinger: I saw it as a way to leverage some of the other things that I care about, things you just listed off, minimum wage, housing, transportation. Those are things that are in the dialog a lot. They may not be on our chart particularly. I think workers' well-being could be something that's within our mission and allow us to give some added value to the dialog that's already going on. I don't want to be just more noise. It's not only the restaurants and the service workers, the hospital employees, the doctors' assistants. Chair Stone: I think that type of issue is exactly within our responsibility because there's no one else in the City looking out for—they are not represented by not being for the most part a voting member of the public. Commissioner Gordon Gray: That's actually not a bad way to look at that list, where can we consolidate some of these. Chair Stone: I agree. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Homelessness, mental health, newcomer event, immigrant, racial and social ... Commissioner Chen: Workers' well-being with income disparity. Right there, underneath health and nutrition. Ms. Constantino: You want to connect this with the racial and social justice and financial disparity also? ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 22 of 47 Chair Stone: Yes. I think that all groups together. I think in a lot of ways youth well-being can also—parts of it goes in there, to make sure that we're looking out for teenagers who are getting their first jobs. Vice Chair Stinger: Workers' well-being, just to start it, I guess I would start with either a forum or a speaker series, the tools that we usually fall back on. Commissioner Alhassani: I can see a forum potentially being interesting if we—one of you mentioned this. For example, your typical restaurant worker in downtown Palo Alto doesn't have a lot of outlets for his or her voice. Have a forum where you're hearing some of the stories and putting names to faces. A person says, "My name is so-and-so, and I work at this place in downtown Palo Alto. This is how my day looks like. I have commute from wherever. I have to wake up at 4:00 in the morning to show up." Ms. van der Zwaag: It's more storytelling. There might be some intimidation. Will you be a guest speaker at our forum? I don't want to drill too much down, and I'm guilty of doing it right now. I think we have to look at that might be more successful as a storytelling event. Chair Stone: I like that. Commissioner Chen: The other thing I'm concerned about is they're not English-speaking. They only speak Spanish. Vice Chair Stinger: Speaking of collaboration, I think it was Transform that did a transportation forum in Mountain View for South County. They did a great job of just that, having people tell their stories with translators. In this case, I think they were all Spanish translators. I think it was a couple of different languages to tell the stories. Chair Stone: It's such an interesting thing with Palo Alto that we're so diverse on workers' well- being. You have, like you said, dishwashers making minimum wage all the way to police officers and teachers who comparatively are making a lot of money, doing what they do, to other communities, but still are facing a lot of these same issues with having to commute well over an hour at times or other issues, not being able to afford to live in Palo Alto or nearby communities. To get their voice on there. It's such an interesting issue that covers so many topics. Vice Chair Stinger: Just to knock off an easy one, the racial and social justice. I don't mean to imply it's easy. There is an activity, collaborate with the library. They want to do a forum. We could collaborate helping them get speakers and publicity. We'd be collaborating; the work wouldn't all fall on us. Commissioner Gordon Gray: What does that series look like? That's interesting. What does the library ... Ms. van der Zwaag: They have Made into America. That's just their effort. I think this is just a possible forum or speaker that they want to have on this topic. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 23 of 47 Commissioner Gordon Gray: They would have a series at Mitchell Library; there'd be a speaker there? Ms. van der Zwaag: Not sure if it's a series, but yeah. I think they have seen other libraries enter into that realm of important community issues. This is just very exploratory. Commissioner Gordon Gray: What would be the difference between an event and a forum? If we went down that list and said this is an event, this is a learning series and this is a one-time speaker ... Ms. van der Zwaag: How I see the event, like the top one, that might just be the Historical Association has beautiful photographs with meaningful sayings. Commissioner Gordon Gray: There's a place you go. Ms. van der Zwaag: It's a place that you go. A forum is more educational in nature. That's how I see it. Vice Chair Stinger: If we wanted the immigration—one of the meetings we went to with the County—help me. One of the local groups wanted to do a welcome event, so it might be something on the plaza at City Hall with lots of booths and information exchanged. Commissioner Chen: An information event for the newcomers. Vice Chair Stinger: It wouldn't necessarily be a speaker series. Commissioner Gordon Gray: We have these different categories, forum, event, and speaker. Are there any others? Commissioner Alhassani: If there are joint volunteer opportunities, like working with the nonprofits that we fund, we can invite the community to spend a day. Commissioner Gordon Gray: HSRAP grantees. Commissioner Alhassani: That's another tool in the tool box. Ms. van der Zwaag: I hear you. Commissioner Alhassani: We haven't done it before. Vice Chair Stinger: I was thinking in a similar line. I think that would be really interesting, to have a volunteer fair. At a couple of the site visits that I did, when they talked about their issues, their issue was we need more professional-level volunteers or it's hard to recruit for our Board of Directors. I was thinking if we could do something like—I don't know—a speed-dating panel where you have Boards that need people with people that want to be on Boards, and just have a chance to ... Commissioner Savage: That's a great idea. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 24 of 47 Ms. van der Zwaag: It's a great idea, very tough. Commissioner Savage: Very tough? Ms. van der Zwaag: Very tough to get people on Boards. Vice Chair Stinger: Everybody said it; "I've done this for ten years. I've got to get off this Board." Don't look at me. I just came for a site visit. Commissioner Gordon Gray: It doesn't have to be Board, but it could be the volunteer speed- dating for Board Members. We're just getting to know or something. Chair Stone: I think that's a great idea. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I like it. Chair Stone: I have been frustrated many times with how we help nonprofits going through the HSRAP process. It's critical for these nonprofits. At the end of the day, it keeps their lights on and these other things. Like I said, very critical funding that they get, and our work is important. I wish we could always do more. That's a great way to be able to actually help them recruit volunteers. I think that's another great way we can get involved. Commissioner Chen: The other thing we can do is to be a liaison between different kinds of nonprofits with similar goals. I was at the meeting last week on this adolescent mental health. It was organized by Packard Children's Hospital, so a lot of speakers from there. I was looking for a speaker from Adolescent Counseling Service. There were a lot of booths around there, and I was thinking about if we could help them. Chair Stone: I agree. I know we've talked about that in the past, seeing how we could serve in a role of identifying gaps in services or overlap and trying to encourage doing that. I don't know how successful we've been on that. That's kind of what happened with our Senior Citizens Summit, which was really nice, bringing all those service providers together. One thing I heard from many of them was finding out where is that overlap. I think a lot of those groups really came together afterwards. I think that model—too bad Commissioner O'Nan is not here to speak to it—could be something that we could look into going forward in trying to bring these nonprofits together and do exactly what Commissioner Chen just mentioned. Commissioner Alhassani: We had talked about it last year. Piggybacking on that, I feel like it's low-hanging fruit for us or the easy thing to do to convene the nonprofits, especially the HSRAP fundees, and trained professionals in the various areas that would help the nonprofits. For example, Philip at the Opportunity Center is one of the leaders there. You can donate clothes to the Opportunity Center on Mondays and Wednesdays like 9:00 to 12:00 or something. You can drop off stuff. Having Palo Altans know that you can do that. I'm sure a lot of Palo Altans have stuff they would love to donate, find a place for it. We could have a member of the Planning and Transportation Commission—Adrian Fine works at Nextdoor. He could show the nonprofits here's how you can leverage Nextdoor for your nonprofit. We could have somebody from ... ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 25 of 47 Ms. van der Zwaag: This is perfect. I'm planning at least two technical assistance workshops for nonprofits, our Friends groups. When we had Kay Sprinkel Grace, some of you in the room may have gone. The City is planning at least a couple of technical assistance workshops for nonprofits, Friends groups, HSRAP grantees, CDBG grantees. Commissioner Alhassani: I've mentioned before I've lived in a lot of different places, but I've never been as in touch with my local police department as I am in Palo Alto because of how good they are on social media. My wife actually messaged them on Facebook a couple of weeks ago and got an answer within five minutes. I told her about how he said over 90 percent of the cases are responded to within five minutes. She got an answer right away. I follow them on Twitter and Instagram. I think more of the nonprofits could be doing that. Chair Stone: Any ideas on how that would look? Is this just a continuing conversation internally to figure out how we can accomplish this goal? Commissioner Alhassani: A community need is to beef up local nonprofits. The way we'll do that is through a technical training session. I don't know if you need help, Minka. Ms. van der Zwaag: I think that's something we're doing already. It would be like a Human Services collaboration with the HRC. I'm waiting to hear back from nonprofits what their greatest training needs are now. There are a lot of great providers from Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits, CompassPoint. What are local people's needs? Turn to you for resources of people to help meet those needs. We're a resource-rich community as far as experts on lots of things. I can see that could be a definite collaboration. Like I said, it's something I'm doing anyway. It could be more of an informal collaboration where social media training came up. I know that you have an expert that you could refer to us and vice versa. If there are things already that other people are doing, let's have the HRC concentrate on—you're not at a loss for areas of interest. Vice Chair Stinger: What about the need for volunteer labor, just people on the ground or Board Directors? Commissioner Gordon Gray: You were talking about the speed-dating thing. I think that's a great idea. Having the HSRAP grantees here and then having that kind of speed dating, get to know your local nonprofits and what their needs are. Ms. van der Zwaag: I think it's conceptually really wonderful. I'm just trying to think as a former volunteer coordinator for two agencies. Being a volunteer coordinator is one of the hardest professional jobs out there, especially for agencies that completely rely on volunteer staffing to get things done. Not even speaking about the next level commitment of being a Board Member. I have an affinity for it. Vice Chair Stinger: What about collaborating with Avenidas? They're doing a whole series of programs now, second careers. Commissioner Chen: I know this person. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 26 of 47 Ms. van der Zwaag: That's interesting. Commissioner Gordon Gray: What is that? Say more. Commissioner Chen: It's called Second Stage University. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I understood that. How does that relate to what we're talking about with grantees and volunteers? Vice Chair Stinger: An avenue to get volunteers and Board Members might be to look at the retired community, senior community. Avenidas is trying to get people actively engaged in the community or something that they care about. Commissioner Chen: It's a nice thing to start, but I don't think how effective it would be. I can tell the experience. I have been one of the lectures. Vice Chair Stinger: Maybe we could talk about it at the Age Friendly meeting Commissioner Alhassani: If Valerie's idea was broader, was more like a volunteer fair you sign up for, like volunteer to clean up the park, volunteer at a soup kitchen, can we collaborate with YCS, Youth Community ... Commissioner Chen: Youth Community Service. Commissioner Alhassani: The point is it's not just for Board Members. It's like here are different ways you can volunteer in the Palo Alto area, young, seniors, whoever. You commit to doing one session or whatever it is, one time. Are you still skeptical of that? Ms. van der Zwaag: I don't know. Skeptical is a strong word. I think I'd need to talk to—it would need more investigation to see if agencies have tried that, to see what the obstacles for people are in volunteering. Is it knowledge of organizations? I just think doing that kind of event would take a lot of coordinating, and I'd want to think about it a little bit more. If it turns out to be a priority of need of our agencies and of your time and of my time. Maybe the next step for that is just some conversations with some local nonprofits first. They might have been part of other volunteer events that we don't know and can talk as to the success. I do know that larger corporations through their community relations officers are looking into opportunities for their employees. It's not that I'm afraid of doing something and having it fail. I just want to meet a real need in the community and that we as the HRC or Human Services staff are the right people to do it. Do we have our pulse or our connections to the right people to make such an event a success? That's something I would want to do some more thinking about. Chair Stone: Maybe you could do that, and then we could agendize this for one of our meetings later in the year and come back to it and see how we're doing. In the interest of time, to move forward a little more, just to be able to keep us on schedule here. It's been a great conversation, but let's figure out maybe three projects that we think we can actually make an impact on this year from what we've just discussed. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 27 of 47 Commissioner Alhassani: I'd love to volunteer to do another veterans homelessness event because part of my thinking here, 10 percent of the homeless population are veterans, ballpark. My thinking is the All the Way Home campaign is still happening. We can liaison and see, given our link to resources and time. From way back, my thinking was that if we do just one thing a couple of times a year during events; at the end of it maybe we'd move the needle. Chair Stone: I agree with that. I think that is one thing that we can truly solve in Palo Alto. I want to continue to join you on that. Now that I'm not studying for the bar exam, I'll have so much more time. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Homeless is one. In my mind, that's the second one for this year. It's a new area for us. Some way we bundle the immigrant, diversity, racial justice. Maybe there's a whole umbrella for all the things that would fall under that. Ms. van der Zwaag: I think we can look at what is large scale. Mehdi, Mary and I spent a decent amount of time on the first follow-up All the Way Home event. I see that probably once again just being large impact hopefully but smaller scale. We'd just have to think if just one Commissioner is involved, then maybe you could take on more than you might suspect or we pick three things for the fall, and then we actually say let's touch base in the spring and see what our capacity is. Chair Stone: I'd like to continue looking into this workers' well-being idea and this storytelling. Ms. Constantino: Should I put your name down? Chair Stone: Yes, why don't you put my name down for that? Commissioner Gordon Gray: Do you see that as isolated, a sovereign thing, or is it mixed in with any of the other categories up there? Chair Stone: I think it is mixed in with a lot of the categories. That's why I think it's a great topic. Commissioner Gordon Gray: What other things would go with it? I'm just thinking if we could tie all those together, then we can say here's the whole bundle. Within that, we do an event relating to workers' well-being and something else. Chair Stone: I think there's a lot that goes under the umbrella of workers' well-being, like affordable housing, transportation, racial and social justice, financial disparity, even issues with youth. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I was thinking of it more as here's one lump category that we're going to focus on. I wasn't just thinking by association. Vice Chair Stinger: She wants to be more specific. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Maybe that's just how I'm organizing it in my mind. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 28 of 47 Vice Chair Stinger: As an exploratory, I'd like to work with you on that. Vice Chair Stinger: Workers' forum. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I'd like to do something on human trafficking. Vice Chair Stinger: That'd be great. Commissioner Savage: I'd be interested as well. Commissioner Chen: I think I'd like to continue learning series on immigrants, a different population of immigrants. Last time I had tremendous amount of difficulty getting new immigrants. I don't know for what reason. Commissioner Gordon Gray: You recruited a lot of people. Commissioner Chen: I left messages everywhere. There was only one answer from one, this lady from a Russian family. She said she had somebody in mind; however, she lives in Mountain View. I even said I'd take her. I'll drive her to my Commission, but it didn't work. It's hard. I would probably start from a different angle with people being here for a while, and they experience maybe subtle discrimination in a way. That kind of thing and like implicit bias, whatever related to their immigration. I don't know. I'm thinking along that line. In that case, I could probably—hopefully I can get a bigger population. Ms. Constantino: Is it going to be a learning series? Commissioner Chen: Learning series. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I wonder if there's a way to combine mental health and homelessness, and have some part of whatever. If you were talking about doing an event, have that be the focus. Like I said, they sort of go hand-in-hand. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Jill wants to do an event. Ms. van der Zwaag: We have that. Commissioner Gordon Gray: That would be separate from homelessness. Ms. van der Zwaag: I would assume that a component of a speaker that she would address mental health and homelessness. I belive she's thinking of the broad spectrum. There's been a lot of attention in the news on mental health, and I think that'll be an important part of this. Looking at adults, maybe mental health in immigrant communities. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I get it. I was just thinking of maybe consolidating. That's fine. Commissioner Chen: I think the senior mental health is a big problem. Ms. van der Zwaag: That would be an aspect of it as well. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 29 of 47 Chair Stone: We still have the Senior Services Subcommittee that will cover a lot of that. Vice Chair Stinger: I think we have five good priorities. Chair Stone: Yes, this is good. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Can we have a summary what we have? Chair Stone: We've got Theresa handling our immigrant learning series. Maybe we want to have a conversation—are we going to continue it as a learning series? Ms. van der Zwaag: I think that makes sense. Chair Stone: We'll continue that as our learning series. Commissioner Chen: I would probably continue to work with staff in terms of what kind of event. I know planning an event is a tremendous amount of work. Ms. van der Zwaag: We'll see. There might be again some intersections with the Healthy Cities/Health Communities work that is happening on an ongoing basis. Chair Stone: Commissioner O'Nan has the learning series on mental health. Ms. van der Zwaag: The community forum. Chair Stone: Sorry, forum. Ms. van der Zwaag: It's kind of both. I can handle, with suggestions from you all, getting speakers for the learning series. Commissioner Gordon Gray: The immigration ones? Ms. van der Zwaag: That might slow down, because we've had two speakers. I'll maybe have someone for September, maybe October. I don't know what Jill was thinking. I think the closest for the community forum would have to be—it would probably have to be late October. Once you get into November, it's hard to get people out in November, December. Probably late October for that. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Are you talking about the mental health learning series? Ms. van der Zwaag: I'm talking about the learning series. Maybe I can still get someone for September and October, but the actual community forum should ... Commissioner Gordon Gray: That's immigration, when you talk about the learning series? Commissioner Chen: No, it's mental health. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 30 of 47 Ms. van der Zwaag: We've had the learning series on mental health. We had Raul Rojas. Last month, we had the two people from Avenidas, speaking about mental health in the senior community. I think we're spoiled because our learning series on housing was 12 months long. We could have many learning series that we have someone just come for speakers and we just do it for three months. Not everything has to be this 12-month thing. If we have maybe one more speaker on mental health and then we have the community forum and then the immigrant series. Maybe we have two to three more months and someone comes. Then, maybe in the spring we find something else that's of real interest, and we have a learning series about that. Chair Stone: I like that model. Commissioner Alhassani and myself will work on a new event for veteran homelessness. We've got Commissioner Savage and Commissioner Gray on—that'll be just one speaker for human trafficking? We don't need to know exactly how it's going to work now. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I'd like to do something a little more extensive than just having this ... Ms. van der Zwaag: That could be a learning series. You never know. You could find one speaker, and it could propel you to—it sounds like with Sue's article, there's probably folks mentioned in that article that could be resources, and Daryl with all her connections. Commissioner Gordon Gray: (crosstalk) a larger group, I guess. Ms. Constantino: You want to do a forum? Commissioner Gordon Gray: Not necessarily a forum, but I wouldn't want it to be just the choir. Chair Stone: This is more brainstorming. I think we're going to touch back ... Commissioner Gordon Gray: I understand. When we talk about learning series, I guess I want to make sure I understand. You're talking about having a speaker come to our monthly meeting and give us a presentation. Ms. van der Zwaag: Right. What all these can be—these could just be even someone who comes as a one-time speaker. You could say after that, "Wow. That has catapulted us into wanting to do something different. You can have an overall one-time speaker on human trafficking. After that, you say, "Let's talk about that a little bit more. What else? This really should be a community event." This could tag on to XYZ that's happening. A one-time speaker or learning series could catapult into some other level of commitment. Commissioner Gordon Gray: It would be nice to able to have a bigger audience than just us. Ms. van der Zwaag: Right. I hear you. Chair Stone: Finally, Vice Chair Valerie and I are going to do the—we'll figure out how it's actually going to look, and we'll discuss it as well. Something on workers' well-being. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 31 of 47 5. Planning for the Joint HRC/Council Study Session on September 12 Chair Stone: Moving on to our planning for the joint HRC and Council Study Session which will be on September 12th. Minka, you want to start this? Ms. van der Zwaag: The Study Session is on September 12th. The Chair and the Vice Chair will be meeting with the Mayor and the Vice Mayor tomorrow afternoon to do some pre- planning. That's common before any Commission has a Study Session. Just to hear what the HRC is thinking about doing during that time and to see any level of concentration that the Mayor or the Vice Mayor would like the HRC to concentrate on. In the past, how it's worked is that the HRC has done what we've done today. There's some explanation or just quick overview. This is an experienced Council who is well aware of the work of the HRC. Quickly go over what our core responsibilities are. I did add learning series. They may not see that as a core responsibility. I added it because I think it is core to our way of being now. We've incorporated the learning series as a way to become better educated. It was important to add that there. In the past, the HRC has gone over its core responsibilities and its accomplishments. Often what you've done is you have had the Commissioner who has been integral in leading that accomplishment speak to it. I think there's been a goal in the past—the Council has liked that— that each Commissioner speaks to something. Do you want me to continue or do you want to go? Chair Stone: That's fine. You're doing great. That was our conversation at our leadership meeting. We liked that model that we've used in the past. It seems to work really well. I think what we're thinking is I'll start us off, and we'll have an introduction, go over again what our Mission Statement is and our bread and butter and get into going over our accomplishments. If everybody could have a 1-2 minute spiel about your main accomplishment. If Mehdi could speak regarding our Homeless Veterans Summit and the follow-up in June, have about a 1-2 minute prepared statement on that because we are just going to try to keep it short and simple. We just don't want a long rambling from anyone so we don't take up too much of Council's time. Ms. van der Zwaag: What we're thinking of is that we'd have, for lack of better phrasing, a formula so you all would know—if you're speaking about your liaison work with the police department, if you're speaking about the vet event, you answer three questions. I think I wrote them down. It's like an explanation of what it was, the accomplishment and maybe next steps. I think they're looking for the notes, because I wanted to see exactly how we wrote that down. Ahead of time we'd say, "This is what you're covering. Cover these three areas, and you'll have 1 minute." When the Council is listening about the Implicit Bias Forum or Domestic Violence Forum, they'll say, "They're going to tell us what it's about, what they learned, and anything next that they're doing." It'll kind of be this little formula. For each of your areas, they'll learn a little bit more about it. Our accomplishment list is really long this year. We might have to go over just some key areas. Chair Stone: I think if each Commissioner could focus on their biggest accomplishment throughout the year. Everybody has one critical role that they've played on the Commission, if they could focus on that. If it is two, then we'll do that as well. It's a good problem to have, too many accomplishments. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 32 of 47 Commissioner Savage: I think that each Council Member could get a list of all the accomplishments. Ms. van der Zwaag: Yes. I'm going to have it attached to the staff report. I wanted to just see if we tweaked any of the wordings from today's meeting. Commissioner Savage: A reminder that I will not be there. I will be in Birmingham, Alabama. Ms. van der Zwaag: That's the one. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Actually I'm not going to be there. Commissioner Chen: I'm not going to be there. I'll be in Australia. Ms. van der Zwaag: I thought only one of you was not going to be there. The three of you aren't. Commissioner Savage: That's pretty significant. Chair Stone: What about Jill? Is her health going to be ... Commissioner Chen: She'll be okay. I guarantee she'll be okay. Ms. van der Zwaag: This is the third rescheduling. I really don't want to reschedule it. I thought when we Doodle polled it, it was only Daryl. Ms. van der Zwaag: That's unfortunate. I think we're going to have to go ahead. The others are just going to have—I don't speak at this event. It'll be the four of you then. Chair Stone: This is a Council meeting, not a Commission meeting, or is it a combination? Ms. van der Zwaag: Sometimes it's in chambers; sometimes it's in the Community Room ahead of time. It's an open meeting, but it's often not in chambers. You sit, and it's there, and then the HRC gives a presentation, and then there's this dialog between the Council and the Commission. Chair Stone: I'm just looking for the concern of if for some reason we don't have a forum of HRC members, is that a problem? Ms. van der Zwaag: I don't think so. Chair Stone: I don't think so either. Ms. van der Zwaag: I will double check on that. Chair Stone: If you would, that'd be great. Ms. van der Zwaag: This might be that we in actuality might just have a—no we can't do that. I think leadership will have to meet separately again to—we'll see what the Mayor and the Vice ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 33 of 47 Mayor want to do tomorrow. We'll have to look a little bit more. There will maybe be more presenting by the two of you. Chair Stone: You mean next week, right? Vice Chair Stinger: You do mean next week? Ms. van der Zwaag: Oh, yes, it is. Thank you. The 19th. Ms. van der Zwaag: No, it's the 19th. That's right. A week from tomorrow we're meeting with the Mayor and the Vice Mayor. In between that time, we will confirm that Jill can hopefully make it. I'm not sure when her second surgery is. Does anybody? Commissioner Gordon Gray: I think it is next Tuesday or the 17th. Commissioner Chen: Yes, that's right. Ms. van der Zwaag: Our actual meeting with the Council is not 'til September 12th. Commissioner Chen: She'll be okay. Chair Stone: Leadership will get together and figure out how we'll structure that. Vice Chair Stinger: I think the request to Daryl, Shelly, and Theresa might be to write up ... Commissioner Chen: I'll get Jill to talk for me, if I can. Commissioner Gordon Gray: You're going to give me the three sentences again? Vice Chair Stinger: For the accomplishment that you would like to highlight, description, outcome, next steps. I think it would be really strong to be able to say it in your words. Chair Stone: Anyone want to add any additional thoughts? Vice Chair Stinger: The only thought I had was that we might go back in the leadership meeting and look at the City's Priorities for the year. I think we've done a nice job of matching our activities to their Priorities. Ms. van der Zwaag: That's good. Commissioner Gordon Gray: How do you find that out? Ms. van der Zwaag: It's on the website. Vice Chair Stinger: I actually did. I can read them quickly. I thought that ... Ms. van der Zwaag: I'll provide it for you as well the City's resolution on Healthy Cities/Healthy Communities. There's more, I've been told, in there about a broader definition of Healthy ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 34 of 47 Communities, not physical health but relations between residents. It's a little broader. I think a lot of what we do fits into that realm of Healthy Cities/Healthy Communities. I think creating a correlation between our work and that with the Council would be good. 6. Assignment of Liaisons Chair Stone: Let's move on to assignment of liaisons. Currently we have three liaison positions: the Palo Alto Police Department, the Palo Alto Mediation Program, and Project Safety Net. I know Daryl and I serve as liaisons to the police department. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I'm doing Project Safety Net. Chair Stone: You're doing Project Safety Net. Mehdi, you're doing PAMP. I guess we can go through it, discuss who's on it, who wants to continue that role, if anybody also wants to play a liaison role. We can have up to three and not violate the Brown Act. I think some are good to have a lot of members; some maybe not so good to have the room too crowded. Palo Alto Police Department liaison, we'll start with that. Daryl, I assume you want to continue that role. Commissioner Savage: I do. Chair Stone: I want to continue that with you. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Can I ask a question? Chair Stone: Yes. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Is there a definition of that role? I go to Project Safety Net; sometimes I report back what I heard. It's sort of ad hoc. I'm just wondering what the idea was originally. Ms. van der Zwaag: The idea is mainly to be a listening force for the issues, to be a connection between the HRC and these entities in order to share perspectives from the HRC, to hear from those organizations and bring that back. For Project Safety Net, it's just keeping your eyes and ears open to the issues that they're speaking about and the intersections with the HRC and bringing it back. With Palo Alto Mediation Program, since the HRC plays an integral role in approving mediators, it's to hear issues of concern, also to be a support to the organization. PD is again listening to major issues facing the police department and in the community and sees how that informs the work of the HRC. I know the police department has also used the HRC as—I don't want to use the word sounding board, but as an informer when it has some new policies that it wants to bring. I think the taser policy was brought to us several years ago. Now it's the body cam. They want to bring that to us for our—we don't have a vote on that. It's more this is what we're thinking; do you have any questions about that? Are there any perspectives you'd like to share with us that might inform these policies? Commissioner Savage: As far as the PD, they want to make sure they're open with the community. The Chief usually comes with a list of things that are going on or their hopes for this year or current crime trends, things like that. He, by the way, is speaking at our October meeting. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 35 of 47 Commissioner Gordon Gray: Is there an expectation that we report back? Ms. van der Zwaag: There is an expectation. For you, I went to the last Project Safety Net Meeting. This is what they're currently working on. In the next couple of months, this is what they're doing. Just to be that listening ear. We've had someone with Project Safety Net. We felt it was important for this group to be at the table for this very broad-based community collaborative. We could add more liaison roles. Project Safety Net was only added probably three or four years ago. It was PD and Mediation. There could be other key partners. Commissioner Savage: Avenidas might be another one. Ms. van der Zwaag: That's a very interesting point, Daryl. Commissioner Savage: Thank you, Minka. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I'll stay with Project Safety Net. Chair Stone: I'd like to join you as well on that. I know there are big tables. I was liaison there my first couple of years on the Human Relations Commission. I'd like to come back and be a liaison. Mehdi, do you want to continue your role as liaison with Palo Alto Mediation Program? Commissioner Alhassani: Sure. Commissioner Gordon Gray: What other groups are there? Chair Stone: I love Daryl's idea. Commissioner Chen: Avenidas, I'd like to be ... Ms. van der Zwaag: You'd like to do it? Commissioner Chen: Yes. Vice Chair Stinger: I'm doing the seniors—I don't remember what we call it. Ms. van der Zwaag: Age friendly. Vice Chair Stinger: Age friendly. Commissioner Gordon Gray: We have to give one to Jill. Ms. van der Zwaag: I think that's hard because Avenidas is more broad-ranged as far as senior services, which is a huge area in the community, when YCS is just one youth-serving agency. Ms. van der Zwaag: The other broad-ranging area we could think of is child care services. There is a child care advisory board in Palo Alto that I convene. That would be the other spectrum. Seniors is good. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 36 of 47 . 7. Consideration of HRC endorsement of Multi Faith Peace Walk to be Held on Sunday, September 11, 2016 Chair Stone: We'll move on to ... Commissioner Gordon Gray: We're ahead of schedule. Chair Stone: Yes, we are. We did a great job. I wanted to bring this issue to the HRC's attention. I was contacted by Diana Gibson. She is one of many organizing this Multi Faith Peace Walk on September 11. Ms. van der Zwaag: I have these if you need them. Chair Stone: Perfect, thank you. She reached out to me and wanted to know how the Human Relations Commission could get involved. Essentially their walk is basically to join people of many backgrounds to say no to fear and yes to friendship on September 11th. It's going to be a 2-mile walk in Palo Alto, different faith-based communities, different organizations. We're going to start at 4161 Alma Street. Do you remember the name of that church? Ms. van der Zwaag: Etz Chayim. Chair Stone: It's going to end, I believe, at Our Lady of the Rosary near Cowper on Loma Verde. It's a short walk. There will be a peace picnic at Mitchell Park. They plan to have some speakers, some music and then a picnic. She reached out to see how the Human Relations Commission could get involved. I think she's looking for us to sponsor the event, if it seems like something we'd be interested in, if it fits our message of being an inclusive community. She's also looking for how we could help with advertising and different things, which I ran through Minka on this. I told her I'd need to get the Commission to vote on it, to see if we were going to officially sponsor the program, basically just put our name to it and show that we support it. Chair Stone: Not financially, really just our name, our endorsement of the event. I told her also I'm sure some Commissioners would like to actively participate in the walk. I'll be participating in the walk. That is the event. I can send this around the table if you wanted to familiarize yourself with it a little bit more before we take our vote. Commissioner Gordon Gray: What day is that? Chair Stone: It's on September 11th. That's Sunday. Commissioner Gordon Gray: That is a Sunday. Commissioner Alhassani: Is it community members or is there a formal organization that's putting it together? Chair Stone: My understanding is it's a group of community members from different faith organizations. Vice Chair Stinger: The Multi Faith Peace Organization, I think they have ... ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 37 of 47 Daryl Savage: I think it's a great idea. In fact, I can't think of a single reason why we wouldn't. Chair Stone: That's why I told her most likely the Commission would support this, but still need to get a vote on the issue. Commissioner Alhassani: This is local Palo Alto, not Bay Area. Chair Stone: Yes, in Palo Alto. MOTION Commissioner Gordon Gray: I make a motion ... Vice Chair Stinger: What's the most that we can—what's the protocol here? Do we have a motion and then questions or questions and then a motion? Chair Stone: I think Commissioner Gray just made a motion. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Make a motion that we sponsor this event. Commissioner Chen: I second it. Chair Stone: Commissioner Chen seconds it. We'll have a vote. All in favor of sponsor the Multi Faith Peace Walk, aye. No dissenter. The motion passes, and we will officially sponsor the Multi Faith Peace Walk. Anyone interested in actually attending the event? I know I'll be there. Commissioner Stinger: I will Chair Stone: I promised her I would shoot her an email this afternoon letting her know. Looks like we'll have a nice group. We'll get some exercise. Hopefully it'll be a beautiful day. Ms. van der Zwaag: That's the day before the Study Session. You might want to take a break, since we're having a working lunch. 8. Discussion on Updating the Current HRC Mission Statement Ms. van der Zwaag: Under authority, the Commission may act as follows: to foster public awareness and understanding of human relations problems by any means of disseminating information including but not limited to educational programs and printed and electronic media; to facilitate resolution of problems and improvement of conditions within the jurisdiction of the Commission by encouragement, persuasion, mediation and by pointing out private or public agencies which might provide assistance; to make such studies which in the judgment of the Commission might aid in affecting matters within the jurisdiction of the Commission; to recommend local legislation or other action to the Council or to encourage the Council to support or oppose State or Federal legislation or regulation relating to matters within the jurisdiction of the Commission; to coordinate programs of the Commission with similar programming by private and public agencies and organizations; and, finally to recommend or oppose legislation ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 38 of 47 other than that of the City provided that the City Council has not taken an official position with respect to such legislation and provide further that any communication, whether oral or written, from the Commission concerning such legislation clearly indicates that such recommendation or opposition is that of the Commission and not necessarily that of the Council. Commissioner Savage: Based on that, a portion of that, I'd like to add something that specifically states when a person feels that they have been unfairly treated by the police, by their landlords, by their employers based on their sex, their ethnicity, etc., their problem can be heard at the HRC. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I think the last section is the bulk of statement. The last part also talked about some specific actions. Ms. van der Zwaag: I think the hard thing with a Mission Statement that it is usually pretty broad-based. What maybe you would like is if someone reads that, they could say, "Based on that, I can go talk to them about this," or "Based on that, that's what their interest is." I don't think we can get specific to say, "If you have issues with blah, blah, blah." I think there's a way of feeling like we can be broad, but still it would read in a way that people say, "I get it. I get what I can do in regards to them," and maybe what they can do. I think that was the attempt of how it's written now, to let people know that. Vice Chair Stinger: I was thinking maybe it would be a good exercise for each of us to think of one thing that we'd like included in the Mission Statement. For me, it's a welcoming community. What I heard you say, Daryl—I thought it was really strong—is we're a body that is available to people who are—I hate to say the word unwelcome. Commissioner Savage: Unfairly treated. Face challenges. Commissioner Gordon Gray: One thing that would be helpful to me, if I was explaining this to somebody, is to give some examples, to address human relation issues such as homelessness, workers' well-being, and all the things that we mentioned. We gave three or four of them. Immigration, diversity. That would help me. If I was explaining them, they'd say, "You guys are the ones if I'm struggling, if I have some discrimination issues, maybe I come to your Commission." Vice Chair Stinger: I think maybe we have to have that as a communication piece (inaudible). Ms. van der Zwaag: It might be too specific. If one year we concentrate on—I think ... Commissioner Gordon Gray: I like visual demonstration of what we're talking about. Commissioner Chen: What I'd like to have in here is we serve as a facilitator for the communication of diverse populations of different ethnic backgrounds or whatever, class background, the population in the City. Facilitate, communicate, and promote understanding. To facilitate the communications between a diverse population of ... ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 39 of 47 Commissioner Chen: ... the City; to create a better understanding and respect of cultural differences. Vice Chair Stinger: Would you add to that, Daryl, or does that capture it? Commissioner Savage: Can you read back what you've written? Ms. van der Zwaag: To facilitate the communication between diverse populations to create better understanding of diverse perspectives. Commissioner Chen: I like that. Commissioner Savage: It's certainly on the right track. Ms. van der Zwaag: I'm not sure we're going to get final wording today. I think that's not something you can really do by group. Commissioner Savage: The word facilitate, I think, should be more like welcome or to encourage those less fortunate. Chair Stone: I think that's the only problem I'm having, the word facilitate as well. Vice Chair Stinger: Maybe a more active word? Chair Stone: Yes, I agree. Commissioner Chen: To encourage the active engagement. Chair Stone: I would like to get some wording like Shelly mentioned. That's how I describe it a lot of times, as giving voice to those who don't have one for themselves or shedding light on the more invisible population of Palo Alto. Ms. van der Zwaag: I'm taking notes too. Vice Chair Stinger: Opening up to more diversity of opinion, welcoming but also actively engaging and promoting dialog. I'm not sure what the best way to proceed is. I guess we have time to do a little bit more wordsmithing or would it be better to do it offline? Ms. van der Zwaag: I think we just need to make sure that whatever we have stays true to our scope and true to maybe the diversity of areas that is in our current Mission, that it's not so focused on diverse communication. What I like about this one, awareness, understanding, resolution, discrimination, injustice, it covers a broad area. I don't want it to feel more specific but less inclusive of what we all do. That would be my caution. That they understand maybe one thing the HRC does more, but they don't understand the broad scope of what the HRC might have influence on. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 40 of 47 Vice Chair Stinger: My first pass at it might be to take the sentences that we have and change the very first line. To facilitate communication, to encourage and actively engage community involvement, to promote an all-inclusive community. Chair Stone: I agree. I want some stronger language on being more proactive, not just recognizing issues. Commissioner Gordon Gray: We educate and engage about the issues, we engage people in the issues. Vice Chair Stinger: I can't help myself. I think we need to write some of these words down. Ms. Constantino: If you want to tell me, I can write it down for you. Vice Chair Stinger: Thanks, Mary. Encourage and actively engage, educate. Minka, can you read it back again please? Ms. van der Zwaag: Of course. To facilitate the communication between diverse populations to create a better understanding of diverse perspectives. Ms. Constantino: Write that down? Vice Chair Stinger: Yes, please. I like the diversity in that. Chair Stone: I think that's one of the most important words, to have diversity as the statement. Ms. van der Zwaag: The observation I'll make is that talks about—if Greer and I have an issue and it's based on something that you will help us be able to work it out together, I think that seems a little more personal and less systemic. You know what I mean? What I see here is this seems more global. This seems more community-based, and that seems more personal. That doesn't mean at one point we can take all our notes and wordsmith something. This is something for—it doesn't mean that it can't address issues between people, but this is an oversight of those types of larger issues in the community. That would be my observation. Vice Chair Stinger: I was thinking understanding of diverse perspectives. I don't know if defense of diverse perspectives is the right word, but being an advocate for is what I want to say. I think it was the words you used, Daryl, be an advocate for people without a voice or lesser served populations, for all populations, for our citizens. As I said the word citizens, I'd really like, if it's possible, to broaden our scope to people who live in Palo Alto and work in Palo Alto. Commissioner Savage: What about people who are just driving through Palo Alto and get stopped by the police? Or passing through. Vice Chair Stinger: Good question. Ms. van der Zwaag: I think we can find a way of saying things which could include that but don't necessarily have to call it out. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 41 of 47 Commissioner Gordon Gray: Everyone touched by our City. Ms. van der Zwaag: You could just say in Palo Alto. I still like the words here, conflict, discrimination, injustice. Like I said, I don't want it to get so specific that it doesn't leave room for the full scope of what we do. Chair Stone: I agree. We need it to be a little broader. What if we combined it with the existing Mission Statement a bit? To address human relation issues including promotion of awareness, understanding of resolution of actual, potential conflicts, discrimination or injustice while facilitating the communication between diverse populations. Ms. van der Zwaag: That's it. Chair Stone: Thank you, Minka. You're making Daryl and I feel so great today and everybody. Ms. van der Zwaag: As my former boss said, I just came to work today to make your job a little easier. Vice Chair Stinger: I like that a lot. I also like the idea of being more proactive, that actively engage. I'd like to see those words somewhere. Ms. van der Zwaag: To actively address human relations issues. Vice Chair Stinger: Yes, thank you. If we left it right now, we would have to actively address human relation issues including the promotion of awareness, understanding and resolution of actual and potential conflicts, discrimination or injustice while encouraging community-building and civic engagement and facilitating the communication between diverse populations to create a better understanding of diverse perspectives. Ms. van der Zwaag: I'm not sure if that's 100 percent it, but that's interesting. Vice Chair Stinger: My suggestion might be that we take that as a draft and come back to it as an agenda item. Before we do that, I just want to go around the circle. Any more words or phrases that you want to add to it? Commissioner Savage: I'm thinking it might serve us well if we google other HRCs just to see their Mission Statements. Chair Stone: That's a good idea. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I wonder what Mountain View's says? They're a very proactive HRC. Ms. van der Zwaag: I can do that and include that in the notes for the—I'll maybe just create a little staff packet when we talk about this next time, with some background notes and things such as that. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 42 of 47 Commissioner Alhassani: The word I was thinking of is vulnerable. In particular, we've focused more thinking to vulnerable populations. I don't quite know where to work it in there. Obviously there'll be things that are broader than that. Ms. van der Zwaag: I really like that. In my personal work plan, one of my categories that I work on, that's what I call it, vulnerable populations. It's seniors and homeless and children. Commissioner Gordon Gray: That is essentially who we are focusing on. Those are most of the HSRAP grantees. Vice Chair Stinger: Would you mind adding that, Mary? Attention to vulnerable populations. That gives meaning to what we do at the end of the day. Theresa, anything else that would make this a stronger Mission Statement that we could sign off to? Commissioner Gordon Gray: I feel like I have to see the whole thing. Vice Chair Stinger: We'll get that chance in a month. Commissioner Gordon Gray: I guess the only word I don't really like is address. I don't like that word. Address doesn't really mean anything. It's like the word issues. It's just that it's a little passive for me. I like more active voice. We take on, we drive. Vice Chair Stinger: How about we identify and actively engage in human relations? Commissioner Gordon Gray: That's better. Vice Chair Stinger: How about we identify and engage in human relation issues in our community? I'd like to focus on Palo Alto. I understand that we're part of Silicon Valley, part of the state, part of the country. I think part of our mission is us. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Here. What about pressing issues, not just issues? Meaning they're important, they're not just somebody has a complaint that they don't like the color of the paint. Vice Chair Stinger: Actively engage in important issues. Vice Chair Stinger: I think we can wrap on that because we've got some good words. Ms. van der Zwaag: To recap, we'll try to come up—maybe putting the two sentences together, but not losing some of the other key words. Mary and I might come up with three or four versions and include that in the staff packet of the September meeting, in addition to seeing what other HRCs have. Chair Stone: Thank you, Minka and Mary, for taking that one. Thanks, Valerie, for leading that. V. REPORTS FROM OFFICIALS 1. Commissioner Reports ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 43 of 47 Chair Stone: We will move on to Reports from Officials. Anybody have a Commissioner report that they wanted to give? Commissioner Chen: I have a report on a site visit. I didn't do it last time, and I won't be here next time, so I've got to do it now. I did site visits. One to ACS. I think none of us have been there before. It's very interesting. They gave me a very extensive report of what they're doing. On campus, there are eight schools, five in Palo Alto. They have onsite clinician and coordinator. They do have interns. I think their interns are not paid. They told me that they cannot compete with other paid internships. It's a big problem. The program for LGBT, I remember years ago I visited their Mountain View site. It's a different organization, but they combined it. Essentially they have a lot of activities, different schools, and campus groups. I asked them for a wish list. The first one is to establish paid internships. That means they need more funding for that. The other one is still salary in that they need to increase the supervisor's salary. They want to increase the LGBT workshops. They want to do it more. They have a lot of things on their list to do. It seemed to me they just needed help with the funding situation. The internship pay is very urgent because they can't compete with others. There are no interns that would take a job with no pay. They recently moved to a new site in Redwood City. I have not been there previously. Because they have reduced funding, they had to move to upstairs to a small space. Ms. van der Zwaag: They were in a commercial office building off East Bayshore before. Before that, they were at Cubberley. Commissioner Chen: This is upstairs in a small space. The other one is an eye-opener for me. I don't know if anyone else had gone to the Vista Center for the Visually Impaired and Blind. This is eye opening. This is an interesting place. It's amazing. This is a very old organization. I didn't even know they existed. It was established in 1936, and they were incorporated in 1945. It started at Cowper Avenue, and then they moved it to El Camino. Most recently it was El Camino. Right now, I think the El Camino office is near Wells Fargo, that area of California Avenue. They're now in Hillview, an office building. They rent it for a short time because they are renovating their old office. They're moving back pretty soon. Because of my person interest, because I'm blind in one eye, I wanted to find out what they do for blind people, especially the elderly who are losing eyesight. I found out they were taking in volunteers as well as paid workers. It's fascinating. There's one librarian working for them. This woman is—I didn't see her—a volunteer. She used to work for a library, maybe Stanford Medical, whatever. She collects all this medical information with regard to blindness, and then emails them to all the workers on the staff. It's pretty interesting. Basically their job is divided into two branches. One is a social partner. It's called Movement, because blind people have to be very careful not to fall because we can't see. They show the client devices, the technique for doing that in what kind of navigation situation. They will go to people’s homes. They came to my house and figured out I better be careful. They are using the white pole, just how deep the stairways or whatever. It's very interesting. I think they have a number of social workers on that side, and they're okay. The other side is the vision part. They have an optometrist seeing patients there. She has special training of vision impaired—not the regular optometrist. She has special skill to do that. Usually the patients are referred by the regular optometrist or ophthalmologist to see them. This lady is fascinating. I think she started with volunteer, but she ended up getting on staff. She is ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 44 of 47 an occupational therapist. She came to my house with a whole load of things like lights and glasses. She'll fit me to the best sunglasses I have. It's like eliminate gray and see clearly. My goodness, that was fascinating. I never knew I could do that. Ms. van der Zwaag: You are the first HRC Commissioner that has gone on a site visit and then tested out the services. Commissioner Chen: I'm scheduled to see the optometrist next week. They asked my income. I pay because the payment is by scale, depending on thesliding scale. They have a big fundraising campaign. I think that's an important thing, because there's a large aging population in this area. We do need to see well. When we're elderly if one falls, you break a hip. Chair Stone: Thank you very much. Vice Chair Stinger: I had no idea it was so comprehensive. Commissioner Alhassani: Is there no meeting except for the Council session next month? Our next official meeting will be October? Ms. Constantino: No, September 8th. Ms. van der Zwaag: We have a regular September HRC meeting and the Study Session. Are the three of you also gone on September 8th of the regular Commission meeting? Commissioner Savage: I am. Ms. van der Zwaag: You are too? Commissioner Gordon Gray: I'll tell you why; it's personal. Ms. van der Zwaag: We still have a quorum, but we'll decide if we cancel October or not. Ms. Constantino: October? Ms. van der Zwaag: September. Thank you. Chair Stone: Sounds good. Any other Commissioner reports? Commissioner Gordon Gray: I'll just make a very brief one, because I don't have my notes with me. I mentioned this once before that the County Department of Public Health commissioned the CDC to do an epidemiological study on the suicide clusters. Because it was the County that commissioned it, it was not local to Palo Alto. It was countywide. At the last Project Safety Net meeting, they presented their findings. Ms. van der Zwaag: Preliminary findings. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Was it preliminary? ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 45 of 47 Ms. van der Zwaag: Yes. That's only their preliminary report. Commissioner Gordon Gray: Because they did an analysis of patterns of suicide and demographics and ethnographics The thing that was interesting to me—interesting is a weird word. When you read the statistics, it's a little bit macabre. It sounds so cold. They analyzed the population of 10 year olds to 24 year olds throughout the county between 2005 and 2015. Some of the interesting statistics that I was surprised to hear was that 70 percent—first of all, there have been 203 suicides over that ten-year period in the county. Of that 203, 77 percent are males. Within that group, the ages range between 20 and 24. What was interesting to me was that there's a notion that it's mostly teens in high school and it's mostly women. That challenged my conventional wisdom about that. The other thing was—this is the cold sounding part—the suicides are predominantly by hanging or suffocation in the home. It's not railroad tracks. One of the comments about the study was that it wasn't local to Palo Alto and, therefore, how useful was it because of the things that I just mentioned. My understanding—Minka probably knows more about this—is now they're going to look at solutions or what are things we can do to address this. Of course, the City is doing so much to help teens. There's mental illness. There's substance abuse. There's family dysfunction. It's a number of factors that lead to making that decision. Commissioner Savage: I'd be interested in know of the 203 suicides, what is the percentage or actual number in Palo Alto. Did they cover that? Commissioner Gordon Gray: No. They didn't break it down by—they looked at school districts. Ms. van der Zwaag: When we get the full report and all that, if that's an interest, we can ask Mary Gloner, the Project Safety Net Director, to give a presentation to the HRC. I think that would be probably the best way to go about it. Probably early next year would be good to have her come in, probably paired with one of our mental health partners on the leadership team, to speak to you. I can arrange that. Vice Chair Stinger: I guess the Commissioner report that I would have would be the age- friendly task force has met. The person who's moderating, is she on a County contract? Ms. van der Zwaag: I think so. Anabel Pelham, Dr. Pelham? Vice Chair Stinger: Yes. She's organized focus groups with different segments. The first was with the professionals who would be dealing with senior populations, healthcare providers, gerontologists, La Comida, Channing House. Made a good session on addressing the types of issues that they saw in the senior population, is there any unmet needs. She's continuing now with at least one other group of seniors. Ms. van der Zwaag: Yes, tomorrow. I just came to my realization that they organized it. Were you included on that email? Vice Chair Stinger: I saw that they had done it. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 46 of 47 Ms. van der Zwaag: No, it's tomorrow. Ms. van der Zwaag: That happened when I got back from vacation, which is all absolutely wonderful. As you were talking, I said, "I wonder if they included you and Jill on that email." I can forward it to you, tomorrow's users. Vice Chair Stinger: The way they described it, it was like another focus group. Ms. van der Zwaag: Yes. I think they're looking into—since you participated in the one, I'll go as an observer. Vice Chair Stinger: The work is continuing. I'm very enthused to see what she comes up with. Chair Stone: Thank you. Anything else? 2. Council Liaison Report Chair Stone: Our Council liaison is not here. 3. Staff Liaison Report Chair Stone: Our staff liaison report. Anything? Ms. van der Zwaag: No. VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR NEXT SPECIAL MEETING: September 8, 2016 1. Review of Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Chair Stone: Our tentative agenda for our next meeting, which will be on September 8, is a review of the Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report for the Community Development Block Grant, CDBG. Anyone want to suggest anything for the agenda? Ms. van der Zwaag: The Mission. Chair Stone: The Mission Statement, we can come back to that. Ms. van der Zwaag: We'll probably want to do a recap of the retreat somehow or any last minute instructions before the Study Session. We have our mental health learning series. I'll have to work on a speaker for that. We've had seniors. We've had homeless. Chair Stone: For the Mission Statement recap, we can make it short. I wouldn't want to vote on it with so many people missing. Ms. van der Zwaag: You want to hold the conversation then until October? ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 47 of 47 Chair Stone: Maybe we should just hold that, because that's something the entire Commission should weigh in on. Ms. van der Zwaag: I hear you. Hold 'til October. VII. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 12:40 p.m.