HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-06-04 Human Relations Commission Action MinutesADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to
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HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Community Meeting Room
Palo Alto Civic Center
250 Hamilton Avenue
7:00 PM
REGULAR MEETING
ROLL CALL:
Commissioners Present: Kralik, Lee, O’Nan, Smith, Chair Stinger, Xue
Absent: Brahmbhatt
Council Liaison: Council Member Wolbach
Staff: Minka van der Zwaag, Mary Constantino
I. ROLL CALL
Chair Stinger: Good evening, welcome to the June HRC meeting. We’ll begin with a roll call,
please. Thank you, Mary. This is the… just for our new Commissioners, this is the standard
format that we use.
II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS
Chair Stinger: We go through roll call and then any request for agenda changes; deletions. Are
there any changes?
Vice Chair O’Nan: No because Philippe made it.
Ms. Minka van de Zwagg, Human Services Manager: There are no changes on Staff’s part.
Chair Stinger: Thank you.
III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
Chair Stinger: Then we open it up to oral communications from the public and we have none.
That would be an opportunity for somebody to address us on something that is not on the agenda.
IV. BUSINESS
1. Welcome to new the Human Relations Commission Members.
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Chair Stinger: We have no communication cards so we’ll roll through that and go to the business
section of your agenda and the first part is greetings. I feel like the first day of school, I’m so
excited. New things are always exciting and this is… half of our Commission is new so we have
a lot to be thankful for. I appreciate each of you stepping up and I’d like to give you a chance to
just introduce yourself; maybe some experience you bring and hopes you bring.
Commissioner Kralik: I’m a welder from Cleveland, Ohio and I grew up in a big family. I think
that’s part of my upbringing is to treat people fairly in life and I’ve carried that forward with me
throughout my career. I’ve been working as a mediator as a Court Hearing Officer in the mental
health field and I’ve been doing that with the county, Santa Clara, and also the Superior Court of
California. I’m happy to be here and happy to contribute anything I can to the Human Relations
Commission in Palo Alto. I have two young children, 10 and 7, and I’m anxious to give a good
example and participate in my home community. Thank you for inviting me to be part of the
Commission.
Chair Stinger: Thank you.
Vice Chair O’Nan: I just want to say that I’m from Cincinnati, Ohio so I’m super excited to have
a fellow Buckeye on our Commission.
Commissioner Xue: My name is Qifeng Xue, I grew up in China so as you guys can hear from
my accent I have a very strong accent. As I said in my interview I was raised in a very, very
small village so the population is about 400 people. I’m very proud to be here like I mentioned
during the interview, this is a technical center. I am very proud to be part of it. The reason why I
moved to Palo Alto because of school. I have two kids, one now in college and one’s in high
school.
Vice Chair O’Nan: Make sure you’re speaking into the microphone.
Commissioner Xue: Oh, sorry. You know hopefully by joining this Committee I can share of the
experience dealing with the young people. Hopefully, we can share what you can learn… how to
help them out. I have been working over 30-years with the biotech industry so what I can bring
here may be, from the technical side, is analytical. So, analytical that’s what I’ve been doing to
support the drug industry and the development. Thank you.
Vice Chair O’Nan: That’s wonderful.
Commissioner Xue: Thank you.
Chair Stinger: Commissioner Smith.
Commissioner Smith: My name is Kaloma Smith, I am a recent transplant from New York. I
moved here 5-years ago to pastor the oldest African American Church in our community, the
University AME Zion Church. I have been blessed to work with this committee on several
initiatives over the past 3-years and because of that work, I felt like this was worth the time
investing in because it is truly at the spear tip point of the issues the community needs to discuss
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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
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so thank you.
Chair Stinger: I’m ready for a great ride. We’re going to have a great year, great 3-years.
2. Human Services Resource Allocation Process HSRAP Listening Forum.
Chair Stinger: We’ll move on to our HSRAP learning forum. Again for the new Commissioners,
we have in the past done different learning series on different topics that help us stay in touch
with the community or help us research something or become more familiar with a topic we’re
interested in. The series that we’re looking at right now is to talk to our HSRAP grantees,
particularly about new initiatives that they are taking on.
Vice Chair O’Nan: Can you describe HSRAP a little bit for the newcomers?
Chair Stinger: Fair enough, I think we should. It’s the Human Services Resource Allocation
process that we go through rigorously every 2-years and review in the mid-cycle. The purpose of
it is to distribute city funding for nonprofit agencies. We have a list of objectives that you’ll see
and we try to work towards those goals and distribute funding as broadly as we can. It’s one the
most exciting and most frustrating processes that we go through. It’s one of the things that we
put a lot of due diligence into and have a responsibility to the Council to do it as well as we can.
One of the city’s grantees has been Adolescent Counseling Services, particularly the Outlet
Program and we’ve invited Dr. Rey to speak to us today.
Dr. Philippe Rey: Well thank you all for having me and first of all I’d like to thank the HRC for
over 30-years of support of Adolescent Counseling Services and for all of you who might be new
and don’t know I’ll give you a little bit of history. This group actually founded Adolescent
Counseling Services back in 1975 so the organization stemmed out of the HRC and the City
Council. Basically, what happened at the time back in the 1970’s is there was a lot going on with
teens and there where no resources in Palo Alto. Then the big moment that happened is that the
son of the Mayor committed suicide so the HRC and City Council decided to start a non-profit
organization. I think we were known as Palo Alto Adolescent Child Consortium back then and
then we changed our name. So, the reason why ACS is here is because of you and your
predecessors so thank you so much for years of support. Currently the City of Palo Alto through
HSRAP is helping us fund our work with the both high schools here so Paly and Gunn. We
provide support services to the LGBTQ youth of those high schools and I’ll share a little bit
more of those with you later. Plus, what we plan on doing in the future with our brand new
strategic plan that was voted by our Board last month. Just to give you a little bit of background
it’s always nice to not be the only one with an accent here so not to be the only foreigner and the
one that sounds different. So welcome and I’m glad to be part of a bigger tribe. In terms of
Adolescent Counseling Services, to give you an overview of whom the agency is and then we
talk more about the specifics. I’m celebrating 20-years of services with the organization and
basically there have been many, many offers but I was only able to say yes to one which is ACS.
The reason why I love Adolescent Counseling Services so much is because it’s the only
organization of it’s kind on the peninsula that only focuses on adolescent and young adults. Our
age range is between 10 to 25. We use to be 12 to 18 and then we’ve realized working with our
community and population that the transitional age youth is so important. That to drop somebody
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at the age of 18 from all resources and transfer them and refer them out to another organization
can be detrimental so we decided to extend our age from 10 to 25. I know all of you may go back
in a place in history and remember your adolescents which was suppose to be a time of fun and
carefree and just being crazy but I know that it’s not the case. All you can absolutely easily back
in your memory go to a place where it wasn’t that fun. It was a struggle to be a teen so I’d like to
invite you do back there and it’s getting worse for teens. I mean especially in Silicon Valley
because of the academic pressure, that pressure to succeed, the wealth, the divider and all that. In
my case just to give you a little bit of history and some of you have heard that before but I grew
up, again far away from here in French-speaking Switzerland. When I was young boy my sister
started developing a substantive abuse problem and basically, I watched my family being
destroyed not by my sister’s substance abuse. It was destroyed because of the silence, the denial,
the stigma, the fear of talking about it. So, I watched basically my parents deal with it in silence.
I know there was a lot of self-blame, there was a lot of blaming each other, a lot of anger, a lot
uncertainty but this idea that we were the perfect family and to go out and even talk about would
just shatter that image so that’s what destroyed our family. So, growing up we had this code of
silence in my home so at age 12 when I started questioning my sexuality I knew that home was
not the place where I could say hey mom, dad, I think I’m gay at the dinner table. So basically,
what ended up happening is I stuffed all those feelings, I denied myself my own development,
my own identity and became isolated; very lonely; depressed; thought about suicide many times.
Thus, if you take all my history, my upbringing and all that this is the reason I dedicated my
entire life to Adolescent Counseling Services and plan to do even more because it’s an amazing
organization and I love leading it. The ultimate goal is I don’t want any youth to… in the
communities that we serve to go through what I went through because I don’t think there’s
nothing worse than not knowing who to talk to; not having any resources. So that’s what we
provide as an organization and I’ve been providing since 1975. To give you an idea of who we
are and what we do as an organization so we have four programs. We have Adolescent
Substance Abuse treatment program which is the only, what we call, IOP program and by IOP
we mean intensive outpatient program. That means for substantive abuse treatment is the last
stage before hospitalization. So, the kids and the families are with us four to five evenings a
week in our offices so that’s one of the programs. We offer a program down here in Palo Alto.
We have offices on Grant Avenue as well as in Redwood City is our headquarters. Then we
have, what we call our school services, on-campus counseling program. Right now, we are at
four sights so we provide services mostly in San Mateo County so we’re in East Palo Alto,
Woodside High School, La Entrada Middle School as well as Sienna Youth Center in Redwood
City. Those programs or services are free to the kids, they can just come to us and walk into our
offices. We have licensed people as well as intern’s postdoc and postmasters working for us.
Then we have our general counseling office that we call the Community Counseling programs.
Those offices are in Mountain View, Palo Alto as well again on Grant Avenue, Redwood City,
East Palo Alto, Woodside and also in San Mateo. That’s what you except a clinic to be…
outpatient clinic so kids and family members can come to us and we have offices. We offer a
sliding scale so we go as low as $5 a session but we’ve gone even lower; 50 cents if that’s what
the kids can afford. Our last program which has been in existence since 1995, not with us but we
acquired the Outlet Program about 4-years ago and that’s the program that provides support to
the LGBTQ youth in both San Mateo and Santa Clara County. What’s changed since we added
the program is it use to be only a support program where we would have support groups and all
that. Then we realized that a lot of the youth coming to us were also dealing with drugs use and
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Page 5 of 24
alcohol and depression and anxiety. So, we decided to turn our Outlet Program into a clinical
program to where we actually have professionals in the field of psychotherapy that can address
specific issues that the community deals with so that’s something that’s new. So, it’s not only
just support programs, it’s a clinical program. Just to give you an idea at both Paly and Gunn for
this fiscal year we saw 679 youth that were asking for services. Go ahead.
Commissioner Smith: Earlier you said you had a strategic plan but you never went back to that.
Dr. Rey: I’m going to it. Yes, so with the HSRAP contract right now we served this fiscal year
starting in July 679 individuals from Palo Alto at both of those high schools. Part of what we do
too with the Outlet Program is educate the communities that we serve so both counties. It’s really
important that the more people know the more comfortable they are with the LGBTQ
experience. So, we go through all school districts that will invite us. We go to corporations, we
go to city councils, we go to anywhere; governments. We reach over 6,000 individual each year
and we have quite a curriculum and a specific program to train, basically our goal is to make our
communities safer for our LGBTQ youth and basically safer for every youth. What’s always
amazing and this goes to our strategic plan is in the Bay Area and Palo Alto, anywhere here
because of everything that’s going with the community we think that this is a really safe
community. That it’s very modern and supportive but it is not. So, from all the teens and this is
just local research as well as what we hear from our youth, locally 61 percent of LGBTQ
identifying youth report feelings unsafe at school. All of you have heard reports of bullying,
there were even fights and kids being harassed and assaulted in bathrooms at Gunn High School.
I think that was the last time it happened and this is compared to other peers. This is the thing
that is really sad and we see a lot of that is that 40 percent of LGBTQ youth live in a hostile
home environment. We still see kids here, from Palo Alto, who are being kicked out of their
homes because they come out to their parents and this is not just transgender, it’s the entire
LGBTQ experience. So, this is still happening so as you know there is a huge need to support the
experience of our LGBTQ youth. If you go back I’ll just give you an example of when we had
the suicide cluster at Gunn, the CDC did research and then a report was generated. Part of the
report, one of the pillars, was sexual and gender identity was part of what could be possibly
causing some of the distress. As you know LGBTQ youth have four to five times or are four to
five times more likely to choose suicide as an option than straight-identified kids. In terms of our
strategic plan I said we were created in Palo Alto, we love this community, we’ve been providing
services here so we want to have a larger presence here. So, one pillar of our strategic plan is
starting in August of this year we are opening what we call the Adolescent Counseling Services
Institute for Psychotherapy and Training. Basically, that’s a brand-new project because we
realized that we have nitch programs. So, the Substantive Abuse Programs no one else does what
we do in terms of the psychotherapy of that, the support of that. Then the Outlet Program doing
the clinical work, no one else does that so we decided to become the leader in training future
psychotherapists as well as current providers in how to support, how to treat, how to be with the
LGBTQ communities. So, we’ll be training up to 25 interns starting in August and will become
the leader professional in working with the LGBTQ youth. Especially with the transgender
there’s nothing out there yet. A lot of people don’t really know what to do with the experience so
we have been able to gather some professionals who have done research that will be part of our
clinical supervisor teachers. The other aspect that will be really important for us because we’ve
been doing family therapy for many years because that’s a part of who we are, is to also support
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Page 6 of 24
the families of the LGTBQ youth as they are exploring and developing into the beings that they
want to be. Again, no one does that out there so that’s one aspect where we would like to get
more involved with the community. The other part is because we want to have a bigger presence
with Palo Alto, especially with the LGBTQ youth, we have five counseling offices. Our goal
with the next HSRAP cycle would be to request from the City of Palo Alto to be able to man that
office with a full-time expert in supporting the LGBTQ youth experience and the families. So
that individual would not only be doing clinical work with the youth and the families coming in
but that individual would also be a liaison with the school, with City Council, with the
government, with the press in terms of being the leader in what is going on in research and
distributing all this. So again, the goal is to make the Palo Alto community safer for our LGBTQ
youth and family members as well as any other families. So that’s some of the ideas that are
coming but again our goal is to increase our presence here because we know they are here. I
mean the kids are here so just to have a bigger outlet and a bigger place for them to be able to
find resources and specifically with the clinical work. I mean there are some places where they
can get the social aspect but we know that it’s not enough. There needs to be a clinical aspect,
especially when they are dealing with substance abuse issues or depression anxiety so ACS
would like to be there for those youth.
Chair Stinger: Thank you.
Dr. Rey: You’re welcome.
Chair Stinger: The history is exciting and going forward the initiatives are dramatically exciting.
I’d like to open the floor up to comments and questions from the Commissioners. Kralik?
Commissioner Kralik: Sure, I just want to say thank you very much for sharing your personal
story. I think that always helps to understand the motivation behind your work and thank you for
your 20-years of service on the front lines. I wondered if you interact with hospitals? El Camino,
Stanford, some of the other local hospitals and counseling youth that may be hospitalized for
issues related to mental health. How are you able to serve as an outpatient provider for them?
Dr. Rey: Oh absolutely, one key that has been the key of success of Adolescent Counseling
Services has always been our collaboration. So, for example, we work really close with
Children’s Health Council because they have an IOP but for the mental wellness aspect so when
we have kids who no longer benefit from the quality of therapy that we provide and they need
more than we would refer them to work with CHC. With Stanford, of course, you’ve all heard
about the Head Space Project so that is something that we are, with Dr. Adelstein, they’ve
approached us, we’ve been really interested and once the whole project comes to fruition, to be
the provider in terms of the Sustenance Abuse Treatment program for the youth as well as the
LGBTQ…
Ms. van de Zwagg: They may not all know about Head Space.
Dr. Rey: Oh, so…
Commissioner Kralik: I have it on my phone.
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Page 7 of 24
Dr. Rey: Yes, let me try to bring it all in because it’s a huge story. It’s really exciting actually so
it stemmed about 2… 3-years ago and again it’s out of a tragedy. There was a young girl who
committed suicide by jumping over 280, the overpass. The parents, the mother especially get
so… with grief, she came back and said we need to do something. This was at the same time the
clusters were happening at Gunn so she traveled to Australia and discussed that the Australian
government provides what is known as Head Space and Head Space are centers that are free to
any youth and they can get their physical health, emotional health, there are social groups, I
mean it’s a hub for youth regardless of what’s going on. So, they thought this was the coolest
thing. They came back, they started talking to people in the community, I got involved with the
conversation and then Dr. Adelstein who is a psychiatrist and a researcher at Stanford got really
excited about it and approached a lot of community members and said we need to open that up in
Santa Clara County. Basically, that was the beginning of the conversation and now we’re close
to almost opening it up. The Head Space… we’re going to change the name so that we’re not
competing with the project in Australia but the County of Santa Clara has pumped a lot of funds
in. So, the idea is to open up in the northern part of Santa Clara County as well as in the southern
part and they are looking for real estate. As I said, ACS and other community-based
organizations would do some of the providing services there. So, we’re really excited about
that… doing that so the other relationship in both counties we have to do that. Again, the
ultimate goal is what we call the warm handoff which means less trauma, less stress for a kid that
needs to be handed off to another provider. We’re trying to do that really gently and
professionally.
Commissioner Kralik: Thanks.
Commissioner Smith: Dr. Rey thank you so much for the phenomenal work that you’re doing in
the community. The one thing that I’m struggling with a little bit is you deal with marginalized
populations which 100 percent need to be dealt with but according to research by Cigna Gen-Z
which is 18 to 22 is the loneliest generation currently recorded. How are we getting the
information of your great services to that larger group? I didn’t hear that in the plan and it seems
like that would be super beneficial in this space to get that general population also engaged in
this. I know from my own personal counseling experience at the Church with people there is the
solid majority, about 60 percent of people that at some point deal with these issues. How do we
get these kids engaged with you? Where is that in the plan?
Dr. Rey: You know actually what’s been amazing and we’ve seen that trend change over the
years and that particular population what they’re doing that’s out of this world, keeps me up at
night with excitement, is the first time that we actually see word of mouth amongst kids. Where
we have kids actually contacting us or bringing their friends to us and saying you know she
doesn’t want to be here but I think you need to talk to her. Then the other thing too is that there
are, I wouldn’t say the lack of… I’m trying to find a word that’s not going to be a crazy word.
There’s something with that generation where they are no longer… the shame and the stigma is a
little different at all levels, from sexual and gender fluidity to how they feel, that they are now
engaging their parents to also make that step. So, we’re seeing a decrease a little bit in the denial
and a decrease in the stigma. I also think that we as a community, especially since the last two
clusters, have done amazing at educating and making people aware of services. I don’t think that
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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
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Page 8 of 24
was the case when I first started 20-years ago. Again, I started with a cluster at Paly 20-years and
it was completely different. It was a shutdown of the community, no talking, let’s not talk about
suicide and I think this community has done amazing to allow kids the freedom to approach… to
know of services. I would say the best… our best marketers are the teens themselves.
Vice Chair O’Nan: Philippe, I was wondering you gave us some very distributing statistics about
kids feeling unsafe and growing up in hostile home environments. Can you tell us a little more
about how those statistics were derived?
Dr. Rey: These are directly from the Healthy Kids survey for both San Mateo and Santa Clara
County and then they reflect what we hear from our kids, from our youth. As I said the homeless
population right now, especially with the LGBTQ identified kids is humungous and we’re
getting a lot of youth coming down from San Francisco because they’re limited resources as
well. We see them even locally so local communities.
Chair Stinger: I also want to thank you for taking the time and presenting such rich material. I
also wanted to follow up on the statistics that you shared with us. You know I think we’ve talked
about this, that we’re doing an assessment of the LGBTQ plus youth and families and adults in
our community. I wondered if we could work with you to break out Palo Alto specifically.
Dr. Rey: Absolutely.
Chair Stinger: That would be really helpful.
Dr. Rey: Actually, I could work with our clinical director as well as our grant writer and just
break those down because we have quite amazing data just locally, countywide as well as state
that we always utilize. Even for the HSRAP, for those of you who haven’t gone through an
HSRAP application process… well, you should because it might change your view on what you
make us do. I’m not complaining but I thought I’d only write one doctoral dissertation in my life
but I’m writing one every other year for HSRAP.
Ms. van de Zwagg: It’s less than most federal grants.
Dr. Rey: Yes, yes, yes and it’s gotten better thanks to Minka and her staff but we could maybe
share some of the data and the reason behind what we provide with the other services with all of
you too. We draw from local and from the county and state data.
Chair Stinger: I’d really appreciate that, thank you. I also wanted to ask if you could follow up
on the comment that there is adequate access to social facilities, socialization.
Dr. Rey: The LGBTQ experience has initiated responses from providers. It’s a community that I
believe that’s becoming more vocal and a lot of organizations and counties are starting to react.
So, for example in San Mateo County for the first time in history, they realized that there was a
need so they opened up the Pride Center in San Mateo. We’re apart of that, we’re providing the
youth services. Then now Santa Clara County has the LGBTQ Affairs that just started maybe a
year ago with Mary Bell and Anthony Ross who was one of my Staff, still a friend. So, there are
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Page 9 of 24
responses and then other organizations are opening up some of their offices for social after
school… all the schools have what we call the GSAs depending on where you or the Gay-
Straight Alliances. So, there is that social aspect that’s happening where somebody may feel safe
to go to a place and it’s being offered. Where we are the leader and starting a brand new
movement is the clinical aspect. It’s not there yet so ACS is the first one that’s actually tackling
into doing research, looking at supporting the clinical growth of the LGBTQ youth issues.
Especially when it comes to combining with substance abuse, depression, suicidality, and all that
but so we have our offices down here but then the Family and Children Services also has the
Youth Center. It’s a safe space for them to go. They have one here in Palo Alto as well as in San
Jose so we work with them again and combine our services. So, if they have a child who is
identified as needing more clinical services then they will refer to us for the work.
Commissioner Lee: I just wanted to thank you, Dr. Rey, for everything that you and ACS is
doing for all LGBTQ youth in this community. The Commission is having its retreat this coming
Saturday and so I would be very interested in your unique perspective as to what are some of the
unmet needs in the Palo Alto community? How can the City and how can the Commission better
support LGBTQ youth in Palo Alto in addition to supporting ACS and everything ACS is doing?
What are ways that the City can fill in the gaps, things that ACS maybe doesn’t have the
bandwidth or expertise to do? What can we be doing either jointly with the school district or
independent of the school district to fill in those unmet needs?
Dr. Rey: Well I’m basing my response from experience and what I hear from the youth and what
I’ve observed. This is part of our mission now is breaking this stigma. I think you’ve heard my
story talking about my sister and my family and all of that. I know that all of us are directly or
indirectly affected by mental wellness and substance use and all of that. I think as a community
we need to break this stigma. I think the more of us that come out, the more of that can share a
story… I mean I think if we could have a campaign of successful people or not even successful
just the fact that we’re all sharing the human pain of growing up in families or having family
members or having friends that are dealing with it. This idea of perfection, of wealth, of success I
think is killing some of our kids here. So, what I would recommend is as a city if one day there
could be this huge… I’ll call it coming out or share stories of who we are and that it’s totally ok.
I mean it’s totally ok to suffer from depression. You… somebody will hear you and say oh, they
made it. That’s my new topic answer but like I said sometimes I feel special in this community,
we’re so guarded in terms of I’m perfect, I have no problem, my car is shiny and everything is
fine and it’s not.
Commissioner Lee: Appreciate it, thank you very much.
Commissioner Smith: Have you seen a more heightened sensitivity around mental health given
the current environment with Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain effecting the parents’
generation of kids now? Have you seen more cases coming in because of that?
Dr. Rey: Not really sadly again because I think that it’s so easy to differentiate yourself from
those cases because well, they were adults or they had everything and not my child’s syndrome,
not our family’s syndrome. So, we thought we would see more but what we’re hearing is a bit
more of a conversation so we will have parents calling us and what do I do with this
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Page 10 of 24
conversation? My kids are asking questions but we haven’t seen any increase in referrals or
phone calls for direct services.
Vice Chair O’Nan: Philippe I wanted to ask that in Palo Alto the demographics of our
community have shifted over the last maybe 10-15 years and sometimes we’re hearing that kids
who come from more traditional homes or whose parents may behave immigrated from another
country are having a difficult experience. Especially in the context of coming out as LGBTQ so
does your program Outlet deal with that situation? Do you have any suggestions, ideas, or input
for us as a Commission on how we can reach out to various communities within Palo Alto to
help educate and inform them?
Dr. Rey: That’s a great question. So, as you may know for any youth and individuals to open up
and feel safe, having a person that looks like you, that sounds like you and has gone through
similar experiences is really important. Where we in the world of a non-profit I think suffer with
that is we try to recruit individuals from the communities that we serve. So, then it reflects the
community that we support yet the funding source especially specialized sub community group
of professionals is something that we cannot afford. So again, it’s something that I think is really
important for communities such as Palo Alto that does diverse to know that investing in the
community-based organizations in terms increasing the funding, especially when they are
dealing with specialized communities, is really important. Just to give you an example, we can
get a post-doctorate intern that’s still going through their hours for a stipend of $3,000 a year.
They’ll do it. Why dude. We’re going to a special community; it’s close to $40,000 to $50,000
because that’s what the county will pay. So those individuals are actually wanting a paid
position.
Commissioner Smith: When you say specialized communities are you talking about ethnicity?
Dr. Rey: Ethnicity, yes, ethnicity or LGBTQ. Any type of community that doesn’t fit the
mainstream.
Commissioner Smith: Is it possible that if you have some money that’s 1.5 Gen from a different
ethnicity could they make the same connecting points, especially if you deal with ethnic groups?
Dr. Rey: I don’t know.
Commissioner Smith: Ok.
Dr. Rey: Yes it seems like kids are responding better to somebody who’s with their history that
looks like them sounds like them, and they have the same history. Especially with the LGBTQ.
Go ahead.
Commissioner Smith: We’ve said LGBTQ a lot in this meeting. Can you define the percentages
in Palo Alto a little bit more clearly for me because I don’t know? So, we’ve said it as a
Commission in here a lot and I just wanted to know what is the percentage?
Dr. Rey: Well, I’ll use the number of the kids that have used us so I’ll say 700 youth have come
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Page 11 of 24
to us with a question about. They may or may not identify as transgender and all that so if you
take the population of both Paly and Gunn which would be about 4,000 totals then that would
be… I would say that’s the tip of the iceberg of the community. They say that nationwide it’s
about maybe 15 to 20 percent. The transgender experience is now… we’re seeing more and more
so it’s as their feeling freer to come out. So that’s a significant amount, it’s 10 to 15 I would say
percent.
Commissioner Smith: You made a correlation earlier in your comments about they are more
likely to commit suicide because of the issues. Have we made any correlation with our clusters
and that being a factor?
Dr. Rey: Yes, it was one of the pillars that was identified. One was the Asian American
experience background, one was the substance abuse and then the LGBTQ was one of the pillars
that came out.
Commissioner Smith: What percentage of our population is Asian American?
Dr. Rey: In the community?
Commissioner Smith: Yes.
Ms. van de Zwagg: I think it’s…
Commissioner Smith: Yes as far as kids in the school.
Ms. van de Zwagg: Oh, in the schools.
Commissioner Smith: Yes.
Ms. van de Zwagg: I know as a community it’s like 34 or 35 percent. I don’t have it on hand at
the high schools.
Dr. Rey: It depends on which schools.
Ms. van de Zwagg: It depends on which school. I think Gunn has a higher Asian population than
Paly…
Dr. Rey: Yes,
Ms. van de Zwagg: …but we can look that up for you and get that to you.
Commissioner Smith: So as a strategic plan for ACS wouldn’t it be behooving to also spend
some time looking at what it’s like to be a first Gen or 1.5 Gen Asian in this time and space as
one of the things we should look at.
Dr. Rey: Oh, absolutely and we are and I’m sorry I didn’t mention that but our goal is to increase
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Page 12 of 24
our diversity and reflect the population that we serve which is something that we already do. So,
just to give you an example so when we use to provide services at Gunn High School our entire
team of clinicians there were Asian American and bilingual; Cantonese and Mandarin.
Commissioner Lee: One of my colleagues who was not able to be here this evening has been
particularly concerned about cyberbullying. I’m wondering if you have any thoughts as to how
that’s affecting the LGBTQ community here in Palo Alto especially since we live here in the
heart of Silicon Valley and if you had any thoughts on ways to address that?
Dr. Rey: Amazingly enough it's not something that comes up with that particular community.
We hear more of them feeling threatened physically on school campuses as well as on the streets.
It hasn’t come up as a major point for us.
Commissioner Lee: Thank you.
Chair Stinger: I want to… I’m sorry, please go ahead.
Commissioner Xue: Thank you very much definitely for sharing your personal experience and
also your dedicated support to our community. That’s really wonderful. So, when I heard that the
Asian American population, you think about that they have a higher percentage chance to
commit suicide, I’ve run into a few situations, however, how can we deal with that and I have
been puzzled. My question is you said you set up the office at Gunn or Paly how can we gain
their trust? You know the students have confidence and talks to us? We knew we had a gap
generation so earlier you mentioned Generation 1 or 1.5 so how can we basically attract those
kids to come to us, talk to us and you shared something…
Dr. Rey: Yes, and I think it goes back to investing in the quality of the Staff that’s being offered
positions and hired. What we’ve realized is especially with the Asian American there are four
levels of connection. There’s the fourth generation so people who have been here, you know this
the fourth generation so they are fully Americans and we need to deal with those youth
completely different than the first generation or the families. Again, what we noticed or what
came out to us quite strongly, especially at Gunn and at… what’s the middle school that fills into
Gunn?
Ms. van de Zwagg: Terman.
Dr. Rey: Terman is again the level of trust and proficiency of those therapists. So, we basically
had therapists from all those four levels and I don’t see the resistance but the more work had to
be done with the parents and the families about educating what mental wellness is and the danger
of it and so forth.
Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes but I want to clarify for my new colleagues, ACS is no longer providing
those kinds of counseling services in the school. We have a new provider called CASSY so ACS
is providing Outlet which our Commission recommends funding allocations for through the
HSRAP process.
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Page 13 of 24
Dr. Rey: Yes.
Vice Chair O’Nan: So, some of this is historical information and some of this is current
information.
Chair Stinger: Do you want to ask one last…
Commissioner Smith: Yes.
Chair Stinger: … comment and then
Commissioner Smith: I have two comments.
Chair Stinger: Two is good.
Commissioner Smith: Ok the first comment as a 1.5 Gen the reality is that I had to teach my
parents about stuff. My mom’s a doctor, my dad’s a banker and they just didn’t grow up here so
they don’t have the cultural touchstones so as we talk about that particular Asian population
because that’s the fastest growing population in my community, in my Church. The question is
how do we equip the students that are on the trauma or depress to still be able to have the
information to go into their homes to speak with them and I think that would be a… I don’t know
a line of equipping or a line of investigation to really look at. Number two, I don’t know this is a
hot potato but I must say it anyway, where is the community of faith? No matter the faith,
whether it’s Mormon, Christian, Jewish, wherever we are, how are they not engaged with youth
on any level or is that a miss-perception on my part?
Dr. Rey: It’s… I’ll answer that question, it’s a misperception. Again, we are part of Project
Safety Net which has a people of faith component to it. Again, we will work really closely with a
congregation, church, synagogue, whoever the family is using as a support to then do education
with the congregation with the community but we use it more as a support. So, when a kid comes
in and the first question that we ask is always about faith. Where do they stand in all that and
then if we see that as a supportive environment then we will encourage the youth, the family to
reach out and to use that community as a support. Your first question, actually we are starting a
pilot project with the Foster City San Mateo School District where we are… this took about a
year plus now to put in place. We realized that what we are doing is training the teachers first to
be able to then go into the classroom and teach the kids about diversity, differences, what’s going
on, mental wellness, and then we follow it up with conversations, questionnaires, tests and then
we go up to the parents. Basically, we’ve been doing this with them, this is our third year. We
tried everything from parent education classes to just the kids and we realized that involving the
teachers in their own education, their comprehension and their standing of diversity,
immigration, gender, equality, and all this. Then they have more of an impact to have the
conversation with the kids which then take it to their parents and then we follow up with the
conversations. After this next year we’ll let you know if that’s successful because I feel like this
is what is working on our pre-post tests when we see parents actually coming back saying awe, I
totally finally get it after… yes.
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Page 14 of 24
Commissioner Smith: That’s good.
Chair Stinger: I’d like to use the prerogative of the Chair to one, close down the discussion but
first I had one last question. Thinking about the programs that you are initiating in Palo Alto as
part of your new effort strategic plan, what do you think the greatest risk is or what keeps you up
at night?
Dr. Rey: Funding.
Chair Stinger: Funding.
Dr. Rey: Yes funding is the make or break it.
Chair Stinger: I just wanted to give you a chance to say that.
Dr. Rey: Funding is… yes especially given the current pollical economic climate a lot of
organizations are saying a lot of people are clutching their purses. I mean you don’t know what
the stock market may be so people are… yes, same with foundations, corporations, forget about
it. I mean even though they are making millions of millions they are all tightening up so that’s a
fear we have. Do they know something we don’t know?
Commissioner Smith: (inaudible)
Dr. Rey: Yes.
Chair Stinger: Well thank you very much.
Dr. Rey: Well thank you.
Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes, thank you, Philippe, it’s lovely to see you.
Dr. Rey: It’s always a pleasure. See you in 2-years.
Chair Stinger: It’s always informative. We’ll see you in… I’m sure we’ll see you this summer as
we develop our process.
Vice Chair O’Nan: We do want to follow up with you on the statics Philippe.
Dr. Rey: Ok, I can find you. If I can just add something? For those of you who are interested in
knowing more and Jill and Valerie can say more, we organize what we call Discover ACS Tour.
It’s a tour of our mission and we do that every other week so I could send Minka the information.
You’re welcome to join us. You see our offices, you hear from the kids, from the parents directly
and it’s a wonderful experience.
Commissioner Smith: Do you ever come out to community organizations and talk about your
work?
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Page 15 of 24
Dr. Rey: Yes.
Commissioner Smith: We’ll be talking about it.
Chair Stinger: I’m sorry.
Vice Chair O’Nan: Oh no, I’m sorry, go ahead.
Chair Stinger: Please Council Member Wolbach.
Council Member Wolbach: Sorry I was late. A couple things, maybe staff can just do an email
sharing of the contact information so that if anybody on the Commission including the one
member who is not here today have follow up questions they would be able to get in touch. I also
as a former Gunn student who while I was at Gunn and even at JLS struggled with depression
and bullying so I really appreciate the work that you are doing, thank you.
Dr. Rey: Good, thank you. Thank you and thank you for the work that you do.
Chair Stinger: We’ll be talking to you this summer I’m sure.
Dr. Rey: Yes, yes. Bye-bye.
Vice Chair O’Nan: Bye Philippe.
3. Debrief on the AACI (Asian-Americans for Community Involvement); a
Community Watching of the film, The Chinese Exclusion Act: American
Experience.
Chair Stinger: We’ll move onto the next agenda item. A debrief on the Asian American
Community involvement community film watching. Commissioner Lee?
Commissioner Lee: Yes, so we did a watch event for the PBS documentary at the Chinese
Exclusion Act. It was the Tuesday right after Memorial Day and luckily that didn’t affect
turnout. We had somewhere between 150 and 190 people in attendance. We have 100 members
from the community and 30 people on the waitlist including I think maybe our former Mayor
was on the waitlist but we offered to let her in if she wanted to attend. Then the remained was
from Channing House itself. They typically have pretty good attendance at their events but they
had indicated that this event, in particular, drew slightly a larger crowd than usual and so I
thought it was very educational. I know generally speaking about the Chinese Exclusion Act but
there were things that I had learned from the documentary and certainly, our guest speaker gave
some insight as to how this particular immigration act continues to influence immigration policy
and what it means to be an American to this day. So that was very interesting insight and just
anecdotally I’ve seen folks just be more aware that this had happened. I’ve seen people site The
Chinese Exclusion Act in some of their letters or public comments on various issues going on in
the community. So anecdotally it seems like people are slightly more aware that this has
happened and continues to have implications today. I thought it was a pretty easy event to put on.
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Page 16 of 24
I’m glad that we were able to put it together in what, about 2-weeks’ notice? We had something
like five or six different Asian American or Chinese American community groups supporting it
and putting their stamp of approval on it. It was a great way to educate the community for very
little start-up time or startup money so hopefully, we have an opportunity to leverage resources
and groups like that in the future. Also, Vice Chair O’Nan and also outgoing Vice Chair Chen
were in attendance so that’s great.
Vice Chair O’Nan: I wanted to just piggyback on my colleague’s comments. I was fortunate
enough to be able to attend the event. I volunteered to help out but there were so many
volunteers already I ended up just getting free dinner and not having to do anything which was
awesome. I wanted to particularly share that Commissioner Lee worked very, very hard on the
event. I mean as he mentioned there were fair many more attendees than I think we had expected
so he worked very hard to ensure everything went absolutely smoothly with a handoff between
the founder of AACI who gave an introductory speech. In fact, the speaker was his daughter who
is an immigration attorney and then Commissioner Lee also spoke. Then there was the filming
and there was Q&A so everything just went really, really smoothly. The set up was lovely and
Channing House did a fantastic job of making all of us visitors feel very, very welcome. There
were refreshments and so forth so having attended many community events I can’t think of one
that was organized better. So, I think we really owe a great deal of thanks to our colleague for
ensuring that happened.
Commissioner Smith: Is there a next step because it sounds like there’s a groundswell of desire
to talk about topic particularly around this community? Is there a next step that you think the
Commission could take?
Commissioner Lee: Definitely, I think there is definitely a need to engage with the Chinese
American community. In particular, those who may be more recent additions to the community,
in particular immigrants. Just reaching out to them and helping them feel more welcome in our
community, helping them understand some of the historical context and values of this
community and how they may necessarily differ from what they are used too. So, there are
definitely things that I’ve been thinking of and others on the Commission have been thinking
about and certainly, you’ll hear more about them at the retreat. I know that the school district is
particularly interested in seeing more action to engage with that community and are looking for
opportunities to engage with the city and our Commission to work on that… on those issues.
Chair Stinger: I wanted to thank you for the work that you did and congratulate you on the
outcome. You know that I wanted to attend but couldn’t so I was curious if some of the questions
were particularly educational or if you could share what you heard?
Commissioner Lee: I think they were very technical and very specific as to how current
immigration law worked. I think that was… certainly not things that I was prepared to answer
and maybe our speaker. I don’t know, what was your impression?
Vice Chair O’Nan: Well the people that I spoke to were I think shocked for one thing. They
weren’t aware of a Chinese Exclusion Act or they weren’t aware of the extent of it that had gone
on for such a long time. I think one particularly shocking moment in the film was the fact that
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Page 17 of 24
one of the worst mass lynchings in US history was actually not African Americans, it’s was
Chinese Americans. It happened in Los Angeles, not in the south so there were a lot of things
that came out. The racism in San Francisco was shocking. Dennis Kearny for whom Kearny
Street is named in San Francisco was one of the leading politicians who tried to throw all
Chinese out of this country and tried to bar their entry. I thought a lot about our own quest to
rename our schools here and I’m wondering if we should knock on San Francisco’s door and say
hey, maybe Kearny Street needs to go. There’s just a deeper history of racism here in the Bay
Area and in other parts of California that I had never been aware of. I think it was eye-opening to
because sometimes groups are very cognizant of their own victimization and experience in terms
of slavery, the Holocaust and so forth but when you open your mind and experience something
new and see another group’s experience, I think then you can start to see these terrible patterns
that we have and the need for all of us to really stand together and fight against this kind of
endemic racism and genderism that we have here in the US. So, I found it very difficult to watch
at times but I also found it very eye-opening and I think others in the audience shared my
experience.
Chair Stinger: Commissioner O’Nan… Vice Chair, thank you for sharing that. I was looking for
a summary, something that we could get our handle on and that really helps make it more
concrete. I don’t see any other lights. I think that we’ll come back to this on Saturday because
you’ve started some activity on an issue that we care about very much and we’ll follow it
through.
4. Discussion of the Human Relations Commission Retreat
Chair Stinger: That will help me transition to a discussion of our retreat on Saturday. You’ve all
got an agenda and some very simple prep materials that are less than our email packet is for most
meetings. So, if you have any questions then I’ll be available tomorrow to answer them. We’re
doing a new process this year, we’ve worked with a consultant and she’s worked very diligently
to put together an active program. We want to spend some time on the process and a lot of time
on issues of content that we will take forward into the new year. We went to the consultant
because we wanted the retreat to be more rigorous in our outcomes and in our discussion. I think
we’ll be able to achieve that. I think you can see that from the agenda. The biggest outcome of
the retreat should be… well, I guess there are two outcomes, one is working together. Spending
6-hours together I hope we’ll come together as a working Commission… transition tonight from
a new Commission to a smoothly oiled well-functioning Commission. Also, be very objective
and rigorous in our choice of programming for the coming year. I think the prep is basically a
style exercise and some reading so I don’t think it should be too challenging. Any questions?
Vice Chair O’Nan: Chair perhaps you could let our new colleagues know where the retreat will
take place and make sure that everyone’s ordered their lunch and everything is on board.
Ms. van de Zwagg: We will not name the Commissioner that needs to still order the
Commissioner’s lunch.
Vice Chair O’Nan: Are you all familiar with the new Middlefield Community Center? Mitchell
Park Community Center?
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Page 18 of 24
Commissioner Xue: Yes, I’ve been there…
Vice Chair O’Nan: Ok.
Commissioner Xue: … for volunteering.
Vice Chair O’Nan: Ok so yes.
Commissioner Kralik: With young children, it’s the playground that I’m most familiar with.
Vice Chair O’Nan: Oh god, yes, see if you’re more of a south Palo Alto person you know these
things but if… I didn’t know if you were north people.
Commissioner Kralik: It’s a beautiful facility.
Vice Chair O’Nan: It’s beautiful and we’ve had other meetings there and it’s been lovely so…
Commissioner Kralik: It is nice.
Vice Chair O’Nan: …I think it will be… even though it’s a long meeting I think it will be
worthwhile.
Ms. van de Zwagg: There will be scones. For the new Commissioners, that’s a tradition from a
former Commissioner, beloved Commissioner…
Vice Chair O’Nan: Who passed away.
Ms. van de Zwagg: … who passed away so we do it in honor of him.
Chair Stinger: Just to be clear the meeting room is in the community center, it’s behind the
library on Middlefield.
Ms. van de Zwagg: It’s the corner room.
Chair Stinger: Right but it’s not Cubberley where we did the orientation.
Ms. van de Zwagg: It's not Cubberley and it’s not in the library, it’s in the community center.
Chair Stinger: No, it’s behind the library.
V. Reports from Officials
1. Commissioner Reports
Chair Stinger: On to reports from Commissioners. This is an opportunity to update us on
activities that have given you some new information or insights or activities that you want to
share with the rest of the Commission?
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Page 19 of 24
Commissioner Lee: So, I have an update so I served, independent on my role on the
Commission, I served on the scholarship committee for the inaugural Fred Yamamoto
scholarship. We awarded it this year to an extraordinary high school senior at Paly named
Ricardo Lonbera. We awarded him a $4,428 scholarship in recognition of the 442nd infantry
regimental combat team that Fred Yamamoto has served on. You probably read a little bit about
him in the Palo Alto Online. We’ll be doing a presentation at the next school board meeting on
Tuesday to introduce him to the school board. He has a very interesting experience at Paly which
in many ways mirrored the story of Fred Yamamoto and the more recent experience that El
(inaudible) has faced in the aftermath of the school rename debate. One of the things that he
wanted to focus on was really educating his classmates about his culture as a Latino American in
Palo Alto. That involved trying to get the school to allow I think it’s like the Day of the Dead to
honor relatives who had passed away. Part of that tradition involved putting up pictures of family
members who had passed away. Even though it was an allocable goal came up against some
interesting obstacles from folks in the administration who thought that that sort of activity might
trigger certain student behaviors in light of all the suicides that have been happing in our school
district. It was an interesting experience for him having to evaluate the feedback that he got from
people in positions of power who were saying that you couldn’t do this and he was saying it
might trigger something. So, he, after some self-reflection and questioning whether it was
something that he wanted to push on, he realized that now this was something worth doing. It
was the right thing to do so he sought out to go and educate those administrators, change their
mind on it and they were able to make it happen. So, it was in very much the same way that the
school renaming issues has brought up many different issues. It was a situation where you have
people who come from different cultures, with different viewpoints, and other members of the
community saying that in response that it maybe triggers something; that foreseeing someone to
really evaluate their own viewpoints but at the end of the day standing up and doing what is right
even in the face of administrators saying that you shouldn’t do it or in face of creating division or
controversy in the community. We thought his story and his experience really reflected the spirit
of Fred Yamamoto and it’s very timely given the issues that spawn at this scholarship fund. So,
to date, we’ve raised over $15,000 through the GoFundMe campaign so hopefully, we’ll be able
to keep the scholarship going for a couple more years at both Paly and Gunn next year. If you or
anyone you know is interested in donating still you can do that through the GoFundMe
campaign. At that same meeting, the school board is going to be discussing a resolution in
response to the school renaming debate. Part of that resolution is the school district setting up a
committee very much similar to the HRC to address those sorts of issues at the school district
level. So, if you’re interested in engaging with that I would encourage you to attend. I certainly
will be in attendance.
Chair Stinger: Did you want to say anything about the LGBTQ survey?
Vice Chair O’Nan: Oh sure. So as some of you know and my new colleagues do not, earlier this
year Palo Alto conducted what we called an LGBTQ Listening Forum. So, we invited people
from around the community to just come and tell us what the needs of the LGBTQ community
are and what things that we could potentially do to better support them. So, we a lot of
interesting feedback at the Listening Forum and we followed it up with an anonymous survey
that we posted on the city website. So, anyone who either identified as LGBTQ or who identified
as a parent of an LGBTQ adult or minor child or anyone identified as a friend or ally of the
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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
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Page 20 of 24
community or anyone identified as other could basically, everyone could take this survey. The
survey went on from I think April through June? So, we’ve just recently closed it and gotten the
results. We’re still working to sift through everything that we learned. I believe our summer
intern is going to actually be analyzing the data for us but out of those results both from the
Listening Forum and from the survey I think we’ll be coming up with some recommendations
that we, as a Commission, may want to send onto City Council to improve the city’s ability to
serve the LGBTQ community. That will be exciting as I don’t think the HRC has reached out
specifically on this issue before but in light of political changes at the national level, I think it’s
important to show that we are a safe and welcoming community for the LGBTQ individuals.
Chair Stinger: Let me… go ahead.
Commissioner Smith: Are there any early recommendations?
Vice Chair O’Nan: I think we’re not really at liberty to talk. It’s a little bit early day but we got
some great suggestions from people’s comments both at the forum and in the surveys. I would
say there’s definitely a need to do more than just tolerate LGBTQ people. I think what they’re
saying is it’s nice that you don’t beat us up and kill us as much anymore but we really want to be
proud of who we are and we don’t feel like that’s where this community is yet. I think we have a
farther way to go than we realized.
Chair Stinger: I think one of the comments we heard was that it’s great that you celebrate pride
week or pride month but we live here 12-months a year. We’d like to extend some of our
celebrations and activities beyond that last week in June. I just wanted to follow up and maybe
answer or respond to your comment. We did hear one thing which was about communication and
the Office of Human Services has funded a training program for recreation staff, is that correct?
Ms. van de Zwagg: That took place last Thursday or Friday. Staff from the Outlet came to train
on awareness, sensitivity for LGBTQ issues or youth in our camp programs. So that was on, I
think, sexual identity and gender identity. Just so that our staff was aware and to make out camps
a safe and welcoming place for all youth.
Chair Stinger: I really…
Ms. van de Zwagg: That’s in addition to other training that they get on a whole variety of issues.
Chair Stinger: I wanted to call that out because that we cared very much about and I was glad we
didn’t have to wait for the recommendations that we could have it happen for this summer’s
camp programs. Mountain View also did a program and they presented their results a couple
weeks ago. There are opportunities for Palo Alto and Mountain View to work with similar goals
and objectives. We’ll be following that through as Commissioner O’Nan commented with the
summer intern and looking for a report out in the fall. The other thing that I wanted to talk about
was Welcoming America. A program to celebrate the immigrate experience in Palo Alto and
specifically this year looking at lessons that the more traditional community has learned from the
different immigrant populations that have come into Palo Alto. It’s a program that the ‘Y’ does.
Every year they wanted to put more emphasis on it this year and we’ll be partnering with them to
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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 24
make a bigger statement about Welcoming America. Planning Committee has been established
and we’ll start meeting in a week and a half but for now, if you could just hold September 22nd
and 23rd we’ll be…
Commissioner Smith: Bless you.
Vice Chair O’Nan: Thank you.
Chair Stinger: … planning an event. Any other Commissioner reports? Please.
Commissioner Kralik: So, I have been active in the county and the Human Relations
Commission for the past couple of years and I also happen to be a long-term care Ombudsman. I
wanted to just kind of fill in a couple of more recent attendances that I have had. One was a
luncheon for the Bill Wilson Center which is geared toward youth and it’s a very interesting
luncheon because they brought up their new statistical analysis of homelessness. Something they
call Couch Surfing that results in a lot of times at high schools and at junior colleges. They came
up with a statistic, whether it’s what you might call a rich private school or a public school, that’s
fairly consistent at 17 percent of kids that are moving around. One of the areas that came up was
one that was brought up by our speaker tonight which is in the LGBTQ community where there
is this high statistics of pressure to households and sometimes those youth go out and they stay
with other people. One of the things that Bill Wilson was trying to do is to fund this research by
having counselors who could, in fact, interact with this youth. I think in order to attack a problem
like that you have to do the surveys and one step that might be done that we could bring back to
this Commission at the retreat is can our schools participate in their survey? Their counting of
youth that may be homeless for one reason or another or could be couch surfing. Whether it’s the
high schools, private schools even in our community because those folks they do need some
counseling understanding as to the problems that they're dealing with. In essence, a fairly high
percentage had to do with households dealing with the LGBTQ experience. The second one that
I attended was the Alzheimer’s Association Update and this was held in South San Francisco.
It’s a wonderful annual update that talks about solutions to this problem and while there have
been tremendous amounts of money spent on getting a solution to the problem, there isn’t one. A
lot of their focus was dealing with caregivers. Folks that really needed help because of anxiety
and depression in addition to the folks that are dealing with Alzheimer themselves. So,
caregivers are a big community that needs some support and you know a wonderful program that
they had, they had researchers from Stanford, from UCSF. While they understand the problem in
terms of its development over time they really don’t have a solution for it. One of the things that
is important to understand is that population of Alzheimer’s patients, people with Alzheimer, is
increasing really dramatically. I don’t have all the facts and figures but it is something to look
into in terms of our community and understanding not only the folks with this disease but also
the caregivers. You know as you go to some of these homes, the expense of housing an
Alzheimer patient outside of the home is extraordinary. It can be up to $10,000 per month and
many people do not have that. That’s a tremendous burden. Their savings run out fairly quickly,
understanding how to get them to care, accesses to resources that families can use to help them,
and really what’s going to happen, I think in the course of the geneses of this disease, is there’s
going to be a need to embrace that community; not to take it and move it away from our active
community. Whether that’s churched based or other ways we’re going to have to interact with
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
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Page 22 of 24
folks.
Chair Stinger: Yes, I’m going to ask you to and asked each of the Commissioners to think about
communities that you want to serve and bring those ideas to the retreat on Saturday. So, we can
set our objectives and particular projects for the coming year.
2. Council Liaison Report
Chair Stinger: Any Council Liaison? Any update for us?
Council Member Wolbach: First I’m sorry I was late to the start of the meeting but I want to
welcome three new members to the Human Relations Commission. I’m really glad to see new
faces and enthusiastic participants. I’m looking forward to what this Commission is going to be
produced, facilitate, and recommend to Council over the course of the next year. A couple things
I wanted to mention, first this Sunday, Father’s Day, as every year I just wanted to remind you is
World Music Day. It will be right here on University Avenue and it was founded by the Human
Relations Commission so I hope that any of you who are available for part of the day even on
Sunday will come. I don’t remember the hours off the top of my head but it’s basically through
at least the middle of the day. Also, I can’t remember if I was here since the LGBTQ Listening
Forum but since it was mentioned and we were having a discussion earlier as well, I just wanted
to emphasize how much I appreciated being able to attend and listen at that LGBTQ Listening
Forum which was co-hosted with the county. I look forward to hearing the results of the survey,
combined with the comments that we heard at that event, and how the Human Relations
Commission and staff in partnership with the county can move forward that conversation. I’m
really looking forward to what kind of recommendations this Commission will be making to the
Council to make sure that we are a safe and welcoming community for people who are LGBTQ
as part of that ongoing mission of this Commission and the ongoing component of what we’re
trying to do on Council. Rooted in and reinforced in that 2016 Resolution that established…
reinforced our values about being a diverse, welcoming, supportive, and protective community.
Relating to that last point, I’ll make on behalf of an overloaded City Council and staff I
apologize that CEDAW, the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination
Against Women, which was recommended by this Commission earlier this year has not yet come
to Council. It is not because we are not interested, it is because we are very overbooked. We had
two Council meetings this week and two next week but staff knows several of us on the Council
are eager to see it. We will be taking that up in August. I do appreciate the work by this
Commission to come up with that recommendation and others and hopefully more to come
because it really is just an ongoing effort by this Commission and by this city as a whole to
maintain our inclusiveness and diversity and protection of everybody despite any differences.
Thank you.
Chair Stinger: Thank you, Council Member Wolbach and I appreciate your comments. We are
anxious to bring our recommendations to you and we look forward to doing that in August.
3. Staff Liaison Report
Chair Stinger: Staff liaison?
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access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with
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Page 23 of 24
Ms. van de Zwagg: I have a couple of things. One thing that we weren’t able to have due to our
overloaded staff from the end of the year is Molly Stump, our City Attorney, was going to come
tonight to talk about roles, responsibility, jurisdiction, and how to work successfully with the
Council. She will be coming in July so that is something to look forward too. Since
Commissioner Kralik mentioned the Alzheimer event, I wanted to report on a successful project
from the Age-Friendly Committee which Chair Stinger is a part of, along with myself and
representatives from the ‘Y’, the Oshman Family JCC, Avenidas, and so forth. We had what we
called an age-friendly awareness training for our frontline staff at city facilities, the JCC, the ‘Y’
and anybody from our grantee agencies. We had close to 70 staff members come, it was an
amazing training from someone from the Alzheimer Association, and really well received from
staff. It was taped so we’re able to send that out to staff who weren’t able to attend or just to use
in other settings as well. We hope to continue to work on aging awareness and creating a more
age-friendly community with that committee. We did have an event from the Alzheimer
Association that was another well-attended event with over 100 people and then I know
Avenidas sometime in the early fall with the support of the city will be doing a caregiver
conference. So, I know caring for family members with Alzheimer will definitely be part of that
so there’s a lot of good things happening in that realm as well.
VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR NEXT REGULAR MEETING: Thursday, July 12,
2018.
Chair Stinger: At this point, we’d like to make recommendations for the July agenda.
Ms. van de Zwagg: We have two items, we have Molly Stump and we have Kate Young from
Palo Alto Housing coming to speak about new innovations in their program as part of our
listening series so those are the two items. Mary, did you have anything else that you could
remember?
Chair Stinger: I’d like to suggest that we’ll do a Phase 2 of the retreat. We should, at the retreat,
look at programs that we want to carry forward, we’ll get priorities for new programs, and I’ll
ask each of the Commissioners to think about new programs they want to recommend. We’ll also
look at our core responsibilities and divide up liaison ships across the Commission. We’ll report
that in July.
Vice Chair O’Nan: So, are we not doing that at the Saturday retreat?
Ms. van de Zwagg: Yes, we are.
Vice Chair O’Nan: Oh ok.
Ms. van de Zwagg: I think… well no go-ahead Chair, I’m sorry.
Chair Stinger: We thought this year that we would ask people which liaison ships they wanted to
take and distribute them offline.
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
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Page 24 of 24
Vice Chair O’Nan: Oh ok.
Chair Stinger: There was something else that I wanted to say about that. Oh, so if you accept a
Committee assignment at the retreat then come back in July with an outline of a work plan so we
can start actively pursuing our goals for the year. So, we have three items.
Vice Chair O’Nan: I wonder should we ask our summer intern to attend and sort of give us an
update on what he or she is working on?
Ms. van de Zwagg: We could. They will just be on board for 2 to 3-weeks but they could come
to be introduced.
Chair Stinger: Thank you. Ok with that meeting is adjourned.
VII. ADJOURNMENT
Meeting adjourned at 8:26 p.m.