The Alameda County Reparations Commission held a regular meeting on February 17, 2026. The meeting initially lacked a quorum but later achieved it after additional commissioners arrived. Key topics included the unauthorized removal of a historic tree in Russell City, updates on community pop-up sessions, and a proposed timeline for completing the action plan report to the Board of Supervisors by June 23, 2026.
Russell City Tree Removal (Item 5):
Pop-Up Session Updates and Cutoff (Action Item):
Website Update (Commissioner Barry):
Budget Update (Larry & Aaron):
Retreat Planning (January 31, 2026):
So wait for a minute here. Okay, good evening, happy new year. Welcome to the uh Alameda County Reparations Commission meeting. We'll jump right into the agenda here. We have the uh health order and roll call. Commissioner Commissioner Bazil. Commissioner Barry excused. Commissioner Burleson, excused, Commissioner Jones excused. Commissioner. I'm here. Alan's here. So I let me remind the commissioners that you can be counted once we establish a physical quorum in the room. So until there's a quorum in the room, Commissioner Jones, uh we can't count you yet. My apology, okay. It might be a new commissioner Gardner here, Commissioner Hursken here. Commissioner Knowles, Commissioner McClendon, Commissioner Sass, excuse. Commissioner Small, excuse, Commissioner Varlack, excused. We do not have quorum. We do not have that this time. Are there any public comments? The agenda items. Any public home. Okay, since we have a lack of quorum, we will skip over the uh approval of the minutes for the months of November and December, and we will get to item number five, which is uh a discussion item regarding the uh Russell City, uh Willow Tree, and um the commissioner um was gonna be here to brief us, but would welcome the community to provide us with updates and information on what's happening. I will remind the commission that uh, you know, Russell City has been an integral part in the work that we've been doing. We had a listening session, our first listening session was um at the uh the name of the church. Uh and we have also um have their members from Russell City who are impacted speak. I think at all four of our our listening sessions eight. Uh so there's been an active engagement with um with this community. Uh so I would open up the floor to any public comments to help inform the the commission five. I have speaker cards, or is it just for the commission, or you want to hear from the I want to hear from the uh first the public because I don't think the commission is up to speed on what's happening in the community. We do want to hear what's going on in the first speaker Marion Johnson. Okay. Hello, my name is Marion Johnson. I'm member of Russell City. Um, I am also a member of the Johnson and Patterson family, and we have been doing lots of work in terms of the museum exhibit, uh and exhibit, the tree that we are talking about today is featured at the museum. Um so since the museum went into the exhibit stage. Um since then the tree, which is integral to our family because my great grandfather, my mother's grandfather, specifically planted that tree for her, and she has gone there year after year after year. I still have not told her that they chopped down the family tree, her tree. Um, this is very emotional for me because I know how much it's going to hurt her to find out that even though she's still alive, the tree is no longer there, and it was cut down intentionally, and they ground down the root of the tree so that it could whatever can grow over, so it was never there. Um, why did they cut it down? We have not found out the tree was not was not uh sick, the two was very healthy. Uh uh passed out uh information about the tree. Um, to see that it was a healthy tree, and I know there are ordinances in place for um trees that oh, that tree was planted in 1963. That's what we have to find out. Just someone just called us and I went over there and I was like, oh my. So I I have to figure out who owned the land, and that's the whole piece of it. It's like the way they took Russell City from the residents was through the use of imminent domain. And imminent domain, to my understanding, was so you can make the land public, right? Uh, but that didn't happen. They sold it to um cabin and forbes privately, and now if I go on that land, I can be arrested because it belongs is in private hands.