The mayor, Vice Mayor, and City Council welcome you to the Avondale City Council meeting.

As a courtesy to others, please silence all phones.

Anyone wishing to address the council regarding items listed on the agenda or under unscheduled public appearance should complete the request to speak form online at WWW dot avondale az dot gov.

When your name is called, please approach the podium and give your name for the public record.

Please limit your comments to three minutes.

And it is liberty and thank you.

Marcella, can we have a roll call, please?

Councilmember Conde here.

Councilmember Garcia.

Here.

Councilmember Solario.

Councilmember Weiss here.

Councilmember White.

Present.

Vice Mayor Nielsen.

Here.

Mayor Pineda.

Here.

So much.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

And Council.

Up first, we have a proclamation for Juneteenth Day of Observance.

I believe police lieutenant Olivia Contreras will be presenting and introducing our guest.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

My name is Olivia Cutteris.

I'm the lieutenant over the Professional Standards Bureau.

Thank you so much for having us here tonight for the proclamation for Juneteenth.

I would like to introduce our guest.

She is retired Phoenix Police Department Lieutenant, Cheryl Gibson Thurman, and she's currently an instructor at the Surrey Mountain Community College, and she's here to accept the proclamation.

Okay, I got readers.

Okay.

First of all, thank you very much for inviting me here today and for this extent proclamation that I'm about to receive.

So I just say want to say good afternoon, everybody again.

My name is Cheryl Gibson Thurman.

I am a 25-year-plus veteran of the Phoenix Police Department, retiring there as a lieutenant patrol commander in 2011.

While with the Phoenix Police Department, I worked in a variety of patrol training and investigative assignments and held supervisory command positions in each of those areas.

I am currently now a professor at Australia Mountain Community College, and I started working there as an adjunct professor in 2011, shortly after retirement.

And I taught in the Administration of Justice Studies program, and ultimately I was hired full-time as a full-time faculty member, and I still teach in the administration of justice studies program.

And I was hired there permanent in 2013 and currently still working there.

Today I was invited here to speak to you about Juneteenth, and also known as the Juneteenth National Independence Day in historically known as Jubilee Day, Black Independence Day, and Emancipation Day.

So there was a number of names attached to Juneteenth, but Juneteenth is the official name.

Juneteenth is the day we celebrate the emancipation of African Americans who had had been enslaved in Texas.

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Immaculation Proclamation, which outlawed slavery in the Confederate States in 1863.

However, it would be a full two years before the news was reached in Texas.

That's when Texas actually got the official information that all free all slaves were free.

And it took the Union troops arriving in Galveston, Texas, to announce the end of the Civil War and free the last enslaved black Americans.

Now I grew up in California and partly here in the summers.

I know I did the reverse.

California summers here.

And my father was a retired uh veteran of the United States Air Force, and he retired out of Luke Air Force Base.

So that's why I split my summers here.

So anyway, some of the historical dates that are attached this Juneteenth are on January 1st, 1863 was when President Abraham Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation, legally freeing enslaved people in the Confederate states.

So in June 19th, where we get the June 19th from was the day that Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas and issued the general orders number three, officially informing the people of Texas that all enslaved people were free.

And the first Juneteenth celebration took place the immediate year right after it, and it has since been celebrated till this day.

Okay.

And that was celebrated in Galveston, Texas in 1866.

And it's celebrated annually across the United States by several other states who still recognize and understand the importance of Juneteenth and the significance of it and what happened as a result of it.

And in 1968, it kind of did kind of fade over the years once it was initially celebrated, but it was revived back in 1968 when organizers, organizers of the poor people's march incorporated Juneteenth in their demonstration in Washington, D.C.