The Metro Arts Commission held its regular monthly meeting on August 15, 2024, at 12:07 PM. The meeting was called to order after achieving quorum. Two new commissioners, Jesse Rosenbloom and Mayra Yu, were welcomed. The meeting focused on the conciliation agreement resolving a Title VI complaint, two public art design approvals, and updates on grants, policies, and staff transitions.
The meeting adjourned at 1:34 PM.
All right, good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for your patience. Um, if you are in the audience, you know that parking was a little bit difficult, and so we were trying to find parking to make sure that we had our commissioners here and we had quorum. We do have um eight people here now, and so we are excited that we have made our quorum, and I do want to call our August meeting to order. It is now 1207. Um again, I want to welcome um everyone here. We do have uh a new commissioner with us. Um her first meeting. I would just give her a moment just to say hello, her name, and um, yeah, who she is, or anything she wants to say about herself before we get started. And make sure you hit the green button so we can all hear. Yes, okay. Wow, never done that before. Okay, I'm my name is Jesse Rosenbloom, and um I'm just very honored to be here. I've been involved with the national art community for several years, so I'm just excited to uh be part of it. Thank you. All right, thank you, Commissioner, and welcome. We are so excited to have you here. All right, we will do our land acknowledgement now, as we always do before our meetings and our um our committee meetings, and I'll just read it. Metro Art stands in whole space on the unceded and sovereign lands of the TRKEs, UT and Shawani peoples who have stored it for generations. Every community owes this existence and vitality to generations from around the world to who contributed their energy to make in the history that led to this moment. Some were brought here against their will, some were drawn to leave their distant homes in the hope of a better life, and some have lived on this land for more generations than can be counted. We acknowledge we are all standing on ancestral lands, and we honor the thousands of enslaved African peoples whose lives were physically and spiritually stolen. We pay respects to elders, past and present. Metro Arts invites you to join in our commitment to knowing our native communities in more meaningful ways in alignment with our restorative arts practice. All right, now we will have public comment. Um as a reminder. Yes, as a reminder, public comment is limited to two minutes with 20 minutes total for the entirety of our public comment period. Um you will have needed to sign in prior to the meeting. Um I'll ask um Ms. Vivian now. Do we have any uh people for public comment? We do, we have two. Okay. The first one is Miss Ashley Batchelder. And I'll let you know when your two minutes starts, and then I'll let you know when you are at your one minute mark. Hold on one second. All right, and your time starts now. Uh good afternoon, everyone. I'm Ashley Batchelder with the Metro Human Relations Commission. Last week we finalized a conciliation agreement between Metro Arts, Metro Legal, MHRC, and the complainants who filed a complaint with us last year. This serves as a full resolution of the Title VI complaint. And though we technically label this complaint as now resolved, it means that we now move into a compliance and monitoring phase of the Title VI process. Uh, you received from me yesterday a copy of the agreement and an explanation of its seven main points or terms. I'm here with the chair of the MHRC, and we're happy to answer any questions or be in dialogue with you about it today or any time as we move forward. What I wanted to comment about and just be very clear about is that we don't want this agreement to be viewed as either a tacit or explicit like endorsement of canceling or delaying any grants for the current fiscal year. And I will respectfully um object to any conclusions that position the Title VI complaint as the reason for either of those outcomes or similar outcomes. And as you know, uh we've been deep in the weeds with you all about this over the last year, and I hope that this body sees MHRC as a resource and not a detractor to the work that you um are working to accomplish together. And so to that end, uh I look forward to continuing to work with you all. And as described in the agreement, we have one more conciliation meeting with the MHRC, the Arts Commission, and the complainants, which is specifically focused on policy changes that were adopted from fall 2022 through 2023. And I understand from watching committee meetings that you are likely to propose a reset or a change or an overhaul of the grant programs, but I hope that this isn't done in a way that's a disservice to all of the work that current and previous commissioners' staff and community members have done in those policies.