Good morning, everyone.

I am Leah Dupree Love, and I will be chairing today's commission meeting.

And welcome and to our guests.

Remember to please know that we appreciate your presence with us here today.

And we ask that you do sign in.

Most of you here have done this before.

You know how it works, but we do want to make sure that we say that on the record for those of you who are watching online or for those of you who are we having some issues with sound?

No, we're good.

Okay.

We're not amplifying, so we won't be amplified.

Okay.

So this is a good um exercise.

So as a commissioners and anyone speaking to just project because the room that we are in right now, um, the microphones are not immediately in front of us, okay?

So we'll just work together to project when we're speaking, okay.

All right.

Thank you so much.

So again, um, please sign in.

Um, if you are a guest wishing to address the commission today in public comment, again, you will need to sign in and pick up an information sheet.

Um, to open our meeting, we do want to offer a land acknowledgement.

Um, this is something that has been going on at least since I have been on the commission, and so um feel free to follow along on the screen.

But this is our land acknowledgement for today's meeting.

Metro Art stands and holds space on the unceded and and sovereign lands of the Chiro Key.

Oh, the Cherokee, sorry, the Cherokee East.

I should probably read on the screen.

The Cherokee East, the UG and Shawnee peoples who have stewarded it for generations.

Every community owes this existence and vitality to the generations from around the world who are contributed who contribute their energy to making 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.

Thank you so much.

Now we will move into our public comment period.

I will just read this for the record.

Persons wishing to submit an online public comment may do so using the public comment form no later than Tuesday, March 26th.

Comments received by the deadline will be provided to commissioners in advance of the meeting.

Comments provided by mails, so emails, social media, or any other platform will not be accepted or included as public comments.

For complete details, please refer to our Metro Arts Commission public comment policy.

We regularly hold space for the commission meetings for these public comments, and this is an opportunity for you, the public, to speak directly to us about agenda items that are on our agenda and before the commission.

We value your feedback and your interest and your commitment to the Metro Arts, and all comments are carefully considered and integrated when possible and if appropriate to our process forward.

We welcome them.

We hear you, we take it in, and we appreciate you being here.

So now we will invite you to come speak.

Please state your name and the agendum item you are addressing so that we can include it in the minutes.

And please note that this is going to be a one-way parliamentary process.

So commissioners will not engage directly back with you during this meeting, and the guidelines for public comments adopted to the commission bylaws are as follows.

Davidson County residents can sign up for public comments.

The public comment period is limited to 20 minutes total.

Comments are limited to a maximum of two minutes per person.

Persons wishing to provide comment on matters that are germane to items on the agenda must sign up prior to the beginning of the meeting on the sign-up sheet provided at the meeting.

The opportunity to provide public comment is offered on a first come, first served basis.

At all meetings, the commissioner chairing the proceedings shall have the authority to manage limit the number of persons, non-board members, allowed to speak on an issue to manage and limit such speakers' time.

And so Vivian Fox from the Office of Support Specialists here in Metro Arts will be facilitating the public comment today.

So Vivian, will you please invite our first speaker to the podium?

I will let you know when you have one minute to your time starts now.

Nice to not have the microphone.

So I'm Ashley Batchelter from the Human Relations Commission.

As you all know, we released our report on March the 4th, but we haven't had an opportunity to come before the full commission or any committees to talk directly like with y'all about it, so I wanted to share a little bit now.

I'll start by saying that I know I didn't get to talk to many of you during our investigation since my focus was on commissioners who were serving last summer.

And the way that I started my interviews, my colleague and I would always begin by explaining that our goal in this process is conciliation.

It's about how we find solutions that are fair to directly impacted community members, as well as solutions that support the equitable policies that we all aspire to.