Thank you.

Yes.

All right, good afternoon.

My name is Drew France, and I'm going to call to order the March 2026 regular meeting of the Human Rights Commission of the City of Tulsa.

And I have the pleasure of first inviting members of Compassionate Tulsa to present the Sherry Tapp Lifetime of Compassion Award rescheduled for January.

So without further ado, the closures.

I currently chair the Compassionate Tulsa Committee, and I have the honor and privilege of presenting the Sherry Tapp uh Lifetime of Compassionate Service Award to the Reverend Chris Moore.

Chris, would you come up?

I'm going to say a few things about Chris, so don't clap yet.

There'll be time for that.

So y'all know the old little cartoon that came out of one of the world wars of Kilroy was here.

You know, the guy whose nose kind of hangs over the and and the hands like this, and Kilroy seemed to be everywhere.

Um that's Chris Moore and Tulsa.

Um I don't know if there's any clergy person in the city who is as well known in the various sectors of the city as is Chris Moore because he's present in so many places.

Um there are different ways of pastoring.

Uh he is he has been the pastor here of Fellowship Congregational Church, um, which for about 13 years or so now.

Um but he definitely sees uh and does what one of my mentors talked about.

He commits his faith in public his Christian faith.

Um if there is a cause in our city or in our state, because it's not just at Tulsa, it's also sometimes in the Capitol, uh a cause that needs uh a moral voice, faith-based, where an issue of justice and equity and compassion is at stake.

Chris has been there.

Um Chris's colleagues talk about if when you need someone to convene a group, uh if an issue arises, Chris is often the one to convene.

If there needs to be a statement drafted, Chris is often at least on the drafting team, if not the one who actually is leading in the drafting.

Um Chris is uh pastor of a congregation that has a long history in being involved in the larger community here in Tulsa.

Um Russ Bennett of recent memory is one of the uh really sainted clergy uh within our community, and Chris very much follows in his footsteps.

Uh when I reached out to several of Chris's colleagues uh about uh making this nomination uh and presenting this award, they were all too happy to say that Chris is a pastor among pastors, a leader amongst leaders, someone who uh who's um inside and outside um uh personalities and and the way he goes about things, uh, have a tremendous amount of integrity.

Um, and we just couldn't be happier uh than to present this uh award uh for uh the compassionate Tulsa Award, named after Sherry Tapp, but Sherry's son, uh I understand is here.

That's great.

Um and uh Chris, we'd love for you to accept this award.

Okay.

Uh when Gary reached out to me to ask me uh if I would accept this award, um I'm not, as my congregation knows, um overly fond of accepting awards uh for things, um, but deeply appreciative of the recognition and certainly deeply appreciative of this particular award, knowing uh the legacy that Sherry Tapp left in this city, uh knowing that the history of the people who have received this award in the past, and uh knowing the important role uh that compassion uh ought to play in a in a public setting right now.

We could certainly make the argument that uh that is on the decline and needs to be on the incline, uh, needs to be brought back in very serious ways.

So if um if this award means anything to me, it's uh encouragement to continue leading um part of my remarkable flock back there, uh as well as friends and colleagues uh continuing to do that work at a time in which it's most uh definitely needed.

So thank you very much for this award, and I accept on behalf of Fellowship Congregational Church as well.

Thank you.

And if everybody came to support Chris wants to come out in the hallway with us, and we'll go ahead and take a few pictures before you go on with the rest of your day.

Thank you.

Commissioner Watchner, did you did you indicate that you believe in April there'd be another award from Compassionate Tulsa?

Wonderful.

Well, it's a great backdrop for much of the conversation we're gonna have today.

So now that they've had the opportunity to leave the room, uh the third item on our agenda is approval of the meeting minutes.

You were provided a copy of the February 2026 regular meeting minutes in advance for review.

Is there any discussion or corrections that we need to discuss about those minutes?

If not, I would take a motion to approve the minutes.

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor of approving the February 2026 regular meeting minutes of the human rights commission, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes the minutes are approved.

The fourth item on our agenda is the chair slash vice chair reports.

Um I'm gonna be fairly brief, as brief as I can be, to afford time to other important items on the agenda that might require or certainly deserve discussion.

Um things that came to mind that I want to share with you is that on February 19th, not long after our last meeting, uh Dr.

Rogers, our vice chair Lexi, and myself attended the uh Title V Commission Chair uh advice chair meeting with Mayor Nichols.

Uh Commissioner, no, you you were not there, is that right, Commissioner Pielebar, you were not there.

I think anyone else in the room.

I think that's it that was at that meeting.

Um we heard updates from all of the Title V commissions, which was a really I don't think I've been in a room in that way to hear from everybody talk about their work.

It was it was really um interesting and engaging and uplifting to hear all the great work that's happening through the Title V commissions.

Uh specifically the Greater Tulsa Area Hispanic and Latinx Affairs Commission talked about publishing of their Fourth Amendment uh playbook, which is essentially a readiness and management playbook for restaurant owners and uh similar organizations and employees are at risk of unconstitutional search.

What they have assembled is a full way toolkit and a train the trainer program that covers things like legal uh considerations as a business owner in terms of searches on your uh your property.

It covers uh what a public and private space means in this context, and it talks about what to do if federal agents enter your place of work before an incident, during and after an incident.

Uh just a really good sort of level setting on what the rights and responsibilities are of employers in this space.

And uh, as part of that update from the Greater Tulsa Hispanic Affairs Commission, we have invited uh commissioners to present to us in April.

So that I think they'll be a learning opportunity for us.

Uh they weren't able to make March, but we do think they may be able to present that playbook to us in April, and I look forward to learning more about it and having an opportunity to ask questions.

Uh when it was my turn to update on what the Human Rights Commission had done, I um summarized the work that we had accomplished in 2025.

Uh huge thanks to Commissioner Walker for preparing that interview reports, which if you haven't read it or it's been a minute, uh it's worth uh a quick read.

There was a lot that she really uh synthesized and conveyed.

So I gave that the short version for the mayor, and then I at a high level describe the two ongoing projects we have that we'll discuss later in this meeting.

I don't want to jump to this topic too much yet, but I do want to share from that meeting Mayor Nichols was interested in both of our special projects this year, but he immediately made a connection between our effort to modernize the human rights complaint process with a local partnership between Microsoft and Black Tech Street.

And my understanding is there's something called TechSpark, which is a community engagement program of Microsoft, where they have select communities that they're trying to empower through training and funding to help increase digital access and increase digital inclusion.

And what the mayor was just observing is that there may be opportunities through this engagement between Black Tech Street, uh local government leaders, Microsoft to help build uh and further Tulsa as a center of using technology to increase digital inclusion.

So I don't know much more than that about it.

Uh we did reach out to Tyrant Billingsley recently, he's the one that leads Black Tech Street, and we're hopeful to at least discuss what might be possible in terms of leveraging their work to leverage technology to increase uh digital access, which sounds very similar to our interests in increasing and modernizing ways in which Tulsans can file human rights complaints.

So more to come on that, but appreciated the mayor's interest in our work and connecting those dots for us.

Uh second topic, I did reach out to all of you this morning.

I sent an email asking for your your help scheduling a one-on-one meeting with each of you.

Uh, if you have the time and want that opportunity, I'd love to just talk one-on-one.

Uh we can talk about whatever you'd like, but I'm thinking I'd love to hear your goals, whether as a someone who's on a committee or just in general, what your goals and vision might be for the human rights commission.

I'd love to hear your ideas for improvement.

Where can the human rights commission improve?

Where might there be concerns?

And then also I'd love to hear your ideas about potential guests that we learn from and topics that you feel are germane and things that we want to discuss this year.

So a few of you have already reached out, you've already scheduled.

Uh, please look for that in your inbox.

And I would love to talk with all of you one-on-one to just help me uh get a real sense candidly about where you're at and what you want to accomplish together.

And then, of course, Vice Chair Rogers will also be a part of those meetings as her schedule allows.

Uh I also met with Dr.

Rogers and Lexi separately a couple weeks ago, and we talked about it's probably time to present a roster, a grid, if you will, to all of us to take a snapshot of which committees exist and which committees we may find ourselves or not find ourselves.

And I think we just need to recalibrate and take stock on the committees we have for the bylaws, uh, what our bylaws say about the number of commissioners that should be on those committees, what how many committees are too few or too many.

And I think we just need to ask where are we and is it working and might there be a recalibration to make sure that we have the right people on the right committees and that we're using that committee structure reporting on up through the human rights commission.

So more to come on that as we think about um just dusting off that that committee roster and thinking about um when was the last time we really recruited and made sure that we're putting the right people on the right committees.

Lastly, before I move on to the rest of our agenda, um, it is getting to be that time of year where we will want to get nominations for the humanitarian of the year award.

As you know, we've done four years now in December of celebrating a Tulson or Tulsons that really go above and beyond when it comes to uh uh protecting the the rights of local Tulsons, and that can that can manifest in a number of different ways.

We've had a bunch of great Tulsons, often unsung heroes, uh, people you don't necessarily know about but are really powerful in our community and have really effectuated great change.

And we really rely on the other commissions to nominate uh people in their scope.

Uh so we will begin that process now of intentionally asking Title V commissions to start that nomination process.

We'd like to wrap it up by the summer, uh pick one or more of the nominees to be uh recognized.

And I know Lexi's given feedback that I think each commission it really is on them to sort of devise a structure and a process in which they want to use to nominate and select someone that they bring back to us for consideration.

So more to come, but it's already uh soon to be April here, and we'll want to make sure our commissions are helping us recognize the humanitarian of the year for 2026.

Um that is all I have for the chair reports.

The fifth item on our agenda is Commissioner led by Commissioner Filibar in terms of the effort to increase representation of the authorities, boards, and commissions across the city of Tulsa, and I believe she had sent out a memo, and I'll hand it over to you to kind of tell us where you're at on that project.

Um for this commission goal.

One, Lexi gave a helpful reminder today that we crafted the language of the goal to increase diverse representation and equitable recruitment practices across City of Tulsa ABCs.

Um Drew had some suggestions for editing the memo that uh maybe edited that language to be more strategic that I'll review with everyone to talk about if we want to move forward with that.

But first, kind of an overview because there's many prongs of this project.

Um the first one is this memo that is specifically about the city council representation data, which you can see on the back.

Uh the last data we looked at was from October and had 290 commissioners.

Lexi was able to acquire an updated set of data that includes 310 authority board and commission members, and so this data reflects that.

The only major change to the trends is that we now have three districts who are about equally uh underrepresented under three percent of ABCs.

So that's the only change to the headline of the data.

In addition to the city council lever of this project, I also reached out to Title Five Commission liaisons to meet with each one of them to understand which parts of the data, knowing that we have not only racial demographic data, but also age, employment status, disability status, veteran status, and gender, to think through what might be most relevant for each Title V commission to uh better understand and think about as they either recruit for their own commission or support their community to get involved in other ABCs.

And then the third prong of this project is that the Office of the Auditor is doing an audit around ABCs, and one of their objectives is specifically around orientation and onboarding.

So we'll be in conversation with Dr.

Stout.

And today we're just talking about the city council part of this project.

And so my um question for you all is we're going to vote to approve sending this to city council and would love your eyes and any suggested edits.

Um Chair France reached out with some feedback around um a firmer call to action.

So that could be one thing we have together today and open to other edits.

Well, and Lexi, we do need the verbatim edits to vote.

Is that true?

Okay, I have my word doc ready to edit.

So your hearing is on your sweat.

Oh my gosh, thank you.

So thank you for that summary, and I don't mean to put you in the position of defending what I sent to you earlier this morning, uh, which was not fair of me, but um, I I was merely emailing you in advance of this conversation.

Just one, I thought should there be more of a call to action?

Um we present them with the data.

What are we hoping they will do with it?

I think that's implied.

But I'm thinking if if I'm a city councilor and maybe they already do this, but it feels like the needle is only only gonna be moved if they at their town halls, if they within their network are proactively asking people that live in their district that they represent to apply for authorities, boards and commissions, and that means connecting them with the application, that means encouraging them, that means uh you know writing support letters if that's what's necessary.

So I think that's implied, but I'm just wondering do we want to say something about um really implying that the city council is gonna have to um figure out ways to um carry the carry the water if you will.

The only thing I'll add um is to not forget that this can also be sent to the mayor's office, um, and it's intended to also go to the mayor's office, so there is kind of a two-pronged opportunity there.

Can you say more so that folks in the mayor's office could also so I mean the ABC's appointment process really starts in the mayor's office?

You know, folks apply.

Many of you have been through this recently, folks, folks apply, um, those applications go directly to the mayor's office for review.

The mayor appoints individuals and city council confirms.

So there really are those kind of two points in the process where something like you know, equal representation of across council districts could be considered.

I wonder if we say, and I might need help brainstorming, but something more directive.

Lexi had mentioned we could present this at the city council um committee meeting or maybe something broad to say, like we look forward to being in continued conversation just to let them know we would like them to do something with it.

So I could add to the end, like um we look forward to working with you on this.

What do you think about presenting?

I mean, are we are we and we hope that it will uh yeah, we look forward to to partnering?

Yes.

Well, I think even maybe even stronger, but on laying out uh actionable strategies that can be owned by the mayor's office, the city council, and the human rights commission.

Um we look forward to partnering as you determine your next steps from this information.

I think my hope is that we can we actually can't own, like our role is not to own the next steps.

So naming it in a way that like it is theirs to take on, and we do expect and hope to see something taken on.

So can I add a question to this?

I I love the idea of the call to action, but I think for me it has I need to know what that looks like.

You just telling me that I need to be more diverse doesn't always capture for me.

Is there an idea to say, do we happen to know Lexi, how many seats are currently open in commissions that we say we've got 23 seats left, we want to see this.

Here's the call to action.

Only because then it's like it's tangible.

I know that like I know I have some seats left on commissions that could possibly be filled.

I know now I've got some great information you spent a lot of time on, and then this is as HRC what we would like to see in those seats field, because it couldn't be like, all right, take six people off, they're in the you know, but it could be like here's your opportunity to fill these seats with more of a diverse selection of people, maybe.

Well, and Lexi, I'll let you color in the lines here.

I do know so Lexi's a liaison to the Title V commissions, which tend to be slightly more flexible to some extent on who could fill a role, versus my understanding is many of the authorities and boards are like it must be a lawyer with expertise and blank, and you don't necessarily get to like or like an architect or a construction manager, or yeah, there are there are some ABCs that have because of the work that they are tasked with doing, have very specific requirements for um who sits in what seat, um, which naturally comes with constraints.

Sure.

Um I wish I could tell you off the top of my head how many vacant seats we have, but I can't.

Um part of the challenge of that is some commissions are like dual owned by like city county or city and another outside entity, and so um that would take a little bit more digging than simply like pulling a data point out of our database, unfortunately.

Um did that speak to the I think at one point.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Well, I just wanted to kind of add in to I like where you were going with that a metric of success, something that's quantitative.

Um, and then one of the things uh about presenting an idea is do we have ideas that they could do differently, other than just hey, at the town halls, which is a good idea in itself.

Um, like what are other avenues in the community that they could utilize?

I have an idea, but I don't want to be the one to throw out the first one.

I just have a small data point from um counselor Dutton, I think was at one of our meetings and had mentioned uh difficulty in recruiting, even when a community just because of lack of awareness around what the commissions are, what they do.

So I think my first idea is like awareness and education, which I know is not satisfying, but I think in a city, like moving something that big, I think for the counselors to have that awareness for the community to have that awareness that we need people from these areas of town, and then I when someone came to me and was like, Do you want to be on a commission?

I said, No, I don't know what that is or what they do.

So I do think um my ideas are all in that vein.

I know I want to think bigger eventually, but just my small counselor data point was that uh even when efforts have been made to increase that number, like she knows her district is underrepresented, she ran into barriers with finding either people who fit the specific restraints of certain seats or who were willing to explore the idea of getting off work in the middle of the day and coming to city hall and what that implies.

There are existing um organizations that have like this board, the get on board program, like local homo leadership Oklahoma Leadership Tulsa, um TIPRO's, a couple other ones that would I know the I know TyPros specifically, but I could also imagine um uh leadership Tulsa and Leadership of Oklahoma would salivate at the opportunity to incorporate like open if you're interested in these authorities, boards, and commissions, this is what they do.

They have a whole binder uh that gets discussed, and there's an over there's hundreds of applications every year.

Not everybody gets um selected for it.

Um, but it's could be something.

Hey, these are the ones that match these are the suggestions.

Do you have more to add to that?

We are actively in conversation with Hypras and leadership Tulsa on that very topic, so more to come soon.

So easy win then, yes.

And I think in a similar vein, there are also city-based uh structures that can be tapped into, like the neighborhood associations, right?

People who are already active with the city and so might have more awareness of that.

Um I do also you brought up like the work thing.

I know when some people I think Lexi reached out about like for the um the autonomy commission, like we need a youth representative, but if the meetings are like Friday at one or something like that, you know.

I wonder what also might be able to be possible accessibility-wise in the scheduling of the commissions.

I wonder if that's a barrier for folks, but that doesn't need to be discussed right now, but that's just something I was thinking about.

It's definitely hard to get from East Side of Tulsa over here.

No, it's not apologize for my lateness.

Counselor Dutton's district, you know, like there's not you have to take at least two bus lines to get here, you know, if um if that's what you're using.

So those are both great ideas, like the neighborhood one in particular because it's geographically based.

You could target the districts that are underrepresented and think about those people that are already registered as community or neighborhood liaisons.

I think the best we can do is fill the hopper.

I don't know about you, but I put in my application, didn't know what it was, found out how found out where the front door was, put that, put the hat in the ring, heard nothing, and then one day I got a call.

And I think all we can do is fill that hopper with potential ABC members and hope that that hopper is full of more Tulsons than than less.

The more you talk about, the more I agree with where you're at, which I think we can just introduce, start the conversation.

And I think your instincts are correct that like it's gonna be hard for the council to talk if they if they like acknowledge it, it's gonna be hard for them to talk around it, and I think it's on them then to sort of they can drive what's next, but hopefully we already know counselor Dutton for one is very invested and feeling her her district is underrepresented, and I think to your point that is probably the extent of what we can do.

So I appreciate you framing why you took the pack or taking.

Another interesting metric, I don't know if we can um capture it or not, or if it is captured, do we have how long people have been on boards?

That would not be like an easy data point to pull from the system, but I am sure that it's possible.

It would just take a little bit more work on y'all's side to sort of you know, look at people, like look at everybody's start date and kind of like create that grid.

The only reason I bring that up is from a and this could be like step two or stage two or whatever from a secession planning perspective with the counselors.

They're like, oh, this person has indicated that they're gonna be rolling off or this person's been on for 20 years and they've expressed they want to go somewhere else, like the water board specifically that I know of has like decades of great experience, but we want to start putting more uh people on it that to start getting some of the knowledge transfer because there's a lot of just historical knowledge that's verbal that can get trans, so we don't lose the knowledge, yeah, from a secession planning perspective.

So, are we saying like we want to offer in this statement what it is, or are we are we suggesting that we want to offer some great ideas we've had in this meeting?

I mean, I love our great feedback, but we'll like I like I like how someone mentioned before this isn't really I mean, we're here to give them the information, we're here to say we wrote it in a bow, but they've got to make the next steps, or we wanting to add to this letter as we support your initiative in this, our suggestions during our meeting was here's some recommendations or I like that.

I can share context because we just submitted a similar memo for the Asian Affairs Commission.

Yeah, and we got robust responses, right?

And it wasn't even it wasn't like data, it was like, hey, we're here, and we just never submitted a formal artifact.

Um, and the mayor submitted a response.

We had counselor responses.

So one thing I will say is like even with something that didn't have a call to action, there was excitement at getting something official from commissions.

I think that the tricky part here is like the action from counselors will have to look different, and probably the the reason that representation is low in different districts is different depending on you know which one it is.

And so Lexi, this comes from Chairman France, is that correct?

The email?

Yes.

Okay, so I do think we could put like we look forward to partnering and ideating around next steps to address this data.

And you can explicitly say, like, you know, we're open to presenting this at a future city council commission meeting.

Okay.

I like that because I think that sets the table for all these other ideas.

City council committee meeting.

I said commission.

So they would admit.

I'm adding at the end of this last paragraph.

Um we look forward to partnering and ideating around next steps to address this data, including presenting, including but not limited to presenting at a city council committee meeting.

The only other thing I'm reflecting on.

I do think more explicit stuff is helpful, Anna.

I also am just fearful of it not getting read anyway.

Yeah.

In the memo that we send because it goes out with, I'm sure a lot of emails that they get.

So I think I have faith after the memo we sent that we will get a response, and then it's a matter of which conversation you want to lead them into.

Because this is also intentionally just the data set around our districts, but the data shows us that we have many other areas to tackle to make sure that our ABCs are representative.

So I think starting with a low barrier to entry and then figuring out how we want to keep it going.

I think should you get that conversation, I think in that conversation you need to have more specific ideas.

Excellent work to this point.

Any other edits before we vote?

I just have a question of like when do we continue the ideating?

Like I think we can have the conversation with city council, with the mayor's office.

But like, is there like are we meeting again?

Are we talking about it on our next commission meeting?

Like, are we presenting ideas that we have had already or trying to more co-create with them?

Yeah, I think it is a uh tangled web right now.

Because there's a chance, for example, that the author's office and their objectives around onboarding and um orientation are related.

I mean, they're going to be related to matters of like recruitment timelines, the different liaisons.

Um, I think the Title V conversations could lead to some recommendations, right?

That's the role of our commissions is to make recommendations to city council and the mayor, so that could be a space of ideating.

I think when we get a response from the mayor and city council, that will probably determine what like this group collectively does outside of those little ideas that do you want them now or later?

Um I think that you should I think I can schedule it sounds like we have a lot of energy around that.

I have been really bad at scheduling meetings between commission times, but I'm about to meet with all the Title Five liaisons.

So if you have ideas, let's meet and then I can add it to my like running doc.

Cool.

And I think it'd be great when you get the ideas, might consider that I would probably give you ideas about the district I fall into.

Like and I'm happy my district is actually very I'm I'm district five, and so I'm one of the lowest, so it's like when maybe you have ideas, maybe you'd be considering about your district and say, here's what was the biggest impact I could have.

And so I like that.

I mean, I like the idea of because you're right, your idea might be the gold one, and huh?

Yeah, how would you all like to contribute?

Do you want this to be like an ongoing agenda item, an outside committee space?

Can I tell you mine now so I don't forget?

Um, okay.

Things I came up with in my brain.

I think like having a map of what seats are open paired with the time of day and cadence they meet could be helpful, plus any eligibility requirements, and then a typros, um, we love a kit, and so I'm honestly wondering like could we get together an ABC's kit?

So when counselors are going out into the community, they have the application form right there with them.

They have a QR code they can put in a little plastic thing.

Um, so people get more I guess awareness that they even exist.

Um I think an event could go really well, like typras did do in the past, like a one, two, three of ABCs, where we just went over the basics, and I think we got three placements on ABCs through that, and we had um Dana with the mayor's office talk to us, but that wouldn't be hard be hard to put together just like an info session.

Okay, cool.

Okay, well, but beyond typros, I think like the commission could I don't think everyone hears typos and thinks I've been under young professionals.

So I think this would capture a broader audience.

Um and then I like that we're partnering with typros, I like that we're partnering with leadership Tulsa.

To me, those are the same mechanisms for leadership we've been looking at.

And can we partner with local organizations and each district that are in that district?

Because I think we would probably see similar pipelines of leadership and other orgs, unless we go to the district itself.

Yeah, and if I could I was gonna say I think it calls out to the gaps that are in those organizations, um, and especially I love that idea of partnering locally because typos does have gaps.

Yeah, and I think you know, right now we're looking at geography, but we also want to look at race, we'll look at age, when we look at other things, and you know, those two particular organizations are not necessarily the most diverse when it comes to those things.

Um not to be a I mean, I'm just saying if we're talking mechanisms for increasing diversity.

I I like the idea of using a mix and the local organizations as strong if we're gonna do events, three events at the three lowest districts, right?

With like trusted um community people.

That's why neighborhood organizations and schools are probably most geographically based.

Commissioner Stark's has been so patient.

I'm so great.

Uh so I and what I'm hearing, and maybe I'm hearing it wrong.

But what I'm hearing is we have an ask, and so we're going to city council with an ask.

Uh, we're going to city council with that ask for a request for a meeting to put forth ideas.

Can we also offer, since we're committed to this idea, can we also offer that within at least this commission or the other ABCs that we would be willing to go forward and uh if they make a request to to Lexi to have somebody go to the uh town hall meeting that one of us would be there to promote the ABCs, and that we would all commit to that to say, okay, so we we've got some skin in the game, and we're willing to come with you and stand beside you and not make you try and push this out there, but come as a commissioner and say, hey, this is what we do, this is what we attempt to do, this is what we succeed, and this is what the real cost is to your personal life or whatever.

Like this is the real buy in time because that's what everybody really wants to know, right?

What am I going to accomplish?

What is it going to cost me?

I I think that having a city councilor that maybe never served on an ABC before could really adequately paint that picture.

So I think that if we did that and we're willing to commit to that, if somebody requested the likes and say, I gotta I got a count or I got a town hall meeting coming up in two weeks or next week, can we get somebody out there?

I mean, I I'm willing to drop what I'm doing to go.

Um, and and I think that as a collective, then we need to have some skin in the game and not just provide ideas so that they can answer back because it is their process, and you're right.

But I think that if we had that buy-in, that it may be seeked a little bit better.

I added including but not limited to presenting at a city council meeting or at a district town hall meeting.

And then they can think about how to um mobilize us.

To me, that's another great idea, an actual idea you could tease out once we open the dialogue about what solutions might be.

Will you say that one more time?

I was just saying I think that's yet another great idea that once we get to the table and have a conversation that that um might be called color in between the lines a little bit about what could what's possible.

I love it.

The one, oh sorry, you've been raising your hand.

No, I I'm sorry because I don't normally insert myself this much.

Um I do just want to note though, for like y'all's awareness that um for potential leadership Tulsa partnership, we are specifically focusing on the um new voices program, which specifically is recruiting diverse uh representation onto leadership roles.

Um so just want to throw out there that we are specifically taking that angle with that potential partnership.

So much more to come on that.

We've had some exciting conversations with uh Marcia and Reagan at Leadership Tulsa and Typrose so far.

Can you kind of loop us in to what the conversations have been so far?

Like what's the status?

Yeah, um, so I mean, you know, both organizations have like those board, you know, those nonprofit board internship programs that we can kind of use as uh starting points, of course, when it comes to the idea of like interning on a commission.

It's not quite as simple as saying, like, hey, we're gonna throw you an extra person onto your nonprofit board and they'll just like be there and hang out and like kind of be a real board member, but also kind of not just because we have the you know legal constraints that we have in the way that we function as commissions.

Um so we're still kind of considering a couple different avenues into that.

One could be like uh commission shadow, um, where they're kind of supporting different initiatives and still attending meetings and things like that, but they're really leaning in on the committee level, because those are open to community members at large, or maybe the the internship placement is with a specific committee, and they're really going all in on that one committee, and then of course contributing to the commission as a whole.

Um we're also looking into some different event ideas and just different ways that we're getting information out to those specific groups.

Um, I go to leadership Tulsa all the time to present about like our local city government structure and um the resilience and equity department as well as authorities boards and commissions as part of kind of like okay, you've just done this year-long, you know, leadership development program, like what could be next for you, um, which has been really great the last year that I've been doing that, but we're in discussion of like how could we make that even more tangible or actionable?

Does that look like bringing folks to a specific meeting and then having like a debrief after or something like that?

So many, many options on the table.

So I think for the foreseeable future, I would like to see this item on the agenda, and we can just give the updates that make sense at the time, which may be little in the foreseeable short term.

Uh Commissioner Pilabar has taken graciously taking some feedback, made some mild edits.

Um you want to summarize for us, or are we ready for a motion to I have read the edits that I made, but I'll read it one more time to that last paragraph to now read.

We look forward to partnering and ideating around next steps to address this data, including but not limited to presenting into city council meeting, committee meeting, or at a district town hall meeting.

Thank you.

I think that does take that next turn of like we're here to help.

So I think that's that's an even better memo.

Uh hearing that, is there a motion to submit this revised memo to the mayor's office and city council?

Motion is there is second.

That's right.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay?

The motion passes.

Thank you.

This takes us to the other special committee, uh goal number one as we call it.

Uh, when I met recently with Lexi and Dr.

Rogers, let's just suggest it was probably best practice if the chair is not also the head of the committee.

Uh so I turn to committee member Katie Eller Murray, who's not here today, asked if she would be willing to lead the project with the scope of improving access to the city's resources, specifically the human rights complaints process.

Uh Katie agreed to do so.

I don't know if that's a voting issue, but I do know that she has committed to leading that committee moving forward.

She's already been actively engaged with Commissioner Rogers and myself and the Kendra.

Um with that, I will turn to item number eight, which is about goal number one and updates.

I want to first hand over to Commissioner Roberts, who's done most of the work or a bunch of the work in terms of comparing different cities and what they're doing in the space.

And Joyce, I'll let you kind of take it from here.

Okay, I've been looking forward to giving you an update on our research for goal number one, improving access to the City of Tulsa Department of Resilience and Equities Resources.

Over the past several weeks, we've we have reviewed peer cities and have spoken to different and have spoken directly with several of them.

And although each city structures its process a little differently, there are some clear patterns that stand out.

First, most cities are size have already moved toward modernized technology supported intake systems, and these systems allow residents to submit complaints online, track the status of their complaint, and bypass the need for unnecessary manual steps, such as routing through the city clerk's office.

In many cities, this modernization improves accessibility, reduces administrative burden, and ensures a more efficient process for both staff and residents.

And second, most cities have streamlined the categories of complaints and provide clearer explanations of what falls under human rights, what falls under ADA, what falls under housing, and what should be referenced to federal agencies such as the EEOC or HUD.

And separating these pathways increases clarity for residents and reduces confusion during intake.

And you'll see a copy of the peer city comparison that we've done with the ADA and housing complaint processes.

And some of the current challenges in Tulsa are heavy reliance on the city clerk's office for intake and routing, no online submission platform or digital tracking, limited accessibility for residents, particularly individuals with disabilities, confusion around complaint categories, ADA housing, public accommodations, and EEO, lack of public awareness due to an outdated system that is not ready to promote widely, limited internal capacity, legal IT and staff to maintain the current manual process, and what peer cities reveal is modern the use of modern technology.

Most cities use digital intake platforms, web portals, online forms and automated routing.

And you'll see some of that here in the comparisons.

Systems provide residents with confirmation, tracking, and communication updates, reduced administrative burden.

Few cities use a certain use a clerk's office as the intermediary.

Routing and storage are typically automated and integrated into internal systems.

And there are clear complaint pathways.

Cities distinguish among ADA accessibility issues, housing discrimination, public accommodations, employment complaints, and this clarity supports faster and more accurate routing.

And looking at the gradual implementation of this across cities, peer cities have shown that modernization can occur in stages.

Step one, introduce online permission, submission.

Step two, streamline categories and routing.

Step three, expand public outreach once the system is functional.

For Tulsa, identified emerging opportunities for us would include creating an online complaint submission form, simplifying intake categories, eliminating unnecessary clerk involvement, which would require a change in the city charter, and providing clear guidelines for ADA, EEO, and housing pathways.

These findings point to a clear opportunity for improvement, modernize intake, and streamline pathways and remove outdated barriers.

And we look forward to moving to the next steps.

I can't thank Commissioner Roberts enough for not only polling stuff should come to mind.

You actually interviewed representatives from different cities when I was at that meeting with the mayor.

He asked, he's like, just like like who, like who, who what cities are doing things differently.

And thanks to Joyce, I was able to say, you know, Scott Steele, Tucson, St.

Louis.

Uh, and I think he was curious about how cities are doing this differently.

And I think what she's established is that Tulsa is a bit of an outlier.

Uh, the lack of tracking seems like one thing that really sticks out, the inability to bypass the clerk's office, um, the sort of I don't want to say overly administrative, but potentially overly administrative, um, and this idea of the phase sort of way to think about improvements because we are up against the ordinance the way it's written, we're up against technological limitations, we're up against legal requirements in case the city were to be sued in this capacity and the document retention requirements, and then there's not exactly extra money that anyone's offering to do anything in the space.

So those are sort of the realities on the ground.

I haven't heard uh lately, specifically from McKendra, and I welcome uh her input into this process, but I think we've done a pretty good job of establishing that there's a lot of room for improvement.

It's it's not quite clear yet where we go from here.

Lexi, you're also close to this.

Any sort of thoughts on what Joyce summarized?

I think you did a phenomenal job.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And yeah, really appreciate the work that you've put into this when we you know have better models that we can point to and say, like, hey, it's possible for them, you know.

I think that's really powerful.

Um, I know that the internal conversations are ongoing and can be slow, but uh I know that there's definitely you know huge buy-in on our team to continue carrying those conversations forward and uh making sure that they don't get kind of lost in the um the day-to-day stuff.

So do you have anything that you would want to address?

Um I second everything that you said again, phenomenal job.

I am thankful for the support of this commission because a hundred percent of my work is human rights commission work and it's human rights work, and so this team and this commission group really is my support system.

So I love when you guys champion for changes, improvements, because I'm an outlier on the team, kind of, and when I'm the one doing it, it sounds like it's just my single voice, but when you as a collective fight for it as well, I feel more confident in going to our city legal team, our mayor's office, um, our my direct report, which is our chief resilience officer.

I used to have a whole department, and we fought as a as a unit for the human rights work.

Now I have the Human Rights Commission as my department team, so to speak.

So thank you all so much for proving and providing proof and being an additional voice for all the things that I've been fighting for for years.

I mean, Dr.

Walker knows that this is something that we've really been working hard on.

So I'm so excited, and I'm so thankful and grateful for each one of you because this is something I've been screaming about for a very long time for multiple reasons, just to provide additional transparency to the community just to make sure there aren't any barriers prevented people to get to our office to file a complaint so that we can make Tulsa better.

So this is really great.

I'm I'm just here to be anything you need to be for this work, and that's in any capacity for the come for the work that you're doing on that committee or the work we're trying to do on this committee.

So I'm just here for you, and I thank you guys again so much.

I appreciate all your hard work on this.

Thank you.

All right, um, you've got frontline experience.

Are there any other challenges that you're coming up against that like just from a visibility perspective?

You're like, I wish these people I wish we they knew so that we could understand more and maybe advocate more.

It just the trackability.

It's hard.

I manually have to track everything.

So I manually have to keep literal track of it.

I don't have a system out outside of like a spreadsheet.

But if it could come through electronically, I could just print it out quickly.

I could go in and I can just ship things out.

What are we seeing?

The trends, where are we getting more complaint?

It would all go in a system which would save me hours of time of man hours.

So really having a trackability system that's tied into an electronic reporting system would be ideal for the work.

Maybe that's brilliant.

The insight.

Thank you for that.

All of it being manual is exhausting.

Is there and this might be a question?

Is there a an AI like Google Notebook LM or something?

Is there any sort of for the analytics portion?

Being able to put documents in, say, hey, what sort of insights can we get out of this?

Is there anything that the city of Tulsa is evaluating or considering?

So we have really strict uh policies here at the city around AI usage.

Um we just like literally last week got approval to use whatever Microsoft.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um with the nature of the work that especially Lakendra does, but like you know, all of us at the city, there's different tiers of information that we're dealing with, things that are like very publicly available, things that are like, you know, if you sent it in an email and that email got in the hands of somebody, it's like not a terrible thing.

And then there's layers of like the kind of information that Lakendra is working with that's like very, very personal and private.

And so depending on the tier of the information that we're working with, we have different restrictions on whether we can put input that into an AI system or not.

So the type of data and information that, and not just before you just interrupt me.

Um that that Lakendra is dealing with on a daily basis, according to city policy, she could not input that into an AI system because of the private nature of it.

When did the AI uh policy get well?

And this is like literally, we just got that update like last week, maybe two weeks ago.

Okay.

Um so it's still extremely new, and before that, it was just a total like no AI at all on any city, anything.

Thank you.

I do I do have one more thing to add.

If anyone would like um the links that I use to reference, I can forward, I I can forward to send them to us, please.

Yes.

You can share that in my own.

So Kendra, thank you for uh uh stepping up with not you know, not with no no not being asked, but just stepping up and then sharing because you give great context about how difficult it is to be on the inside and advocate inside out, and I think one of our highest and most purposes is to help you outside in, shine a light and constructively offer um some feedback to the city and account of some accountability through this process.

Um what I'd like to do is working with Katie and Joyce to think about what is the lowest hanging fruit and that phased approach, what are the things if we were to make improvements, what would those be, what would they look like, and then slowly get buy in from others that can effectuate that change while at the same time hopefully having a conversation with Black Tech Street, and it may not be AI because I think that opens up as many challenges as solutions, but I do think there's a way to leverage technology, analytics, business intelligence that in theory that's such uh one idea that could um uh uh potentially assist us.

So more to come, it's gonna be a long arc, but uh thank you again to Commissioner Roberts for all that she did, and uh we look forward to bringing you recurring updates as we can.

Uh just a quick question.

Would you be willing to share those like bullet points that you read of like the barriers that you know, just kind of the summary that you just gave us?

Is that something you'd be willing to share?

Sure.

Okay, yeah, awesome.

Yeah, just send it all to me.

That'd be great.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Before we move on, I have the short list I have really from conversation with the Kendra and others is it would require an ordinance change, uh a technology solution that the city can live with that meets passes mustard, that everything that entails meet the legal requirements, and we either do this budget neutral or we have some money.

So that's not a deal.

I just want to be realistic about how we have to do progress.

So thank you for your patience and understanding and interests.

Uh that takes us to item number nine, which are calls to action or updates or anything you want to share from the other committees you're on uh as an advocate or as a Title V commissioner.

I know Whitney gave a very interesting update last time from the committee she's on and sent that information you circulated.

Was that circulated to everyone or just some of us?

Um I sent that to everybody.

Yeah.

I don't know if you've had a chance to look at that.

It is quite a time capsule.

I was telling Whitney.

It's a wild ride of just reading uh where the city has traveled or maybe not traveled when it comes to human rights in that context.

So I appreciate all the work she's doing.

I believe you all meet this week.

And I'd love to learn more about uh what's happening in that committee and how we can support you.

Uh Josh, I don't know if there's anything in the veterans' affairs space that you want to update us on.

Um for policy for city, not not correct, not right now.

Some stuff for in works, but I'll come up with that here shortly.

Um I just got back from DC, a trip up there legislating, and so we were working the priorities from the VFW and the national priorities there.

Um crazy moment when you're sitting in a Senate testimony and nobody tells you, and then they mention your name and tell your entire story in the middle of a Senate hearing.

That was certainly I thought I had imagined my name being said for until I looked around and everybody was staring at me.

So it was quite curious.

Um but it was good.

Um that particular legislation, we had about five priorities.

That particular legislation was to try to uh rebuild the VA's uh TBI PTSD clinic so that there's a center for excellence on that, and then that flows outwards so that you're getting the same treatment consistently across the country, uh actually across the world, um, when it comes to that.

So that was one of the priorities, and they took my story and and ran with it, which was kind of crazy.

Um but that was a good one, but that's really all I have to report right now.

Wonderful.

Appreciate it.

Uh he's not here today, but Anthony Meadows is our disability advocate.

And um, I was just thinking when I read your interview report.

Uh I don't feel like we I want to make sure Anthony's uh updating us uh in a recurrent way about um all all the important work that that he represents in terms of the ADA space and what the city is trying to do to accommodate more Tulsons.

So I will ask Anthony to uh update us when he can at a future meeting.

Any other updates?

I don't know where it's gonna be in the clarification on here.

Um I had two questions about stuff we've discussed.

Sure.

Um first question is the um does the fact that we can't put anything into co-pilot apply to uh commissioners?

No.

Let me get back to you on that.

Okay.

I was like, I haven't seen anything, and I I know the data we deal with is publicly accessible for the most part, but there's some that's not, and I just want to make sure that none of us accidentally step on anything.

Yeah, uh I will get clarity on that in the interim.

Anything that's not publicly accessible.

Let's keep out of yeah, okay.

Good point.

Good question.

Um, and then well, it was a good really good question.

I heard that I want to make sure it got uh amplified.

Um and the second one was a question around funding.

Uh I'm in a couple different commissions, and the conversation where ideas get like shut down, which you validly brought up due to needing to be budget neutral.

Is there any sort of efficiency fund or like anything that could uh that the city has of like, hey, this could make it so much more efficient if they had this amount of dollars or something like that.

Is there anything like that?

Not that I'm aware of off the top of my head, but um we can certainly ask the question.

I was just curious if it was something that that feels like that will be a huge lift and ask.

Um so I was just curious if it was already out there.

Not that I'm aware of.

Great questions.

And I have a feeling those issues aren't gonna go away.

No, but it's something we can probably talk to the auditor about an idea.

Is there any old business that we need to attend to?

Any new business?

Any announcements or public comments?

Well, I'm always gonna try and be very respectful of our time and try and keep these meetings to the way they're scheduled.

So we have a public comment.

I was just gonna say hello from the Hispanic Emergency Affairs Commission, let you know that we are gonna try to get on your agenda and talk about the playbook.

I know we're not allowed to discuss if it's not on the agenda, although it's dark rules.

I already already brought it up.

Yeah, he's showed it toward to hearing from you um next month, hopefully.

Uh just give us some context on why this is necessary and what you're trying to accomplish with this document.

Yeah, really look forward to it.

So hello.

Appreciate it.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you for coming.

All right.

Uh with that, I will tell I'm gonna be very formal and I will take a motion for adjournment.

Motion second?

Somebody who's a second?

Second.

All right, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

The opposed.

I got you the first time.

I cannot hear you.

One of the first grand residences in what